Chapter 22

While traditional military recruiters might look down on sex workers, Dolores knew that some were very adaptable people, and might do very well in the new sexual ethics of the Diaspora. She already had arranged to use the strip club and informal bordello, Le Marquis, of her friend Aimee as a place for recruiting discussions, and also as a safehouse if needed. With the owner and manager, her friend Aimee, they actively started recruiting dancers that survived the sometimes adversity of the club, but also excelled in ways outside it.

Aimee's first candidate was Lauren Larue, a house dancer, who CAP-tested at 6.2. She was intelligent, but had astronomical parental and sexual subscores. Her lowest scores were in aggression and initiative, which Aimee thought limited her in the club, where she wasn't controlling encounters. In the short term, she'd be in Terry's household, filling Dolores' former slot, but most concerned with running the household and supporting the kids.

Given the various cooperating households including Terry, Moe and Rona, and now Dolores, the AIs had agreed to accept concubine-level people but not initially require they be sponsored. Terry and Moe knew they'd be adding sponsor-level people, and Lauren could be a fine partner and concubine.

"Moe," wondered Terry, "do we really have to be using the concubine term, at least now? Yes, it might be appropriate for large-scale recruiting some months or years from now, but, damn it, I think it's demeaning here. This is more polyamory than anything else, with co-spouses. What's Bob, after all? Male concubine to a straight man just sounds silly.

Joni Walker was Aimee's next candidate. A feature dancer, stunning in her late thirties, she did test at the Sponsor level with a 7.1. Her score further reinforced Terry's belief that his original concubines, when retested, would be likely to have Sponsor scores. Joni was high in courage, initiative and aggression, as well as loyalty. Her loyalty was hard to win, but Aimee told them that she had left the lucrative traveling circuit to nurse her father, in his final years.

Aimee found her fascinating, in part, because she was unafraid to go for things she wanted. "I won't say she gets off on every customer with whom she plays. On the other hand, I've never known a dancer who gets more sexual pleasure out of her paid encounters."

Terry blushed a bit on seeing her, as he had met her before, professionally. She haunted his memories almost as much as Dolores had done. "I'm glad to see you, Joni. You might not remember me, but I visited the club, with friends, a few times, and had a stunning time with you. You so much enjoyed my oral attention as to make it a wonderful experience for me.

"Tell me, what are your interests outside the club? I seem to remember history."

"Yes, I do study early American history, and, while I don't have a degree, have published in several journals. Also, I work in the urban archeology program of my home city of Alexandria, Virginia."

Terry had a thought. "Let's have Elaine talk to you, but am I correct that you have experience in conducting digs? We may have a requirement to do that, to figure out what happened after the Swarm hit an exploration post."

Dolores and Terry had met with both Lauren and Joni. Aimee sent her first candidate who she had neuralized, but not fully briefed. Dolores and Terry greeted Anita O'Malley, in a casual conference room. Aimee was right when she told Dolores that the two of them resembled one another. Anita was a bit shorter, and had long, flaming red hair. Both were dramatically busty, with obviously large but upstanding breasts under clinging dresses. Both showed off their legs, Anita's having a beautiful tan.

Somehow, Anita was vaguely familiar to Dolores. As a guess, she asked, "Anita, have I ever seen you, perhaps, in porn?"

"I've done a little, yes."

Dolores took a hard look at what Anita was wearing, a stretchy, ribbed, pale green, sleeveless microdress, with a high neckline but molding itself to her breasts. Dolores remembered a clip of Anita, or her clone, wearing that dress. "I think I remember you wearing that same dress, with a guy..." Dolores started to giggle. "A guy that was incredibly clueless."

"Oh Gawd! Did that get out in a bloopers tape? As you can see, I put on by pulling it over my head this tight dress. That idiot thought he could undress me by pulling it down." Dolores, remembering, was starting to go into hysterics. "He tugged and tugged. He yanked sideways. He pulled at it so hard that my left boob jerked up and to the side, and got stuck in the arm opening. I thought he was going to amputate it!"

Dolores hugged Anita, and they dissolved in laughter. "If you can survive that, you can survive anything. I remember you pulling away, grabbing his ass, and taking control. You ripped at his pants and sucked him off, and I always wondered if that was self-preservation. Now I know! That's a totally weird CAP test, but I think you passed!" The candidates weren't being assigned yet, but if Anita didn't reach Sponsor score, Dolores might very well want her.

They talked, and Dolores discovered that Anita was close to finishing an MBA in supply chain management. Her undergraduate degree was in statistics. Dolores subvocalized, "Maslow, please estimate her CAP."

"At least 7.5 and quite easily going into the 8 range."

Aimee's next recruit was Wanda Kortenick. Wanda was a new challenge, as Dolores knew nothing about her other than Aimee's recommendation, but Aimee was doing rather well with her selections.

Wanda wasn't quite a caricature of a stripper, but her platinum hair, a bit dark at the roots, obviously enhanced breasts, and black stretch gown did send a message. "Tell us about yourself. Aimee thinks you would be interested in what we're doing."

She laughed. "I'd especially like it if you have a time machine, as I can always use more. As you can see, I dance and mingle. That's the night shift. In the middle of the day, I take classes at the University of Maryland, majoring in geology with an option for a dual major in civil engineering. Added to that, I have three children. Luckily, I really can get by on four hours of sleep, and I find the club fun -- enough guys that are halfway competent at sex. I can get off on sucking, and, if somebody wants me to scene with another girl, I do it for real."

Terry subvocalized to Dolores, <I'll be amazed if she doesn't qualify as Sponsor if she pulls that off. Let's have her talk to Kim, but she just might become our tunnel expert.> They gave her the basic briefing on the Confederacy and the Swarm, and she was enthusiastic about joining.

"Ishmael," Terry asked, "what's her estimated CAP?"

"8.0 Boss. Weren't you doing this to get concubines?"

They called in Kim to chat with Wanda, giving her a heads-up that Wanda would be in a strip club outfit, and, after Kim showed up, excused themselves. While her crop top and clingy shorts had had a dramatic effect on Terry, Kim had decided that since she would be talking to a woman, high fashion sexy was the look she wanted. It wasn't to intimidate, but both to establish she was no stranger or enemy to sex, and also could command full attention.

"Hi, Wanda. I'm Kim, and I'm a geophysicist. Damn ... I didn't mean to make that sound like a 12-step program introduction." Wanda giggled. "As you've probably noticed, we have good-looking people around here, but it may or may not be as obvious they are smart. From what I've heard, you just might have some core knowledge we need.

"For at least the last twenty or thirty years, American intelligence has made a point of looking for structures hidden underground. Our team definitely has some detection skills, but what we don't know has to deal more with active construction. One aspect is going to be geologic -- recognizing where tunnels can be built.

"We have some very preliminary data that suggests the Sa'arm might actually maneuver with tunneling during battle. If that's the case, we need to be able to detect them digging.

"I can help you with that.

Wanda laughed. "On other fronts, I thought I had a great figure, and my boobs are still bigger than yours – but I could very easily worship your body. Are you, perhaps, bi?"

She grinned. "I can also help with other things, Kim. You, I understand, are a fine dancer, but not a stripper. There, I can teach you. I can teach you back room mingling.

"Let me illustrate. " Quite gracefully, she pulled down the top of her stretchy tube dress, exposing her breasts. "Now, just like this, if you were mingling, you could very dramatically play with my boobs. If you wanted to be creatively nasty, though, you could freshen up your lipstick – but NOT blot it – before sucking my nipples. Leave your red brand on them."

Kim shivered. "Oooh, that is nasty! I like it!

"Wanda, I admit that I didn't have much experience with nasty, or for that matter with women, until a few moths ago. All in all, I'm sorry I missed it. In particular, I found that getting nasty with Terry broke through – I'd sort of had a crush on him for years, but he put me on a pedestal. Maybe you and I can practice on him, and, at the same time, work together professionally. No political correctness need intrude. Dolores is even more into nasty. Perhaps she should join us. I know Terry is reassured by nasty; he's still overconditioned by a mother who taught him always to wait for the woman's signal."

Wanda, stripped to the waist, her pale breasts and large areolas drawing the eye, asked Kim, "did you notice this gown is ankle-length? Oh, is that a cart with champagne bottles over there?"

A little puzzled, Kim replied, "Yes it is." She noticed that Wanda had raised her skirt to just below her knees. As Wanda talked, her fingers lightly stroked her off-black stockings.

Wanda pointed to some art work on the wall. "Did someone in the team create that?" When Kim looked back, Wanda's skirt was high on her thighs. "If you haven't gotten it by now, Kim, I'm demonstrating some back-room heavy seduction." She ostentatiously crossed her legs, revealing no panties. "Now, I'm making it clear. I don't shave completely there, so I have a bit of bush to flash – sometimes slow, sometimes fast." She crossed, and then spread her legs. :"See anything of interest? Would it be fun to have Terry watching you if you bent forward and took a taste?"

Kim didn't waste time taking off her stretch shorts, knowing she could slip a hand inside. She merely stood, made sure that Wanda saw her finger her cameltoe, and then dropped to her knees, wrapped Wanda's legs around her head, and pulled Wanda's groin to her mouth. As she opened wide to take in Wanda's mound, she reached down and actively fondled herself. Wanda was a little surprised at Kim's aggressiveness, and soon gave in to her own pleasure.

As Kim and Wanda played, Terry and Dolores talked. "I'll admit I didn't expect to have this problem, Dolores, but it looks like we are getting more Sponsors than Concubines from Aimee. Perhaps you could talk to her and perhaps focus on the more maternal girls? As an aside, what we're seeing here may affect early CAP testing. My guess is that life experience is being weighted more heavily into CAP decisions, and maybe some early scores should have been higher. It really would surprise me if any of you fail to have a Sponsor CAP, if the AIs consider more factors than make a combat grunt."

"I'll do that, Terry. Remember, she asked us to fill in, though, if we took too many girls. Actually, I think that might be fun and even useful for some of our technical team. One danger doesn't exist -- our nanites protect us from infectious disease. As far as another, I'd actually enjoy watching someone try to get rough with strength and speed augmented woman. Hell, Kim would have been tough before her enhancement.

He laughed. "Yes. You might put covert cameras in there, because I can imagine a few scenes I'd like to see. Catherine can probably lift anyone off the ground with a leg scissors.

"Let's phone her. While I don't want to go into huge amounts of detail over connections that aren't secure, the counterintelligence assessment is that isn't a huge risk. After all, if the Sa'arm can't communicate with us, they can't eavesdrop on communications.

"Still, let's get her a secure cell phone. We don't need news media hacking."

"Hi, Aimee? Dolores. You're sending us some amazingly competent people. To be honest, we had expected to get more people that would be content to be mothers in families, and not independent professionals. Don't cut back on the skilled people, but, as long as they are emotionally stable, you can open things up more."

"OK, Dolores, but you may have to fill out our dancer roster at the club, if you take all the best dancers!"

"Yes, Terry and I have just been talking about that. Hell, I'll do it now and again, and I think we have several girls that would find it interesting. One can do her own choreography, but others will need help there. I can't help but be amused, though, that they are utterly able to take care of themselves. So, the four I have in mind for the first group are, in fact, our lead people. Three are scientists or engineers, and one is an advanced practice nurse. This could give them a definite mental health break. I'll need to sound out some others on how they feel about dancing and mingling."

••••

Karen asked to meet with Terry and the people in command and management roles. She brought a small group with her: Dan, Athena, Bob, Gayle, and Siobhan. "While it's a CIA internal term, I like that you've started using the designation of Reports Officer. To varying extents, it fits what five of us will be doing, as well as information research: processing and organizing raw intelligence. Bernice is spending some time with us, but also with Dolores and Mary, to see if the project management outlook fits her better than our information management role -- or if she swings both ways." Karen smiled at the last metaphor, which triggered many interesting images.

"You've been using Father Dan as your personal devil's advocate, and we won't interfere with that. He can stay out of the sanity team if you want a separate discussion, advise both of us, or work as part of the team.

"Those of the teams that haven't been in intelligence shops may not recognize the term, and think it's a paper-pusher function. We know it's not, and even includes some other intelligence functions, such as some collection guidance, or collection processing. I used to do this for human-source intelligence reports, rating them for plausibility based on the context of collection, before they went to the analysts. I hope we can develop similar confidence ratings for reports from other sources.