Chapter 9

The next morning, both of the girls wanted a repeat of the previous night's exercise. This time, I started with Osso and finished with Hula. We had no way to bathe, so we dressed in our cleaned clothes and headed down to the common room for breakfast.

The room was crowded by the time we got there, but we found a bench we could squeeze in on. As it happened, two of the occupants of the table were from the group of laborers who had directed me to the slave auction. They recognized Hula and Osso from the auction and could easily smell our recent activity. The two men mentioned seeing the women at the auction, and this triggered an outburst of praise by the women for me and my prowess as a lover. If I had not shut them up, I am sure that they would have given the whole crowd a detailed blow-by-blow account of last night and this morning.

The whole crowd laughed and applauded my abilities. I was embarrassed, but I admit to being proud of my accomplishments. Several of the patrons patted me on the back as they left for work. Yes, my reputation was growing!

I knew the women would get bored if I left them in the room all day, so I took them with me as I walked around the city, getting a feel for the place. In a way, that was a mistake, since our first trouble happened within an hour of leaving the inn.

The women were admiring some clothes in an adjacent booth while I was talking to a merchant about life in general in Mulgoth. That was when four off duty city guards wandered by and saw the women. These men were the worst sort of bullies and knew that the townspeople were too cowed to resist them in whatever they wanted. In this case, they suddenly decided that they wanted my two slaves. The women were wearing slave collars, so there was no doubt of their status. The bullies figured that two unattended slaves were fair game, so they moved in.

Two men grabbed the arms of each girl and pulled them toward a nearby alley, not because the populace would do anything if they were seen, but because they didn't want any of their cronies muscling in on the party. The women screamed for me as soon as they were grabbed, and I reacted immediately.

The four bullies had no time to do more than frighten the two girls before I arrived. I was so pissed that I did not even try to draw my sword, but went in with my fists and feet. Honeybunch increased my weight to 350 pounds to give me more purchase against the ground as I swung my fists and feet. My first blow was to the solar plexus of the nearest bully. I must have hit him "just right" from my point of view, because he fell to the ground in absolute agony.

I moderated my blow a bit when I hit the second man just under his left ear with the edge of my stiffened palm. I heard his neck break, so I didn't moderate the blow as much as I had intended.

I crushed the windpipe of the third bully and shocked the heart of the fourth man into stillness as I hit him in the chest.

The women were still frightened, of course, but I took a minute to comfort them before I incinerated the four dead men with my flame thrower. It doesn't take long for 9,000 degree plasma to reduce flesh and bone to gas. I was careful in controlling the jet so that there was little scorching of the surroundings. When I was finished, we walked out of the other end of the alley as if nothing had happened. We got away with it because none of the townspeople could conceive of one man overcoming four town guards.

The women were still shaken up, and I could not blame them after all of the "magic" they had seen me perform. Now, they were really afraid of me! They were as impressed by what I had done while fighting as they were by the jet of plasma, so they knew that their master was truly a wizard and not to be trifled with. My biggest worry at the moment was keeping them from bragging on me.

I led the women back to our room and had a long talk with them about how dangerous it would be to all of us if they told people about me and my abilities. I gave them an abbreviated version of my mission so that they would appreciate the need for discretion. My explanation backfired in a way, because they both insisted that they wanted to help. OK, just how do I get out of this one?

I gave the matter some thought and consulted with Honeybunch. She agreed that this mission was a bit more complex than The Center had originally thought and I could use some help. However, that help had to be from fully qualified agents and not from two females, one of whom was still an early teen. I suggested that we take Hula and Osso to The Center to see if they were serious about joining to help me. If they were, they could be given the new bodies and the training they needed before being returned to Urth to complete the mission. If they were not serious, The Center could easily wipe their memories as much as necessary before returning them to Urth otherwise unchanged. They could even be returned to their homes with some sort of cover story. Time travel could do wonders!

I talked to Hula and Osso about becoming agents while Honeybunch contacted The Center to make the necessary arrangements. Apparently, The Center agreed with our idea, because the next thing we knew, we were sitting in the lounge of my apartment back at The Center. The girls were excited by all of the new things they could see, and they had to jump up and touch things to be sure that they were real.

I think that the real convincer was the bathroom and the flush toilet. I demonstrated the toilet to them and I think that they fell in love with it! We had the time, so I also demonstrated the shower, with all three of us in it at the same time. It was a lot of fun showing the girls how the shower worked, and I took considerable pleasure in washing them, especially their most interesting parts. Of course, they had to do the same to me.

Once we were out of the shower and fully dressed, and that included the time for a little sexercise and a second shower, we were taken to the office complex for interviews. Actually, the minds of the two women had been scanned the moment that they arrived at The Center, so their feelings and intentions were already known. The purpose of the interviews was to make sure that the women understood what would happen to them if they became agents as I was. The more that was explained to them, the more enthusiastic they became about joining, so that matter was settled within a couple of hours. I think the thing that attracted them the most was being able to shut their fertility on and off, and their indefinite lifespan would give them plenty of time for fun and for children.

The upshot was that they became recruits and were transported to the hospital to begin their metamorphosis into cyborg agents for The Center. Of course, Hula and Osso didn't look at it that way, but the results were the same. Ten minutes later for me and five years later for them, we were transported back to that same room in the inn only moments after we had left. Of course, the first thing that any of us wanted was to test their new body's response to sex. I already knew the answer, but I was happy to help the girls to find out. Of course, we went down to supper smelling of sex, but that was exactly what everybody expected of two sex slaves.

After supper, we went back to the room for some serious planning. This was my first chance to be formally introduced to the girls' AIs. Harlo, Hula's AI, and Ona, Osso's AI, were able to communicate directly with Honeybunch, so that we three agents had functional mental telepathy. That was a great boost to our abilities and should help us in almost any tight situation.

One of the advantages of this telepathic communication was that I now knew everything that the women knew about Urth. Certainly, this knowledge was limited, but it still was a big help in boosting my appreciation of some of the customs and mores that had confused me earlier.

The women had all of the built in weapons that I had, except that the caliber of their machine gun fingers was .31, instead of .44 like mine, because of smaller hands. The women, particularly because they were "slaves," did not carry obvious weapons, but they were so deadly that they really did not need any. However, each one did carry a concealed knife for form's sake.