Skin Deep III - Chapter 7 - In The Spider's Web free porn video

Chapter 7 In The Spider's Web Along Came The Spider Brad Loudon watched through the one-way viewing wall of the small room where Michelle had been brought a few hours after regaining consciousness from her encounter with a Dunlap's F-Tazor. Her hands were secured to a brushed-stainless steel table by electrostatic manacles that were held in place by a powerful magnet on the underside of the table. Michelle's legs were secured to the floor with heavy steel cuffs that were chained to the floor. He could have opted for electro static cuffs where her feet were concerned, but when the option presented itself, he believed the physical sensation of something very real on her body, apart from her mask, would help her understand her dire position. He had what he had come to Rouston for. Well most of what he had come for anyway. He had originally believed it would be enough to keep the hot heads in Washington off his back for a month. He had accomplished that which no one else had been able to. He had given the Congressional Covert Intelligence Committee a chance to redeem them selves. Loudon also knew that this would be a feather the future of Senator Hill's Presidential aspirations. Hill chaired the committee. Hell, he founded the God damn thing, taking it over from what had once been the organization called The Shop. He had the project firmly in the grip of his sweaty, ancient fingers with no intension of letting go of it. When Loudon had reported to the small band of six men that, laughingly, over saw his operations, each had been ecstatic. They wanted to know when the woman would be transferred back to the facility in Virginia for processing and dissemination. It seemed they wanted their prize now! This was an unacceptable situation for Brad Loudon, she was his prize and had nearly argued as much. The committee was unsympathetic. They wanted Michelle brought back, so Loudon changed his tactics. He then told them that there were still two at large and that those two didn't include the youngest daughter and the other Halfling grandchildren. Loudon would remain with the woman and her son-in-law for three days. If they could not find the others he would have the woman transported back for examination. He believed that Michelle could tell him where the remaining members of her family were. He believed that she could, and if properly motivated, would tell them who had infiltrated their operation and rescued her husband and daughter. He would need her here to facilitate that information. The committee agreed. Loudon had his three days. Now as he watched he was beginning to understand that something larger was at play here. Michelle was one tough nut to crack. She gave no information at all. It didn't' seemed to matter that the cuffs on her wrists were designed to inflict horribly painful burns to the flesh of her wrists, the promise of possible release from the cuffs held no sway over the woman. At least they had done nothing yet to do so. Chemical agents were ineffective. Her body's advanced metabolism was able to counteract the substance rapidly. The sun outside had set on his first night with the woman in custody and while in pain, tortured by the mask on her head and terribly frightened, she gave nothing. It could be she has nothing to give... You have to consider that. Loudon blew the thought off as a ridiculous notion. No one could remain as elusive as the Shipley's had been by pure dumb luck. He believed every side-step, every move; every disappearance had been deliberately planned. He also believed that the Shipley's had been aware they were being tracked and exactly when and where attempts to apprehend them would come from. His incredible ego could not accept that his best efforts had been thwarted by chance and nothing more. Loudon suspected a priority leak of information somewhere deep inside the leadership of the country's hierarchy. The rescue attempt proved that. Oh, there was no doubt about it, the Shipley's had friends in high places and it was going to become his mission to find them and feed them one by one, feet first into the meat grinder. He had to find that leak. It was damaging his efforts and his reputation. Still, the woman was responding to questions with the hopelessness of someone that had no knowledge of what they were asking. Loudon patted this left breast coat pocket. He could feel the narrow electronic device hidden within under his hand. He shook his head against the idea that formed from the knowledge that he alone held the power to remove that mask from her head. Until an hour ago, it had been locked in a removable safe in the wall in his office. The safe itself followed him to each and every station he assumed control of. The device in his pocket held a long forgotten spoken code. It was this device alone that could achieve freedom for the woman in the mask. "Patience Brad..." he said to himself. The mask would do the job eventually. Eventually however, that could be too late. By then, any information she had to give would be useless. In a few hours they will have all moved on and she really will know nothing. The encoding needle had not left its place in the safe for over 40 years. It had remained there after Loudon had programmed it in a fit of anger over spending years and years tracking down people that had no business slipping away from government hands the way they had. Loudon had decided that this would be the woman's eternal punishment for running from him. He would have this thing put on her and left on her. His intention had been to dispose of the device once he had her and her daughter tightly sealed inside of it. She would go insane inside its tight confines, alone with her thoughts of life, freedom, her husband and freak family, mute and isolated in a body that wouldn't even offer release through death. And when her mind was gone, he would then, in time he would introduce her to the reaper himself. Her head still locked in that horrid black rock. Perhaps it would follow her to eternity. My, my, that's a pleasant thought... Loudon smiled. She'll love me for that. Just when she believes she'll never escape, I'll send her to Hell in that thing and she'll love me before she dies. Now, Loudon considered breaking that promise he had made to himself. Offering her an olive branch in exchange for the information he needed. He could offer to remove the mask if she cooperated, could even remove it first. He could always have her tranquilized and the mask put back on immediately after she gave him what he wanted. Then he could throw the coding needle away in good conscience. Reality was that promises of freedom were merely a tool to be used. It in no way created a moral quandary for Loudon to fail to honor such promises. She belonged to the government. She had always been government property, from the very time she had put that SKIN on, she had been government contraband. A small part of him was grateful he had not allowed his hot headed nature to prevail. At least he still has something to leverage with, whether he chose to use it or not. Time was running out here. He would be expected to transport his prize and relinquish control of it to higher authorities. On his own for so long with autonomist power, he was having trouble with the idea that at the end of the day two days from now, he would have no choice but to hand over the thing he had spent his entire life chasing. He wanted all of them in his pocket. The powers above him were happy to have the one example of the original SCIN template. They would make due. It begged the question however, what would Loudon do? Probably return to the field, which to Loudon sounded too much like, put out to pasture. No, this was his only chance to seal the deal. He wanted them all. Then retirement wouldn't be a torturous nagging reminder of failure. He could turn the program over without shame. Eleven hours after her capture, Michelle had been given no water, no food, nothing. He hoped that thirst would eventually drive her tell them. The gag locked so completely in her mouth offered her only dry air. A filter, locked hopelessly into the small hole in the face of the mask prevented anything else from entering her mouth. This device had been placed in the face of the mask as she had lay on the floor of her cell after the F-Tazor blast Dunlap had administered. Loudon had cautioned against such action but had not reprimanded the man. It was going to be hard enough to sanction the man when they returned to Virginia. He didn't need Charlie getting overly suspicious with Loudon's displeasure at the way the entire operation had been handled. Loudon would handle the woman from now on. Charlie's detail would be to try to track down the remaining members of the family. Not that Loudon had any great confidence that they would be found now. The greatest hope Loudon felt they had sat on the opposite side of the viewing screen before him, and so far, she wasn't talking. She was uncomfortable; he could sense that from her body language. She fidgeted, twisting her wrists about within the blue/white arch that bound each hand to the surface of the table. Her arms were extended nearly to their limits. This put strain on her shoulders and her chest as she was unable to lean forward from the restraint strapped around her waist that was bolted to the chair in which she sat. Loudon watched as Michelle, now alone in the room, tried to recover from the last round of what amounted to nothing more than badgering questions. He watched her mannerisms. He watched quietly as she tired intermittently to free her hands from the electrostatic cuffs anchored to the table. When the pain became too much she relented to the reality that her hands were caught there. At times she would try to reach the restrictive helmet on her head, bending forward as far as she could so that her hands might grip the thing, either to adjust it or attempt another futile effort to remove it. After each ineffective attempt to free some part of her, she would seem to rest, gathering herself and her thoughts for yet another round of struggles. She's tenacious, I'll give her that. Loudon thought to himself with an amused chuckle. The only thing that was certain from the way she held herself was that Michelle Shipley, previously known as Mike Vello was frightened out of her mind. Loudon leaned over to a small panel on the wall next to the viewing screen. "Send in the Geek, see if he can get something from her, anything. If he can't, then we're going have to try to motivate her some other way to get what we need." A few minutes passed when the man, known as the "Geek" entered the room wearing a clean white lab coat, thick black rimmed glasses and an expression that looked like it had been created in the green room of some Hollywood production company. The seriousness of his expression was almost laughable. Loudon noticed something remarkable about the woman's demeanor when the Geek came in. She straightened her posture, composed her body language and seemed to be positively comfortable and in charge. He could hear the conversation between the annoying little man and what soft moans of discomfort, conformational hums and other noises that emanated from behind the rock solid shield the woman was trapped in. They could hear nothing from Loudon, not that he had much to say. The Geek, carried an electronic clipboard. The device was wirelessly connected to a processing unit that contained all the information on known Skinners. In its current configuration, it displayed a set of standard questions used to gather demographic information by low level employees, administrators and the like, who were deemed to be perceived by detainees as less threatening and more apt to begin the information exchange. It also controlled a display that presently sprung to life on the window that looked into the room. The small 16x16 display would show everything that the woman wrote with her wax pencil that Loudon knew the Geek carried in his lab coat pocket. It would also record the data in electronic format, not images, but raw electronic data, interpreted, translated into binary format and stored for use later. This sort of technique often led to an emotional release from prisoners who, at the time, were too frightened to give information willingly. The seemingly innocuous questions and the information that often followed put the interviewee at ease in a lot of cases and facilitated the release of more detailed information later. Loudon watched with a great sense of satisfaction as she looked about as best she could but her vision was distorted by the lenses on the mask she was locked in. The room had a fisheye appearance to it, with the components of the room stretched and distorted the further into her peripheral vision progressed. He knew what she was seeing. He had peered out of the lenses of one of these specialized masks once before. He had wanted to know if someone inside its grip could reorient themselves enough to coherently manage to escape from custody. Not that escape mattered. The sadist hood had been adopted because there was no way humanly possible to remove it without the specific pass phrase, spoken by the person who had set it in the hood's memory. Even if someone got away, they would be stuck inside the mask until they sought help from those that had put it on them. Even this point was moot. The distortion of the prisoner's vision was of such that too much visual stimuli would usually cause motion sickness. You didn't want to through up with a hood locked on your head. Most who did, didn't survive the experience. After regaining consciousness and regaining her perception of reality she had spent three hours trying to rid herself of the thing that so completely covered her entire head. The thing was almost painfully tight. At the end of that three hour period, she came to the conclusion that the man in the HOV that had put it on her had been correct. It was not coming off. Loudon could almost imagine what she had gone through after waking. He had watched from his office on monitors that were strategically placed about the top floor of the building as she fought to free herself from the hideous thing on her. For Michelle's part, she was doing well concentrating on her current situation considering her level of discomfort from her restraints. He had watched her before being brought here as she moved around her cell after walking from the mighty shock Dunlap had given her. The level of vision distortion was plain to see just watching her. Even considering that the cell was nearly completely free of obstacles save for a toilet and a metal block against the wall that she assumed was a cot. Things seemed either closer or further away than they really were depending on where in her field of vision they appeared. The collar formed a tight seal around her neck that impaired her breathing somewhat. Moving around too much depleted her oxygen levels to the point where she tired easily. She found she would have to stop right were she was and catch her breath. The thing had no discernable locks or latches. Her fingers found nothing that felt like a seam, a catch point or a place where the device might open up. Loudon knew she would feel as if it was entirely one piece. If it didn't have an alternate opening, she would never be able to squeeze her head through the hole provided for her neck. That information alone would have been enough to completely overwhelm the thought process of most people, let alone an average female. Loudon had to remind himself that the woman in that room there was no ordinary female. Quite the contrary, she had been more adept at avoiding capture than most agents with vastly greater training. Even crying had been an insufferable torture. With no place for the tears to escape, they only tickled the flesh of her cheeks as the moisture spread within the mask over her face. She had sat down on the great stainless steel block that would be her bed for the next two nights and had wept, cradling her imprisoned head. Her fingers randomly continued to search the device with half hearted effort, but still unable to accept that this was most likely the final state of her life. This intermittent dance was allowed to go on for two hours after waking and before being brought here. Loudon felt confident in the idea that she wouldn't be able to help but be terrified at the idea that their intent was to keep this thing on her head for the duration of her internment. When he left his office once she had been taken away to the interrogation sector, he was certain that Michelle was now finding immortality as the worst kind of fate she could begin to think of. In an instant, life as Michelle Shipley was deteriorated to the worst nightmarish horror she could have ever imagined. The Geek, whose real name was Adam Wexler, had given her a soft wax pencil with which to write the answers to questions she could not answer with a nod or shake of her head. For the first ten minutes she steadfastly refused to cooperate. Each time the writing implement was put within her grasp, she would flick it away across the table. Each time Wexler focused on her, she would do her best to offer the distorted image of the squat, bald, ugly little man her best defiant gaze. Loudon hated wasting time with this segment of the questioning. The questions were stupid and pointless and Loudon could tell even with the mask hiding her facial expression that Michelle felt the same way. Things they mostly already had the answers to. They wanted only confirmation of their facts and testimony as to why some of their efforts had not been successful in capturing them sooner. Every so often she would stop and close her eyes. Loudon believed he knew what she was doing. She was praying. He didn't know what about, but he could guess. It brought to mind the conversation he and Dunlap had engaged in, the one where Charlie had asked if he believed in God. A chill ran down Loudon's back at the idea of it, and for just a brief moment, he considered setting the woman free. Something important seemed to drive the idea deep into his head where it seemed all important that he do this thing and then go into hiding himself. Trying to define what that thing was seemed impossible however. Now is the time of your undoing... The voice in his head was his own, but why had it chosen those words to throw at him. There was a very real dread associated with them though; one he felt he would not be able to escape. With a growl of distaste, Loudon shook the feeling off as best he could, but from that point forward, he would never completely escape the feeling that he had just missed his best last opportunity to save himself from what lay waiting to pounce on him. Loudon tried to focus on the moment again and was brought back to reality by the sound of a sharp metallic tapping through the sound system from the other room. Michelle's prayers were often interrupted by a sharp metallic rapping on the table surface of the table. When she opened her eyes, the wax pencil would be back with in reach and the bald little man with the fat thick glasses would be administering more questions. "What year did you..." "When did you realize that you were..." "Did you volunteer to ..." "Did you know..." "Did you try..." "Why didn't you..." Why..." "Why! WHY? WHY?" Michelle wrote nothing down, she had signified yes by nodded her head or, for the majority of the questions, indicated no by shaking her head. Eventually, she began to refuse to continue. The game with Wexler had played out as far as it was going to. It was now time for him to finally meet the woman that had vexed him all this time. When Loudon entered the room, Wexler seemed startled to the point of being upset. Loudon knew that the prissy little man hated him. It was the only fact about Wexler that Loudon felt he could ever like about the man. She didn't stop until the door with no handle behind her clicked and swung open. She could not turn to see who had entered the room. She saw only a distorted reflection in the black glass wall opposite from where she sat. There, the vague shape of a tall man with an older appearance in a black suit, with a white shirt and red tie stood reflected in the dark glass. "Agent Loudon...Sir," the puny, pudgy man with the electronic clipboard said, sounding rattled. "I was just..." "Bullshit you little rat," Loudon said contemptuously. "I've been watching while you tortured this poor woman. Get the fuck out." The fat little man scrambled up and out, using the opposite side of the table for an escape route. Loudon came into full view and parked himself at the other end of the table and sat down. He had noticed that she had made yet another conscious effort to compose herself, to seem in control, as much as anyone could hope to be under the circumstances that is. Loudon smiled, a wide genuine enough smile and watched as the expression in Michelle's eyes seemed to soften, Good, he thought. "My name is Bradley Loudon," he said taking a seat opposite from her, "I run the facility here. I'm sorry if Wexler was badgering you. We generally don't allow that type of questioning to go on without some sort of council present. I sincerely apologize." Michelle was clearly startled by his seemingly apologetic manner. "Now, we both know why you're here, so, if we can get some basic information, maybe your lawyer's name, then perhaps we can arrange to have some council present for you for the rest of your questioning." Michelle blinked, stunned. Even if she'd been able to speak, she doubted that words would have come. She considered this and then gestured to the electrostatic cuffs on her writs. Loudon smiled a sympathetic smile and said, "That I'm afraid is standard operating procedure, as much for your protection as it is for mine." Michelle rolled her eyes at the statement, then searched for the wax pencil and scrawled on the table What's this thing on my head? Loudon read as she wrote and replied. "As far as I know, those order's came from higher up. That is well beyond my pay-grade to decide. I'm sorry." Michelle shrugged as if it wasn't so much as a bother to her as it would to the interview process. "I'll tell you what though," Michelle intensified her gaze as if she were riveted on what he might say next. "If you can see your way clear to helping me out, then I'll see what I can do about getting that helmet off your head for a while. You know, help make me look good in front of my bosses." Michelle had noticed the purple badge he wore at his belt. She didn't know what purple signified, but she remembered Dr. Michaels badge had been a red badge. She knew that Michaels had been a power to be reckoned with inside his circles. She guessed that this man, Loudon was set some place much higher than the Good Doctor had ever been. Michelle wrote again, What can I possibly do to help? "You can start by giving me your real name Michelle." This caused her to pause and blink in surprise. Real name... Just how much does he really know? Before they could explore the possibility further, there was a knock on the door and another agent entered. He carried with him to drinking glasses of what looked to Michelle to be cold iced water. She could hear the ice tinkle against the side of the glass, in spite of the masks interference with sound. Each glass had a long rigid straw extended from deep within. Michelle watched, captivated as the ice danced and clacked against their kin, making a music that she felt had never sounded so sweet in all her days as a musician. Loudon took the glasses from the agent and said, "That will be all, thank you," and moved the cups from his hand to the table, just out of reach of her fingertips. Thirst gripped her viciously in its sharp talons. She had been without water since she had been put in this thing. Without the ability to control herself, she began mewing with desperation as she tried to extend her fingers to touch the closest of the two cups. She glanced up imploringly at Loudon who was smiling kindly, "Yes, there, there, I know you're thirsty." Michelle relaxed a bit, he was going to be kind to her and that was a relief. She didn't know how she would drink locked behind her mask as she was, perhaps he intended to release her so she could. Her posture began to ease as the tension against her restraints slackened. Already, the bruises on her wrists were fading into normally colored skin. Loudon smiled, "There, that's much better, isn't it?" Michelle nodded. Amazingly, her mask was so tight that her skin had already adjusted to its presence. With no slack to chafe her flesh, she almost didn't notice it anymore. That is with the exception that the flesh of her head felt stiff and rigid and she had a gag that filled the entire space in her mouth. Or the fact that she couldn't focus on anything in her field of vision, she almost didn't know it was there. "You would prefers that I call you Michelle wouldn't you?" Michelle looked up at Loudon almost in a daze. The water on the table had a powerful hold over her she could not seem to break. She made the first confirmation of information of the night by nodding, ?Yes', she would prefer that indeed. She returned her longing-full lover's gaze to the glasses of water on the table before her. "Okay then, Michelle," Loudon began, "I'm going to disengage your wrist cuffs so you can have some water." Inside her prison, she smiled gratefully. "But before I do, I need to know a few things." Her heart cracked and shattered into a thousand pieces. She understood in the blink of an eye that he would not help her. None of them would, not even so much as to taste a drink of water. This was the point when she realized that she could never tell them anything. She still might go insane, but this was her lot now. They meant to torture her until she told them everything about her life on the run. All of her struggles had been for nothing. They had only served to show them how easily it was going to be to frustrate her to a point of compliance. Worse, she understood that unlike most people, she would not die of thirst, at least not in any time frame an ordinary person would understand. Three days for most and they would expire from dehydration. She could endure unequaled suffering because of the body she lived in. Over time, she knew she would grow mad without the benefit of the relief of death. Michelle began to shake uncontrollably. "Ah, I see you've put two and two together and come up with a sum of Pi," Loudon smiled. His smile no longer seemed kindly to Michelle. She found she feared this man more than the ones that had put her in this infernal mask and then tazed her to unconsciousness. This man enjoyed his job with the sort of glee an evil child might enjoy pulling the wings off flies. She knew something else about the man suddenly as well. He was in charge of their capture and imprisonment not just the facility where she was being held. "Why don't you tell me a few things about yourself, then you and I can share a nice glass of cold ice water together and talk about the old days? Whatya say... Mike?" Michelle deflated. Even in the clutches of that bastard she had gone to see to hack into her Patch Code Transmitter so very long ago had she felt so betrayed. Not since the despair of the reality afterward that her life as Mike was over and done with forever had she ever felt this lost. It was a surprising revelation that suggested that they knew everything and were only waiting for a confirmation. Loudon read the epiphany in her eyes and said, "That's right, I know who you really are. I know about what happed in 2082, and how on March 4th of that year, you ceased to exist as Mike Vello and continued as a reproduction of our master engineer's wife." Michelle now motioned to flick the wax pencil off the table as she had during Wexler's failed interview when Loudon covered her hand with his and said, "If you treat me with the disrespect you showed Dr. Wexler, then I can guarantee you that this will be the last water you see for the remainder of your miserable freakish life, which will be considerably long, let me assure you of that." Well, that didn't take long... Michelle thought as she watched Loudon change like some horrible Jeckle and Hyde agent from a bad horror show. His tone was surprisingly light, filled with good humor as if they had been friends since childhood. It also had a distinct quality of honesty to it. She could tell he meant every word he said. She nodded her agreement. Loudon slapped his knees gregariously and announced, "Great!" He eyed her knowingly and added in a sly tone, "You won't regret this," with a huge smile pasted across his devilish face. "The table has the ability to sense and record changes in the surface texture. Since this will be on the record, I need you to write out your full name..." he paused for just a second; then added, "The one you were born with Mike, in case there was any confusion about that." She fumbled trying to pick up the wax pencil for a moment when Loudon helped her, "My lady," he mocked and smiled, handing her the pencil. Michelle wrote as best she could, My name is Michelle Shipley. She set the pencil down and waited for the next question quietly. Loudon had a look of resigned disappointment on his face. "Mike, come on. You don't want things to get ugly here. Your female body is no match for the suffering I can subject you to. You're at a clear disadvantage here if you hadn't noticed." Michelle picked up the pencil as Loudon watched carefully, Take this mask off me and we'll talk. Loudon pressed his lips together tightly and drew a deep breath, "Sorry Mike, no can do. I'm afraid that your days of showing off your pretty face are over. You couldn't get the Supreme Court to order me to get you out of that mask. At this point you're facing a life sentence in there with no possibility of parole." Michelle angrily started scribbling again on the table's surface, Don't call me that! My name is Michelle. I don't know anyone named Mike. "Why are you doing this?" Loudon seemed genuinely puzzled. "Don't you understand what I have the power to do? You have no idea what you're life is going to be like with me in control of it. You can't forestall us any longer, I simply don't have the time for it. This thing would never have turned out like this if you hadn't have taken our God Damned program from us in the FIRST FUCKING PLACE!" Loudon's bellowing caught Michelle off guard and she tried her best to retreat from him, but her restraints held her firmly in place. Cautiously, she picked up the pencil again. She had used all the available space she had written on because of her inability to move. She used her fingers to clear a spot as best she could, careful to leave her name undisturbed. Oh, that Mike! I hear he was crazy. But I didn't take anything from you, EVER!!! Loudon was the one who was frustrated now. He pulled his hand over his face and then slammed his hands down on the table. Then a strange calm seemed to wash over him, "Okay then, Mike. We have your son's little friend upstairs too, but I'm sure you know that. Won't it be just a God damned shame when I tell him he's going to be tortured because you wouldn't cooperate?" Michelle wiped furiously at the table, then wrote, Your problem is with me. Leave Randy out of this. "Can't do that sweet heart," Loudon said sorrowfully. "I believe that as soon as he see's you suffering, he'll even give us the location of his own wife. You remember her don't you, your son, William?" Loudon wiped away everything Michelle had written and angrily shoved the wax pencil back into her delicate fingers, jamming two of them painfully back into her hand. Michelle yelped in pain and dropped the pencil on the table where Loudon picked it up and put it back, locking her fingers around it with his. "One more chance, I'll even keep my offer of water on the table for you. But this is the last chance bitch!" For a moment Michelle only stared at him. She held her eyes motionless and Loudon found he could not read what was behind them as he had hoped he would. John Rainbird, you lying fuck, he thought to himself. Deep within the armored covering locked so severely over her head, she began to feel outrage at the horrific treatment her family had been subjected to. Right now they should be commiserating the loss of her daughter. Each of them should be sharing those pleasant memories of the life she had shared with them. They should be allowed to grieve for their loss and the love they would never again communicate to Erin. She and Gary should be together at this time. She should be with her daughters. Time and these people had forced their separation a long time ago and now they had swooped down like vultures and were feeding on the remains of their lives. Her eyes narrowed behind the thick fish-eye lenses. For the first time she could see clearly the face of the man opposite her. It no longer mattered that she would never speak again, or feel the cool breeze off the Atlantic on her face on a hot, sunny after noon. She was filled with hate. She resolved herself to be strong, as Erin would be, and give them nothing. Pain and fear no longer existed for her. She had found a point of uneasy peace within herself and she resolved to stay there. When she began to write, Loudon could not have been more surprised to see what she had written when she'd finished. My name is Michelle Shipley, you prick! Go someplace else if you want to jerk yourself off. When he looked up again, he could tell that behind her mask, the woman before him was smiling. Judge Houston Perry stood in the office chambers that lay just off the Bench where he had presided as a Pennsylvania State Circuit Judge for the last 24 years. A great empty transparent box sat on the table before him. This room was festooned with aging framed images of dignitaries young and old from almost every corner of the world. There were framed printed interviews, printed copies of E-Zine articles complete with his blustering, hardened image looming down from where he had presided for so long. Two more days and he was out. Not that he had any further responsibilities to the court or the state now. Most of his calendar had been shifted to his replacement, though not officially sworn in. Rulings would be signed by Perry until the ceremony. The decisions themselves however, would be made however by incoming Judge Pussy. That wasn't really his name, but it made the Houston chuckle to thing of Judge Percy Hammond as Judge Pussy. To say that there was no love loss between the two men was a most profound understatement. It might be akin to telling a stranger on the street, Are you aware Sir, that there is no air in the vacuous confines of outer space? as if that that information had been previously unknown to mankind. Really, one might think initially, then inevitably followed by the thought, what a dumb ass. For the entirety of his career he was seen by the public that had elected him as a guardian angel. By lawmakers, he had been seen as a threat to their ability to control an exponentially growing population that was becoming more and more dissatisfied with the mounting restrictions placed upon them for their own good. He recognized that fear had driven almost every political decision since the Sharp Administration. But even Marcus Sharp had not so tampered with the Constitution and the rights granted under it as had the so called Congress of the Federal states. This fear had turned inward after President Sharp's lengthy term in office, focusing on the American public as the source of the next threat to the power of the Government. Perry disagreed with the Federalists as they struggled to quietly revoke some of the most basic rights granted under the Constitution. His tactic was to fight publicly against what he saw as infringements on Constitutional Entitlements such as speech, assembly, the right to own property and the right to protest the actions of the government. He turned each and every covert Constitutional challenge into a media circus by putting those challenges on trial for the public to see. As a result, the people of the State of Pennsylvania responded by electing lawmakers that were more conservative to state law versus federal law, further frustrating the Federal Government. He had survived one attempt on his life; an event that had been caught on WR scanner and broadcast live around the world. This one event had polarized the discontent among the American public in such a way that the new and rising fear in the seat of Government was that Americans would rise up and attempt a revolt. Further fears that the assassination attempt had solidified the man's support for an office of higher authority however, were never realized. No official finding for the origin of the attempt was ever published, gee, go figure, leading many to speculate that the Feds had their hands deeply mired in the mess. No further attempts were made and Perry's national popularity cooled. With it, any hope of assuming a higher office. Official policy on Perry was, "Better the enemy you know than the enemy you have yet to meet." Rather than release the man's full potential, he was allowed to remain in his position, alive and make his limited impact rulings on behalf of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It wasn't like he would live forever anyway, even if he did, he couldn't serve forever. It didn't mean that the Federalies hands were tied all together. With Perry's term expiring permanently, the man "elected" to replace him was a well known Federal lackey. Not that Perry felt Hammond was all bad, he just wasn't aware of any redeeming qualities the man possessed. Perry felt with time and patience, Hammond could be persuaded to see reality. Perry had neither to offer Hammond. The pendulum would now swing to the left, and maybe it was all together fitting that it did so. Perhaps the world had changed so much now that his views of freedom, human rights and politics were completely antiquated. One thing Perry was confident about however was that the pendulum would probably never stop swinging. If it did, he knew it would fall to the center of the two extremes, the halfway point where most people met head to head on almost everything anyway. He had done his job. It was now time to let go and let nature swing things back the other way. Houston reached up and removed the first of the framed images, citations and articles off the wall. It was a truly symbolic moment for Perry. It was the act of swinging the door closed on this life. The act left him feeling melancholy for everything that had transpired both in this room and the public courtroom just outside his door. Perry inhaled deeply and then exhaled in a heavy resigned breath. Hammond wanted to begin moving his things in tomorrow. Houston Perry had already taken longer to move out than most of his contemporaries. Under pressure from the Governor, he had agreed to let Hammond listen and rule on his remaining cases for his final two weeks in office. Now, as Judge Perry removed his Doctorate Certificate of Law, Percy Hammond burst through the door, "What in the Hell is this Perry?" "Percy, how nice to see you," Perry said cordially, working hard not to show his lack of respect for this man or his bad manners, "Come on in, don't stand on ceremony." "Just answer the question," Percy shoved static legal tablet into Houston's face angrily and waited indignantly for an answer. Perry put his glasses on and examined the tablet. Without looking up, Houston said, "It's a legal decision," he handed back to Hammond and continued speaking as he returned to his task of collecting his things. "Frankly Percy, I'm a little concerned that you didn't know that, being so close to taking the oath of office and all..." "Don't be a smart ass Houston. You know perfectly well what I'm referring to. Do you want to explain the changes you've made, or were you going to just let this go and hope I wouldn't notice?" "I choose option B I think, but since you have seen it then I'll be happy to tell you what I was thinking when I amended it..." "I'm not interested in what you were thinking. This was my decision. It was to stand as I decided based on what I believed was in the best interest of everyone. Now," Hammond warned, "you're going to sign the original decision and submit it to me..." Judge Perry lowered his head and peered out over his black rimmed glasses scolding him with intense, wise eyes. "Look, Percy... I know you're eager to make your mark. But this wasn't a case of financial penalty; it was a case of personal property rights. The way I see it, Thompson doesn't owe the State anything, he owns the property the improvements performed were built on. There was no ecological damage, there was no financial loss to the State as a result of the construction, it didn't interfere..." Percy began to rattle off the loose constraints of a ridiculous statue designed to pick the pocket of land holding citizens, "And the current law states that anyone performing modifications to privately held land will pay to have an ecological impact study performed to assess the nature of any possible negative..." "Will you listen to yourself? He built a swimming pool in his back yard for God's sake!" Hammond continued. "What about the Historic Impact Study? He was building on land that was once a National Battlefield. What if he..." "The house on the property is three years old, the previous study is probably still good, not to mention that the entire state is a fucking battlefield! We've had more battles here than most of the world sees in a thousand years! That seems a poor excuse to tax people to the extent of their incomes." Perry placed his Doctorate deliberately in the box on the table and then advanced on Hammond, "You would have people pay for that stupid study every time someone wanted to move a rock or rake they're yard. That law was never intended to be a source of revenue for the State of Pennsylvania Percy. It's in place to prevent developers from plowing over sights that have potential historic value to the public." "That's not the way I interpret it," Percy fired back. Houston locked eye to eye with Percy Hammond for a moment scrutinizing him carefully. He then turned and retrieved his Doctorate Certificate from the box. "That's exactly what worries me, Pussy." "It's Percy," insisted Hammond. "Yeah, I know." "What are you doing?" Percy asked, sounding a little concerned. "I'm putting my stuff back. I've decided that the people of Pennsylvania need protection from you for as long as I can provide it." Percy was beside himself with anger, "You can't do that, we had an agreement! You're starting to piss me off Perry." "Yeah, well," Houston Perry turned and grinned at Percy Hammond and said, "the truth is, that's what I do..." Night descended on America for the last time on March 3rd, 2261. The nation Of the People, By the People and For the People was 484 years old. It had long endured the upheavals of time and society. It was already dying from the inside out. Most of southern New York State, northern Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio west to Cleveland, Akron and Canton now lay silent, bereft of most of the life that had lived there only days before. To this point in time, not even the most devastating extinction events in recent times had killed or displaced so many people and animals. If there had been time to study it, man would have had to have looked back more than 10,000 years to the last ice age to find as much ecological damage. Even then, the devastation had taken thousands of years to complete. The biggest player in this event had not yet made his appearance on the world stage. The Boogeyman had sought shelter in the maze of sewers that networked below the western part of Rouston. He was but a pale shell a human being. His right arm was gone from the elbow. One eye hung loosely on his right cheek while his left had only limited functionality. He was half blind at this point anyway. He was only vaguely aware that his jaw had come unhinged. If he moved it, it would have more than likely fallen completely off. He had no one to speak to anyway. The occupants of the sewers, human and vermin alike were all dead. It had not taken long for The Vulture to spread below the drafty tunnels of the Rouston underground. In fact, it was well into the high-speed magnetic rail train system that ran just above the sanitation city's system. The alerts of manually controlled trains, barreling through transport stations without stopping were flooding the city's transit offices a thousand at an hour. In six stations, everyone waiting there dropped dead suddenly as one train sped through each station unimpeded, carrying with it the draft from the maze of tunnels beneath it. No one that had gone in to rescue survivors had returned to the surface. Police robot scouts with WR cameras revealed that there were not only no survivors in two stations, but apparently no victims either. What was surprising was the idea that someone had seemed to leave their laundry lying about all over the rail platform. Reports of people dissolving near sewer grates and manhole covers where beginning to filter in. If it had been daylight outside, the reports would have completely overwhelmed police and rescue workers as thousands an hour vanished into puddles of liquid human byproduct. As it was, the wind from the storm was enough to dissipate the deadly contagion and slow its progress for the moment. Still, those sleeping with windows open would never know what had hit them. These were the lucky ones, those that died in their sleep without ever experiencing the sensation of complete physical discorporation cell by cell. It was the storm in fact that, combined with the cover of night and the weather outside, kept most people above ground indoors and temporarily away from becoming exposed. If the streets had not had already been unnaturally quiet, the exodus that had been started north of there would have begun in earnest in Rouston as well. The Boogeyman had brought the trooper's HOV he had commandeered down in an ancient apple orchard, long since abandon and found refuge in a large culvert on the edge of a small rural pond. From where he stood, he had seen the lights of Rouston. They had been what had drawn him here. Visible from the air, it had been the only beacon he had been able to use in the end as a NAV aid. He had to get to that place. There would be warmth there, food maybe a hospital like the one where he had come from... His thoughts were not as organized as that. If anyone else had been able to see them, they would have been barely recognizable representations of the most basic needs. His lust for revenge was completely gone. He wanted someone to help him feel better. He was sad and scared. Worse than anything, he was cold. His thoughts and ideas were transparent thoughts of a time, and kindness offered by now unrecognized faces that teased his mind with barest recollections of what life had once been like. He wanted to stop and cry. He wanted to cry like a little baby, so someone would find him and feel sorry for him and help him. He had no idea that would never happen. By noon tomorrow, he would be dead and his suffering would be over. It might have helped him to slip away sooner, to know his pain would be over soon. There was, however, no way for the Boogeyman to know that. There wasn't even hope that death would come. He believed he would just go on like this until the end of time. The rain was torturous, the sun, had it been shining would have been excruciating. The culvert in comparison seemed peaceful. There was nothing threatening about it. He was death. In the tunnels had once been a vast city. Most might not have recognized it as such, but it was a city none the less. Here the inhabitants stole power, tapped into fresh water lines, had store houses of discarded items for sale or theft. Cubbies, and passageway carved out of the brick, rock and earth became houses for entire families. Those strong enough to defend what they had built or stolen were allowed to keep it, until someone with greater might took it. No one built or dug too fancy a home, someone bigger and stronger would soon come to take it from you, leaving you to start again or worse, dead. The cycle here was as predictable as any other. You build, you lose, you steal, you lose, you build again, over and over and over until the only thing you know to do is to move on to the next step in the cycle. The first resident The Boogeyman met of the culvert system known as the Big Open was a man known only as Shade. Even Shade didn't know if that had been his original name, nor did he care. Shade had staked a spot about 500 yards in to the Big Open. His purpose was to beat and rob anyone who entered the pipe west of town. He had no idea of the value of money, only that people deeper in the system used it and he could trade cards, chips, bank verification displays to some of those Within for food. Shade had simply walked up to confront the Boogeyman as he would anyone that entered the culvert. In the pond outside, there were at least eight bodies of people Shade had confronted in the last eight months. Three of them were a group of pre-teenage boys that had come here just last week pretending to have found a pirate cave. Shade never got close enough to see who had wandered in. The infectious cloud that constantly surrounded the Boogeyman was caught by a light breeze from outside. The gentle wind raced down the culvert, carrying with it a disease as deadly as any acid ever invented. Shade had time to scream in utter pain as his flesh began to dissolve, turn, take a step and fall into the narrow waste water stream that fed the pond outside. Which is where the liquid remains of Shade ended up a few moments later, forever interred with his last eight victims for company. For the better part of an hour, as the Boogeyman made his way deeper into the subterranean city, the screaming continued. His curse traveled easily on the putrid breezes that most are unaware even exist, moving silently about to find and feed on every living thing. The screams mattered little to the Boogeyman; his ears had not worked for hours. He was confined to a soundless, nearly sightless world that no longer wanted to know that beings such as he even existed. At length he found a place to die. A small cubby, covered with a stained, threadbare piece of fabric meant to offer some privacy to the people that had hung it here. Inside there was a small, blue bubble lamp. This and a small two inch WR were spliced to a power hub that delivered stolen electricity from a union station in the soil at the back of the small, dugout shelter. There were other things, a pair of children's pants, a pile of soiled and torn adult clothes, wads of paper, metal rods, and a flat tarnished, metal disk with the profile of some unknown man on one side and a large bird on the other that had lost its silvery luster centuries ago. Whoever had lived here was gone, probably recently gone. Among the useless clutter there were the bleached white bones of some long forgotten meal, scavenged from who knows where. These were so old and so cooked that even The Vulture refused them. The Boogeyman sat among the legacy of poverty he had recently inherited and tried to sleep. As he dozed in a dream confused stupor, his left eye fell from the stalk and rolled out of his cubby down the long slopping grade of the culvert and into the bio-toxic waste of the sewer. Sins Of The Daughter History can repeat itself, but only if we, as thinking rational human beings, allow. In fact, it is the natural course of mankind to continue to make the same mistakes over and over. It is in our nature to become weary of hard work or the courage required that prevents mistakes from recurring. Often, when mistakes recur it's because we were too damned lazy to commit the lesson of them to memory. Shelly's world was collapsing around her. This had happened once before and only recently had it began to resurrect itself from the ashes of her past. She knew what she had to do, at least she felt she knew. This would require Herculean courage, not like before where all she had ever had to do was swallow her pride and simply say, ?I'm sorry.' What had she been afraid of all those years ago? Now, for the life of her, she could not say. Had the gulf between her mother and her self developed over pettiness? Had she really been that shallow as a child? Shelly's mind replayed the afternoon when Erin burst into her room after Shelly had locked herself behind her door to sulk. She had been gone two days before returning home to an empty flat. The evidence of her shallowness played out before her as it might against an accused criminal in court. Shelly had been on the VID with her best friend Marilyn Bosco when Erin had pounded on the door sounding much like PoliceServices making a raid, *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* "Shelly, open the fucking door!" The handle had rattled noisily. Shelly could hear the soft ?beep' of the keypad lock being pushed. When that didn't work, more thunderous rapping on her door, *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* "Like, who's that?" Marilyn had asked in her best indignant teenage girl voice. Shelly had gone pale white, "My big sister." "She's so rude; doesn't she know you're on a call? Really!" "Marilyn, I have to go. She's pretty pissed off." "She like, doesn't even live there any more. Doesn't she have any respect?" Now in the face of what Shelly knew was coming, Marilyn's indignant tone was becoming an irritation even to Shelly, "I just have to go, sorry. I' call you later." Marilyn became annoyed, "Whatev..." and Shelly shut the VID off before Marilyn could finish. "Alright, I'm coming," Shelly yelled. There was no authority in her voice however. This was Erin she was yelling at. Erin was afraid of no one, least of all Shelly. Shelly on the other hand, while best friends with her two sisters, understood full well that there were things in this world that could make Erin forget they were friends. "Then open the door Shell, right now!" "Okay, Okay..." whined Shelly. Shelly pushed the single pass button unlocking the door and the door swung open with the force of an explosion. It broke not only the doorstop on the baseboard completely off, but also snapped open the internal hydraulic flow control cylinder inside the door that controlled how fast the door opened. The handle of the door burst into the VID screen shattering it. Glass and LCD fluid spilled out across the floor. Amid the chaos, Erin stepped through the door, bigger than life and as pissed off as Shelly had ever seen her. Shelly was suddenly sure she was going to throw-up on the spot, then pass out. "What kind of GAME do you think you're playing little girl," Erin bellowed, her hands locked firmly on her hips, her face set, as though chiseled in stone, harsh and angry. The contrast of this woman, who had only recently began dressing to fit her good looks combined with her harsh, masculine presentation would have been laughable if Shelly hadn't have been so frightened. "Erin, I...," "SHUT UP!" Cried her sister, "The time for anything you might have had to say passed 48 hours ago." Shelly began to tremble before the imposing figure of her sister. She could not take her eye off Erin's stern face. Shelly could not have felt more humble had Erin been an executioner. Without warning, Erin's posture relaxed a bit. She raised her hands flat as if warding off some unseen attacker, gesturing a calmer stance. She pursed her lips briefly and said. "Shell... I'm sorry." Relief flooded Shelly's heart. The certainty that she was going to die fled and was replaced by gratitude. Still, Shelly could say nothing, not wanting to provoke another threatening outburst from Erin. At length, Erin came to the bedside and sat beside her, pulling her long black lace skirt behind her. Now, at thirty one, Erin was being put in charge of the business interests of her family. She was hardened and business savvy, well respected everywhere she went. It was sometimes easy to forget that she was still just a sister in a family of three daughters. Even Erin sometimes forgot this modest but not insignificant fact. Erin began speaking as though she were telling a story, she began, "I was probably about your age when the family I knew began to unravel before my eyes. I wish I could explain what we all went through that summer. By Thanksgiving, I had a sister where a brother had once been, she was married and pregnant to the boy who had once been that brother's best friend." "Just that one thing that had once seemed so impossible shook my world in such a way that everything else I felt was important faded into a sort of gray distant fog in my mind. That summer was a time of revelations that hit us all like cannon balls. I think the worst part was that, for a while, I didn't think I would ever stop taking gut shots. I had an advantage that I took for granted. One that you don't have and I forgot that until just now." Shelly waited a respectable amount of time before asking her sister, "What was that Erin?" "We just didn't have time to think about it." Erin paused. She stared straight ahead not looking at Shelly as she spoke until she began to speak again. "I don't know if we were lucky or not. At the time William was terrified. I tried to put myself in his shoes a few times." Erin exhaled heavily, "At those times when I thought I could actually imagine what it must have been like, I have to admit it was more frightening than anything I've ever imagined so far. But you see. I never actually lived through what he did." Erin took Shelly's hands, "And I don't want to." "William found some peace in what happened to him. He's happy being Beth. Honestly, I'm not sure he would have found that if Carrie hadn't have done what she did to him." "Carrie?" Shelly asked. Erin chuckled under her breath at the absurdity of the question, "That's right. You don't even know what happened yet do you? Believe me, that is one hell of a bedtime story. It's still hard to believe at times that I... we... that we ever had a brother. I remember him very well, but I have trouble sometimes remembering what he looked like. Do you remember William?" Shelly paused, "Sort of..." then shook her head sadly "No, not too much I guess." "You were so young. I guess for you, there's only been me and Beth, huh?" Shelly didn't confirm or deny any part of her question. Instead, she sat and listened. "Back then, there was always something that needed fixing. Mom and Dad were stretched to the limits of what they could do. Mom wanted her son back in the worst way. I think it brought back some pretty intense memories. Things she had discarded for the most part. Parts of her self..." Erin nodded in the direction of her mother's journal. "You get a good sense of it reading that. Even then, I think Mom was holding back a lot of what really went on. With William, in the state he wound up in, I think it brought back a lot of what she thought was in her past. I think, in a way, what happened that summer helped her come to grips with some things she still had unsettled." "But even when William decided to just remain as Beth, to live her life as a girl, a woman, nothing seemed to just settle down. Everything would just blow up right in their faces again. Then Dad got shot..." Erin gave an emotional hitch as she fought against something strong. Shelly watched her face contort a bit in that struggle and finally Erin won over whatever it was she was battling. Erin glanced over at the night stand next to Shelly's bed. There sat her mother's journal, the origin of where they had all come from. "Did you ever read that?" Shelly shook her head regretfully. "Read it. Do it tonight before you leave." "I will..." Erin's statement registered like a hammer impacting a brick. "Leave? Where am I going?" "You're going to school early..." Erin answered. "I'm not supposed to go until the Fall. Why..." "Because I think it's best. It hurts like hell to have to do this. I can't have you here distracting Mom and Dad from what they have to get ready to do." "You're kicking me out! You don't even live here Erin. You can't just kick me out of my own home, my house," Shelly protested. "This isn't about you. And I can do nearly anything I need to do. I'm running the show here now. I've been given control of the restaurants, Mom's music interests, her catalog, everything. I'm even managing the properties, so technically this is my house now. As the new owner, I'm exercising my option to get you to school and in a place where you won't be a distraction, just until you see that things have to be a little different for a while." "What are you talking about Erin? You're banishing me? How very fucking medieval of you," Shelly exploded, "I want to talk to Daddy about this." Shelly started to get up off the bed and then noticed her VID was no longer functional. "They're in Miami for a couple of months, most of the summer in fact. I convinced them to go. I told them that I'd get you down to school and straighten every thing out here. They'll be opening a new store there. In that time, I'm going to help you move in to your new place." "I won't go," Shelly announced, folded her arms across her sizable chest and sat down hard on her mattress with her bottom lip stuck out in a pout. "Don't be like that. This trip was planned months ago. Mom wanted to stay, to try to explain things... You broke her heart Shell, but she'd never tell you. She'd stop living right now if she thought it would help. She'd give up everything for her baby, damn near did, something I never understood." Erin seemed to drift off someplace for a minute where no one could follow and just as fast, she was back again. "She needed to go. The last thing in the world she can afford to do now is stop the wheels to cottle you. You're all grown up now. Act like it." "Why are you being so hateful?" Shelly had begun to cry bitter tears of betrayal. "You're acting like all this is normal. How should I react to the idea that Mom is... is... I can't even say it!" "That is precisely why I'm doing this. The woman you know as Mom is just that. The only way you've ever known her is exactly as she is right now. It's the way she's always going to be. Nothing that came before matters because it doesn't exist. Mike Vello is a ghost, he's gone, buried and you suddenly can't get over the fact that Mom is who she says she is." "Can you? I mean, listen to us. Does any of this sound normal to you? What's going to happen if my friends ever find out that Mom was once a... man" Shelly whispered the word ?man' as if it was some sort of heretic chant that should never be spoken aloud. Erin stood, once more the imposing figure she had been only moments ago. "That can never happen Shell. Listen to me hard. I'm not assuring you, or asking you; I'm telling you, that can NEVER happen." Erin's stare of resolve was cold and frightening. This wasn't a request, it was an order. The consequence of which,