Chapter 4: Making Preparations

Late-October, 1986

Blaine Murdock POV:

I was never so glad that the eight of us were finally together and had some privacy. The Professor had just been in here and gave us a sample of a two-man toolkit.

I was relieved to see the fishing gear and knowing that we’re going to get four such kits I asked, “Does everyone here know how to swim with a mask and fins?”

Wayne and Steve both nodded as did Meredith, the hot, stacked brunette and Margo, the tall, sweet, strawberry blonde. George said he’d used them years ago and could figure it out again, quickly.

That left the cute blonde sisters, Naomi and Ruthie, who confessed they didn’t even know how to swim. They seemed embarrassed, but I assured them that, between us, we could teach them, once we got things set up. (Their swimming abilities were the least of my concerns. Their cute bods were all I really cared about!)

Naomi redeemed herself when she mentioned she knew how to clean fish and was good at cooking and sewing.

That gave me an idea.

I would ask for an old, manual, pedal-style sewing machine. It would be heavy, but would come in handy for making repairs or say, making a sail for our boats! When we saw our boats, I noticed the hole in the middle seat had a round steel boot for a 4” diameter mast. I knew how to sail because I spent many summers on the lake with my friend and his dad’s 20’ sailboat. Sailing would beat the heck out of paddling! All we’d need is a sail and I could build the rest.

We were getting our lists together and were figuring we had 16 of those duffle bags and 8 backpacks to fill with all our ‘goodies’. Being on Ibera’s ‘good boys’ list, she tipped us off that much of the professor’s comments about only requesting things for yourself, was meant to dissuade E Norm’s idiots from trying to get 80 some dresses!? He really had nothing against the eight of us collaborating as far as our personal items were concerned.

I was really starting to like George and all the girls. Compared to all the other broad’s up here, our four girls all had their shit together and were eager to be partners in our plans.

(I had been seriously considering killing George off once we got to the island. So, who knows?)

When they started talking about underwear and bras they listened to me when I suggested comfortable bikini’s instead. I pointed out that they would last a lot longer and I had no problem with them asking for five or six sets each. They also understood the need for several pairs of heavy-duty sandals as well as a couple pairs of tennis shoes and at least one pair of swamp-style combat boots. We each wanted 6 pairs of white cotton socks.

We all decided on 10 pairs of lightweight shorts, five cotton T-shirts and five lightweight twill shirts, one heavyweight hooded sweatshirt/pant combination, one lightweight waterproof polyester windbreaker and three heavy-duty rain ponchos.

That’s when Naomi threw a wrench in the works. “Umm, what are we going to do when it’s time for us girls to have our periods?”

I just hung my head, knowing this was an area I knew nothing about. The girls had all been so cooperative I knew I was going to have to bend and try to be supportive here. I was envisioning duffel bags stuffed with tampons and maxi pads. When I asked how long one duffel bag full of tampons would last the four of them, I groaned when she said maybe eighteen months.

I asked what women did before the invention of Tampax. These girls were so young, they just giggled and said they had no idea.

George came up with an idea, “Girls, I know it might sound kind of gross, but, what if we have one whole duffel bag stuffed full of baby diapers? I know they’ll get stained and those stains will probably never come out, but they could be washed and you can reuse them. Also, in the event some of you get pregnant we’ll at least have diapers to put on the babies?”

That brought up another thing that made my heart stop.

I’d always taken it for granted that most sexually active women were on the pill. Obviously these girls didn’t have any pills with them and would never be able to get any. I began wondering if we shouldn’t ask for an entire duffel bag full of rubbers! (As much as I fucking HATED using them!)

As I looked around, I could tell all my friends were thinking virtually the same thing. While it’s fun to fantasize about making a girl pregnant, having a baby on an island on a different planet with no doctors around could be nightmarish.

It was obvious the girls weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of getting pregnant, either. The four of us guys were comforting them when suddenly Ibera and a cute, short redhead I’d never seen before, materialized in our area.

The girls all began lamenting to Ibera about their problems causing Ibera to hold up her hands, “I may have a solution to your problem, girls. What if I were to tell you I could ‘psychically’ put all of you into a temporary state of menopause?”

The girls’ eyes all brightened and Naomi said, “You mean like, we would never have any more periods and we couldn’t get pregnant?”

Both Ibera and the redhead were grinning and nodding their heads.

The redhead, who we learned was named Sarah, said, “That’s correct on both accounts. I’m here to tell you that it really works and I haven’t taken a pill or had a period in almost a year now. The problem is, only Ibera would have the ability to reverse your temporary menopause. So in effect, it would be a permanent menopause.”

The girls’ glee was short-lived as the ramifications of what Sarah said sunk in.

I was silently hoping the girls would still agree to do that, as it would solve a lot of our problems.

Then Meredith had to go and say something that really made me think, “But, what if after a few years, we make a good life there and decide we want to have kids? Isn’t there some way you could just make that menopause temporary? Like maybe make it last say three years or something like that?”

All the girls were staring at Ibera as she lolled her head back and forth with her finger in front of her mouth.

She grinned at Sarah then quizzically looked at Meredith, “You know, I believe I could do something like that. This planet that you’re going to has different length days than what you had on Earth. You’ll have to keep track by notching a tree or something, but I can make it last exactly 1000 of your new days. At that time, you’ll have a period and your cycles will automatically restart. The eight of you are the only ones who will know this, but the length of each day on your new world is almost exactly 30 hours long. The years are also different as this planet takes nearly 500 days to make a complete revolution around it’s sun. Therefore, that thousand days will mean almost exactly 2 of that planet’s years.

“Also, just for your information, this planet rotates the opposite direction around it’s Sun than the Earth does. Therefore, the sun will rise in the West and set in the East. I’m telling you that, because it will be very confusing to everyone else on that island.”

I was writing all this information down as it could prove to be ‘Golden’ later on. It also confirmed my suspicion that we were indeed going to a different planet. I had to laugh, knowing that E Norm was still thinking some of his buddies were going to rescue him someday. I was really wishing things could have been different and I could’ve gotten to know Ibera and especially this cute little redhead under different circumstances. I asked Ibera if I could give her a kiss and she giggled and came into my arms.

Damn! I was so horny right then I could’ve done her right there. It got worse when Sarah wanted a kiss too. During that kiss, I felt a weird sensation like that she was in my head talking to me. After the kiss she stepped back and slapped me hard across the face.

Talk about a fucking buzz kill!

I was staring at her incredulously when I felt her in my head again, “How dare you Blaine, you bastard. You’re planning on killing George after everything gets set up just so you can have his girls?”

I was freaking out. I HAD been thinking about that, though, my feelings for the girls were slowly making me reconsider.

I whispered, “How the hell do you know that?”

I felt like an idiot knowing that I was the only one that heard the question. Now everyone was looking at me with questioning eyes.

I pleaded with her, still whispering, “Please don’t tell anyone else what you just said. I hadn’t actually made up my mind if I was going to do that, anyway.”

“Then look into my eyes and give me your hands, damn you.” She said out loud.

Whoa shit! I don’t know what she did to me, but she made it crystal clear that if I as much as thought about killing George my dick would fall off! She made me compel Wayne and Steve to take her hands and look into her eyes too.

The poor bastards had no idea what was about to happen to them.

We had talked about a plan to kill George but I was sure there was no way anyone knew about that. Judging from the looks of my friends faces when Sarah was finished with them, they also got her message.

I wanted to test it, so I simply thought about trying to kill George and suddenly I had a pain in my groin that felt like an NFL placekicker had just kicked a 50-yard field goal my nuts! When I looked at Sarah, she was giggling like crazy.

How the hell could that bitch possibly get into my head like that? Needless to say, I was now a believer and would be protecting George with my life. I was also praying that we would still be allowed to stay with them.

When the girls asked Sarah what that was all about, she giggled, “I just wanted to make sure your three new friends were going to protect you and treat you right, that’s all.”

I still had one hand on my family jewels and noticed my friends did also as Ibera made the girls all temporarily ‘menopaused’.

The way Wayne and Steve were looking at me, I knew I had some ‘splainin’ to do.

Ex-CIA Deputy Director Franklin POV:

A lot of things are really starting to make sense to me now. I’m almost certain we’re headed for a different planet!

I’d nearly forgotten what I’d read in Chen’s secret files.

I’d found them hidden in his secret safe that was hidden in the closet in his office. I’d found it quite by accident, after discovering a cryptic note taped to the bottom of the middle drawer in his desk.

The note had what appeared to be a combination of some kind. It didn’t make sense at first, since instead of all numbers, some of the ‘digits’ were letters. And I DON’T mean like ‘L’ or ‘R’. (Those were clearly designated in small letters in parenthesis.) No, Chen just wanted to make doubly sure nobody would have an easy time figuring out the combination.

I knew I had to work fast since whatever he had in there was uber-important and I had no idea where the safe was that this combination was to. It took me 3 days before I finally found the ‘dense’ spot on the closet wall then searched intensely for the hidden latch that released a wall panel. That slid aside, finally, and I found the safe.

I didn’t want to ask anybody about it, since I had a hunch Chen had it installed secretly, ergo, whatever was in it was higher than ‘Top Secret’. Or it was something that Chen didn’t want anybody else to ever know about.

It took me several hours to decipher the combination’s ‘lettering’ part.

But, it proved to be worth the hassle. I couldn’t believe what most of this one huge file contained! It was ‘2T-Top Secret’ files about ... UFO’s! That’s two levels above ‘Top Secret-For Your Eyes Only’!

How the hell Chen got his hands on these I’ll never know, but what I discovered was beyond priceless! I’d always wondered about all of the UFO sightings, thinking they were all bullshit.

I discovered that, back in like 1941, the CIA DID discover a crashed UFO near Cape Girardeau, MO.

The ‘Roswell Incident’ was also WAY more than a freaking weather balloon! The CIA really DID recover not just a crashed UFO, but three alien bodies and 4 live aliens!

Even President Eisenhower had a meeting with more of those Aliens at Muroc Airfield (aka Edwards AFB) on Feb 20, 1954!

Somehow Chen had a copy of the file with all the details.

It said Ike (President Dwight D. Eisenhower) made some kind of a deal with the Aliens, which called themselves ‘Greyzarians’! They would gradually provide highly advanced technology in return for unrestricted freedom to establish underground bases in several places around the country. They needed the energy from the core of our Earth for some type of power they needed to generate for their operations. They also promised to cooperate with the government (CIA) by ‘teaching’ their technical experts how the Greyzarians tech worked!

There was so much information, I could have read for years, but, I only had so much time. That’s when I remembered seeing a ‘Tech’ file, with the name of a device. (A device that, now, just might help me get rescued.) It was called a Teryukravat.

Yeah, it was a weird name that I assumed the ‘Greys’ had given it. Chen had meticulously written it down, so it beared further investigation. He even gave a phonetic pronunciation.

It was an Alien communication device used to transmit across galaxies! It was supposedly recovered from a crash-site of some kind in Mexico. (That the CIA was only too kind to help the Mexicans ‘handle’ in the summer of 1974.)

It seemed like Chen had a lot of information on these guys and most of it was all together in one part of the file.

In all my time at the CIA, I had never heard of them. I was convinced that Chen may have had to do some real conniving to get his hands on this. I wish I had read more, because I know that everything I read wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg.

Teryukravat ... that, right now, was the only thing I really cared about.

I’m pretty sure I remember the correct pronunciation, I just have to hope Ibera doesn’t know what it is, yet can give me one. Hey, it’s not a weapon?

BUT, I’ve gotta get both Annie and Jasmine to ‘make nice’ and apologize to Ibera. It’s been blatantly obvious that the few groups that have been nice to her have gotten much better treatment. (Spell that ‘Geo Sachs and his girls’.)

And, that damned assassin, Murdock, has suckered George into accepting him and his two buddies into his group. If it wasn’t for him, I know I could have sweet-talked George into joining his group. Yeah, I would have had to ditch my current group, but, it would have been worth it.

I’m positive HE could get one of these devices.

Thankfully, nobody but me has any idea about this.

I was relieved that we got an extra day to prepare and I called our group together.

“AL (Hunt), don’t get upset, but, you need to help me convince your daughter and Jasmine to apologize to Ibera, or we’re ALL fucked!

“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this ‘Island’ we’re about to go to IS NOT on Earth! I think I can stage a return to Earth, but, everything depends on me getting a special ‘device’ that only Ibera can provide. I’m calling it a ‘tool’ but, it’s much more than that. That’s all I can say, but, it’s super important we get Ibera to REALLY take a liking to us and that’s not going to happen with Annie and Jasmine constantly giving her shit! You heard the Professor, if these two broads are still eating the white slop on the last day, were not getting our extra toolkit’s and the two of them will get no personal items.

“We need many special items and tools to survive, let me just say, more comfortably, even if my ‘special tool’ works. We need at least five or six extra tarps so we can make a sail for our boat. Otherwise, it’s going to be backbreaking work to make our own paddles and move around to try and find Chen.”

AL asked, “Why the hell do we want to find Chen?”

I looked around in frustration, shaking my head, “Because, he’s the only one in the world who might know how my special tool works. He is the linchpin to us ever getting off that damn planet.”

Jasmine looked at me, smirking, “Maybe if you assholes would drool over me and Annie, the same way you do over that damned Ibera, we wouldn’t be so jealous of that bitch.”

Maxwell Lester reached over and slapped Jasmine so hard it knocked her down. “Now listen here, you ignorant cunt, both of you whores better get with the damn program or we’ll just kick you out of our group. That or kill you the second we get there. That will damn sure be the case if Franklin doesn’t get that device or whatever it is he thinks he needs. Do you understand me!?”

For the first time I actually saw fear in Jasmine’s eyes.

Jasmine is a top shelf assassin, with her silenced 22 pistol and her sniper rifle, and she’s nearly as deadly with her martial arts. Little Annie Hunt, on the other hand, is completely useless, simply an assassin wanna be. The only reason I’m even keeping her around is to fuck that little pussy of hers. And if her daddy gives me any shit, I’ll kill his ass right before I do Annie.

Now that Humbacker and Hunt are no longer giving me vast amounts of cash, their real value to me is jack-shit. Good thing is, both of those assholes want to get back to the world just as badly as I do.

Plus, I need their help.

I wish Marek hadn’t discovered my plan to kill him, because he and Peters would be very handy helping us out. Marek was a real weasel, but he was an obedient weasel.

Even though I need my communicator device to eventually escape, we also need to build a shelter and construct some kind of weapons to get by at least in the short term. Thankfully, I have everyone on the same page to get a least one duffel bag each stuffed full of MREs. (Meals Ready to Eat)

That should be enough to feed us for a couple of months. With any luck, we may not even have to find any more food. Especially if we can find Chen quickly. I’m glad that Max is familiar with survival training, since it’s obvious the two of us are the only ones that have a clue.

Sam, the bomb maker, is dumb as a rock. He has the added disadvantage of being a little pipsqueak. I’d be surprised if he could bench-press even 70 pounds. He’s also hamstrung by having the hots for Annie Hunt. The stupid bastard actually thinks he has a chance of getting into her panties someday.

Yeah, and there is a Santa Claus.

The only real reason for keeping either of those two broad’s around is the fact that they’re both horny as hell. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they needed sex even more than the guys do. I just hope the two of them can convince Ibera they’re sorry and have changed their ways.

We were almost finished making our lists when Ibera showed up asking if we wanted dinner.

I gave both of the girls the ‘evil-eye’ and Jasmine went up to her, “Miss Ibera? I’m really sorry I’ve been such a bitch to you. Please, can I have a pizza for dinner? Pretty please?”

When I saw Ibera grin, so did I. “What kind of pizza would you like? Chicago-style or New York?”

Jas looked shocked, “Oh wow! Um, is Chicago-style like Deep-dish?”

Ibera nodded so Jasmine gushed, “Oh Gosh. I’m sooo hungry, how’s about a large, pepperoni, Chicago Style?”

Suddenly, a big box saying ‘Connie’s Pizza’ materialized right in Jasmine’s hand! The smell was about to drive me crazy. I’d never had ‘Chicago-style’ before, so I asked Ibera to make that two.

The thing was huge and had more cheese and pepperoni than any pizza I’d ever seen.

Everyone else asked for one, though some wanted different toppings. When it came to Annie’s turn, I just held my breath.

Annie can be one obstinate little cunt.

She was glaring at her father, Max and me. She had a look on her face that would lead you to believe we’d just asked her to eat a big pile of hot steamy dog shit.

Finally, her father, AL, motioned like he was washing his hands of her and turned his back, walking away and opening his pizza. Her jaw dropped and tears came to her eyes. She looked up at Ibera, soto voice, “I’m ... I am truly sorry, Miss Ibera.” She then huffed, “Can I have my pepperoni pizza now?”

I’ve never wanted to beat a woman as much as I did Annie, right then. Ibera was obviously not impressed, but proved she was the better woman when a small, triangular box appeared in Annie’s hand.

Annie wasn’t going to get an entire pie, like the rest of us, but Ibera did give her one small slice. My hopes were not exactly soaring, but at least our ignorant little cunt got something besides cream of wheat!

All I can say is, Annie had better fucking hope we don’t need somebody for shark bait! Get my drift?

Annie looked like she wanted to make a snide remark, but Max grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back down in her seat. Max smiled up at Ibera, “Annie was just going to tell you how thankful she was for giving her this delicious pizza. WEREN’T YOU Annie?”

I had to snicker, seeing all the fight now taken out of her. Annie was just looking up at Ibera and nodding her head.

At least Ibera was giggling when she left.

Darren POV:

Everyone was in a great mood when we gathered at Ibera’s ‘Command-Kitchen’ the next day. The assholes were getting sent off to Perdition Island and I was just coming off the best (most interesting?) day of my life.

The only thing I was gonna miss today was Sarah’s company. She needed to spend some time back at her father-in-law’s house with her daughter, Abby, and I was happy for her!

All of my prior fretting about my relationship with her felt like ancient history. I felt like a new man and an integral part of a great family.

And I haven’t even met three quarters of them yet!

Today, Charlie, Bob and the effervescent Linda, were getting things setup for their RVs to be delivered and positioned on their new homesite in Chandler, Arizona.

The Professor, Brad grinned, “Darren, you seem especially happy this morning, I take it you had a nice peaceful evening last night?”

I snorted coffee out of my nose, “Ummm, peaceful?” Cough, “Ugh, not exactly. Very interesting? Oh yeah! Portal, please show last night, Charlene Grayson’s condo, 10:30 PM Pacific time, guest bedroom first, please? Brad and Brenda, you may want to close your eyes for this!”

JB and Brad were tripping out, watching Bob, Charlie and I make that sweet pixie, Linda, ‘airtight’. For those of you not familiar with that term, let’s just say it involves three guys who work in concert to plug all three of a girl’s ‘holes’. At the same time!

If you think we were abusing Linda to do that, you’d be exactly wrong! She was literally begging us to do it to her and sure seemed to love every second of it.

For me, it was very ‘unsettling’ at first, especially with my puritanical thinking about sex.

And before many of the things that happened beforehand.

To make a long story a bit shorter, let’s just say that Bob (Linda’s husband) and I had a long conversation when I misinterpreted something Sarah said to her cousin. Bob assured me that both he and Charlie were fully behind my burgeoning relationship with Sarah.

He also showed just how much of a truly, sexually liberated guy he was. He opened my eyes to some of the ‘benefits’ of being in a polyamorous Family! That is, Sarah wouldn’t be the only one I’d be welcomed to gain carnal knowledge of!

You get my drift!?

Continuing, Brenda was blushing, but constantly peeking out between her fingers. Several times she sounded as if she may be having an orgasm!

Then, she kept looking pleadingly at Brad ... hmmm?

When the view switched to Mary and Sarah passionately making love to me, JB was a bit envious, I think.

I’m just sayin’.

Then, when Sarah, me, Charlie and Charlene appeared to be going to bed, everyone sighed, ‘Ahhh, nice!’

THEN, they heard the ever-stupid Brian (Charlene’s out of control, highly jealous, ex-husband), furiously beating on the door.

JB laughed, “Oh, did that guy just fuck up!” Then we watched Brian pull out a gun that Bob grabbed with his PK and aimed right at Brian’s feet.

‘BANG’

JB gasped, “Oh shit! Did he just shoot hisself in the foot? What a dumbass!”

I had to explain what really happened. I told them how Bob used his PK (Psychokinesis) to force Brian to shoot his own foot, which only made everyone laugh harder!

I also showed them the rest of what happened. Brian getting arrested and a few other things that I don’t need to get into right now.

Finally, Brad corrected himself, “Sooo, you discovered that life with Charlie and Bob never has a dull moment!?”

I just grinned and nodded my head, “You got that right!”

After reminding us of our ‘confidentiality’, he related a story about Bob and Charlie’s encounter with Russian submarines during their cruise to transport a whole bunch of rescued teenaged girls. I was all eyes as he used the portal and I got my first glimpse of many of the other members of Sarah’s Family.

Both JB and I got a kick out of the way they ‘bamboozled’ these Russian Officers, then ‘borrowed’ all their secret files about the sub’s design. Right out from under their noses! (With Ibera’s help. They didn’t even have to steal them!)

He said we didn’t have time to watch the whole thing but assured us it was interesting!

“Now, we gotta get to work, guys.” Brad said, “Let’s start with George’s group. I think they could use the head start and besides, they’ll be the easiest to deal with!?”

And so we did.

George and Blaine Murdock really had their group organized.

It was apparent they’d put a lot of thought into their list of items they wanted. They were very fair as far as girl’s items vs. guy’s items. Blaine told us, when we looked at him ordering quite a few MREs, that they wanted something they could fix in the event they couldn’t find anything right away or just became very hungry.

They knew the unused MREs would last forever and would come in handy if ever needed. The tools they requested showed they planned on building many interesting things.

Some of the noteworthy things they requested for their toolkits were 30 pieces of 3/8-inch round, 4-foot long, solid aluminum rods. He got a raised eyebrow from Brad as we all knew he intended on making arrows out of these. Especially, when another item he ordered was a Gillette razor and 60 packages of double-edged blades and tin snips.

He was smart enough to also ask for stuff like 20 tubes of superglue, 10 rolls of duct tape, extra polypropylene tarps as opposed to just 4 of the canvas ones, and two military style parachutes. (This would give him all that material along with all the extra para cord in two nice compact packages.)

I could go into everything else, but it would take 10 pages or more.

Things like the two cases of pint-size Mason jars with resealable lids and two cases of quart size Mason jars, also with the resealable lids. He said he needed those for canning vegetables and such, as he also ordered a plethora of seeds so they could plant their own garden.

When he ordered four pieces of four-foot-long, coiled, quarter-inch diameter copper tubing, Ibera had to take his hand so he could ‘imagine’ what he wanted. That was because Ibera didn’t fully understand what he meant.

He was grinning when the four pieces that were laying in front of him were exactly what he wanted. They fit nicely within each other and didn’t take up all that much room in one of their toolkits. The acetylene torch with four, 2-pound canisters of acetylene raised a few eyebrows. But when he asked for 20 braising rods, it made sense. He was going to use that to build a still or two.

Then one of the girls, Naomi, asked nervously, “Um, Miss Ibera? Um, I want to ask for one more thing, but I want to make sure it’s okay, you know, so we don’t lose anything?”

We all looked at her, skeptically. Ibera said if she was only asking if it were permissible, that would be okay.

She looked at her friends, then asked, “How about a 10Lb can of gunpowder?”

Brad’s, Ibera’s and my eyebrows all rose. Brad asked, “Is this for you? Just what are you planning to do with it? Oh and don’t look at your friends!”

She’d obviously been well coached, “I want to try and do some mining in those mountains. I may need that for blasting. My father used to be a miner and with the cardboard we’ll have from those cases of jars, my friends can help me make sticks of dynamite. It’s not for a weapon, honest!”

I considered all of their items and really couldn’t see how they could make a gun of any kind. Not that it wouldn’t be possible, just that it wouldn’t be easy. Brad was conferring with both me and JB, mentally, and came to the same conclusion.

Brad nodded at Ibera, “Okay, we can give you one 10Lb can. Just, be very careful you don’t hurt yourselves with it.”

Blaine looked relieved when a very large can materialized right in front of them.

I was surprised just how much 10Lbs of gunpowder was!