Chapter 295

The Retreat

All of the women except Kayla were at Security Headquarters to continue their pulse rifle training. She was continuing to train the girls on the indoor shooting range.

Alice and Terri had left the door of their suite propped open a little so Princess could explore while they were on the range, and of course, Selina had done the same for her new kitten. Billy, while older and larger than the girls, still was not nearly as large as he should have been, but the Matthews and Selina had decided that he must like being this size, and with the enhancement, would grow when he wanted to. It would be interesting to see if he continued to want to be small when the female kittens grew bigger than he was – should they decide they wanted to grow larger.

Billy and Isis were coming down the hall when Princess rounded the corner and saw the two near the living room. Princess bounded along, then as she neared Billy, stopped to arch her back, fluffing her tail and hissing as she pretended to threaten the male that was still fairly new to her.

Billy paid no attention to her posturing, but ran over and sniffed noses with her, then circled her checking her out, and since Isis had taught him that smelling her butt wasn't proper (hurt like crazy), he refrained from sniffing Princess there – operant conditioning at its best.

Isis had gotten used to being around Billy, and wasn't certain she wanted to share him with her once-buddy. She hissed at Princess, and Princess hissed back, but they soon touched noses, since it was obvious that Billy wasn't impressed with their display.

Within minutes, the small pack of kittens were exploring together. Eventually they wound up in the living room by the big window, all sitting in a row looking out at the expanse of snow surrounding the Retreat.

Billy, growing bored, reared up and jumped on Princess, which caused Isis to jump up and land on both the other kittens. That produced a rough and tumble tangle of young felines. After bounding back and forth, sometimes hiding under the furniture and jumping out at each other, Billy decided to show the two girls how brave he was with the automatic trash can. He had learned to jump up in front of the can so the sensor would respond to him and snap the lid open – or the mouth as he thought of it – then teleport away.

On the first try, his leap caused the lid to activate, and as it snapped open, he teleported fifteen feet or so toward the center of the room. Both girls had jumped back when the mouth had opened, and both instantly became very leery of the trash can monster. Realizing that Billy was gone, they looked around for him for a second or so before they noticed him and hurried over to see if he were all right.

To show how brave he was, he marched back over to the can and did it again. This time, since the girls were farther away from the can, they weren't as startled when Billy suddenly disappeared, then reappeared next to them. With their kitten minds – recently enhanced – they knew that he had done something they couldn't. They immediately licked him to show him how impressed they were with his courage, so of course, he did it another half dozen times until the girls became bored.

Spike and Sugar came loping in, and spying the clowder of kittens, charged, barking gleefully. Princess did an about face and took off. Isis took off too – straight at Spike. With a leap, she landed on his head, digging in claws wherever they happend to land. Spike slid to a stop, now wearing a kitten on his head, and since he was a Chihuahua puppy, the kitten was a handful, or headful as the case may be.

Spike shook his head, or tried to, which was difficult while wearing a cat. He then began spinning around and around trying to unseat the kitten. Sugar, realizing what was happening, stopped to watch, then ran to help Spike. Finally, after hours of pain – at least in Spike's mind – and before Sugar could get to them, Isis released Spike and launched herself toward one of the chairs, using the fabric to climb to the seat, then on up onto the arm so she could look down on a bewildered Chihuahua and hiss at him. Spike had just met an Abyssinian. Her reflexes made his look as if he were buried in molasses.

He sat to glare at her and lick his wounds, but since they were on his head, he couldn't. Sugar, whining, licked his terrible wounds (two tiny drops of blood) as he sat bravely staring at the fighting machine masquerading as a kitten.

The Indoor Range

The firearms training finished for the day, Kayla locked the weapons away and left to go to the Ship to train on her simulator. The three girls, bored, casually strolled through the basement in no hurry to be anywhere else. Even though Selina's intellect was years ahead of the other two, she realized that she enjoyed being with them. They were, indeed, children, but they were bordering on womanhood, especially Terri, since she was two years older than Alice. They both had inquisitive minds, wanting to know everything they could about most any subject. In addition, the enhancement had changed both girls, and not just physically. They had taken the firearms training seriously and not once had they violated any of Kayla's much more strict range rules. Probably without realizing it, the girls were now prone to discussing much more adult subjects, and had unconsciously adopted more adult mannerisms.

As they neared Jeff's lab office, Alice noticed a stack of extra folding chairs that Frank Wainwright had stored in the basement before the Matthews had acquired the Retreat. She had been enjoying their conversation and didn't want to go back upstairs just yet. "Wait," she said, hurrying over and pulling chairs from the stack. "Come help me. We can sit down here and chat."

Selina smiled to herself, thinking that Alice and Terri were both showing a more adult demeanor. Selina started to blurt out, "That would be highly satisfactory," but remembering the girl's gentle teasing about her vocabulary, changed it to, "I would like that."

As the three opened the folding chairs, Selina paused. "I shall return shortly."

With a "whap" of air rushing into the place she had just vacated, she disappeared, only to reappear a couple of minutes later clutching three soft drinks and a bag of potato chips. Alice and Terri grabbed their drinks while Selina set hers down to open the bag of chips.

"A party," Terri said with a giggle as she plopped down in her chair, opened her drink and took a sip.

The girls sat talking, bouncing from one subject to another, but often discussing adults. No subject seemed verboten, so Selina, more and more interested in sex, even though she had not felt any sexual desires yet, asked something she would never approach with any of the adults. "Have either of you observed your father and aunt while they were having intercourse?"

"You mean while they were fucking?" Terri asked with a giggle.

Selina just looked at her.

"We've peeked a couple of times, but only for a few seconds. Aunt Angie makes a lot of noise. Thank goodness we can't hear her if the door is closed to their bedroom."

Selina bit her lip, but then blurted out, "How did it make you feel?" Then realizing she sounded like a psychologist, started to reword her question, but by then both Terri and Alice were laughing.

"Horny as could be," Terri responded. "We both rubbed ourselves until we were sore."

Terri and Alice giggled while Selina looked on, then quietly said, "I too have observed my parents during coitus, but I was not sexually stimulated, however ... I am anxious to personally experience this 'horny, ' as you refer to the phenomenon." Then looking at Terri, "At what ages did you first observe these ... urges?"

The sisters glanced at each other before Terri answered, "Hmmm. Just after my eleventh birthday, but just a little bit then. By the time I was twelve, I began to be really interested in boys, and ... started, uh, stimulating myself."

When Selina looked at Alice, she blushed, but answered anyway, "I've felt them for the last six months or so, but now that we know that Dad and Aunt Angie are doing it, I've become..."

"A lot more horny," her sister supplied for her.

Selina sat thinking for a moment, before blurting, "It is not fair. I am entrapped in a six-year-old's body, but my mind wants to experience those things that adults enjoy – all the things that adults enjoy. Other than intellectually, I have no real concept of what feeling horny is."

"But you can do other things," Alice pointed out. "Teleporting for one. Will you teach us?"

"Yeah," Terri said. "That would be just great, but then again, I suppose you want to keep the secret to yourself."

Selina was shaking her head. "I would gladly reveal the method to the two of you, and certainly to my Prime, since he and his wives have done so much for me. But even with a determined effort, I have been unable to describe it in sufficiently adequate detail to enable him to learn."

Terri, still thinking that Selina was keeping the secret to herself, kept asking questions about learning to teleport. Finally, Selina, exasperated, looked hard at both girls. "I will describe how to teleport when either of you describes in detail how your mouth forms the letter 'T' in enough detail for me to convey the method to others."

"Tee" Alice repeated. "That's easy, you just say, Tee."

"Describe how you do it. Don't just repeat the sound of the letter."

Both Alice and Terri repeated the sound of "T," then looked frustrated as they vocalized the sound over and over, trying to determine just what they did with their tongues to produce the sound.

Selina went on. "How do you describe how you walk? Or better yet, describe to me the color red, so I may make a blind person see it in his or her mind," Selina demanded.

"Well for the letter 'T', you kinda touch the top of your mouth with your tongue and then kinda snap it as the sound comes out," Terri fumbled out in frustration.

"Do you think that is sufficient information for me to teach someone how to correctly pronounce the letter?" When neither girl answered, Selina went on. "And neither can you convey to me how to describe to a blind person about the color red until that person can see it in his or her mind. Describing what I do to teleport is the same, only ... more difficult. I can show you over and over, but I cannot tell you how I do it. Obviously, it is not difficult because Billy and now Spike and Sugar can do it. A kitten and two little puppies can teleport, but I am unable to describe how any more than you can tell me the color red, or describe how to make the sound of the letter 'T.' If the three of us were telepaths, I assume I could show you, but failing that, I am stymied."

"Show us again," Terri demanded.

Selina stood, then with a "whap" of displaced air, she was standing halfway down the basement. A blink and she was back with the two girls. "I think about where I want to be, then I visualize being there and ... make myself there," she finished, frustration obvious in her voice.

"Do it again," both girls urged as one.

2214-XR, The Prison Planet

Morales trudged on, but was jerked to a stop as one of the wheels on his case caught on a root; the case shifted from its balanced position, causing a lot more weight to pull on the struggling man's arm. Cursing, he backed the case up a little, maneuvered the wheel past the root, then a few feet later, plopped down on a rock to take a breather.

Shit, this thing would roll just fine at an airport where the floor is smooth, but here in the woods it's a bitch. He sniggered at the thought of what airport security would think when they saw his monster case, let alone the crossbow, compound bow and all the arrows attached to the sides. He wondered if anything on the case, even on the inside, would pass their inspection.

He wiped a sleeve across his sweating brow. Fuck. I've only gone a few miles and I'm damn-near exhausted already, and the only things I've seen that might translate into a meal were hauling ass away from me.

After taking yet another sip of water, his canteen getting low already, he pulled hard on the reluctant case as he continued on over the rough ground.