Part 1

SPLAT! The paintball smacked square into the center of my stand-in's forehead, signalling yet another successful assassination.

I was losing patience and my hair. This pair, for God's sake, were former Secret Service agents! They had been trained to protect the biggest target in the world, but without the enormous manpower and high-tech communication gear of the agency, they were ducks out of water!

I was beginning to think I'd never find suitable bodyguards! The technology my company was developing was so far beyond anything the DOD, the NSA, or any other tech firm had, that everybody in the world would want it BAD as soon as I announced it, and since I was about to announce a minimum bid of five hundred billion dollars, most of them would be willing to kill for it. I NEEDED excellent protection before I could make the announcement.

I had two things in my favor: 1. To get the plans, at least part of the assassination team had to be close in, since that briefcase would always be cuffed to my wrist, even in the shower! That should put them within reach of competent bodyguards. 2. The only other copy was kept in a maximum security vault, whose location even I didn't know. It could only be gotten upon my death. That meant that killing me would not give whoever did it exclusive use of the technology.

THAT little part of the plan was known to only one other person, my CTO. He stood to gain as much by the sale as I. I couldn't imagine him having a desire for money beyond his generous salary and stock options, much less an extra 250 billion. More than that, though, I trusted him. God never put a more honest, straightforward man on this earth!

Oh, there were employees building parts of the system, and others writing code for it, but Bob and I had divided the work up so that no one but he and I knew the whole picture. We had spent a LOT of time picking out the pieces that nobody else could be allowed to know and he had done those himself - hardware and software - and he had done the final assembly and testing of the prototype. Now it was my turn.

The trick now was to find somebody who could keep me alive until the sale, and time was running short. I needed to make the announcement by the end of the quarter, or we would be flat broke! We couldn't reveal what we were working on, so we couldn't get funding, and our assets were just about dried up. The quarterly tax payments were coming due, and our checking account had just enough to cover them and most of the bills, then they'd be after us.

That was part of the problem. I couldn't afford to pay very much, so my hopes of hiring reasonably competent talent were very slim and getting slimmer.

I had one more pair to interview, and if they didn't work out, it was Pinkerton or whoever came up with the lowest bid. DAMN! We were SO close.

My spirits weren't improved when I opened the door to call the last scheduled pair of the day, and two identical Chinese girls, looking like they were just out of high school, walked in wearing traditional Chinese dresses: High collared, embroidered silk that buttoned up one side of the front and just brushed the ground. One was a royal blue, the other brilliant red, and each was slit from hem to waist on one side. As they walked I caught glimpses of shapely legs. They couldn't have been more than a couple of inches over five feet, even in heels!

"What can I do for you ladies?" I asked, wearily.

Red dress answered, in flawless American English, "We think we may be able to help you with your problem."

I sighed, "And what problem is that?"

"You need someone to guard you." Blue dress answered, also in good American, "We need someone to guard."

"I hate to disappoint you, ladies," I said, trying to be polite, "but I've just spent the last three days eliminating virtually every pair of professional bodyguards around. What makes you think you can do better?"

"We were genetically engineered to be bodyguards." Red dress responded.

Blue dress continued the pitch, "And we have been a team since birth."

In spite of myself, my interest was piqued "What do you mean, 'genetically engineered'?"

Red dress fielded the question, saying, "The People's Republic of China has been breeding and training bodyguards for its high ranking officials for years. With the advent of the technology for genetic engineering, they performed an experiment in hopes of taking it to a new level."

Blue dress picked up the narrative from there, "They took fertilized eggs from two of their best bodyguards and, through a secret process, modified their genetic structure to optimize it for the work of the bodyguard. Once an egg was modified, it was allowed to divide once, and the two cells were separated."

Red dress again: "The cells continued dividing normally, and produced identical twins with all the desirable characteristics, and none of the traits considered undesirable in a bodyguard."

Blue dress: "Two pairs of prototypes were produced. They were made female in appearance since most officials are male, though some male pairs were planned. Once the twins matured enough, they trained together. From the moment of their birth, a pair was never allowed to be apart for more than a few minutes."

Red dress: "The bodyguards were designed and programmed to be loyal to their designated employer above all else. It was assumed that each official assigned bodyguards was loyal to the People's Republic, so the bodyguards needed only be loyal to him."

"So, I'm guessing that you two are one of these engineered pairs, right?" I asked as they wound down.

Both nodded.

"And you must have been assigned someone to guard, right?"

Another pair of nods.

"So why are you here?"

They looked at each other before Blue Dress replied, "Our employer died of a heart attack while in this country. Unfortunately, the circumstances of his death, had they been made public, would have brought dishonor on him, his family, and his government, so, as our last act of loyalty to him, we departed, after arranging the scene of his death to tell a different story."

"Why didn't you stick around and make up some story to tell the authorities?" I asked.

"We cannot lie to persons in authority," Said Red Dress, "except to protect the LIFE of our employer. Even rearranging the scene was difficult for us, but we were able to rationalize it by telling ourselves that no authorities were present."

"I see." I didn't really, but..."So why don't you go back to China? Sorry, dumb question! You'd have to talk to the authorities about his death, wouldn't you!"

Their reaction to that was odd. They looked at each other, then smiled, before turning back to me and nodding.

"Well, you came," I said, "the course is set up, that guy wearing the goggles..." I pointed through the glass into the course, "is me. Everyone else is either a bystander or an enemy. Let's see if you can protect me long enough to let me get from that end of the course to this end. Any questions?"

Again they gave each other that odd look followed by a smile.

I gave them their choice of paint guns. They hefted them, and tried them on for balance, then declined. I offered goggles, but they declined those, as well.

silently they entered the course and joined my double at the far end of the course. As the trio moved forward, they looked like two tiny bimboes trying to entertain their date. The binoculars, however, told me a different story.

They chatted animatedly with the guy, but their eyes were never on him, even when their faces were turned in his direction. Red dress, on the left, seemed to be watching the right. Blue dress, on the right was covering the left, and without speaking to each other, they took turns looking front and rear! Talk about 360 degree coverage! In a minute I would find out how good that coverage was.

As they entered the sniper's field of fire, Red Dress fell back as though looking at some flowers along the path and pointed out something in the flower bed to my double so that he bent over to look at it. This casual exchange effectively put her between the target and the sniper. When I swept the binoculars back to the path, Blue Dress was nowhere to be seen! I panned toward the sniper's location just in time to see his body come hurtling out of the tree!

By the time I got the lenses back on the target, Red dress had drifted around in front of him, facing him, chattering flirtatiously, and doing kind of a teasing dance. I was mystified by this until I realized that it gave her a wide view to the target's rear and sides, while making it difficult for any shooter ahead to get a clear shot. Blue dress fell in beside them and Red dress drifted back to her position on the left.

When the martial arts guys attacked, I thought sure they'd be overwhelmed, but both girls became blurs! I saw a star weapon snatched out of the air and sent back in the direction of it's thrower, embedding itself in a tree branch by his left ear. Neither he nor I doubted that it would have been in his forehead if this were anything but an exercise.

These guys were all black belts, or the equivalent, in various forms of martial arts, but the girls seemed to have superhuman speed and strength. They were everywhere and nowhere. Sometimes the two of them worked together on an attacker, and sometimes separately. By the time they rejoined 'me' on the path, there was a litter of black clad men around them.

Moving on down the winding path of the course, they fended off knife, handgun, shotgun and every other attack the 'enemy' could throw at them with seeming ease, so, just for the hell of it, I got on the two-way and told the 'enemy' to send in the terrorist bomber.

The bomber opened his coat no more than five feet in front of them and reached for the trigger. They never hesitated. Blue dress whisked the target behind a pile of boulders (NOT the nearest, most obvious pile, mind you!) while Red dress went after the bomber. Before he could even think of activating the bomb, she had done something that seemed to disable his arms. Next thing he knew, both hands were tied behind him, around a tree trunk, while Red Dress ran a cord from the detonator to another pile of rocks. Crouching in their shelter, she yanked the cord and the 'bomber' thanked his lucky stars it was only a flashbang, as he was the only one who would have been blown up.

The ladies weren't even breathing hard by the time they got back to the interview room.

"Well, ladies," I said enthusiastically, "You certainly seem capable. As far as I'm concerned, if you pass the background check you've got the job!"

"Not so fast!" Red dress said.

Blue dress picked it up from there, "There is a discussion we need to have, but it must take place in a more private setting."

Was this a setup? Were they sent to get to me early? I couldn't imagine why. My copy of the plans was in my safety deposit box. Then an idea occurred to me. I went to the door and asked one of the policemen whom the city had sent down to keep order outside, to please step inside. I fed him the questions and he turned to the girls.

"Are you here to kill, or in any way harm this man?" he asked.

Both answered, "No."

"Do you intend to coerce or otherwise induce him to do anything he would not normally do?"

They looked at each other, then Red dress answered, "We don't know what he would normally do. We do not intend to use any form of physical coercion, extortion, or any other illegal means to induce him to do anything."

"What is your purpose here?"

"We seek employment with this man." they both answered.

Well, they could have been lying about their inability to lie to authority figures, I suppose, but I decided to take a chance.

I thanked the policeman, and ushered them into the office that had been set aside for me to use while I was renting this facility (on my personal credit card!).

As I locked the door and turned to face the girls, I said, "You two are amazing! I'm guessing that some of those desirable traits included strength, stamina, speed, etcetera?"

"Yes, but there were some concessions made to the natural order of things to achieve those results," Blue dress replied, "And that's what we need to discuss with you."

"Our bodies produce a LOT of hormones to achieve the results you saw." Red dress continued, "As a result, our need for sex is very great."

"But," Blue dress picked up the monologue, "if we have sex outside our employment, it places us, and subsequently our employer at risk. We alleviate this when necessary, by having sex with each other."

Red dress: "Perhaps you can imagine: We know each other so well, that having sex with each other is more like masturbating than real sex. That leaves us only one other outlet for our libidoes..."

Blue dress: "... our Employer!"

I puzzled over that for a bit, then a light came on, "The, uh, compromising situation under which your previous employer... ?"

They gave each other that look, smiled, then turned back and nodded.

Red dress: "But that is not the point of this discussion."

I shrugged, "If you're saying that you'll want to have sex with me, I actually think it's a great idea! You're both very attractive, I'm single, unattached, and, in this situation, would be stupid to become attached."

Again the look and smile routine.

"There is one other detail you need to know about us," Blue dress said, "before the three of us can make a final decision."

Red Dress: "In order to achieve some of the gains in strength and aggressiveness we've been given, our bodies need to produce more male hormones than women's bodies are normally capable of."

Blue Dress: "So our scientists compromised."

My eyes followed the silken slide of red and blue dresses as they fell to the floor, revealing two tiny, perfect, female figures, with one gigantic flaw.

Each of them sported a large, raging hard-on and a hanging set of balls!

"You're... GUYS?!" I gasped, falling back a couple of steps.

"Not really," said the one standing in the blue pool of silk, disappointedly, "we were created as true hermaphrodites, with sex organs for both sexes, but with balls. These, though," she indicated her enormous boner, "are our primary obstacle to gainful employment, and the principle reason our government dropped the program after having made only two sets of prototypes."