Chapter 14

My plan was to disappear as a normal person, Billy Watkins, and to reappear as a superhero. I had to admit that I had not picked out a name, yet, but that could wait. I offered the concubines the opportunity to work on that for me.

I explained that Billy Watkins was drawing increasingly indiscriminate assassination attempts, and some innocent was going to be killed if I did not act like the attack on the plane had done the job. Therefore, I would vanish for a while as I attempted to find out who was after me. As a working hypothesis, I would assume that some irrational bigot was behind the effort because of the way I had defended the UMC over the topic of the Black minister.

I said, "I have one name, Elvis Strango, as a possible ringleader in the conspiracy, but I did not know if that is his real name or a cover name. I never heard of this Strango, and I have no idea where to start looking for him. Rachel, have you ever heard of him?"

"No, the name does not ring a bell. I'll start a search of the news database first thing tomorrow, but I don't know if that will turn anything up. If that doesn't help, I'll try searching at the library. I can't even imagine the ethnicity of the name, so I really have no clue of anyplace else to look. We may have to wind up hacking into the US Census records to find a lead, but I am not able to do that."

Sally offered, "Maybe Dad could do that. He is real sharp at computer hacking, and he might be able to help. If he can't do it, I doubt that anybody could. Billy, you said that he will be home in a few days, so he could work on that if he would, and I think that all you have to do is to ask him."

"Thanks, Sally, that is a great idea. I'm sure that he will help when I explain why we need him."

We talked about some other ways to search for Strango, but nobody could come up with any more useful ideas. My last comment during the general meeting was to warn everybody that they were not to tell anybody, no exceptions, that I was still alive. We could not know who might let something slip purely by accident. I asked Rachel not even to tell her husband about me right now: my existence had to be on a "need to know" basis.

That night, I laid out a list of things that I needed for my ring to do to prepare me to be a superhero. I already had a lot of the characteristics and abilities that I would need, but I asked for a radical change in my body structure. I wanted the ability to retract my penis and scrotum into my body much in the way that other mammals could do it, such as dolphins.

I knew that those parts of my body were no more susceptible to injury than the rest of my body, but I was bowing to the needs of society. I wanted to be completely naked when I operated just as I had been during my search for moonshiners in the swamp. However, if I should have to interact with people, I would need a minimum of modesty, so I wanted my groin area to appear to be covered by something like a Speedo swimsuit. If my genitalia were already hidden inside my body, all I would need would be for my skin in that area to change to a color that was appropriate: black, I suppose.

My ring told me that it could comply with my wish to hide my genitalia, but it would take a few days to complete the change. Furthermore, there would be some pain associated with the adjustment of my anatomy, but it would be no more than what a couple of aspirin could fix. The conversion would start that night, and I would have to abstain from sexual activity while the conversion was being made. That was annoying, but my concubines would just have to live with the inconvenience.

Dad and Mom showed up and were met at the airport by Sally. I cranked my sense of smell to the maximum and checked the car for explosives before I would let her leave the garage. I didn't find anything, and that made me a lot happier. Maybe, my enemies were convinced that I was dead.

That afternoon, I explained to Mom and Dad what I was doing, and they agreed to go along with me. Dad also agreed to help in the computer search for Elvis Strango, but he thought that was a ridiculous name that would never show up in the search.

Two days after they got home, Dad received a letter which said that my death was a sign of the sincerity of an organization that wanted him to stop protecting businesses and governments with his software. For their purposes, they would accept software which would let them defeat the protection that his company was installing. If Dad complied with their demands, they would back off; otherwise, they would attack Sally! Further instructions would follow.

Dad showed me a copy of the letter and said that he was going to approach the FBI with the letter. I had to agree that my original assumptions were all wrong about who was responsible for the attacks on me. This sounded to me like an international conspiracy and a Hell of a lot more sinister than I had at first assumed.

The envelope had been mailed in Atlanta, but that did not prove anything. It could have been dropped into a mailbox by somebody just passing through town. Dad called the FBI office in Montgomery and was told that there was nothing that they could do for him. Sending a threatening letter through the mail was illegal, but the FBI was hit so hard by budget constraints that they could not put anybody on the case. If he wanted to, he could send the letter in to them, and they would put it into the files for later action if they could free somebody up. Dad managed to restrain his temper until after he had hung up the phone, but it took all of us, including the concubines, to calm him down.

Dad contacted a private lab that went over the letter for fingerprints, but his were the only ones that they could find. Okay, the FBI could not have done anything more with the letter, but we were all pissed off at their attitude. Dad did have the paper analyzed to see if there was anything unusual about it that could make it possible to trace it, but there was nothing. The paper was a standard copy machine paper that was sold all over North America. Dammit, there was nothing that we could do until another letter came in. Hopefully, that would have some clue that we could use.

By this time, the second letter had come. It said that the conspirators would prefer to have the software to let them break into protected systems. They ordered Dad to prepare such software, and they would give him three months to get it ready. In the meantime, they would make a token attack on a member of the household to prove that they meant business.

Okay, that was something that I could handle. I planned to keep a dark to dawn vigil on our house to catch anyone who was planning mischief. I needed so little sleep that this was no hardship, and I was sure that I could catch anyone who showed up uninvited. I could keep watch from our roof and drop in on anyone who was making trouble: my bones and muscles were easily strong enough to withstand a drop of up to 50 feet, and that was not necessary for our home.

There were several places on the roof where I could lurk without being silhouetted against the sky, so I did not have to do much to get ready. My first night on the roof was the one on which the last threatening letter arrived. My concubines were all upset by the thought of me getting hurt, so I dampened their fears by fucking each one before I retired to the roof. By this time, my ring had done such a good job on my stamina that I was able to cum in each one of the six concubines and still feel like standing guard all night. I would sleep in tomorrow.

It was about 2:30 AM when I saw a van drive down our street. It was running without lights so it must have been using FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) or something similar because the night was about as black as it was possible to get in South Alabama. I had no trouble seeing what was going on because of my enhanced eyes. The first thing I did was to get a good look at the van, especially the license plate, for later identification if that were necessary.

The van pulled to a stop in front of our house, and three men exited the van. One was carrying a plastic jug which my sense of smell told me was gasoline. The other two were carrying machine pistols; I was not familiar enough with all of them to identify the brand, so I just mentally labeled them as Uzis. They were wearing goggles, and I figured that they must be to enhance their night vision.

They might have night-vision goggles, but they must have been unfamiliar with them because they stumbled around a bit. One of the men even stumbled against a decorative bush in the yard. They looked like they must have been local talent hired for just this job.

I dropped from the roof and headed to the front yard to do something about this rather inept invasion. There were enough bushes in the yard (thank you, Mom) to provide the cover I needed to slip up on the three stooges. I was not worried about the guns as much as I was about the jug of gasoline. I didn't know what fire could do to me, but I figured that I didn't want to find out if I could bypass it.

The man with the jug of gasoline was busy spreading it around the yard and pouring it on the bushes. If he was able to set it off, there would probably been a spectacular fire. He might even set the house on fire, so I needed to put a stop to his nonsense as soon as possible. Actually, it was easy. I managed to sneak up behind him and chop his wrist with the edge of my hand. That was the one holding the jug, and he released it the moment the bones in his wrist shattered.

He screamed in pain, just as one would expect, and tried to run toward the parked van. I kicked his left knee and shattered it, so he dropped before he could get more than a couple of feet. The fuel jug had some sort of fail-safe cap on it, and it sealed-off as soon as the thug dropped it. I ignored the jug as I took after the other two men.

I stayed low as I ran toward the nearest man with a gun. Both of the men were swinging their guns around trying to find something to shoot at, but neither one was having any luck finding me—I was simply moving too fast for them to register what they were seeing. A fist jabbed into the solar plexus of the first man dropped him before he could fire a shot. I knew that he would be out of the action for a couple of minutes until he was able to catch his breath, so I had plenty of time to disable the other man. Him I slapped on the side of the head and broke an eardrum as I gave him a mild concussion. He, too, fell where he stood.

I was wearing a pouch slung over my shoulder that contained some long nylon cable ties. I used these to bind the thugs so that they could not escape, though I had forgotten to provide for gags. Well, that I would cover next time.

I ran to the van and found that it was empty. The fools had not provided for a driver! I wondered who had organized this fiasco. I threw the three men in the van. I figured that would be a good place to question them and convenient transportation to get them away from our house when I was ready.

The man who had been hit in the gut was in the best condition to talk, so I started with him. As expected, he did not want to talk at first, but a simple squeeze on his balls with my powerful grip was enough to change his mind. It took only a few minutes to get him to understand that I was not going to put up with a lot of nonsense; it is amazing how a squeeze on a man's balls can get his attention.

Anyway, I questioned him and the two others. That first man really pissed me off, so I broke his right knee to teach him some manners. I now had the answers to all of the questions that I could think of, and I was now wondering what to do with three wounded men. I thought that this was a good chance to practice a little psychological warfare, so I drove to the nearest hospital and dumped them at the entrance to ER. I tooted the van horn loud enough to attract attention and drove away as a nurse stuck her head out the door and saw the three men.