“I cut it.”
“Why?”
“It gets tangled when you fly.”
“Who cares about her hair?” her mother said, and came closer to Alisha. “That man—you didn’t let him…?”
“Let him what, Mother?”
“Don’t act innocent. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Has he ruined you?”
Alisha paused before answering. She had thought she’d do anything to get out of the Corps, and without doubt, if she returned and married David Brown, he could pull the strings to get her released. She smiled and shook her head. Her chance to escape was right here. Unfortunately, she loathed this solution more than being a SkyRyder.
“Mother, I spent a month on the street making my living as a whore before I became a SkyRyder.”
Her mother burst into tears and fell into David’s comforting arms. “She’s ruined everything! All our plans!”
David studied Alisha through narrowed eyes.
She held up her chin defiantly, refusing to be cowed by him. For the first time in the last two months, she was actually glad she was a SkyRyder. She was at least safe from the likes of him.
“I think she’s lying,” he said.
“I just caught her in bed with some Ryder,” her mother explained sorrowfully. “It’s no use, David. She’s ruined.”
He set the woman aside, walked over to Alisha, and ripped the sheet away. “She’s fully dressed.”
Just then, Jack came out of the bathroom, dressed and ready to present himself to the brig.
“Is this the man you saw in her bed?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t dressed,” Alisha’s mother admitted.
“Unless this man has a twin, he was talking to the general when we entered his office no more than ten minutes ago.” David shook his head. “This is one of your daughter’s scams. General Powell, I assume you have a competent medic on staff?”
“Of course,” the general replied.
“I want her examined to see if her virginity remains intact.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Alisha asked. “I spent a month on the streets! I sold my body to men for money. Why would you think I’m still a virgin?”
Alisha’s mother moved back into David’s arms. “It could be a trick,” she said hopefully.
David stroked the woman’s hair. “I expect it is, but you do realize marrying her now is inconceivable. Just look at her. We’ll have to move to plan B.”
Alisha’s mother nodded in agreement. “I’ll handle it from here,” she assured David. “You’ve wasted enough of your time with Alisha’s mess.”
“More than enough,” David agreed. He glared at the general. “The girl had better be intact and ready to leave in two hours,” he warned, and walked from the room.
Powell glared at Jack. “In my office now!” he growled, and stormed from the room.
Alisha hated Jack had put his career at risk again trying to help her. He was always there for her…
A stinging slap across her cheek interrupted her thoughts.
“You fool!” her mother hissed. “What is wrong with you? You could have had a fairytale marriage, and instead now you’ll be little more than a whore for the rest of your life—or worse, if you don’t change your attitude to something a lot more pleasing.”
“Could you not continue to do it, Mother? You please him so much better than I,” Alisha replied, knowing her quick wit would earn her another slap. It did.
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that! Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you and your father, and not once has either of you even said thank you. Do you think my life is easy? Do you think just because I’m constantly smiling I never have a bad moment?”
“No, Mother, I think you hate your life, just as you hate father and you hate me. Why do you think I ran away? Because David was some horrible monster? He probably is, but I wouldn’t know. You were very careful not to let us spend much time together. I wonder if Father knew, despite all those hours David spent at our house, I had barely even spoken to him.”
Her observation earned her another slap.
“Of course he knew!” her mother hissed. “It was my responsibility to see this marriage took place, and you damn well weren’t inclined to help. You have no appreciation of the things I’ve done, trying to help you.”
Alisha sighed and touched her mother’s arm. “I wish you hadn’t. Any sacrifice you’ve made is wasted. I wasn’t lying, Mother. I’m not a virgin anymore.”
“It wouldn’t matter anyway. Your behavior, your looks, your manners—David would never marry you now. You’d be a constant embarrassment to him. I’m sorry for the life you’ll lead, but you brought it on yourself. I had everything worked out, but you were just too pig-headed to appreciate what I’d done for you!”
“I know you tried to do what you thought was best for me,” Alisha said, consoling her mother.
“I didn’t just try. I succeeded. I got you engaged to the President of the American Continent. I had it all wrapped up. All you had to do was drink your milk and go to sleep! How hard could that be?”
“I didn’t want that life—your life,” Alisha explained. “You seem to think that just because you smile, no one can see your pain and misery! I saw and felt it every day of my life. I would rather die than endure such torture.”
“You can save your pity for my life, because yours has turned out considerably worse. I hope you learned some useful tricks as a street girl, because I can tell you now, David is not an easy man to please, and given his current anger with you…”
“Once the medic verifies I’m not a virgin, he’ll forget I even exist.”
“No, dear, he won’t,” her mother replied with dreadful certainty. “He needs your father’s money to be reelected as President. The marriage contract states if you become unsuitable to be his wife, then you’ll be retained in his household pending improvement of character.”
“A virgin mistress?” Alisha exclaimed.
“Worse, actually,” her mother admitted. “They, at least, can remain with their family except when required to visit and perform. You will be given over to his custody and training.” Her mother paused and covered her daughter’s hand. “Alisha. I know you’re spirited—I used to be much the same—but you have to believe me, you won’t survive a month if you do not change your ways. David enjoys breaking a woman’s spirit. It’s why he agreed to this marriage to begin with. He thought you’d be a challenge. But you’ve embarrassed him now, and he does not forget or forgive easily.”
“If you’d been this honest with me to begin with, it might have saved you a lot of trouble. I will not be David Brown’s virgin mistress. I am a Colonel in the SkyRyders, a valuable and important asset. I have never seen nor signed the marriage contract, and David has no legal grounds to force me to comply with its terms. Tell Father he can fork over the dowry if he likes, but I’m remaining in the Corps. I have a twenty-year contract I have to fulfill.”
With that declaration, Alisha got out of bed, pulled on her flight suit and opened the door. Outside, two ground soldiers were waiting to escort her to the medic.
She was relieved to learn Sandy Culp was on duty when she arrived for her exam. Evidently Sandy had been given a heads-up, because Alisha was taken right in.
“Did you lie about your age?” Sandy demanded as she waited for Alisha to undress for the exam.
“No. I’m twenty-one,” Alisha assured her.
“Who in the hell would think a twenty-one-year-old could possibly be a virgin?”
“I told them I wasn’t, but they just want to bust my balls,” Alisha replied, and lay down on the exam table.
It only took a brief moment for Sandy to verify she was not a virgin. However, that did not end her exam. “Alisha, you don’t have a BCD.” Sandy’s voice sounded worried.
Alisha paused. “I guess I forgot.”
Sandy came around and looked at her as if she were nuts. “You forgot? You forget to brush your teeth
, you forget to call your mom on her birthday, but you don’t forget to get a BCD! Do you know what happens if you become pregnant?”
“Yes, but it’s not a problem. I’m not having sex with anybody.”
“Did I just get off a cargo lift?” Sandy asked. “You’re having sex with everybody. According the latest gossip, you and Jack were having sex when your fiancé walked in on you.”
“Well, as always, rumors are wrong. Sandy, I swear to you, I’ve only had sex one time.”
“And the day after you had sex, you should have gone to your local doctor and gotten your BCD implanted. Jesus Christ! Ten-year-old girls know the law. How could you be so stupid?”
“I forgot about the law.”
“From age ten up, every day you are reminded after your first time you have to see a doctor and get the BCD implanted.”
“It’s different for the debutantes. We can have virgin births two years after losing our virginity and it’s fine. BCDs are something you get after you’ve married and had a baby.”
Sandy shook her head. “I can’t believe I’ve got a twenty-one-year-old colonel who’s never been fitted with a BCD. God almighty! Who did your entry medic exam?” she demanded. “Oh great, Logan! Well, I hope he enjoyed his short career as a general, because if this blows up, it’s going to destroy his career.”
“Can’t you just put it in now?” Alisha asked. “I’d just had the crap kicked out of me the night he examined me. Logan was far more concerned about broken ribs and punctured lungs than whether I had a BCD implanted. To let my stupidity destroy his career would be wrong!”
Sandy stared at her. “I’m going to have to test you and make certain you aren’t pregnant, but assuming we don’t hit that land mine and you promise never to tell a soul about this, I’ll see if we can’t get a BCD mysteriously implanted off the record.”
“Thank you,” Alisha whispered.
“You damn well better thank me. I’ll be pulling Logan’s butt out of the fire and putting my own in its place,” Sandy complained, and took a fluid sample from her. “This shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. You can spend the time reading the sex regs.” She tossed Alisha a quarter-inch-thick government pamphlet. “Goddamn debutantes,” she muttered as she left the room.
Alisha was amazed there was so many government rules about sex, most of which were blatantly ignored by the socialites and the street people. Why would the government care whether people had oral sex or not? She flipped the book over to see if, by chance, a religious organization had printed it so they could slip their puritanical bent into the law.
She laughed when she saw the Church of Latter Day Saints had published the book.
When Sandy returned, she was going to share her discovery, but the look on Sandy’s face removed any thought of humor. “Do I have cancer?”
“Get dressed.”
“But what about the BCD?”
“I can’t put in a BCD, because you are three months pregnant. I suppose they don’t tell debs about the signs of pregnancy either?”
“They do…”
“So it didn’t concern you when you missed two periods?”
“Not really—I’ve always been irregular, and with everything that’s happened I thought my body had just shut down for a while.” Alisha ceased her explanation and took in what Sandy had said. “I’m really pregnant?”
“Not surprising, given your lifestyle and no BCD.”
“Sandy, I wasn’t lying when I said I’ve only had sex once. If I’m pregnant, then it’s a virgin birth, so everything’s legal.”
Sandy groaned and let out a heavy sigh. “Alisha, virgin births do not occur on scout’s honor, at least not out here in the real world. A young girl has sex and her maidenhood is torn. She goes the very next day to her doctor, who examines her and certifies her maidenhood was torn in the last twenty-four hours. She is then implanted with a BCD before she leaves the office. Now, if the girl shows up pregnant one month later, her child will be legal in accordance with the virgin birth law. They don’t declare it a virgin birth because she held up her hand and swore she only did it once. They declare it a virgin birth because it was the only point in time she could have become pregnant.”
“Look, I know I screwed up, but there has to be some way to prove it’s a virgin birth.”
“There isn’t, but your fiancé might be able to find a doctor to cover it up,” Sandy admitted.
“He won’t help.”
Sandy laughed bitterly. “It’s not his, of course.” She sat down beside Alisha and took her hand. “Then your value to the Corps is your only shot to keep you out of jail for the rest of your life,” she admitted. “I’ll speak to General Powell and see if he’s willing to put his career on the line for you. If he agrees, then I’ll do it.”
“Do what?”
“Abort the pregnancy and put in a BCD.”
“No!” Alisha exclaimed. “No one is killing this baby. This was a virgin birth, I swear to you! There has to be some way to prove it!”
“Well there’s not! And without absolute proof, your claim is laughable. First, we have to accept the possibility of a twenty-one-year-old virgin. Second, by your own admission you lived on the streets as a whore for a month. Third, since you’ve been in this army you’ve been screwing your way through the ranks faster than the speed of light, and would still be doing so if Jack hadn’t clearly made it known you were his alone.”
“Sandy, I swear to you, I’ve only been with one man, one time.”
Sandy looked at her chart. “Was this man in the Corps or from your street days?”
“The Corps.”
“So you came to the Corps a twenty-one-year-old virgin?”
Alisha sat up. “I took a medical exam when I went for my flight test. Anna told me MAC’s screening would show I was a virgin.”
Sandy walked over to the computer and typed for a moment. “I’m curious how you got into a discussion about your virginity with Godzill— Colonel Riley.”
“DC claimed Colonel Logan brought me in as his mistress and I was unfit to be a Ryder,” Alisha explained. “I wanted to prove the colonel and I weren’t lovers.”
Sandy typed for a few moments on her computer and stared at the results. “And there it is. A twenty-one-year-old virgin! Why the hell didn’t the damn machine bring it to anyone’s attention?”
Sandy turned around and faced her. “Okay, we can prove you came to the Corps as a virgin. Now how do we prove you only had sex once?”
Alisha thought for a moment. “What about MAC’s psych test? Wouldn’t it reveal the truth?”
“Yes…” Her eyes narrowed and drilled into Alisha. “Here’s the problem. If you claim it’s a virgin birth and MAC catches you in a lie, you’re out of the Corps. You’ll be handed over to the legal authorities, your pregnancy aborted, and you’ll go to jail. If this isn’t a virgin birth and you ’fess up now, there’s a possibility we can make this problem quietly disappear.”
“I’m not lying, Sandy. It’s a virgin birth,” Alisha assured her.
Sandy typed on the keyboard, then frowned. “What the hell is wrong with the damn computer?” she cursed, and typed another message. She read the response and turned back to Alisha. “MAC is advising against taking the test until after the baby is born.”
“Why?”
“There’s an unquantified risk to your embryo. We’ve never run tests on the effects of the psych test on pregnant cadets.”
“Can we wait until after the child is born?”
“No! The law is very clear. The pregnancy must be aborted upon discovery.” Sandy raked her hands through her hair. “I can delay action a day, possibly a week, but there’s no way I can ignore your pregnancy for six months. If you sign a waiver, we can override MACs restriction on giving the test.”
“But there’d be a risk to my baby?”
“Yes, but less risk than the certainty of it being aborted if you can’t prove it’s a virgin birth.” Sandy typed another mess
age on the screen. “MAC suggests bringing in every male you were in contact with during the first two weeks in the Corps.”
“That would be half the Corps. My first day was the wind farm battle. My second was the Broadtown battle. Then we began training,” Alisha explained.
Sandy typed another message and read the response. “MAC wants the name of the father. I assume that would be Jack?”
“It’s not Jack.”
“Then who?” Sandy asked.
“I can’t say.”
“You can’t say because you were gang-raped and don’t know for sure, or you won’t say because you’re afraid of ruining someone’s career?”
“This is my problem. I’m not dragging the father into it.”
“You don’t think he might want to know?”
“No, I don’t. Nor do I believe he’d agree to a MAC test, so it’s pointless to ask,” Alisha replied.
“Then these are your choices: sign a waiver and take the psych test, or get the pregnancy aborted and a BCD in you before anyone is the wiser.”
“Can I think about it?” she asked.
“Well, I have to brief the general. You can sit here and think about it while I’m gone, but unless you name the father and he voluntarily submits to testing, you don’t have a choice if you want to keep the baby. You’ll have to take the psych test.”
The moment Sandy left, Alisha moved to the computer and requested MAC provide any research in its database concerning the impact of the test on pregnant subjects. Sandy hadn’t been lying when she’d said the risks to a human pregnancy couldn’t be quantified, but she hadn’t been telling Alisha the horrible truth either. The reason why MAC screened all female candidates before giving the test was due to the problems that occurred on the lab animals. More than fifty percent of the lab chimps naturally aborted in the month following the test. Of the group that had birthed living young, ninety percent had showed clear signs of mental damage.
The computer screen went blank, and a second later Betty aka Denny’s face appeared.
“Alisha, what’s wrong?” she asked.
MAC must have called Betty for her. Alisha explained her quandary.
“Okay, stay calm. My guess is the general will want to sweep this under the rug real fast, so we haven’t got much time to act.” Betty stared at her screen. “I’m going to personally deliver some suits today because you reported a problem with your dial sticking. You reported it directly to me instead of through channels because you know how crazy the general is getting about these suits. I’ll be in the equipment shed at 1600. You have to meet me there.”
Scavenger Vanishes (The SkyRyders Book 3) Page 12
