Double Helix Ch. 12

"Should we split up?" a girl's voice said.

"No, stay together," a boy answered. "Let's check the barn first."

"Gabrielle, Kevin." With a start, I recognized Norm's voice. "Maybe you should stay at the house."

I slowly raised the door and met the gaze of an Asian girl who had apparently whirled at the sound, despite my care to suppress it. "Hey!" she said, pulling at the sleeve of the boy next to her.

"That's her," the boy said when he saw me. He made to push the other two kids behind him and brandished a pair of scissors in his fist.

Norm, though, didn't hesitate. With a choking cry, he ran forward, shoved the door upward and threw his arms around me. Waves of relief, regret, and happiness poured from him, battering at my senses. "I thought you were gone," he croaked. "I thought I'd lost you."

"It's okay, I'm here," I said, my voice choked by the turbulent mix of emotions, my own and his. I clung to him, letting go of the fear and pain of the last few days. He shuddered and sobbed into my shoulder until the outflow of feelings began to ebb.

"How did you find me?" Norm asked, still holding me.

"I saw your truck."

No sooner did I answer than he fired off the next. "What happened to you? I couldn't find you." His fingers traced the raised scab on my head, prompting him to pull back to examine me more closely. I heard his pained intake of breath as he found the blood-soaked bandage. "You're hurt."

"I was shot," I said, "but not bad. It's a long story and can wait. What can we do?"

"We need to go," Norm said. "Ryan, do you know where your dad would have put my stuff? My wallet and keys?"

"Yeah, I think so," the older boy said, and hurried off.

"I have the food," I said. "It's in a truck in a field across the road."

"That's good," Norm said. "Very good."

"So, um, you're a full genemod?" the boy Kevin asked shyly. "What model?"

"My model is unique," I said, and held out a hand. "My name is Tilly."

He took my hand gingerly and gave it a little shake. "I'm a half," he said. "My dad was a G, kind of. It wasn't really a full model back then. They were still working on getting it just right."

"You must be very smart, then," I said.

He blushed and lowered his eyes. "Yeah, kind of. My bio-dad had an IQ over 200, but he also had Asperger's. Mom thinks I don't have it, though. Asperger's that is."

The girl, Gabrielle, spoke up. "Well, my mother was a Standard Upgrade and my father was Eidetic with sense upgrades."

"Oh, a half and half, then," Norm said, smiling at his joke. "How did all of you get here?" "Mom ran a daycare," Gabrielle said. "When the Ban started, Kevin here was still a baby. I was almost two and Ryan was two-and-a-half. No one was quite sure what the legal status of kids like us was going to be, and our bio parents never showed up to get us. Mom and dad kept us safe, though, just in case. When the order came down that halfs were to be reverted just like full mods, mom and dad went on the run to hide us. They found this house about five years ago, and we've been here since."

Gabrielle and I heard footsteps before the others did, coming around the front of the truck and down one side. I guessed that it was Ryan returning, but Gabrielle's expression told me differently. "What's wrong?" I said.

Her voice was a strangled whisper. "It's mom."

Sure enough, the figure that stepped out around the side of the truck was a woman, and she leveled a rifle at Norm, then swung it over at me, then quickly back over to Norm. "Kids, what the hell is this?"

Gabrielle stepped towards her, holding her arms outstretched to either side. "Ryan and I let him go," she said. "Mom, he's not dangerous. And his girlfriend is a mod, like our parents."

The word "girlfriend" sent a thrill of joy running up my spine, despite the danger we were in. Had Norm really told them that? "I am a genemod," I said. "Your children told me all that you've done to protect them. I can understand why you're hesitant to trust us."

"Bullshit," the woman said. She raised her voice to a yell, "Jack! I need you here!"

"Mom, will you just listen?" the girl said. She moved toward her mother, further blocking her line of sight to me and Norm.

The woman stepped back a few paces. "Gabby, baby," she said. "Get out of my way. You don't know these people. You don't know what they'll do."

"Listen, mom! I know she's a genemod. I can smell her. She's way too clean for a human."

I had picked up on another pair of running feet as this exchange went on, and it was about then that the man I had seen in the window appeared, out of breath, from around the back of the house. "Oh shi--, uh, crap," he said stopping himself when he saw the children. He held a pistol pointed down and to one side as he approached. "You found them."

"Would you tell your kids to get back in the house?" the woman said. "They don't need to see any of this."

"No," Gabrielle said. "I think we do. If you're going to kill them, you can do it right here, right now. You think we're that naïve?"

The woman suddenly looked like she was going to be sick to her stomach, but she took a breath to steady herself. "We're just gonna do what we have to," she said. "To protect you."

"We have no choice, Gabrielle," the man said. "If we let them go and they go to the police, that's it. All three of you will go away for reversion and we'll go to jail."

"I can give you one good reason that won't happen," Norm said. He reached up slowly and removed the hat from his head. "Have you two been watching the news? Do you remember an incident that happened in Seattle about six weeks back? I didn't have a beard back then, but the police sketches were pretty accurate."

The woman appeared confused, but the man's eyes widened in recognition. "Ah, shit, that's him," he said, evidently forgetting to censor himself in front of the children. "Alice, it's the man they're looking for that killed a cop."

She nodded slowly. "Maybe. Been awhile since I saw those sketches. That was a safe house raid that went bad, wasn't it? You're telling me that was you?"

"We were both there," I offered. "If Norm hadn't acted as quick as he had, five other genemods besides me would have been caught. We're not your enemies."

"You say you're a genemod," the man said. "Prove it. Alice, back up and give her room. If she makes a move, we'll both drop her, understand?"

I slipped down from my perch at the back of the truck. Thinking for a moment, I bent to retrieve a small rock from the driveway. "How far away would you say the barn is?" I asked.

"Sixty yards, give or take," the man said, without glancing away from me.

"There's a knot about two feet from the peak of the roof, half an inch across. Can you see it, kids?"

"I see it," Gabrielle said. Kevin squinted and shook his head.

I hefted the rock, quickly estimating its mass, and let my mind work the equations for force, velocity, and air resistance. With a glance at the man and woman to make sure they were both watching me, I wound back and threw. The rock flew exactly where I had intended it to, its smooth arc perturbed only slightly by its irregular shape.

"She hit it!" Gabrielle exclaimed. "She got it dead on!"

"Do you need me to do it again?" I asked. "Or you want to give me a math problem?

The woman squinted at me. "What's 4-2-9-3-6-8-4-3 times 8-2-0-5-3-5-6?"

I paused for a half second to double-check before answering. "Three hundred fifty-two trillion, three-hundred twelve billion, eighty-two million, three-hundred thirty-one thousand, one-hundred eight."

"That's right, mom," Kevin said. "She got it."

"Alice?" the man said.

Slowly, the rifle came down and the woman let out the breath she had been holding. "Alright. I think we both believe you. I just wish someone had said something sooner. We could have avoided a whole lot of misunderstanding."

"We don't know who to trust," Norm said. "Just like you."

"Too true," the woman said. "You know my name by now. And my husband back there is Jack."

"Call me Norm," Norm told her. "But I do go by Mark when I'm away from home."

Jack cleared his throat. "So you two are in an Agency safe house now?"

"No, ma'am—uh, Alice. It's a long story, but we're on our own now."

"You and the others?"

Norm nodded. "All of us."

"We have no one," Alice said. "The Agency doesn't even try to place halfs, but we wouldn't want them to anyway. These are our kids now. And there's nothing me and Jack won't do for them." Ryan came running from the house as she spoke and came to a dead stop, staring at his mother. It took him a moment to realize that we weren't in a standoff, and he relaxed. "Here," he said, "I brought your things." He handed Norm his wallet and keys, then, with a glance at his parents, brought out Norm's gun from where he had stuffed it into his belt, but hesitated at handing it over.

"Go on," Jack said. "It's his. Let him have it back."

"Thank you," Norm said, as he took the gun.

"Lordy," Alice sighed. "I really did want to believe that you folks were good people, but we've had to learn to be real careful. You two are probably eager to get back home, but I'd like you to stay for dinner." She glanced at each of us appraisingly. "You make a cute couple, by the way."

"Thank you," I said, before Norm could object. I know that it was silly, and maybe even a little petty, but I wanted to bask in the idea of it, if I couldn't have the reality.

"You should stay for dinner," Jack said. "It's the least we can do for all of the trouble we put you through.

"I need to get our other vehicle first," I said. "But do you think I could get some water?"

I resisted the urge to gulp down the water from the bottle that Gabrielle brought me, and Norm and I went to get the pickup from across the road. On the way, I explained what had happened after I had gotten out of the truck two nights before.

"Wait," Norm interrupted. "You tasted Rohypnol in the water and went ahead and drank it anyway? Isn't that related to the alprazolam we gave you?"

I shrugged. "Some benzodiazepines work just fine on me, and Rohypnol is one of the few drugs that's reliably effective on genemods. But it has a nasty history as a rape drug. My mom was able to engineer protection against it, so she did."

"What would you have done if it was another drug that you are susceptible to?"

I smiled and shrugged. "Well, I guess I wouldn't have drank that water."

"You would have figured something out," Norm said. His tone turned suddenly grim. "Hell, you would have been better off if I had left you to your own devices and waited back at the farm. A lot of good I did, getting captured by two nice old drug dealers."

I sensed the guilt and shame pouring off him. "It's not your fault."

He sighed. "I should never have brought you with me. I put you in danger."

"And what would have happened if you had gotten to that checkpoint alone with all that food? There are others relying on us. What good would it do if everyone back at the farm starved?" He nodded slowly. "The important thing is to learn from this. We have to be safer. We have to be smarter."

"We will," I promised him. "We've been laying the groundwork for that already."

"So you pretended to fall asleep," he prompted. "What happened next?"

I finished my story just as we arrived at the truck. We climbed into the bed at Norm's suggestion and dug through the bins to make sure that none of the food was missing. It looked like someone had picked through it, but nothing had been removed as far as we could tell.

"Can you start it up again?" Norm asked. "We can use it to get the bins over to our truck and then ditch it somewhere along the road."

I had been thinking about this. "Why not keep it? Those deputies probably already got out of that basement, but that house is a good five miles from anything inhabited, and they'll have to think hard about who they call and why. They'll want to get their stories straight. If they decide to report the truck stolen, we'll probably be long gone. Besides," I grinned, "I kind of like it."

Norm smiled back at me. "I never took you for a pickup girl."

"You got a problem with that, darlin'?" I said, in my best impression of a southern girl.

He laughed. "You can keep the truck. I'm just happy you made it out of there."

"Me too," I said. "And I'm glad I found you. I know you too well. I knew you would be out here looking for me long after you should have gone back home. When I saw your truck, I knew that I had to find you and let you know I was alright."

A momentary shadow of guilt and doubt crossed his face, but he reached out a hand and squeezed my arm in a gesture of gratitude at my words. I put a hand over his, and the touch was electric. Heat pulsed between us, my own desire echoing back from him. Before I realized what I was doing, I leaned in, stretched up on my toes and pressed my lips to his. He went rigid for an instant, but then sighed a breath into my mouth, and it felt as though weeks of tension, of denial and self-doubt left with it. His arms went around me and pulled me closer.

I felt bliss, enfolded in his arms, my lips tingling and my head spinning, but my body and my soul cried out for more. I reached a hand between our bodies and found him hard through his pants. I cupped my hands around his erection and slowly stroked my fingers over it. "Oh, God, Tilly," he whispered against my lips. "What are you doing to me?"

"I want this," I said, and squeezed him for emphasis. He bent to kiss the nape of my neck. My skin, flushed hot with desire, prickled at the touch and my breath came in soft pants. My fingers found his belt and fumbled with the clasp. In moments, I had them unfastened and reached inside to close around warm flesh.

Norm moaned and stumbled back slightly, breaking our long kiss. I opened my eyes and drank in the look of longing and fierce passion he gave me. His desire fueled my own, so that when he placed his hand on my breast, my nipples were already firm nubs. His touch sent jolts of pleasure sizzling into the warm, wet core of my sex.

I stepped back and lifted my hands in the air so that he could pull my shirt up over my head. The bra came off next and then he was kissing me again, first my lips, then down my neck, then on my bare breasts. I shuddered as he took a nipple into his mouth, kneading it gently with lips and tongue. My knees went weak and I gave a long, lilting moan of ecstasy. An ache was growing deep inside me, a hunger and a void that could only be filled by him. "I want you in me," I said. "I need you. Please."

Norm paused, casting about, and I sensed his hesitation. We were still standing in the bed of the truck. "Right here," I said. "I don't care, I just need you right now."

I sat down in the truck bed, kicked off my shoes and lifted my hips to wriggle out of my pants. Norm wasted no more time once he saw what I was doing, doffing his own shoes and pants in an instant. As I settled down, the hard corrugated metal of the trucks bed cupped the cheeks of my bottom obscenely and pressed uncomfortably into my back.

Norm knelt over me, looking down at my body with naked lust. He started to pick at the buttons on his shirt, but I could not wait for him any longer. I scissored my legs behind him and pulled him down to lie against me. I felt his taut member warm against my thigh as he caught himself on his hands to either side of my head. I felt from him one last shred of doubt as he held himself above me. Breathless and aching, I reached between our bodies, found his erection, and guided it to me as I pressed against his back with my heels. I felt the warmth and pressure of imminent penetration against the lips of my sex, slick with my flowing juices. He groaned, then, and relented, pressing his body against mine.

Agonizing pleasure ignited between my legs as he began to slip inside me. I felt a gentle stretching, but no pain, as my body accommodated him. Slowly, the ache within me began to subside as he moved to fill the space within me. "Oh, Norm, yes," I whispered. The moment his body came to rest against me, his pelvis pressed warmly against mine, I came.

For a long moment, my senses were blinded by pleasure. As I came back to myself, I realized that Norm lay still above me. "Are you okay?" he asked.

I almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. But then his hand brushed at my cheek and came away wet from where a tear had streaked my face. "I'm fine," I said, and now I did laugh. "That was amazing. This feels amazing. I want more."

He began to move slowly, almost dubiously, rocking against me. My body responded in a slow burn of decadent bliss. The pleasant tingling of my first orgasm still lingered, and this new pleasure began to layer over it. Gradually, and with prompting from me in my own body movements, his rhythm grew faster, and his strokes longer.

My mind soared, lofted by a welling of pleasure that flowed out from where our bodies joined, but which seeped into every nerve in my body. Even the hard metal at my back somehow transformed into a source of delight. I heard my own voice rising and falling at each stroke of our bodies, a thing beyond my control. Fire raced through my body. Images flashed in my mind. My second orgasm broke over me like a wave, racing upwards from the soles of my feet, exploding through my body and bathing my mind. It seemed to go on and on, far longer than any that I alone had managed to tease from my body, and when it subsided, it left slowly, seeming to seep away with little aftershocks.

"Tilly," Norm said, his voice seeming far away. "Tilly, honey, are you with me?"

"Mmm?" I replied. It felt like I was coming out of a deep sleep. I could feel him still inside me and still hard.

"That was pretty intense. Is it always like that for you?" I closed my eyes and shook my head, then moaned as another wave of pleasure rolled through my body. When I could speak, I said, "No, never like that. But I've never really had sex before. Just, you know. By myself." We both knew that my statement technically wasn't true, but he certainly wasn't going to argue the point.

"Are you done, then?"

Eyes still closed, I gave him a crooked smile. "Not unless you are."

He slowly withdrew from my body and thrust suddenly back in to the hilt with some force. I cried out as the stroke spiked my pleasure. My body sang with satisfaction at the abrupt, almost savage act of domination. It felt inexplicably right, as if some part of me had been waiting my whole life to be taken in this way.

Norm, though, wasn't so sure. "Tilly, I'm sorry, I . . . I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No, no," I breathed. "The opposite. Please don't stop." I didn't want it to ever stop. I had been hoping for this moment for weeks. When Norm had rejected me once again, on our ride out of Portland, I had begun to believe that it would never arrive. Norm's movement became a cadence and I clutched at him as I writhed and moaned. When I could speak, I told him how good it felt, how much I had wanted him, and urging him on, harder, deeper. When I could not speak, it was because the pleasure had overwhelmed me, and I lost all control.

I felt the approach of his orgasm as clear as my own. My senses were filled with him, the vision of his face, the sounds of his breath and whispered words, the feel of his pulse and his heat on top of and inside me, and the scent of him enveloping me. I read him so completely that it felt as though, with just a bit of a strain, I might actually touch his thoughts.

The buildup was greater than the last time. My muscles would go rigid as the pleasure peaked, relax for an instant, and go rigid again. It felt as though my body were fighting itself, bearing down each time against the pleasure. Had I not been out of my mind with ecstasy, I might have actually been concerned that something was wrong with me. And then I had a flash of clarity, somewhere deep within my mind where conscious thought still held sway, what was happening, what my body was doing, and why.