Rebirth Ch. 02

It sounded brutal to Kayley. Brutal, but practical. It was something Carlos might do, but maybe practicality could reach. "Let her go and I won't hassle you. Let her go and I'll just let go and become whatever you want." She turned to the doctor trying to keep her jaw from quivering. "Just let her go, okay. I know you already got us, but you want me way more and I'm here. If that means anything, just give her the money she already had and drop her off at the bus station and you can just...wipe me out or whatever it is you're going to do."

"I knew you cared about her. It was all over you two when you were having sex. But willing to wipe yourself away so she can find a life somewhere else? That speaks to more." Her gaze bore through the other woman as she played through the scenarios. "You're strong, she's not. She gravitated to you for that, and the protection that went with it from him and the other women who might attack her for her weakness. She loved you, or she at least converted the comfort of your protection into love."

"You don't feel the same..." her eyes narrowed. "Or perhaps you do and don't have the courage to say it back. Or perhaps it's all just your protectiveness of her."

Kayley stopped her, "Quit fucking acting like you know what I think, feel, or want. The fact that I'm here and stuck here means you don't give a shit anyway. Just please let her go."

"She's desirable on her own merits. Young, full-figured with just a bit too much extra weight, but that's easily tweaked. Whatever her future has in store for her, she is excited for it and was from the start."

Kayley looked back at her. Her expression was calm, placid even, and the flesh exposed around the metal rings that pressed to her limbs and torso looked different. She already looked a little thinner and more muscular. "Bullshit."

"You're a smart girl, Kayley. You already have the means to prove yourself wrong; ask the technician."

She went back to watching Lisa float, not wanting to give the doctor the satisfaction of watching the war going on in her mind. She wanted out so Lisa wanted out. Anyone would. Nobody would want this shit done to them. Hell, isn't this what most of them talked about all the time? They talked about getting out and leaving the old life behind...becoming new people. Talking about the PTA and kids and all that while pretending to make fun of each other for it. What better 'out' of your old life than to never remember it to begin with. To have your guy fuck you and you just have him on top of you rather than flashing through the faces of every other trick who did the same thing.

"Are you scared to?"

"Of course you wouldn't be, right?"

"We all have trouble with our truths sometimes. Some women...some people...like being used, even if the feeling only hits them sometimes as a means to cope. They still liked the feeling even as it embarrasses them. And, for instance...that I am anything like your Carlos." She proved that difficulty herself with the manner in which the next words came, "but there are... base similarities. Strength of being comes in facing them and admitting them."

Time dragged before Kayley spoke to the tank. "What was her resistance number when she came in?"

The female technician looked to the doctor who nodded her assent before she pulled up the records and ticked them off in a heavy French accent. "Point four-one at the beginning of induction. Three-eight as she was placed for modification, which was at 0234. Now already at point three-five." She smiled, kind of liking the ones that she knew liked it more than the cases that forced her to break them. "Very responsive."

Samuels placed a hand gently upon Kayley's narrow shoulder. "Some want this, Kayley, they truly do. Maybe she really wants to escape what was, but she started at four-one. She was very submissive to start with. And, if there's one thing this does offer it's beautiful, burning submission. She's having the best orgasm she's ever had, pretty much constantly to keep her mind open. She knows that if she obeys and accepts, that just gets better and better. Even in the beginning she and a couple of others were, just with the pacifiers, spontaneously having orgasms for bumps in the road."

Samuels drew closer."She wants this. You know she does. You know that if I did as you ask I'd be taking something more away from her than she's already freely giving. She's not as strong as you are and she never was. She's free now to be what she wants to be, and that is whatever I want to make her."

"I'm just bringing out what she is and then shaping it."

"Michelangelo with PhDs."

"Something like that." Samuels noted the still unusual to her softness in her own voice, "Look at me."

Kayley let herself be turned around and fierce brown eyes met their mirror. "I make the same promise to you for her that I made to you. She will go to someone that will respect who she is and what she has become."

"Someone nice?"

She squeezed Kayley's shoulder. "Someone nice. I promise."

Kayley gave the redhead one last look before she gave Samuels a look that she seemed to be able to read. "Would you like to be next to her?"

She nodded, very much the little girl at that instant. "Now what?"

"Let's get you ready. Show me that lovely body again."

Kayley pulled off her shoes and then turned to let Samuels unzip the dress if she wanted. It was the only bit of submission she could make herself offer. She just couldn't make herself say, "Wipe me out, it's cool." Samuels took the offer, dress unzipping it slowly before letting it fall to the floor as the blonde stayed in the middle of the pile long enough to step out of her heels and climb the steps to the top of the tank the cold of the metal and the diamond mesh of the movable platform digging into her heels as they waited for the final checks to be performed.

Technicians descended upon the empty tank next to Lisa, pulling the breather from the bottom, checking it as well as the armature that would hold her as well as all the instrumentation that would alter her very being. It looked ominous. It looked wicked, but she had resolved that, no matter how much she still wanted to bolt, that she would be the strong woman that she was and Samuels thought she was. Looking at her now, she saw that the doctor was strong. Now, supremely in her element, she looked it. She narrowed her eyes at the equipment, watching them check and recheck it, making sure they followed procedure. This place was hers and it was the first time she realized the true scope of it as technicians danced around. A trash can probably didn't get emptied in this place without her knowing.

Samuels noted the steady gaze and realized how her glaring might have looked. "My people know their jobs but I always have a bit of paranoia on the important ones like you, and even Lisa. It's a gift to find someone so open and that should be respected."

"Ready, Doctor," a nameless technician said after giving the arms one last check. He looked to Kayley, as it wasn't often that he put people in the tank that weren't already thoroughly and happily subdued. "If you could step back for me that'd be great."

Kayley backed into the iron clutches and with a few keystrokes that she saw over the doctor's shoulder they looped around her arms and legs as they did with Lisa, but she could feel hard nubs of rubber all around the flesh, holding her tightly. She struggled just to try and found almost no give. She was long since at the point of no return, but this time she felt it as a physical truth.

As another lifted her hair Samuels herself placed earbuds firmly in each ear the black and gray breather over her nose and mouth and buckled it precisely. "Air, obviously, and there are certain drugs and chemicals that are best administered this way. The earpieces will help keep your mind open and they are good for communication. Sometimes a subject needs a little nudge." She shrugged with the pleasant memories. "Sometimes it's just fun to nudge for me...and it makes them cum."

"It won't hurt. In fact, it'll feel wonderful. I can promise that, too."

Kayley nodded, her eyes conveying the continued presence of her butterflies.

Placing the visor over her eyes, she tried to give some last reassurance to them, as they could still see one another. A hand stayed on her cheek until she felt Kayley steady, Samuels not descending the stairs until she did. "Put her in."

The armature lifted her effortlessly and, with mechanical smoothness, brought her forward and then down into the tank. She wiggled her toes and fingers because that was pretty much all the control that she had left. The mechanics stopped with a tweeting sound and, seconds later, the fluid began to pour in. It was transparent like water but thicker and warm to her skin. Kayley looked to the doctor for reassurance, which she provided, now with her own earpiece and a tablet in hand. "You can hear me?"

Kayley nodded.

"It helps change the body and, as it flows, it helps the visor work. You'll see."

The warm bath reached her thighs and progressed upward, then to her torso, then to her breasts, then to her neck. Samuels placed her hand against the tank. "Breathe normally...slowly. It's all right. Close your eyes until you get your bearings. That will help."

She closed them tightly. I'm not drowning. I'm not. I'm not. Chill. Breathe. She inhaled slowly, continuing to talk to herself. See? Stop fucking freaking out. You can breathe, so knock it the fuck off. Her pounding heart stopped pounding quite so much and she opened her eyes to see the doctor there, her hand still where it had been, now distorted by the fluid and two layers of transparency. Her voice, however, was still crystal clear. Maybe it was the fluid, but the sound of it seemed to move beyond her ears and into her brain.

"Very good, Kayley. Very good. You're fine. See? Relax."

The word tickling her brain helped her do that.

"Relax, Kayley. Calm and relaxed. Calm and relaxed and ready for the next phase."

"Calm and relaxed." reverberated through the bone of her skull as though it was coming from all around her as the ring of nodes wrapped snugly around her head.

"Very good, Kayley, calm and relaxed." She tapped her fingers on the tablet and the nodes came to life and the reverberation increased. Now it felt like all her bones were vibrating in time to the lights that she could see reflecting off the tank.

"You know, most are already agreeable and...elsewhere...by the time they get to this point. I have to admit I don't mind this; someone awake and aware and embracing it. Calm and relaxed, Kayley."

"Calm," she said, as though talking through a dream. "Relaxed."

"Excellent."

Samuels watched her progress, letting her 'thrum' for a time before deciding she was ready for the last addition to the process. One of the arms extended downward and between her legs to come up around her mound. Once firmly in place the dildos penetrated her, the frame making minute adjustments to plant them firmly. The liquid in the tank made a lovely lube, with Kayley liking that warmth inside her and feeling like it was penetrating every part of her being. She groaned as whatever made the fluid flow in the tank started working and it was like an endless caress. Her fingers and toes spread to embrace it as she grunted to accommodate the fullness she felt.

Samuels didn't need the statistics flowing before her to know what was happening. "You like this, don't you, Kayley?"

When the lights around her head flared to brightness it was like a thrum in her head that drown almost everything out in a comfortable nothing. "Yesssssssssss."

"Mind nice and open. We'll keep it open while we work on your body. Tell me what kind of porn you like?"

"Hard," she slurred into the breather. "Rough. Dirty." Her brows knotted until the next thrum. "Lovey."

Samuels elaborated for her. "Kissing, caressing, and sweet nothings in between you two just grinding like animals."

"Mmmmmmmmmmmm-hmm."

"Luckily for you that, over the years we've used the men and women that have come through here to create scenes to cover any sort of need you can think of. Good for the training of the individual and good for the work at the front end too, as you'll see."

A few tabs and scrolls later the visor lit and her world became the sight of a grand canopy bed with a lovely blonde under a vision of male muscle, her long legs covered in fine white stockings, feet in the air just above his back, shaking back and forth as his ass pumped madly, driving himself deeply as they kissed madly, trying to consume one another as he held her to the bed by the wrists.

Kayley's sigh sounded like a long burst of white noise in the breather.

She was satisfied with that. "There's much more where that came from. Relax, Kayley. Relax and watch and let your mind open."

Thoughts sewed themselves together in her addled mind, the thrum almost taking them away. Whatever Samuels was doing was just starting. This was...fast. I didn't think...so fast. Feels good. Feels so good. Gonna do what she wants anyway. Gonna...do what she wants and I just...watch fucking while she does it. That's hot.

The doctor was happy with the results. Thought, but no real resistance. "Good girl."

Turning to the technician in charge of Kayley's transformation, she rattled off what she wanted. "She gets the works. Clear the scars, obviously, then the bone and muscle density enhancement as well as the full telomere re-balance and full-range sensory improvements."

"A new agent then?"

"Don't get ahead of everything, Michael. Just handle what you were asked to, please."

He cleared his throat. "Yes, Doctor. Apologies."

"Don't worry about it. I'm going to my office and I'll forward you the final stats. After that, I'm going to get some sleep. Finish the body work, then let her float until I get down here. Finish the base body work on Lisa, but she floats, too."

"Absolutely, Doctor. Good night."

"Good night."

***

Samuels put her thumb to the hidden drawer under one of her file cabinets to retrieve a gleaming chrome flash drive, the contents of which she had been working on for years off and on, but more fervently of late as events conspired to force her to reflect on what she'd given up to be where she was and have the work that she enjoyed.

She once told the woman in charge of the project's finances, Brenda McLemore, who had become an unexpected friend, that she'd understood the price of success. That was true, but she had rarely allowed herself to feel it. She knew how the technology had given everyone that availed themselves of it their life's wishes, but that was largely abstract. They took their products and left. With Brenda and Elizabeth, she could see that happiness and sense of completeness that they shared and she admitted to some jealousy while doing so.

Samuels gave Brenda the stuff of life. She gave them all the stuff of life, and this is where she profoundly parted company with the likes of Carlos. All he provided was a means for transactions to take place. She gave more and she had given it to others without taking much for herself. She'd played with some of the subjects in training, but the twins were her greatest real luxury in her years of work.

She'd earned more and now was her time to collect.

Samuels placed the drive to her terminal, worked through its security measures, selected the initial files and forwarded them to Michael. Once she received that acknowledgment, she retired to her home within the complex.

***

After a few hours of sleep, Samuels went to work on the synaptic overlay protocols for Lisa befre she prepared for Kayley's own overlay. She could work quickly and carefully and did so now. Entering the lab area in her long white coat with Staci following suit wearing their own as they went to the terminal that governed Lisa and Kayley's tanks to find Hannah reading a book. Understandable since nothing was expected to happen at this point and the machines would notify her if anything deviated.

"Captain Black's Treasure of Lust. Must you defile such a place as this with writing like that? Shakespeare? Tolstoy? These I can understand, but...that?"

Hannah grinned. "I think about hard things all day, and since I'd rather not turn into one of them I need an outlet."

"Fair enough. Are things all right here?" Samuels asked as she looked over the technician's shoulder to see that it was so.

"By the numbers, Doctor. The upgrades were initially slow to take because she was slightly malnourished. Nutrient feed piggybacked with a metabolic booster handled that, then she took to the alterations well."

"Excellent. I'll handle things from here, as the overlay I want is layered and delicate."

Hannah rose to comply even though she was slightly stung. "Sure, but...I have handled delicate."

"And you do well. But, this matters to me. If something happens that's unforeseen or a mistake is made, would you prefer I was responsible for it, or you?"

The technician saw the hint of mirth there and it diffused the situation even though she also knew well the answer to that. "Fair enough."

Samuels shook her head, pony tail swishing like a horse's, "And take your trash novel with you."

"Yes, Doctor." She swiped the book with the ratty cover with aplomb and left.

Sitting to go over the hours of records she missed as she slept, they served to give her the particulars that her eyes couldn't see. What her eyes could see pleased her. Kayley floated as serenely as Lisa. Kayley had indeed taken to the changes well even though there would be more time yet in the tank. The armature holding her in place had delivered the drugs and nano-materials to blood, muscle, and bone and her body had incorporated it. Her muscles were dense now and with that density came an effortless definition, not to the extreme of a bodybuilder, but simply as one who had spent her entire life maintaining and sculpting her form. Indeed, her strength lay hidden as it should.

Her face had refined slightly, nose lengthening and narrowing slightly and cheekbones sharpening. With the changes to her face and her blonde hair now a deep black it was doubtful that she'd recognize herself in the mirror. The eyes were unchanged as Samuels remembered the intensity they were capable of throughout the night. Indeed, it was those eyes that drew her and reminded her of herself and of opportunities missed.

They were before her again and for the first time all at once.

Even her mind had changed. As suspected, she already had a keen, albeit unschooled mind, and the changes already blossoming there would take root to brilliance in the coming days.

Rebecca then spent time skimming Lisa's changes, which were nowhere near as extensive externally, just an elimination of some of the excess weight and accents to her hips and breasts to emphasize the voluptuous that was already there. Inside, she shared Kayley's changes, as Samuels decided that if they would be together as she intended, Kayley deserved someone that could wake with her every day of the long life before her and have the body to share whatever adventures they decided to undertake.

She ended up so engrossed in that that she hadn't noticed Traci come in and set a cup of her grandmother's comforting version of coffee next to her, and it was only her voice that snapped her to. "Since you will be working."

"Thank you, Traci. Are you ready to get to it?"

"As you please, Doctor. The twins took terminals next to one another and tied them to hers.

From Samuels' pocket emerged the chrome drive and into the terminal it went. Data scrolled. It would indeed be layered and delicate, so much so that she tried to temper her own nervousness. One of the twins' greater gifts was the fact that they could multitask like no untouched soul could. She would make no mistakes, but she would also take no chances."Girls, if you are certain, or even suspect that I am making an error in my part of the overlay, you are to override me and stop the procedure, pending verification. Understood?"