Two Days Earlier
Classified: Eyes Only
RE: Project 'Favored Son' Proposal for genetic enhancement of human tissue for the purpose of creating a fully enhanced, mentally stable, super-human soldier.
General Martin Sampson read over the proposal one more time. He couldn't believe someone actually took this proposal seriously. It read like poorly written science fiction, and had cost billions. In the document it was stated that viable data could be extracted from encapsulated, living material. The 'living material' was created with the cells collected by the military's genotyping project.
However, in the briefing he had just heard, not only had those idiots at Ecogen gone all the way to prototype, they had actually let a number of these creatures loose on society.
A phone rang at his elbow, and he answered it. "Hello?"
"Sir, primary containment achieved. Request permission to begin searching for secondary objective."
"I believe you are mistaken, Major. The news reports tell of bodies being recovered."
"Sir, our objective was for a 'believable industrial accident'. We simply released several canisters of TE-12 into the facility, then detonated it with a thermite grenade in the sub-basement. All genetic material was destroyed by the gas; data and hard copy were destroyed by the explosion," the Major replied.
"Very well, notify me when you have positive acquisition of your secondary objectives. Do not proceed without approval, do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal clear sir."
The general hung up the phone and leaned back in the limo seat. How could those pricks at Ecogen have been so stupid? The Director himself had called this morning to tell him of the debacle. Well, situational containment was his job, and he did it very well.
Present
After Heather told them what she felt from the van out front, Brad and Frank looked out a window and saw the van. Terri, Tara, Carrie and Hal all wanted to go have a talk with the occupants, but Brad thought that would be tipping their hand.
"Look, at this point they can come in here, kill all of us and make up whatever excuse they want to justify their actions. Right now we'll be safe until tonight - then they'll hit us. What I don't know is if they are here to capture or to kill. If it's to capture, Heather, Frank and the others would stand a chance, but if it's to kill ... I don't think we can take the chance. Unfortunately, if we try to leave, they'll just follow us. Frank, what weapons do you have in the house?" Brad asked.
Frank closed his eyes and thought. "Four 9mm Glocks, two Colt .45s, six 10-22s, one 30.06 with a scope, and four AR-15s." When Frank opened his eyes, Brad was looking at him with some amusement. "What? I told you I liked to shoot. I'm not the only one here that does."
Chuckling, Brad said, "We might need to break them out and get them loaded. Sammy, you should let The Rebellion know what's going on, then tear down your equipment and get it into one of the SUV's. We should all pack some clothes and get ready to run. We need more info, and since I'm the only mind reader we have, I need to talk to those gentlemen," Brad said.
"Nope. Any of us can use your ability once we get close enough. You don't need to expose yourself to them just to gain information," Terri argued.
"You are correct, but you would have to either have eye contact or be physically touching them in order to read them or plant commands. I only need to be close to them. If we do this right, we'll be able to drive off, and no one will know we're gone. Besides, I'd like to know who's pushing this; we can't run forever, and I don't plan to," Brad said.
So as the rest of the people in the house scrambled to get their belongings together, Brad, Tara and Terri strolled out the front door and walked across the street. They were arguing loudly about some made up boy hitting on Terri then hitting on Tara. They seemed totally oblivious to the van as they walked around behind it on the sidewalk.
The men watched the three teenagers leave the house and walk casually across the street then turn toward them. Both men suddenly got a far-away look in their eyes and Mr. Jones turned and poured his coffee into a certain box attached to the wall opposite the monitors. Smoke and sparks exploded out of all the equipment as the two men all but panicked about the electrical fire.
As they were dowsing the flames with small fire extinguishers, one of their cell phones rang. Mr. Jones answered it. "Hello?"
"Yes sir, the whole damn system just shorted out. We haven't figured out why yet."
"No sir, no one's left the house since we last spoke. Everything's still a go for tonight."
"Yes sir, we'll use our phones to relay to the teams and to you." Mr. Jones flinched and closed the phone. "Damn, the General's really pissed. I'd hate to be the guys in tech services when he gets through with them. We're to call in with our phones if anything changes."
Outside the van Brad smiled as he listened to Jones's thoughts. He motioned his sisters to follow him back to the house, turned and headed out.
"Won't they see us and know we were up to something?" Tara asked.
Terri laughed at her sister and took her hand. "Lover, some days you're too blonde for your own good."
When they got back into the house, Brad went to see Sammy. He had sent her a mental message asking her to hold off shutting down her system so he could give her some names.
"General Martin Sampson is the man pulling the strings, but there is someone called only 'The Director' pulling his. He's currently 'retired' and working as a security and product consultant for Comdex-Teradyne. The guys out in the truck, and the two teams waiting to attack us, are both black ops teams that move around from place to place as they're needed. When they're done here, they're supposed to go to Daytona Beach to await another assignment," Brad said.
"It'll take me a couple of minutes to get into him. Do you want me to start the search for this mysterious 'Director' character now or wait until we get to where we're going?" Sammy asked.
"Just get me the quick and dirty on the General, because I'm about to call him. Maybe we can shake him enough to get him to pull back enough for us to get away," Brad said.
"You don't really believe that do you?" she asked.
"Not for a second, but if we can keep him rattled and off balance long enough, we might be able to trip him up somehow," Brad replied.
"Well, your cell is still untraceable so go ahead and use it. He won't be able to find it," Sammy grinned.
Brad chuckled and dialed the number he got from Jones's thoughts. As it rang, her heard several clicks as different equipment did different things to the call. Brad had no doubt that it was trying to be traced while the call was being transferred to wherever the General was.
"Hello?" a gruff sounding voice answered.
"General Sampson, it's nice to finally speak to the man who ordered the death of so many innocent people. My Name is Bradley Rogers."
"How did you get this number? Listen kid, the Department of Defense takes a dim view of prank callers!"
"Martin, stop blustering and listen to me. You know me as Subject two-one-em dash four-three-three. If you pull your men back, I won't be forced to hurt any of them."
"Right, you won't be so tough after a few months in the cell we have for you. You and the other creatures you call sisters will be put back into your cages tonight," The General blustered.
"General, you really think there are only five of us? Damn, your information is really off! I'll tell you what, just wait until tomorrow, and you'll be able to read about how wrong your intel is on MSNBC. The whole Ecogen database was downloaded before your goons took out the building. It goes public tomorrow," Brad said.
The General laughed. "You're bluffing! There is no way you could have even gotten in the building, not to mention cracking the encryption on that data!"
"Holy shit! Martin, your daughter is really cute! These nude pictures I just got off your hard drive are excellent quality. I know she isn't crying because your little dick is hurting her, it must be because she feels betrayed by the father that's supposed to protect her. You just sunk to a new level in my book, pal. No child should be put through that. How could you do that to your own little girl! Did you make her get that tattoo on her mons? The one that says 'Daddy's Girl?' I'm going to destroy you for what you've done to her, Martin."
"You're lying! There are no such pictures on my computer at home! I'd never hurt my little girl like that! I'm going to make sure you die slowly and painfully for that."
"Really; well you better hurry, because I'm going to email these pictures to the press and to the Director as soon as we hang up. Good bye, Martin."
"Wait! Don't send those pictures!" He took a deep breath. "Look, I don't know how you got into my home computer, but if you send those pictures, they kill me, and still come after you."
"I'm listening," Brad said.
"If you promise not to send those pictures, I'll pull my teams back and give you a head start," Martin offered.
"Martin, I'm looking into those tortured, betrayed eyes of your pretty daughter, not the current one, the one when she was about five years old. If I were anywhere near you right now, I would shoot you myself. You disgust me."
"How do you know I'm not in town, directing this myself?" Martin asked.
"Because I know you're in your company limo on your way home from the office at CT. You'll need to come up with something better or the first person to die tonight will be you," Brad said.
"Fine, what do you want?" Martin asked.
"First, you will put your daughter on a plane and send her to me. We'll do what we can to repair the damage you've done to her. Second, you'll pull your teams back and send them to their staging area in Daytona Beach. Third, you will report our destruction to The Director in such a way that it will be believed. If any of these conditions are not met, you're finished."
"Okay. I'll do it. But what assurances do I have that you won't send those pictures after I've made sure you're left alone?"
"You don't! This isn't a bargaining session, Martin. Those are our demands. You call us the nonhuman 'creatures' while you can do that to your own daughter? If you're an example of the human race, I'm proud you don't count me as a part of it. Listen to me well; you've just become our guardian angel. If anything happens to me or any of my family, nothing will stop those pictures from being sent," Brad said.
"I understand."
"You have until this time tomorrow to get Julie on a plane. The rest better happen before that. Good-bye, Martin," Brad said as he hung up the phone. He dropped it on the bed as he walked into the bathroom and promptly threw-up.
As Brad headed upstairs, Frank approached Stephanie. "Uh, can I talk to you for a few minutes in my study? I have a problem I can't seem to figure out."
Stephanie looked surprised but said, "Sure Frank, what's the problem?"
Frank had led her to his study, and closed the door behind him. "A couple of my companies are in trouble. Another corporation is in position for a hostile take over, and I don't think I can do anything to stop them. The problem is, those companies are the ones I'm using for the 'Paladin Project'."
The Paladin Project was what he had taken to calling the manufacturing of the equipment that the hackers had wanted built. The loss of these companies at this point could be a serious setback, especially if this technology got into the open market too soon.
"May I ask what companies, and who is taking them over?" Stephanie asked. There were some really strong conglomerates out there, so if it was one of them...
"Sure, Americomp is building the computer hardware, and Rafael Engineering is putting together the non-computer stuff. I've never heard of Tioga Industries before, but they've been buying up companies right and left. They seem to have unlimited resources and I'll be damned if I know how to stop them," Frank explained.
Stephanie went a little pale. "Uh, Frank, I think we better sit down one of these days ... like now, and compare our portfolio's. I'm the one buying your companies. I had them in mind for the Paladin Project, and when my research said they had some revolutionary new tech in development, I jumped on them. Sorry, I'll try to call it off."
Frank laughed; "At least I know I'm doing something right, if you wanted them!"
Stephanie grinned, thankful that he wasn't mad at her. "Let me go get my laptop and maybe we can keep this from happening again. By the way, it's Toga Industries."
Later that night, as Brad and the rest of the combined household sat around waiting for an attack, the Rogers' old house was destroyed in a huge explosion. Apparently in the last assault, a stray bullet ruptured a gas pipe, causing the house to fill with fumes. It was unknown for certain exactly what set it off, but the explosion completely destroyed the house.
The next morning, Sammy reported that Julie Sampson had boarded Northwest Flight 3124 and would be arriving at six-twenty that night. The manifest listed her as traveling alone. Sammy was immediately suspicious, and began running the billing records of everyone on the flight. She looked for three hours, but didn't find anything unusual.
That evening, Terri and Brad met the off-loading passengers while Tara, Joyce, Carrie and Hal stood off at a distance and watched the crowd. A very subdued looking girl walked down the jet-way carrying a school style backpack and looking lost. Brad recognized her at once: Julie Sampson.
When the girl reached the end of the airway, she stopped and looked around. She looked anxiously at all the passengers walking past her and flinched away from those that got too close. Terri had tears in her eyes as she slowly walked over to the girl.
"Julie?" Terri asked.
The girl nodded, "Yeah, I'm Julie." She looked up at the taller girl. "How did you get me away from him? And what are you going to do to me?"
Still smiling at the girl, Terri replied, "He was trying to hurt me and my brother and sisters. We hacked into his computer were he kept those pictures of you and blackmailed him into sending you to us, and leave us alone. We don't want to do anything to you, but we wanted to make sure he couldn't hurt you anymore."
"Uh, thank you for trying, but he won't be leaving this alone. He told me he'd kill me before he ever let me go, just to make sure no one could prove he'd done anything wrong. He was plenty pissed off when he put me on the plane. He spoke to three other people that followed me on the plane too," Julie said.
"I doubt they would try anything in a public place like this, since there would be too many witnesses. But if you see those people he was talking to, let me know, okay?" Terri asked.
"Your brother's going to use me like daddy did, isn't he? That's why he made daddy send me to him," Julie said sounding depressed. "At least he's cute, and doesn't look cruel."
"No honey, no one is going to rape you like that. You're free from that here. Brad has enough on his plate with the girls he already has, and we're all with him by choice," Terri said without thinking.
"We? I thought you said he was your brother?"
"Uh, that's a story for another time, sweetheart. Now, do you see any of those people your daddy was speaking too?" Terri asked.
"Yeah, the woman about twenty feet behind your brother, and the man looking at the brochures over there. I think the other man went into the bar," Julie said. "They're all carrying guns. I saw them when we went through security."
Terri: "We have three shooters, one blonde female a few feet behind Brad, the other is the guy looking at brochures for the aquarium. Julie thinks the other went into the bar, but wasn't sure. Julie is considered expendable."
Brad: "Hold on ... Got him! The third shooter is waiting inside the bar for Terri and Julie to move. He'll follow along while the other two get out into the parking lot. Once we are getting into the car, they'll take us. They have positive IDs on everyone but Carrie and Hal. I'm gonna mess with them, and General Martin. Their new targets are each other. They will leave here, and in an hour, they will begin the hunt. New rules of engagement are, no collateral damage is allowed; however, witnesses are required — preferably a member of the law enforcement community. They will not answer their cell phones, since that might be a trick. None of them have ever heard of any of us, but they admit that General Sampson sent them to kill the other two."
Stephanie: "That's devious Brad. But what do we do now? Sampson violated the agreement."
Brad: "We do what we told him we would do if he screwed us. Have you figured out who this Director is yet?"
Samantha: "No, but I do have an email to trace. The server is in Nebraska, but I'll have to embed a tracer virus in the message to actually find the person that reads it."
Brad: "Okay, do what you need to do. We'll be leaving shortly. I'm tempted to just walk out and leave Julie's clothes. Knowing Martin, he's probably got her wired for sound and rigged to explode."
Tara: "That's a good idea, Brad. I think she'd like to go shopping for all new clothes. It might help with getting her to trust us."
Terri: "Yeah, she already believes that Brad is going to use her just like her father did. Her only real comment on it was that at least Brad's cute."
Brad: "She's pretty cute herself, but I'd sooner be forced to swim in a volcano, nude, than to violate her like that."
Vanessa: "We're going to have to be careful with how Brad and Julie interact. Sex in any form between them would be a bad thing at this point; however, if he rejects her, it could be worse."
Terri: "Let me run the shopping idea past Julie and see what she thinks about it. She might not want to go someplace with a lot of people."
The mental conversation had only taken a split second, so Julie hadn't started wondering what was going on yet. Terri put a grin on her face. "Hey! I just had a great idea! How would you like to get a whole new wardrobe? All new clothes?"
Julie's eyes lit up briefly before they dulled again. "Daddy always promised to take me shopping too, but he never did. Uh, I need to use the bathroom."
"Well, I'm not your nasty daddy, and we can stop at the mall on the way home. It's only about a mile from here," Terri said. Taking out a pen and a little notebook from her purse, she wrote 'We think your father might have put a listening device on you, or put something else in your luggage. Do you know if he did? Just nod your answer, don't say it.'
Terri held the book so Julie could read it, and the girl's eyes got big, as she nodded yes. But she said aloud, "The bathrooms on the plane were nasty, and crowded. I feel like I'm about to burst."
They had entered the bathroom now, and Terri quickly wrote, 'He planted a bomb on you? What about the listening devices?'
Julie thought for a moment and seemed to reach a decision. She quickly checked under the doors to the stalls to see if they were alone in the bathroom. They were. She took Terri's hand and pulled her into a stall with her. She set her backpack down, turned and pulled her pants and underwear down before sitting down. She hadn't been lying, she really had to go. While she was peeing, she pulled Terri close to whisper in her ear. "Yes, my laptop is the bomb. As soon as it's plugged in it'll explode. He wanted to get whoever hacked his computer. Also there are bugs all over me, and in my luggage." She was finishing up, and reached for the toilet paper. She rolled some up, and unashamedly spread her legs to wipe. Terri smiled as she looked away to give the girl some privacy. Julie got her attention, "I'm supposed to show you my tattoo to prove my identity. I'd feel better about showing you than I would your brother, if that's okay?"
Terri turned and looked down at her hairless pussy. The 'Daddy's Girl' tattoo was clearly visible on her mons. Terri nodded in acceptance. "Once you feel like it, we'll help you get that removed or covered with something else."
"Daddy wanted it burned on, but I managed to convince him that he would enjoy it more if I sucked the tattoo artist off as payment," Julie said. "He's the man that went into the bar."
Terri wrote in the notebook, 'Do you have any pictures or anything you'd like to keep in the bags you brought with you?'
Julie read it as she washed her hands. When she had them dry enough, she took the pen and notebook from Terri. 'Daddy wouldn't let me have pictures of anyone else but him. I sure as hell don't want to keep those.'
Aloud Terri said, "Well, if you're ready then, we should get going." In the notebook she wrote, 'We'll dump your bags in a dumpster on the way to the mall. We'll just have to get rid of the clothes you're wearing at the mall.'
Julie nodded in understanding. "So, did you really mean what you said earlier about taking me shopping?"
Terri grinned at the girl as they walked past Brad, ignoring him, and headed for baggage claim.
Once they dumped Julie's luggage at a remote dumpster, they headed straight for the local mall. Julie clung to Terri like she was a long lost sister. Once Terri introduced the girl to Tara, the three became glued to each other. Julie basked in the attention of the two older girls. By the time they left the mall, not only was Frank's credit card a couple thousand dollars heavier, but Julie had developed a serious case of hero worship for the two blondes.
Watching her face as he and Hal carried the purchases from store to store convinced Brad that he had done the right thing. Julie glowed with happiness. She was so happy the she actually gave him a hug, with Terri and Tara right there, when they got back to the SUV.
Once inside the truck and on their way home, Julie asked Brad a question directly. "Brad, why does Joyce wear that collar and always stays so close to you?"
Brad wondered how he was going to answer that question when Joyce answered it for him. "I'm his slave. I love and trust him so much that I wanted to give him my freedom. He didn't do anything to me, I'm the one who asked for this."
Julie's eyes got big, "What do you mean by slave? Does he ... Do you let him ... whip you?"
Joyce grinned at the girl, "No, nothing like that, though I might like him to spank me sometime. No, I asked him if I could serve as his body slave and additional protection when we're out. Do you know what a body slave is?"
Julie shook her head no. Joyce explained, "I serve him in any way he wishes me too, but most especially in bed. He can have me at any time, in any way, and in any place of his choosing. If he wanted to take me in the mall today, I would have happily let him. It satisfies my submissive nature, and I trust him not to put me into a position that will harm me, or cause me any real trouble."
"You let him do what daddy did to me?" Julie asked incredulously.
"No sweetheart. What your father did to you was abuse. Brad would never abuse me. He would never really hurt me; we might sometimes play like that, but it'll never be 'real'," Joyce explained.
"I guess I don't really understand." She turned to Terri, "At the airport, you said you were with him. How does that work?"
"Well, that's not exactly what I said, Hon. I said 'we' were with him by choice. Brad has more than one or two girlfriends. In fact, there are seven of us and we consider ourselves all married to each other," Terri explained. "In addition to that, four of us are his sisters. Our mother is also one of our mates."
Julie looked thoughtful for a minute then her eyes lit up again; "You've got one of those group marriages like in the Heinlein books, right? I thought those were illegal?"
Terri closed her eyes for a moment to remember if she'd ever read the books. Tara had and supplied the answer for Julie. "They are, sweety. However, like Terri said, we consider ourselves all married. That doesn't mean we actually are. But you have to promise us not to tell anyone about us, because most people wouldn't understand and they'd be really mad."
Julie snorted; "Especially with you balling the brains out of your own brother and sisters!"
There was dead silence for all of five seconds before Joyce burst out laughing, which set everyone else off. Brad had to pull over to wipe the tears from his eyes. When the laughter had died back down, and Brad had gotten back on the road, Julie asked another question; this time, it wasn't directed at anyone. "So, where does that leave me, if Brad didn't have me sent out here to become his?"
Brad cleared his throat and looked at her in the mirror. "It leaves you wherever you want it too. I got you away from him; by doing that I became responsible for you. No one will ever force you, or demand sex from you again. If they do, please come and tell me or Terri or ... any of us. You're part of our family now. That packet of information we dug out of your backpack has all the documents that make it legal. If you want, you'll even be able to change your last name. Other than us, no one here knows you. No one needs to know either, that choice is up too you. We'll help you finish school, and if you want to go someplace for college, we'll pay for it. We want to make the rest of your life as normal as we can."
Julie had tears in her eyes as she listened to him. Very softly she asked, "Why ... Why are you doing this for me? You don't know me; we've never met before. Who am I to you?"
"You're someone that got caught in the crossfire between your father and me. No, I don't know you. But I could tell from the pictures I took from your father's computer that you didn't like what he was doing to you, and I was in a position to get you out of it. Call it a hero complex on my part, but once I knew someone needed my help, I had to give it," Brad said.
"You ... you saw those? You saw what he did to me?" She was starting to cry again, her earlier happiness quickly disappearing.
Brad was pulling up to the mansion when she asked him why, and he had parked when she burst into tears. He turned in the seat and looked at her with love and compassion in his eyes. "I know you don't understand right now, sweetheart, but you will, soon, I promise." He reached back and caressed her cheek, softly nudging her into sleep. "She's really fucked up. I'll carry her up to a room if you guys will grab the bags."
While Brad carried her, he scanned her mind. What he found made him wish he could do something very painful, slow and lethal to Martin Sampson. Julie had never been allowed to go to school. She was home schooled by people Sampson selected. She wasn't allowed to go to the mall or make friends with anyone her own age. She did leave the house for Doctor's visits and the like, but she was always escorted either by Martin or one of the many bodyguards.
Julie didn't have a mother, and Sampson had never married. Julie's birth mother was one of Martin's maids and had 'left his employment' shortly after Julie had been born. Some of the staff at her house tried to take care of her, as much as they could without Martin finding out about it, but it never lasted very long as it was one of Martin's favorite 'games'. He would purposely hire young, attractive girls to work at his house. When they befriended Julie and started trying to help her, Martin would have one of his men bring both girls to his room and make then perform for him. Sometimes days later, the young woman would be 'fired'. Julie never heard from these women again, and she had come to suspect that Martin had them killed. All this was in addition to the almost nightly rapes she had to endure from him.
When she had finally surrendered and gave in to him, he beat her almost to unconsciousness, telling her she was always to fight him. Since that time, she had tried to run away many times, but he had always caught her and brought her back; finally he told that her next time he'd just have his men kill her and whoever she was with, just to be done with it. She had almost decided to run one more time; this time she wouldn't try to hide from the men sent to kill her.
Brad had tears in his eyes when he met his ladies downstairs. Once again the household had gathered to hear about their newest member. This time it included Tabby since she was over again visiting Heather.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to completely rewrite her. Martin has screwed her up so badly I don't think she can be fixed." He closed his eyes and let everyone see what he had read from the girl.
Even Walter had tears falling down his cheeks when Brad finished. "When it's time, I want to be the one to put the bullet in that fucking piece of trash."
"I think we all feel that way, Walter. Unfortunately, Martin Sampson won't last the night," Sammy said. "I sent multiple, anonymous emails to various addresses that will insure Martin Sampson won't see the light of day again. One of those emails was to the White House, with a tad more information about what was going on. I traced the 'Director' email to a computer in Texas, but haven't nailed down exactly where yet. However, that same computer used the same account to send out the order for Sampson's 'retirement'. The order was explicit as to the method. I would assume that this 'director' isn't too fond of child molesters either."
"What was the method?" Walter asked.
"He is to be taken out and forced to dig a grave. Then a small glass tube is to be inserted into his dick. The tube is filled with almost pure chlorine. Then he is to be handcuffed, beaten, and repeatedly raped in the ass with a very large dildo. Just before the ass rape begins, he is to be kicked in the nuts to break the glass tube. If he looses consciousness, he is to be revived until he can't be revived anymore. Finally he is to be left in the grave he dug. It was stipulated in the message that a thousand dollar bonus will be added for every day they can keep him going," Samantha explained.
"Good," Walter said before going silent once more.
"About the girl; my lawyer, Ken said there wouldn't be any trouble if the paperwork was in order. If you do have to rewrite her, how do we do it so the stories match?" Frank asked. "Her name on those documents is Julie Sampson."
Vanessa sighed, "As much as I'd like to erase all the bad from her, I think we'll need to leave some of it. Why don't we give her mostly false memories of an abusive father that forced her to run away from home after he assaulted her? We found her, and got him to agree to surrender his parental rights if we didn't press charges?"
Frank nodded. "With his signature on the paperwork, I'm sure that'll play out well with the court. Can you do all that to her though?" he asked looking at Brad.
"I think so. It might take some time, but it should work. Steph, can you repair the damage to her vagina and anus, and restore her hymen?" Brad asked.
"You guys can actually do all that?" Tabitha asked.
"Yes we can. To answer your question, Brad, it shouldn't be that hard. It'll be mostly removing scar tissue." Stephanie answered.
"Frank, I'm afraid we spent a lot of money on her at the mall. Sammy, can you transfer a couple thousand over to Frank to cover our shopping trip?" Brad asked.
"Don't worry about it; she's going to be my daughter, and she needed clothes. Heather usually spends more than that buying her school wardrobe," Frank said.
Heather stuck her tongue out at her father. "Since I'm married I have to buy my own clothes now."
"You mean your mates have to pay for it!" Tabby teased.
Amid the chuckles and good-natured teasing, Brad took Stephanie's hand. "We should get started. I'll make sure she sleeps through the night, but I think we should end her nightmare as soon as possible."
"Uhm, I don't mean to be the bad guy here, but are you sure this is the right thing to do?" Tabitha asked. "I mean ... rewriting a person ... That's pretty major."
Brad nodded his agreement; "I know, Tabitha, and I agree with you. However, I won't be changing her core personality. All I will be doing is erasing her memories of the horror her life has been, and replacing them with something that will help her live a somewhat normal life. If she's left like this, she'll be in therapy for the rest of her life. Which might end up being a lot shorter then it should be, since she is suicidal."
"Yeah, you're right. You need to do this. It just gives me the willies to know that someone has that much power, and is willing to use it," Tabitha said.
Brad looked thoughtful for a moment. "I think it comes down to a question of ethics. Just because I can, should I? Conversely, I see a beautiful young person with a sickness that only I can correct. What kind of person would I be if I did nothing to help her?"
Tabitha looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded in agreement. Brad smiled at her; "My ability is dangerous. Please never feel badly about questioning me on how and why I'm using it."
Tabitha rose and kissed his cheek; she whispered in his ear, "Be careful, you might end up with another mate."
Brad boldly kissed her on the lips. "If that's what you decide you want, be sure to talk to everyone first. I like the new you much better then the old you."
Heather grinned, "And be prepared for the ride of your life. Brad's hung like a horse, and knows how to use it."
"Shetland Pony huh?" Tabitha said, teasing.
"Honey, he'd put a Clydesdale to shame," Heather said.
"Just how do you know about the size of Clydesdales young lady?" Frank asked, making Heather blush a dark red.
"Daddy!"