Chapter 405: Birthday Guests

So, did she figure out the riddle?

“I think you are messing with my head, David,” Emily told me. “It doesn’t make sense that two girls and two boys are siblings. One of the girls is the niece to two siblings and her own aunt, but all four kids have the same parents. The girl is the daughter of one of the boys, but he isn’t her dad, and she isn’t her mother’s daughter.”

I let her stew on it as we followed the gravel road around the neighborhood about to get excavated to the previously poured foundations and walls. Emily kept talking under her breath as she tried to figure it out.

Emily finally stopped us, hit me in the chest, and said, “I’m going to tell all the people back home that you are a millionaire and where you live if you don’t tell me the solution to the riddle.”

“If the numbers about the cash I have in the bank, I’m technically a trillionaire, but I get what you meant,” I joked as I pulled her into my arms to kiss and caress her a bit. “April is the answer.”

“Yeah, that isn’t going to work, and you know it,” Emily replied.

I just walked on and let her stew about it as she tried to deduce it.

When we got back to my house, I sat down at the top of the front stairs and said, “My brother and sister are April’s uncle and aunt. I’m her father. My parents are her mom and dad. What makes it more complicated, and why I laughed earlier when you commented about April’s half-sister, is that my parents adopted April shortly after they took her in. On paper, they are her adopted mother and father. That makes her my sister and thus her own aunt. I don’t know when she figured out who her birth mother was, but she calls the girl her mother, not mother. All my children are both her half-sibling as well as nieces or nephews.”

Now she laughed and got out her cellphone to call her mom. What made it funny was that Emily is listed as Jude’s mother. Her mom had adopted Jude because of how laws worked in their state. She put me on speaker. We had a good laugh trying to figure out how April, my siblings, Jude, and Emily’s siblings were related.

“David,” Emily’s mom said. “You always make me feel better without even trying. Can you imagine how crazy things would have been if I had donated an egg for Emily to have fertilized by your sperm if she hadn’t become fertile on her own, and then I adopted the baby?”

I joked back, “Trying to give me a headache for a birthday present? You know how many girls you are likely to piss off if I have one today?”

Emily and I went in to have lunch. Elise looked a bit better when she came in to eat after one of the staff made her get up to have some food before going back to sleep.

“Emily?” Elise asked after swallowing the spoonful of oatmeal I put in her mouth since Elise wasn’t quite awake yet. “Was Jude sucking you dry all the time? I’m barely able to keep up, and I’ve had to give David water to fill his stomach while I wait to produce more milk. Mom has me eating at least three thousand calories a day, and I’ve already lost all my baby weight plus ten pounds.”

“Yeah, but my brother had problems nursing, so mom let my sister and Jude nurse help with her staying engorged all the time. Once we found that my dirty little brother had no problems nursing from my nipples, the girls were all moms most of the time. When my brother left me full and leaking, I got one of the girls to help drain me down,” Emily said.

My implant pinged me to provide some data, so I connected to it and got a lot more than expected.

I put my hand on Elise’s and said, “Your mom is changing your diet, Elise. The staff has sent her a bunch of recipes. I hope you like your oatmeal and smoothies because you will be eating a lot of them and cookies. Now eat up. While you’re here, you are getting a diet heavy in lactation foods. I hope you don’t have any plans until you start begging the wet nurses to let Camden’s triplets work on your breasts to give you some relief. Gabriella was easy.”

“As long as I get my turn with your dick at least once a day, I will stay here as long as you will have me,” Elise said.

Why is April getting in here holding Jude behind her as she gets stands protectively in front of Emily and Elise? Damn it, David, you got too comfortable again and aren’t paying enough attention.

April got Jude to Emily and started moving like a momma bobcat ready to pounce to protect her children. For a three-year-old, all that swimming had made her stronger than she looked. Anna was almost to where she could hug me from behind when I felt her jump back. I no longer sensed Anna as a person like me, only the waves of pure, primal fear that began coming from her.

I barely caught Elise as she almost went face down in her oatmeal when she fell instantly asleep. Emily pulled Jude tight to her before leaning back in her seat as she fell asleep too. It was past Jude’s nap time.

By the time I turned to look at Anna, April had Anna cornered by the kitchen windows. Anna was pale as she shook a bit in terror.

Have I said I like this implant? I know, Kung-Fu!

As soon as I connected to the implant, it showed me what was going on quickly.

April had sent out something that got the staff to find other things away from the kitchen. Elise had full puppy syndrome and was still so exhausted she fell asleep on her own, just as Jude had done. Emily had a shield around the place in their heads that Serenity had shown me so long ago, but it was also different. This one blocked the energy going in and pulled it out of that place to make the person sleep. All three girls had a shield around that that I knew would keep them safe from anything existing on Earth, except for me. That wasn’t the thing that was causing Anna to cringe away from April in fear.

Seeing inside Anna, I found that April had drained all the energy reserves that people like me can store from Anna’s body. April had used that to turn off and then to isolate the place in Anna’s head completely. Whatever April had managed to do to Anna made Anna completely normal, including her eyes, like she wasn’t ever someone like me.

I picked up April, linked to her, felt the anger and distrust toward Anna, and said, “It’s ok, April. That is Anna. She may not be a nice person all the time, but Anna is a friend.”

“Not ok. Anna is a fibber. She lies to you, to Elise,” April told me as she looked at Anna in a way that made Anna drop to the floor and start hugging her knees.

Chrissy’s mom pried April from my arms, and I felt April relax over our link.

Anna wasn’t let free from whatever April did to her, but she wasn’t cringing in fear anymore.

“April, dear sweet girl, Anna is no threat to you or anyone here. Anna works for friends of mine. David is the only person in this world that Anna trusts and calls a friend. Even if someone ordered her to hurt any of David’s friends or family, she won’t. She can’t,” Chrissy’s mom said.

To me, she said, “We started to have this talk but were interrupted. I didn’t know April would react to Anna like this. She hasn’t done this when Steve, Jane, or others like you have come around her.”

“Anna is a naughty person. Anna is in a special timeout until I say she is not. Tandra is April’s friend. Riley is April’s friend too. They come to see Day-id for his birthday. She fibbed to Tandra to make Riley become like Day-id. Now Anna is a girl like Chrissy, Bambi, and Becky till after her timeout,” April told Chrissy’s mother. “She won’t take Aunt Elise away until Day-id says.”

In her defense, Anna said, “It didn’t hurt Riley. If David will remember, he knows that too. She would have died in the chamber otherwise.”

April replied back, “Don’t care. You did not ask Riley. Made Tandra cry when Riley told her what happened.”

Chrissy’s mom told Anna, “I guess that means you are staying at my house until April lets you out of time out. It seems that you have a lot of work to fix up your mess. I have plenty of tissues. You do need to make sure you don’t do anything that makes April mad at you. Don’t let David’s dick get near you, at least without it being in a rubber, unless you want to have his child. That isn’t one you can make go away, and I’m pretty sure you will be miserable all nine months. But your issues with April have nothing at all to do with you, Anna. I came here to talk to David.”

When she put April down, April went to Anna, gave Anna a quick hug, ran to get her a pair of sunglasses, and then told her, “Go back to Chrissy’s house, swim, take a bath, and play with Chrissy’s big girl toys like a regular girl. Bart won’t put a baby in your tummy. Stay inside until after dinner.”

Can Anna ever remember how it was before she was hit by lightning?

“Ok,” Anna said, sounding like a little girl.

Chrissy’s mom sat with Emily while I got Elise back to bed. April crawled up in bed with Elise to take a nap. Once I had Emily and Jude in bed, I headed next door with Chrissy’s mom. Anna was sitting on the path that goes around the side of Chrissy’s house, crying. For once, I got told not to get involved.

We had just gotten inside when I felt a storm come out of nowhere. Lightning hit twice right outside the house and then started striking away from us before coming back toward us again. Anna ran into the house, looking like a drowned rat covered in its piss and shit. She started to run into my arms but soon turned to run upstairs.

“It seems that Riley and Tandra found Anna,” I joked. “I hope Bart doesn’t mind Anna borrowing some of his clothes. He is the only one close enough to her size. She won’t dare try to go to my house now to find some clothes.”

Once in the study, Chrissy’s mom said, “That is a fascinating new development with April. We’ve had specialists come in that have scanned her using their unique talents. Not one of them can find anything different about her than with any other girl her age. One of those that came can sense someone with power near her when you are in the area but not pinpoint you. Anna is part of a group that takes funding and guidance from one of the families. I didn’t know she was even coming here for your birthday. I only found out because she had to check in to let me know she was in the area. I came over for a different reason altogether. I didn’t get to tell you something essential. Agent thirty-six, Amelia, and Analise, Deidre’s sister, both work for me. The other women you saved on that island are part of different teams that work for other families. Before I ever got to know you, Amelia was the only one I’ve ever entirely trusted in my life. That includes anyone in my family. We both understand that no one who doesn’t know can learn what you’ve become, but I can’t keep it from her that you and Darren are one and the same. Mr. Smith is.”

Before she could say a word, I felt the android that walked in was the man-in-the-machine himself, or most of his consciousness. He walked in, took a seat, and acted like he owned the place.

“Happy Birthday, David. I heard you had a lot of friends coming to hang out, so I thought I would invite myself,” he told me.

To Chrissy’s mom, he said, “Before you make that connection for Amelia, I’m willing to fall on that blade of deception for you as I was involved in getting David to that island for reasons of my own. I got him to the resort with the group of families you seek to reconcile with after last year’s change in family dynamics. David may be what man has defined as a god over the millennia, but I chose who made it out of that conference room alive and who perished. I wish I could say that I caused that catastrophe, but that was an entirely unexpected sequence of events. While you may suspect something about me, I will confirm one thing that has continued to puzzle you regarding that matter and others regarding David, which you’ve found is impossible. You will stop trying to do anything that would put David, his family, April, or her eight identical sisters in jeopardy, except for hair color. There are no methods that exist that will allow you to find the answers you seek. Just leave it alone, as you cannot comprehend the triviality of their existence compared to the catalyst for them. If you can’t accept me at my word, which I have no expectations that you will, do you ever want to get April pissed off at you? Now before we address Darren and David with Amelia, I get to blow your mind. I’ve got vast resources, and I’m unable to locate any traces of the weapons David used to go pick up April or any of the aircraft he took to the International Space Station twice. The pizza was still piping hot when he took some guests there for his first visit.”

“Fuck! I was sure that was some video and downstream injection hacking,” Chrissy’s mom said. “My group has developed some technology unknown to others outside of our group, but nothing that has that capability. I guess I will have to accept that many factors in play aren’t meant for us to comprehend. David and April fall into that category. Since you offered, I will gladly allow you to explain matters to Amelia, even if that means I will owe you. I know that there is nothing I can offer you that you will ever find you need.”

They talked for a few minutes before she called Amelia to her study.

“I know how devastated Darren’s death was for you. I need to have you meet two very special people. The first is Mr. Smith. He isn’t Darren, but Darren came to exist because of him. The other is my neighbor, David. I will let Mr. Smith explain things,” Chrissy’s mom said as Amelia’s eyes were going between Mr. Smith and me.

The man-in-the-machine began explaining, “Agent thirty-six. Darren looks like David and me because that was what was needed to address my needs. At that time, I required assistance from someone having a similar appearance to my own when younger. David happened to be getting paid an obscene amount of money by a black-ops group. They needed him to go to a location and be a kid, as simple as that. He met my requirements, and things fell into place to do what I needed from him, along with still allowing him to complete his original mission objectives. Your boss cannot go into the details without having you killed regarding how David came to possess the unique skills he demonstrated. What began as a minor deception exploded into a major complication. The Darren you knew was always David under a cover identity never meant to exist more than a month. Darren’s death was nothing more than a coincidence. As I had done with David, I located someone similar to David to be David or Darren when the situation required it. Shed no tears of loss for the man who died that day. Each day he awoke was another day he wouldn’t have had without my intervention. Standing in for David or Darren was his reason to continue living. If you think back on your interactions with David, you will find that he only answered another name but was careful not to lie to you or others. He chose his words carefully.”