Chapter 2

Part 4

Eamon Turner woke from a restless, dream-filled sleep. As his eyes opened slowly he realized he had his hand wrapped around a raging hard-on.

'This is ridiculous', he thought. 'I'm going to go crazy at this place. This girl is driving me nuts!'

He pulled his fist off of his pecker with disgust. How long had it been since he had to resort to that kind of relief? Girls were a dime a dozen. Why was he so fixated on just one? Hell, he knew the answer before he even asked it. There's only one Emmy.

A bell sounded on his desktop indicating he had received email. Who had his new address already, eman@newmanu.edu? He popped over to his desk and touched the envelope icon.

All right! It was Emma, of course. She wanted him to meet her at the Admissions Office at 9AM. Eamon showered and dressed himself in the semi-official student uniform of jeans, sweatshirt and sneakers. But he wore tailored designer jeans, sneakers that ghetto kids would kill for, and a lightweight sweatshirt that hugged his sleekly muscular chest in the finest cotton. He was a Turner, after all.

Eamon was quite satisfied with his dormitory room. It wasn't the huge ostentatious bedroom he was used to, but it was functional and filled his immediate needs. Sometimes he wondered if he should tone down his lifestyle a bit.

He had found the controls for his plasma walls in his desktop. It was a simple matter to choose a style from a list of options, or download one's own to personalize the room even more. Eamon found it very odd that when he clicked on the option labeled 'AEN' the face of Alfred E. Newman covered an entire wall of his room. For the time being, that was the style he chose.

Eamon heard a demanding ring coming from his desktop. Two icons were flashing. He clicked the one with both voice and picture. He was glad he had when the beautiful face of Emma Adkins appeared on the virtual monitor, seemingly suspended in thin air above his desk.

"Hello, E-man. You're looking rich today. Could we make our appointment a little earlier? There is someone else who needs to be there and her schedule is a bit tight."

Eamon wasn't doing anything but waiting anyway. He saw Emma was wearing a white long-sleeved blouse and a sideways Cleveland Indians baseball cap. She looked like a child; an extremely sexy child.

"Uh, sure, Emma. When do you want me to come over?"

"Come over now if you can. Have you had breakfast yet?"

"No, I was just about to hunt up the cafeteria when you called." Eamon hadn't even thought about breakfast. When he spoke to Emma, it wasn't food he was hungry for.

"Well come on over. We'll have a little breakfast with our meeting."

Eamon walked out of his dorm room, down a corridor and into the quad again. He hadn't noticed yesterday that at the far end of the quad was a statue. He altered his course to swing by the statue. When he got close enough he saw it was Alfred E. Newman. 'Damn', he thought. 'Someone around here is in to bad puns.'

He knocked once and then entered Emma Adkins' office. There was no one in the outer office but he noticed a door was open in a back wall. He remembered that yesterday the entire wall was some scene from a forest. He hadn't seen a door.

Peeking through the door he called, "Hello, is anyone there?"

A beautiful baseball-capped head appeared and again he felt a rush of adrenalin. It said, "Oh, hello. You must be Eamon Turner."

Eamon walked into the room and once again was entranced by the vision of beauty before him. He said, "Well, yeah. I'm the same guy who was in here yesterday. I haven't changed since then."

The beautiful face laughed: a soft tinkling bell-like sound. "Well I have. I'm afraid you are mistaking me for someone else."

Eamon felt a soft tapping on his back. He turned around and was startled to see the exact double of the girl standing in front of him.

The new girl said, "Don't freak out, E-man. It's only me. That person over there is obviously my sister. Here name is Elle. Close your mouth and say hello to Elle, E-man."

"Hello, Elle. I'm sorry for the mistaken identity. I don't suppose it's anything new in your life, though." Eamon was stunned. Stunned by the double dose of loveliness before him, stunned that he could speak in coherent sentences. His first thought was: 'And I thought there was only one Emmy!' His second thought was: 'Someone is going to have the harem of a lifetime.' The Turner men leaned towards unofficial harems.

The one he thought was Elle said, "Come in and sit down at the conference table. We have fruits and some whole-grain cereal for breakfast. If you are a meat eater, I'm afraid you'll have to suffer this morning."

Eamon sat on one side of the table, the two girls sat on the other side. He was enchanted. Emma had overwhelmed him yesterday, but this! He placed some fruit on his plate and pretended to nibble at it. All he wanted to do was look at them.

As he watched them he realized there were subtle differences. He couldn't even identify what the differences were, but he knew which girl was which. He said to the one on the right, "Emma, what do we need to talk about?"

Emma smiled and her eyes lit like fire. Eamon felt himself sinking even deeper into them. "Actually, E-man, you've just passed the first test. You've pretty much proven you are New Man."

He was confused. "I did? How did I do that?"

The other twin spoke. Her voice was identical to Emma's. It even had that lilting touch of laughter. "Why you can tell us apart, of course. Daddy is the only H. sapien that can tell us apart. Well, our Mommas can too, but they are a special case. We had to teach them how to do it."

He realized that they were correct in the fact that he really could tell them apart. But he didn't have the foggiest notion why. They were spitting images of each other. He couldn't see one difference from their flawless skin to their perfect shapes to their lovely faces to their expressive eyes. They were even dressed the same.

Then how the hell could he tell them apart?

Speaking to Emma he said, "By telling you apart that makes me New Man?"

Emma shook her head. "Yes, E-man. We aren't into heavy testing here. This is a kind of binary test, on or off, yes or no. You can tell us apart or you can't. You can, therefore you are: New Man that is. And it didn't take nine months, either."

Elle turned to her sister. "Nine months? What is that about?"

Emma lifted a finger toward Eamon. "Studly here offered to attempt to impregnate me in order to establish his credentials, species-wise. Daddy wasn't too thrilled."

Elle looked enthusiastically toward Eamon. "That was awfully generous of you, Eamon. Was the offer just to Emmy, or did you include all the Adkins girls."

Eamon knew they were just playing with him. He figured he might as well play along.

"All the Adkins girls. How many of you are there?"

Elle laughed. "There are four of us. But we aren't quads. We are two sets of twins. Edie and Eddie are the strange ones. Emma and I are the normal ones, relatively speaking. That will make us easy to tell apart."

"Strange? How are they strange? And do they look like you?"

Emma said, "Some people think they are stupid because they hardly ever talk. Well stupid is as stupid does. They invented the Newman AE operating system when they were four years old. When they were seven they invented Virtual Video. They also invented the heads-up display in your car and a bunch of other stuff. They just don't like to talk about it."

Elle said, "We aren't quadruplets, but we are two sets of twins with a whole lot of DNA in common. We share the same father and our mothers are identical twins. You do the math."

Eamon thought he saw a pattern developing. "The other twins are scientists, right? What do you do, Elle?"

She smiled sweetly. "I make money."

"What, you're an economist? A financier? What does that mean?"

"It means that I make money. That's what I do. That's what I've always done. God knows someone has to do it around here or we'd be in deep trouble."

Emmy said, "E-man, it's like my sister has a printing press out back. Daddy tells her how much and Elle makes it. That's the way it's been around here forever. Elle made her first million when she was three. By the time she was seven she had made over a hundred million dollars. Where do you think all of this comes from: the university that kids attend for free; the financial backing for New Man Inc.; Daddy's energy-efficient car; all the charities?"

Eamon responded, "Uh, I guess we had kind of wondered what your source of income was."

Elle said, "'We'? 'We wondered'? That brings us to the second reason for this meeting, Eamon. What are you doing here? You are eighteen years old. Our median student age is twelve. You are rich. You undoubtedly have been educated in some way. Tutors, I'd bet. Why did you come to New Man U? Do you have a particular curriculum in mind?

"Is it science? Sorry Eamon but you don't look like the scientific type to me. Economics, maybe? Your family has billions. It's been our experience that every family that has that much is somehow desperate to have twice as much. So do you plan to be a financier, Eamon?"

Eamon shook his head. "We have plenty of businesspeople in our family already. My half-brother Jake 3^rd is going to eventually take over the family businesses. There is room for all my siblings somewhere near the top, but that doesn't really interest me. I have other interests."

Emmy jumped in. "Politics!"

Eamon's eyes widened. "You guessed that on surprisingly little information."

Elle answered for her. "Emmy is the politician in our family. She's perfect. She's a bigger dick than Dick Nixon or Dick Cheney and she doesn't even have a dick!"

"Very funny, little sister. Yes, E-man, I have been somewhat involved in the political process over the years. I might even have the same motives as you do. I want to try to save H. sapiens from themselves.

"So you came her to learn politics, is that right? Or was there some ulterior motive. 'We wondered' you said. Who is 'we'?"

Eamon hesitated. He had already made up his mind to tell the truth. He detected no evil here. The Progenitor, Andrew Adkins, seemed to him to be a well-meaning bumbler. These girls, the eTwins, were just plain hot. They could tell him anything and he would believe them. He wanted to believe them. He needed to believe them. But could he trust them? He had to take the chance.

"'We' refers to my family. My grandparents are interested in this whole New Man phenomenon. They want to know if you are for real. They want to know if you are honest. They want to know what your plans are. My Granddaddy worked most of his life to make things right in this country. Still there are a lot of things wrong. We wanted to know where you fit into the equation."

The twins looked in each other's eyes. Eamon could see that they were reaching some sort of decision about him, but doing so silently. He had heard that twins were like that. They could communicate almost psychically. What came next was a shock.

Emmy and Elle each reached a hand across the conference table towards Eamon. Emmy said, "You want to know the truth about us, E-man? If you really, really do, take our hands. But I'm warning you. Only do so if your heart is pure. If you are lying to us, back off. Because if you are, we'll know."

Eamon hardly hesitated. He hastened to take the opportunity to touch the two most beautiful creatures he had ever been near. He captured Elle's hand with his left, Emmy's hand with his right. It was at that moment he knew his life was transformed.

It was if an electric current ran from Elle, through him and directly to Emma. It wasn't a physical event. He could feel his emotions being stirred. He could feel the twins coming into his soul. It was so weird; so wild; so astounding!

The passion he had been feeling seemed to grow exponentially. These presences seemed to join his own presence. It was frightening. It was startling. It was arousing.

He felt himself sprout an enormous, almost painful erection. He was panting as his blood raced through his system. He had never felt so alive.

Eamon stood, still holding the twins' hands tightly. He pulled them both toward him, trying to increase the amount of contact, even though the table was between them. He tried to be logical. He tried to regain his self-control. He released both hands and moved away from the twins.

"What the fuck did you do to me", he hissed? "Why do I feel like this? Was the breakfast drugged?"

Emmy's eyes were afire! She leaned closer across the table. Her lips barely grazed his lips. Eamon moaned when for the briefest moment there was more skin-to-skin contact.

"What's the matter, E-man? Can't take the heat? We haven't done anything to you except open our souls. Do you feel it? Of course you do. We wondered that's all. We wondered what it would be like to touch you."

He said, "But you touched me yesterday! We shook hands, I remember. Nothing spectacular happened then!"

Emmy replied, "We can keep this under lock and key if we want. We couldn't go around feeling like this every time we shake hands with someone now, could we? But today we just let it happen. We needed to know, E-man. We are even willing to have a spy in our midst. But we had to touch you."

Eamon felt he was sinking deeply into some emotional quicksand from which he could never extricate himself. Right now all he wanted to do was continue to sink. He was thunderstruck.

Emma turned to her sister. "Elle, don't you have someplace to be?"

Elle said, "Yes, but..."

Emma shooed her towards the door. "I'll talk to you later. Right now I've got to talk to the E-man here. Be gone."

Elle stood and walked around the table. She put her arms around Eamon's neck and whispered in his ear, "Thank you Eamon. You're the first man who has ever touched me." She gave him a soft, sexy, kiss on the cheek and walked from the room.

When the two were alone, Emma sat back down and looked into Eamon's eyes. She seemed fidgety; uncomfortable. Her previously smiling eyes grew dark; as if they were about to burst into tears.

"Eamon, you came here to find out about us. Am I right? You wanted to know our darkest secrets."

"Well, yeah, Emma. I'm supposed to find out if you are good or evil, from our point of view. We wanted to know what you might be hiding."

"That's it, E-man. That's what we are hiding. Everything else about us is out front. Do an audit. Investigate till the cows come in. All you will find out is what you already know; except for this."

Eamon still didn't really understand. "What is this?"

"My Daddy calls it telempathy. We can feel the emotions of others, especially other eKids. And let's be honest. We can read minds, too; again especially with other eKids. Most of us had experiences when we were young reading our parents' minds." Emma saw a light of recognition come onto Eamon's face.

"You too, I'll bet. But mostly with H. sapiens, it only goes one way. They can't feel you, they can't read you. A lot of the eKids in that situation stopped exercising that functionality when they didn't receive any response from their parents. Of course, the majority of the first generation of eKids was girl twins. They were able to use telempathy with each other. God, wait till you meet my sisters! They carry telempathy to the nth degree!"

Eamon had been nodding his head. He remembered thinking he could read his parents' thoughts when he was very small. But the response he got from them was so negative that he stopped.

"Well damn, Emmy! That's a pretty big secret to be hiding! But I understand why you keep it quiet. People would go nuts if they thought you could read their minds."

"If H. sapiens find out about this, we could be in big trouble. The Religious Right hates us, E-man. Do you realize that we are a living refutation of creationism? We are evolution in action.

"The followers of the Religious Right are so docile, so eager to be led, that they'll believe any damn fool thing that they are told to believe; even that the existence of evolution is just a difference of opinion between scientists. The fact that there are no reputable geologists or anthropologists who believe in creationism never gets mentioned.

"E-man, the Right is this far from mobilizing against us. If they found out about telempathy, we would be facing violence. Daddy doesn't want to deal with that until the eKids get older and can take care of themselves."

Eamon nodded again. "I get it. Is it okay with you if I break this information to my family? We're just a bunch of Irish Catholics. We don't have any agenda for you to harm. Besides, I think that some of the men in my family have a touch of the same talent, or something like it."

"Tell it to the top, E-man. But they have to keep it quiet. If even a rumor of this gets out, trouble will start."

Eamon savored the memory of that touch with Emma and Elle. It was so intense. Somehow it felt like he wasn't getting the entire story from Emma. "Is that it, Emma? You can feel the emotions of other eKids? Or is there more?" He reached his hand across the table to try to take hold of Emma's hand, but she recoiled.

"Don't touch me, Eamon. You've got to learn the whole story right now!" Her eyes had begun to tear up. Eamon could feel her pain but couldn't figure out its cause. "We bond! If you touch us and we open up to you, we could bond permanently. You wouldn't have a chance. You wouldn't have a choice. That's why I sent Elle away!

"You aren't stupid, E-man. You must recognize that Elle and I and our other sisters don't have much in the way of options, sexually. Edie and Eddie have chosen to satisfy each other. But Elle and I would prefer the old fashioned way.

"We like you, E-man. You know perfectly well that you are gorgeous. You're funny, you're smart, you're talented. Also, you're arrogant, you're spoiled rotten, you're promiscuous. Those last three things count against you, by the way.

"And you are very, very rich. Elle and I don't care about that last attribute, but to a lot of H. sapien women that counts for a lot.

"But there is something you've got to know, E-man. You can't mate successfully with them. Oh, I know that you fit together fine. But forget about children. Maybe, almost surely, you can propagate with H. sapien women. But it is equally certain that the offspring will be sterile. No more little Turners on the horizon from your little branch of the family."

Eamon got it. "So I can't have a family with a H. sapien wife. But let me guess. I can have a family with you."

"Not just with me, Eamon, but with any female eKid. We are the same species. How could I make something like this up?"

"No, no, I believe you. I believe you. Which gets us back to the touching. Why did you stop touching me?"

Emma started to cry. "I had to stop. I won't force you to love me. It would be emotional rape! You don't know us from Adam. You don't know what we need. Elle and I are a package, E-man. You don't get one without the other. We're like our mothers in that.

"And E-man, you must know by now that I'm very assertive. You are used to getting what you want. So am I. Could we work as a couple? I don't know. Are you even interested in us?"

Emma had her face in her hands, trying to stop the tears. She didn't even notice the slight smile on Eamon's face.