Daughters of Dusk 1

by Michael Hudson

  An Unexpected Surprise

  Ding dong.

  Peter blinked as he sat upside down on his couch, a controller in his hands and a pair of blue boxers being all that covered his thin, pasty body. He hadn’t expected anyone to come over today, as today was the day he had planned to finally beat the strategy game he’d been mastering for the past month, so he wasn’t sure who it could be. Not that he really cared. After all, it wasn’t like him to care about much, which is why he waited to take an almost surefire shot before he we- “Oh come on! It was at ninety-percent!”

  Ding Dong.

  Peter rolled his eyes at the sound. They could give him a few seconds at least. Then again, not everyone really saw eye to eye with him on such things. He didn’t really want to be rude though. After all, they probably heard him shout, so they weren’t really wrong to try to get him to focus. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  Peter put his hands on either side of his head, which had been resting comfortably on the couch cushion beneath it, before he swung his legs off of the back of his couch with every bit of force he could. With a small push from his hands, he sprang off the couch and arched through the air like a graceful swan.

  Or like a rock tossed by a ten year old as he fell onto his back on the coffee table in front of his couch, the remote to the television digging into his back as he yelled out in pain and crashed to the floor. It seemed attempt thirty seven would not be his time to shine as an anime character, and he groaned as he heard the doorbell go off again.

  It was time to get moving though, especially for whatever impatient delivery man was waiting for him, so he finally got up, jogged to the door, and yawned as he touched the handle. He didn’t fix his mess of black hair that stood up every which way, or thought about even throwing on a bathrobe. After all, his friends were usually better about calling him than this, and it was his day off. Almost nothing was going to get the twenty-five year old to get out of his comfy clothes, even if it might upset some door to door Avon girl.

  Still, he only cracked the door open, just in case it was a kid or something. What he got instead was two men in sharp, black suits, guns at their hips, and tasers in their hands. They were strong men, made obvious by how tight their suits were over their muscles, and the sharp sunglasses they wore sent shivers down Peter’s spine, even as he tried to say, “Wait one mi-”

  “Sorry Mr. Shaden,” the first of the two said as he pushed hard on the door, sending both it and Peter swinging into the dining room of the house, “but we have a tight schedule to keep and you have already wasted enough of our time.”

  And then everyone stopped as the two men saw the fact that Peter was in his boxers. Or, at least, the men stopped. Peter on the other hand scrambled behind the large, wooden, rectangular dinner table in the room, holding onto the sides of the chair that sat at the end of it as he shouted, “Please don’t tase me. Or shoot me. Really, meaning no harm would be preferable.”

  The two men glanced at each other and, unbeknownst to Peter, had to force themselves with every ounce of self control they had to not smile. After all, they had rehearsed what they were going to do to make sure this went horribly. That this choice, that so many on the committee overseeing this program hated or dismissed, would fail. If they were lucky, their prediction of him not even lasting a week would come true by the end of their visit. Now though, they couldn’t share their jubilation with the teenage idiot before them.

  So, instead, while the second one stayed in front of the doorway, the first one brought forward a briefcase and slammed it down onto the table. The sound made Peter wince as it threatened to damage the stained wood. “Mr. Shaden, we are not here to harm you. Our arms are instead for the charges that are being offered to be put into your care in hopes of helping them integrate into society.”

  Peter blinked a few times as he slightly processed the words and grinned for a moment. “So you aren’t with the mob?”

  The suited man raised an eyebrow, before dryly asking, “Are you connected with the mob?”

  “No, but I sometimes think about weird and crazy things happening like that. It keeps life interesting, you know?”

  The man suppressed a sigh as he shut his eyes and opened the briefcase. From it he pulled out a set of papers and two pens, in case one didn’t work. He then pushed the large set of contracts forward towards Peter. “Well, today may be your lucky day then. Someone who claims to be your friend enlisted you into a special government program that was made over the past week. However, due to the confidential nature of the matters we are about to discuss, I need you to sign these papers first. You understand, right?”

  Peter slowly nodded, swallowing hard as he began to walk around the table. His body was shaking at this point, and it showed with his signatures on the contracts. He didn’t even bother to read them. After all, he was a fast food guy, not some gangster, and his jokes could only do so much to help him relax around armed men, even if they were supposedly with the government. “Th-There you go. Everything’s okay, right?”

  The man took the paper back before nodding to himself. The shaking was a good sign, as it meant the boy was less likely to take the job. Now it was time to really sell it. “No, it’s not. A week ago a team of marines went into a deep, secret base located within the Bermuda Triangle. We do not know whose government they were connected to, but the men there were monsters, out to create super beings and had no care about whether or not they tortured and abused innocents for this end.”

  The man in the doorway finally spoke up now, his deeper baritone barking out his words. “Their goal was to create merciless killers. People who could dodge bullets, break steel with their bare hands, and kill without feeling a thing. From their papers, they were supposedly successful, and perhaps even surpassed their stated goals.”

  The first man picked it back up from there. “Every person in the facility has a confirmed body count. All of them have killed at least one person. The subjects, now mostly young women from the ages of eighteen to twenty-five, started their training at most at 12 when they were abducted from parents at a much younger age or bought from human traffickers who gave them children. As such, the governments involved in the raid decided that they should be given a second chance. To be given the ability to re-enter the world and have a chance to the lives they were denied. This is of course with knowledge that they will likely kill people still, and that we will likely need to cover up these… Incidents.”

  And the second man rounded it out by stating coldly, “And that includes if they murder you.”

  Peter was deathly pale by the time he said the last line, and almost threw up as he tried to process it all. This couldn’t all be true. It… No one could be like that. “I-How… I’m just a normal guy. W-why would you offer this to me? What would make you think I’m able to deal with people like that?”

  The man took in a sharp breath in as he clenched his hands together. “We do not know why. Many officials above us, along with members of the seal team, trained therapists, and other consultants recommended whom were to take care of small squads of these girls. Their reasoning was left out of our briefings.”

  He then let out a breath and opened his hands. He had just a couple more facts to get through, and then he could go. “You will not be abandoned with them of course. Every month you will get a stipend, tax free, of ten thousand dollars which should cover the expenses of the fact that you will be expected to treat this as your full time job. We will even take care of getting you out of your job at…”

  “Mcdonalds.”

  The man nodded, hiding a sneer behind the briefcase as he pretended to write something down. “Of course. However, if you do not believe you are capable of this, then you may say no. You will be
expected to say nothing of all of this, as we are trying to keep this whole operation, and the girls’s peculiar abilities, a secret. If you fail in that… Well, you should be able to guess.”

  And that was it in the agent’s mind. The last nail in the coffin. If the boy failed, he would die. Plain and simple. A kid like this could never handle that. He even expected the boy to joke about how underqualified he was.

  Instead though, Peter asked, “Who… Who recommended me, if I may ask?”

  The man took a long, slow breath, before stating, “A member of the marine team. A Lieutenant Haverson. She claims she knew you in high school.”

  Peter slowly nodded as he looked at his hands. The name rang a pretty clear bell. Yeah, she had been one hell of a girl back then. Strong, confident, and driven, almost everything he wasn’t. She usually acted like she hated him for that, and tried to kick his ass in gear any attempt she could. When she went to basic and he decided not to go to college while staying in the house his parents had left him when they retired, she had called him a failure.

  And yet now she was putting her trust in him apparently to take care of a group of girls who had supposedly been hurt so badly. Or, so he had to assume. After all, he had watched anime and such, and if these scientists were trying to recreate those sorts of results… “These girls… They need a home, and…” He paused to look around himself. To look at all the space he had, and the three bedrooms that he knew he had upstairs that he usually let friends crash on. “And… And if she thinks I can give them one, then I’d like to try to do my best to help them..”

  The men didn’t hide their scowls at this point, and Peter’s heart sank at the gesture. There was nothing they could do though, at least without breaking procedure and opening themselves up to liability, and so they didn’t stop him as Peter continued to sign contracts. Contracts that specified that his job was to try to make these girls fit into society. To give them a life after theirs had been taken away, but that he was also expected to keep them in line. To make sure that while they worked on their violent tendencies they didn’t kill too many people, a statement that almost made Peter sick.

  He wasn’t about to back out now though, and as the last paper was signed, the second suited man stepped out of the doorway and waved to someone outside of the door. “Come on in now.”

  And so the girls walked in one by one. The first wore the same thing as the rest, which was explained later to Peter as a suit that the girls wore in the facility they were found at. The government offered them different clothes, but the girls were less than trusting of the officials and had apparently stuck to what they had been comfortable in. As such, she wore a pure black, skin tight suit that went from her ankles, to her neck, to her wrists, and hid nothing.

  Not that you would think the girl would care with the calm she had in her graceful steps. She seemed to almost glide across the floor as she entered, her long, black hair swaying behind her as she turned to Peter. Mysterious, gray eyes met his, and she lowered her lids to be half closed, inviting him in as a soft, warm smile crossed her lips. Her next set of steps took her to be just in front of the young man, her palm sized, rounded breasts and pointed nipples almost coming into contact with his bare chest from how close she got, before she performed a perfect curtsy, her head bringing itself down to his waist. “My name is Ovelia, and it is my pleasure to meet you. I do hope that all of my dreams of a good man are fulfilled by you.”

  Peter smiled nervously, scratching his head as his cheeks became flushed with color. She was stunning after all, and for her to be so gentle with a voice that sounded almost angelic… Well, it helped his nerves at least. Or, in one way helped them and in another hurt them, but he welcomed it nonetheless. After all, his hopes that maybe these girls weren’t as bad as the officials claimed seemed to be true with this o-

  “Oh crap. Don’t tell me this pathetic loser is the guy I’m supposed to listen to. He looks like a weak wind could blow him over, let alone one of my punches.”

  This one came in like a bolt of lightning, jumping over the first five steps that led up to the upstairs before landing.. With a twist of her heel she turned back towards the door before leaning back and not seeming to care about one of the posts that kept the barrier up digging into the small of her back as she laid on it. She had blood red hair and teeth that looked sharp as she scowled at him. Her suit rippled with her lean muscles as she flexed them, and while he would guess she was still a few inches shorter than him, Peter didn’t doubt she could break him in half. The only saving grace to him was that her breasts were a decent bit bigger than Ovelia’s and that helped distract him from the threat she’d made. They also helped make it so that she reminded him of Lara Croft, but less british and more thug. “Well, you know, one girl’s dream is another’s nightmare I guess.”

  Ovelia put a gentle hand onto Peter’s arm. “Please, don’t listen to Wren. She doesn’t understand the gift we’ve been given.”

  “Yeah, the gift to not do what I always wanted to do. Yay.”

  The rougher voice made Peter pale once again, though he didn’t blame her for wanting her freedom. Besides, she looked surprisingly relaxed up there, despite her words. Yeah, he bet she would be okay with just relaxing if he gave her the chance. He doubted she’d gotten many opportunities to do that back in their facility or whatever.

  The next one came in tits first, as hers were somehow even bigger than Wren’s, and she strutted in with her back straight and her chest out. Her nipples were even more pronounced then the others, and with how they bounced they helped Peter switch his mind to more pleasant thoughts, like pastures and Pokemon, rather than God of War and Darksiders. Despite the more cheery imagery though, the girl herself and her pink hair didn’t wear a smile, not even the small one that Ovelia had managed, but instead looked possibly scared as she looked around. He could see herself mouth something, before spotting him. She then stiffened and seemed to almost come to attention as she stood up straight. “M-my name is Mary, and it’s, um, nice to meet you!”

  Wren laughed for a moment, the sort that wouldn’t be out of place for a serial killer, before the last one walked in and she became silent. In fact, everyone kind of held their breath with her in the room as she seemed to give off this odd pressure. Her short, white hair hung down to her neck, and swayed slightly as she looked around, before settling on Peter like the others had. Her hair perfectly framed her face, and she dark, red eyes that looked at him. Peter looked back, but there was something that chilled him to the core there, and his own gaze even soon dropped.

  And then his eyes almost popped out of his head. All of the girls were thin, whether it was Ovelia’s lithe form, the lack of any fat on Wren, or Mary’s simply healthy look. However, this girl looked like a twig, with the suit showing off her ribs when she breathed out, which made enjoying the fact that she had the largest breasts he had ever seen on a girl, to the point where they came down to the top of her stomach even in the suit, hard to enjoy. She looked like she was sick, and she said nothing as her blank, expressionless face stared at him.

  And, after a minute of no one doing or saying anything, Peter finally moved. He walked over to her, held a hand out, and gave her the biggest smile he could, which was impressively large given the situation. “My name is Peter, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  The girl looked up at him, her eyes giving nothing, before one of the agents said, “We found a file that names her as X. She’s the only girl who seems to not know any of the others, and most of her papers were burned. As such, we can’t tell you much about her. All we do know is she doesn’t speak, she doesn’t like to be touched, and whatever she’s capable of, we can’t figure it out. All we do know is that she is able to kill without moving and in the blink of an eye.”

  Peter slowly nodded at the words, before taking a deep breath in. It was a lot. All of this was a lot in fact, and his mind was screaming at him to deal with it. To face this huge responsibility as he had every other big obstacle
in his life.

  And he was ready for it as he slammed a fist into his hand and said, “Alright, I think this calls for pizza then! Everyone good with pepperoni?”

  Before anyone could speak up, Wren spat back, “I’d be good with pants honestly. No one likes looking at your skinny ass frame after all.”

  Peter’s eyes almost popped out of his head at the reminder that he was almost naked, and he sprinted up the stairs as Wren rolled her eyes, Ovelia glared at the mean spirited girl, Mary managed the smallest blush on the planet, and X stepped out of the way of the two agents who slipped out of the house, not wanting to have to give the boy any more tools to work with. After all, they still expected him to fail, and the faster, the better.

  Breathing Room

  “Hello, this is Lieutenant Haverson of the United States Marine Corps. Who am I speaking with?”

  Peter swallowed hard, almost not believing that the number he’d had actually still worked. He had expected just about anyone else to answer, and now that he actually got ahold of her… “Well, um, Courtney, this is your old pal Peter. Well, not pal, but more the guy you tolerated. Actively hated? I don’t know. How would you put it?”

  There was a pause over the line as Peter waited, tapping his finger on the table in front of him. In the other room he could hear the opening lines of Aladdin and sighed to himself as he wished he was just watching that. He kind of needed someone to talk to though, and the movie was hopefully going to be able to distract the girls. Luckily, they hadn’t stood firm on the fact that they only watched training movies and instead let him put on an old favorite of his.

  He waited for another minute before he said, “Courtney, you there? I know you’re probably busy, but-”

  “Oh, no, I’m not busy. It’s my day off after all. I just wasn’t really expecting a call from you though. Hell, I would have thought you’d lost my phone number by now.”

  “Nope! In fact, I’ve still got the same phone as I had back in highschool. Or, er, I still own it. I upgraded a long time ago, but I kept the number!”