CHAPTER FOUR

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Hayley had been a 'guest' now for over three years. Her eighteenth birthday just days away. Her only contact with the outside world was her access to entertainment videos and novels. Given free reign of technical journals and education resources, she was certain she could qualify for an advanced degree or two. Often reading or watching while exercising. As much as she enjoyed the company of her three other selves, even more, she missed her family. How to contact them, let them know she was alright? Better than alright.

It would be hard to compare the woman now exercising, with the girl that first arrived here. She had been pretty enough before, but under the guidance of Tyra and M!Tekk, carefully focus and exercises, that changed. Now she was a beauty, moving with a sultry strut. Her hips more rounded and waist firmed to a rockhard slim curve, moving fat and muscle to her breasts, now considerable more prominent, pleased Tyra. Sheets of muscle, now wrapped over joints that were incredibly flexible. Her reaction speed and reflexes still growing, pleased the ancient Warrior. The thousand subtle clues that most people saw without seeing, now screamed out to her.

Playing to the mirrored walls, she pushed her mind out and found fourteen watchers today. Not able to truly read their thoughts, still she could follow their interests, their emotions. Dancing her routine now, not in the leotard of old, but a tiny set of sports bra and panties. She could feel their eyes and interests on her as she mimicked making love to herself there before their eyes. Hands never quite touching herself as they glided just a millimeter from contact. Her nipples hardening soon showed clearly, as a dampening dark stripe appeared on her panties. Her extended senses could feel their hearts jumping each time her pelvis thrusted up and out, each time mouth opened in a pretend gasp. She pushed out a layer of sweat to give a sheen to her skin, the points showing through her bra gaining darkening circles of damp. Copying the dreams pulled from Tyra's favorite videos, that she sent to Hayley each night, she moved as if in response to a lover. Arching her back after a quarter hour of playing to them, she gave a full body shudder and shiver as if coming in a massive orgasm. She felt three of the watchers joining her in orgasms of their own. Others were nearly there. Fifteen minutes later she 'came' again, this time for real as her hands sought contact. Her panties, the thinly stretched cloth soaked through in sweat bulging over the rapidly moving hand and plunging fingers. The other hand at work under her top. Now seven of the eleven remaining to watch, came with her. Smiling she stood and peeled her soaked top off and stretched before the stunned watcher's eyes, two more of her Watchers coming at her display. Then turning to walk to the showers. Her panties sodden, conforming to every crease.

< Sister! We have to get out of here. Find a lover or ten and go crazy! Or stay here and go insane with unfulfilled lust! Find a mate and raise some kits! >

< How many children did you have in your own body? > Hayley inquired.

< I had hundreds of lovers, after fleeing my home, but sadly none were Anori. So never a child of my own. I have raised and trained dozens, but none were my blood. >

< I am so sorry to hear that. >

< I am not sure what the human potential lifespan is. But I am sure we can push you well beyond it. Plenty of time to have a dozen kits. >

< A dozen? No, no, no... maybe two or three, and those not for a long time. >

< Really? I used to be fertile only once a year, for a week. You! You are fertile one week out of four! We shouldn't waste it! >

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On her eighteenth birthday, she left the suite for the first time in over a year and a half, and then it had only been to labs just down the hallway. Today, they went for a walk 'outside'. Only to find that the outside was still inside.

Hayley looked up and saw the sun-bright crystal column that pulled sunlight in and across the entire colony cylinder. Scudding clouds drifted overhead, partially obscuring the far side some 15km over her head. Lakes were joined to each other by rivers of silver. Vast swaths of green trees in the wilderness areas, patchwork fields growing crops, the industrial areas hidden underfoot in the many kilometer-thick walls of the hollowed out asteroid. Vast towns and markets were scattered about, home to almost 50 million souls.

< Humans dream big! > Tyra exclaimed in no little awe.

< We fought and scrabbled over every tiny scrap of fertile land. It never occurred to us to make our own. > M!Tekk whispered.

Krrn for once had no comment. Unimpressed, as his people had moved entire existing worlds, and rebuilt those, not built new ones.

Returning to the suite that night, it had been building for a long time, now for the first time Hayley felt truly confined. Truly a prisoner, a lab rat caught in a maze.

As she entered she saw Doctor Takashiro seated in a chair. A box the size of a large footlocker sitting next to him.

"Miss Stewart. I am sorry it took so long. Here are Tyra's things."

Giving a half smile, "They couldn't get it open and finally gave up, didn't they?"

"Umm, not..., okay, yes. They tried everything, short of blowing it up, that they could. Now all they ask is to be allowed to record the opening and see inside."

"You already record and watch everything, why ask now?"

"What? We only record..."

"Bullshit! You think I don't know there are eyes behind every mirror? A dozen cameras in every room? Ask the watchers about last week's dance session, had them coming in their pants, didn't I?"

"What? What dance session?"

"Changing the topic... When can I write home? They must think I am dead by now, right?"

Hayley saw the jump in his heartrate, the veins at his throat throbbing, the perspiration on his upper lip and temples, the slight flush to his ears. She could feel the surge of panic in his thoughts.

"Wait! They already think I am dead, don't they? Did you tell them that?" Only Krrn's presence at her mental shoulder kept her from screaming at him. "That's not all, is it?"

"We, err, thought it best..."

"So what? Kill me off to the galaxy and you can keep me here as your private lab play toy and leaving no one to question it? Were you ever going to let me go home?"

Seeing him squirming under her gaze.

"What is the rest? Did one of them get sick? Get injured? Die?"

Seeing the burst of new signs.

"Oh goddess, that's it. Who died? Oma? Papa? Mama? One of the boys?" Tears erupting as her hard-won control crumbled. Getting a response from each person on her list. "All of them? How, how could you not tell me?"

"We're not sure what happened. Three days after you were due to return to Parson's World. Someone killed everyone in the household. Even the Cy-dogs. The house was burned before the police arrived, what little evidence they collected vanished. So, they had to drop the investigation."

Hayley's mind slammed into the void that was the day she received the Soul Spike, certain the secrets lay buried there.

But there was nothing there to remember. The memories were not blocked or hidden. The chemical bonds of long-term memory had never been formed, so there truly was nothing left to remember.

"I used to think of you as almost a friend. Now I know the truth. You are just one more of them, my captors, my jailers. Oh, this prison cell suite is nice, every amenity, everything I could want... except the Truth, except Freedom. So, from now on expect me to be the hostile witness, the POW sworn to escape. This gilded cage is just one more lie, one more fallacy you tell to yourself. Leave now." No tears fell now, just a cold and certain expression. The outward calm belied by the rapidly shifting colors in her predominantly blue eyes.

Doctor Takashiro was more terrified by her calm and certain tone than he ever would have been had she been screaming her rage at him. He knew her comments had been a declaration of War, one none of his coworkers would take seriously until far too late. But he was somehow certain she would make good on her threat and escape.

Leaving the suite, he sat dejected in the main monitor room. Wondering how she knew about all the cameras and all the watchers. Entire theses had been written from the study of her. An entire field of scientific study into the legends of these Soul Spikes had been formed.

And now, they had made one mistake too many and lost her cooperation in a truly terrible way.

Two days now, Hayley sat unmoving, a thrumming buzz the only sound. Doctor Takashiro called up the recording of the dance session. Internal security monitors let him watch as Hayley played with the Observers in the Gym Theater. When he mapped out the eye tracking paths, he saw that Hayley had focused directly on the eyes of each observer. A spike of fear hit, there was no way, yet he was certain Hayley had seen every one of the observers.

Glancing back at the live monitor, he saw Hayley bent over Tyra's trunk. Just as he was reaching for the alarm, the trunk's lid popped open, and everything went pitch black.

m/p3B[I