Chapter 6

Month 72—December on Anouilh

“WELCOME TO ANOUILH, Captain,” I said when the bus stopped in front of the hotel and Dakota stepped off first.

“It’s good to see you, Boss. This place looks like paradise!”

“It’s not bad, though we have limited staff right now. I haven’t really opened to the public yet.” I looked at the women stepping off the bus behind Dakota. Damn. The guys would be walking around with tentpoles in their pants for the next week. Well, maybe some of them would get laid. There was always hope.

“Ladies, carry your own bags or grab one of those carts and stack them together. This is a self-service resort,” Dakota said. “Camera equipment on a separate cart. You don’t have to have it in your room if you don’t want it there.”

“The nice woman at the registration desk will give you your room keys,” I announced. “I encourage you to drop your bags and join us out by the pool as soon as possible. Everyone is on the third floor to make it convenient.”

The women filed in, picked up their room keys, and headed for the elevator. Dakota and I watched the migration as we walked out toward the pool.

“Do you have a bar set up? We’ve been traveling since last night to get here,” Dakota said.

“Only poolside. What can I get you?” I asked.

“Mmm. Nice and warm and sunny. How about a G&T?”

“Julie! A G&T and a Pepsi, please.” A young woman in a bikini top and wrap-around skirt nodded from the bar and prepared our drinks. “So, you’ll get to meet the developer crew at dinner tonight. They’re predictably excited to see the girls in person.”

“Are they all like you?” Dakota asked.

“You mean fat? No. You mean socially inept? Absolutely. You mean just plain weird? They’re off the charts. You mean horny bastards? That goes without saying,” I laughed as Julie delivered our drinks.

“I meant polite.”

“Aside from the aforementioned social ineptitude, none of them will be intentionally rude or try anything without an invitation. However, once the girls get down here, you’ll probably see ten guys and a girl on the eighth floor balconies with binoculars.” I pointed up where three engineers had already appeared on the balcony.

“When did you get a woman on your team?”

“Just before we got down here. She’s a major contributor.”

“Well, we can’t disappoint the audience,” Dakota said as a dozen girls in bikinis came out the doors and headed toward the bar. She stood up and pulled her T-shirt off, then pushed her shorts down, leaving her naked in front of me and my painfully tented shorts. “Last one in’s a rotten egg,” she called to the girls as she strode to the edge of the pool. That started a second surge from the doors bypassing the bar to head straight to the pool as Dakota arched into an elegant dive and sliced through the water. The girls started dropping their bikinis on the edge of the pool and diving in. I hadn’t thought about making it a nudist resort, but it looked like a good idea. The only big problem would be the permanent erections the guys would have. They already had trouble controlling themselves around Tatts and she didn’t show off her stellar body.

The dip in the pool didn’t last long. The girls wanted to collect their drinks and lay out in the afternoon sun. I was pretty sure there was some serious masturbation going on as the guys looked down on all the naked girls. Dakota returned to her seat but didn’t bother to dress. I had a hard time not staring.

“I know you always wanted to see, Boss. Just remember, I’m a married woman and I don’t fool around unless my wife is with me and approves. She’ll be with me on the next trip but had a modeling gig during the time we’ll be here this time. It’s amazing how normal life seems now that we all know the end is near.”

“Everyone’s in denial.”

“I think we’ve passed the point of the Nile and are lost somewhere out in the deep blue Mediterranean. Not that many are denying aliens exist or that there is a threat out there. They just can’t relate to it.” Dakota said. I was mesmerized by the condensation from her glass dripping onto her right breast and running down to the nipple. I almost missed what she was saying. “Anyone with any sense agrees there are aliens and people are going out to the stars to fight them. I think the majority even believes the bad guys are going to get here and start eating people. But they just don’t think it’s going to be as bad as everyone says. They’ll pick up their trusty shotgun and go pick a few of the dickheads off, then go home for dinner.”

“It’s going to be bad, Dakota. Real bad. We get reports others don’t because we have a way of listening in. Even the Darjee agree that humans will still be fighting off the Sa’arm in twenty years. We need to get up there where we can provide air cover for our troops,” I said.

“What’s that have to do with filming porn for the video game?”

“As much as we can, we want to get the game tuned to real action and scenarios that really exist. But I’ve been looking at the next generation of the game. I want people to see and watch it as our girls play it. And then, I want to change the game so it’s reality and not VR,” I said. I’d been giving this a lot of thought. “I believe we can turn our starlets into warriors.”

“You guys are always thinking way out front,” Dakota sighed.

“No. I’m afraid the guys are buried in code. They’re developers—engineers. They all have a list of features a mile long they want to develop, but they don’t really have a strategy. That’s what Rache and I are doing. And Ubie. I hope to introduce you to him before the week is over but it will depend on whether he is ready to meet people. He’s ... quite shy.”

“You intrigue me more all the time, Teddy. Now tell me about the changes in the script. You’re really going to make them get wet?”

If she only knew how I wanted to.

“Okay, listen up, beauties. You all know me and think of me as the director. The Boss refers to me as Captain. From now on, you can, too.” Dakota got the speech rolling at the beginning of dinner. I’d hired locals from Papillon as servers, but knowing the predilection of many of the girls from working with them before, I’d chosen only women as staff of the reopened hotel resort.

“I thought you were the boss,” one bright young thing piped up. She might have had one too many umbrella drinks this afternoon. I hoped the red flush was from drinking and not from too much sun.

“No. In fact, the purpose of this dinner is to introduce you to the brains of this outfit. Some of you have already met Teddy.” I stepped through the doors and lumbered over to Dakota. Several of the girls recognized me and waved. I waved back. I had a reputation of being pretty harmless. “Teddy is the Boss. You know we’ve been filming a lot of scenes for Pussy Pirates, and I know some of you have been playing. Eventually, I hope you’ll all be playing. The Boss writes our paychecks. He runs the game development and owns this resort. Be nice. Boss?”

“Hi, ladies. Um ... Damn. You are really what this resort was missing. I’m going to introduce the other eleven on the team. Mostly, you won’t have too much to do with us. Not because we wouldn’t like to, but none of us have ever been stud material. In fact, until this week, most of us had only seen pictures of girls and the video clips we’ve integrated into the game. So, please be gentle with us if you happen to catch one of us alone. Okay?”