Chapter 2

When I woke, my head hurt like hell, and everything was blurry. Slowly, everything came into focus. I was laying on a fuchsia leather couch. In front of me was a woman with dark blonde hair, dressed professionally. She was typing away on a computer, behind a desk.

I tried to raise my head, but daggers hit my temples. "Aagh!" I cried out.

The lady looked up. "You're awake. Good." She smiled warmly, but her eyes had a look of contempt.

"Where ... am I?" I managed to get out.

"You are in my office. I'm Jennifer Madsen. I'm in charge of starting up this facility.

"And you are Tim Sewell, son of Miranda Sewell, a member."

Jennifer stood up and walked around her desk. She then leaned back against it.

Even with her conservative dress, it was instantly apparent that she was a fox. Long lean legs, wide hips, and narrow waist. Even with a business jacket, you could see her breasts trying to break free.

Five days before, my cock would have been achingly hard.

"What did you do to me?"

"You were trespassing. Our security subdued you and your father with a billy club."

"Where's my dad?"

Jennifer shook her head. "I'm afraid they hit him too hard. He died from an aneurysm."

I tried to sit up, but found my thumbs were tied together behind my back.

"I'm sorry about the restraints, but even without your testosterone, you men can be unpredictable."

I was still reeling from the news of my father's death, and their cavalier attitude. I didn't really hear what she said. "You bastards!" I gasped.

"It wasn't intentional, I assure you.

"And we've learned our lesson. From now on, security uses only tasers."

I managed to wrestle himself to a seated position. My head felt like someone was using it for bongos.

"And he wasn't a complete loss."

"What do you mean?"

Jennifer pantomimed an "oops, I slipped," look. "All in good time, Tim.

"But, first, lets get that headache of yours fixed." She pulled out a penlight and shined a green light in my eyes.

It was like no green I had ever seen. It was to green like ultraviolet was to violet.

I closed my eyes, and in an instant, my headache was gone.

"What was that?" I asked.

She smiled. "A little toy we have."

Jennifer walked to a wall, and pushed a button. Out of the floor came a plasma television.

"Now, I know you have a lot of questions. This video will answer them. We show it to all new members.

She grabbed my hair, and pulled it back, hard. "Are you going to be a good boy, and watch the video. Or do I have use harsher methods to restrain you?"

"I'll be good."

"Say, 'I'll be a good boy, Ms. Madsen.'" She pulled harder.

"I'll be a good boy, Ms. Madsen," I rasped.

She let go. "Good boy!

"If you try anything, I'll cut off a finger."

I sat very still, and watched the video.

On the screen appeared a woman in her sixties, with salt and pepper hair. I think I'd seen her on the news. She was wearing a dark conservative suit, but all I could see was her, shoulders up.

"Hello, I'm Catherine Wells, President and CEO of Women Only Enterprises.

"On July seventh of last year, I was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer. They gave me six months to live, with the last month or so in crippling pain.

"The next day, I went in to work, having nothing else to do.

"A few minutes after I arrived, I heard a high pitched whine. Thinking it could be a bomb; I ducked under my desk, and turned on the security camera.

"Here's what the camera recorded:"

The picture changed to a large well-appointed office. In front of the desk, a point of light appeared. In seconds, it grew to the size of a medicine ball.

Then there was a bright flash, and the light was gone. In place of the light was a solid iron cube, ten feet to a side.

Catherine crawled out from under her desk.

She reappeared as talking head on the screen. "What you can't see, from my side, was, thirty seconds after it appeared, a beam of light projecting out of that face. A foot out, the beam expanded to create a picture of such clarity, it verged on 3-D.

"We have never figured out how to copy the video, directly. All we could do is set up a camera and film it, using our crude digital recorders."

What showed up from on the screen were two women in their mid-thirties. One, an auburn with gray eyes and a large nose., and one, a woman with long platinum blond hair, blue eyes, and a button nose.

You know you can often tell when a photo was taken, by the hair and clothes. I could not tell when these girls were from. The fabric they wore shimmered and moved like nothing I had ever seen. Their hair was rolled up in front, like the Andrews Sisters, but nothing else about their hair was retro.

Sorry, hair design is not my thing.

There was nothing in the background, just flat gray.

The red head spoke. "Greetings from forty years in the future! I am Maggie Welch."

"And I am Vera Culvert," said the blonde.

"At your time, we weren't even born yet," said Maggie.

"And probably never will be, since we are destroying our timeline.

"Why are we, in effect, committing suicide? That's complicated."

Vera took over. "There are two things you need to know.

"The first is nanites. In your time, nano-technology is science fiction. In twenty years, they become a reality. Tiny machines built on the molecular level, then taught to make copies of themselves.

"How small are they? A nanite in your smallest capillary would be a like a car on a one hundred twenty lane road.

"They are incredible. They can make things that would make your head spin. But we don't have time to go into that.

"One of their greatest uses is maintaining the human body. These days, everyone has nanites in their bloodstream. They Eat plaque off artery walls, destroy excess sugar in diabetics, and maintain cholesterol levels. That, and so much more."

Maggie butted in. "What Vera and I did, was design new programming for the nanites.

"One innovation of ours, that made us unspeakably wealthy, was a program that corrected brain dysfunction. Schizophrenia, Autism, and Alzheimer's Disease are all things of the past, thanks to our nanite programming."

"The second thing you need to know about is the Blue Plague," said Vera. "It happened five years ago, our time. It made yours AIDS look like a bad cold. It became airborne, and kept mutating, so our nanites could not keep up with it. It was called the Blue Plague, because your skin turned a bright blue, just before you died.

"By the time we got the nanites to cope with its mutations, and exterminate the disease, over two billion people died. Over fifty million in the USA.

Maggie took over. "Comparing the Blue Plague to AIDS is not really fair. The two have very little in common. But, one thing they have in common, is they both originated in the gay community.

"The world turned against the gays. People started saying that homosexuality was a health hazard. What to do about them, became a hot topic. Many gays were killed by angry mobs, but a state sponsored holocaust was out of the question.

"Then a fellow programmer tweaked a version of our program, so it would 'correct' sexual orientation. Their synapses were changed, so that females turned them on, and the thought of being with a man was repugnant."

The blonde, Vera, started talking. "The final straw, for us, came when they started targeting lesbians too. We had nothing to do with the Blue Plague.

"At this moment, we are most likely the only homosexuals left. We haven't been treated, because we've locked ourselves away.

As these women were talking, they were getting madder and madder. By this time, they were talking with clenched fists.

Maggie snarled. "We are about to get back at the bastards who are trying to tell us who we can and can't love."

Vera put her arm around Maggie's waist. "And to do it, we need your help, Ms. Wells.

"Why you? One, you're one of the few public lesbians in the financial situation to execute our plan.

"Second, we knew where to find you."

On the screen was an interview with Catherine, but she was pale and bald, with sunken cheeks. Obviously, she was at death's door.

Interviewer, off screen, asked, "The day after you found out you had cancer, what did you do?"

The CEO answered, in a raspy voice. "I went in to work, of course."

The still healthy Catherine appeared. "Seeing me in that state, was the scariest thing I've ever seen.

"Out of a slot came a bundle of papers. When I took the papers, the slot disappeared, but the red dot appeared."

Vera spoke. "You have twenty-four hours to read what we propose, If you agree, push the red button. If you don't agree, in twenty -four hours this box will turn into a big pile of metal dust."

Catherine Wells appeared again. "I immediately tackled their proposal. What they planned was radical. It would change our world forever.

"But their plan pleased me. I had grown weary of being a pariah, the outcast. I wanted to be in the majority."

She wants to be a popular girl, just like Julie, I thought.

"So I pressed the red button, with about four hours to spare. Instantly, the projector came to life."

The lesbian couple reappeared on the screen.

"We are pleased that you agree," said Maggie.

"As a way of saying thanks, take this."

Catherine spoke off screen. "Across the carpet rolled at silvery metal ball, about the size of a marble."

"Swallow the ball, or stick it up your vagina. Either way, the nanites will devour your cancer."

Catherine, again spoke off screen. "I chose the latter method. When I went to the doctor, the next day, there was no sign of cancer."

"There are two more things you need to know," said Vera. "First, the time portal we made to get this gift to you, in theory will create an antimatter/ matter explosion on our end. It will create a two hundred mile wide, one hundred mile deep crater.

"We don't know if humanity will survive this disaster, and we don't care."

Vera stepped in. "Besides, this will never have happened.

"The last thing you need to know is that in ten minutes the box will expand, filling your room. If you have anything you want saved, you should take them out of this room."

The couple disappeared, replaced by a countdown clock, starting at 10:00.

"At this point, I called in my assistants, and they helped me empty my office.

"All the info and tools from that box made what has happened, possible."

There the video ended.

I sat there for a minute, taking it all in. I finally spoke. "What did you do to me? To all of us?"

Jennifer turned the lights up, and retracted the plasma screen, and retook her place, leaning against the desk. "You were dosed by the Glade at school. That spray was laced with two types of nanites. One that affects only women; one only for men."

"The police said there was nothing in that spray."

Ms. Madsen smiled. "If the police used the best electron microscope available, they might be able to see the nanites. But only if they inspect the nozzle. A cluster of a hundred thousand nanites, smaller than a speck of dust, was in there. The Glade was used as a means of distribution.