index


Message-ID: <33811asstr$1007374202@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Rass Senip <rass_senip@usa.net>
Reply-To: rass_senip@usa.net
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2001 11:26:48 PST
Subject: {ASSM} Tim, the Teenage MC - Chapter 21 (j/j) NEW!!
Date: Mon,  3 Dec 2001 05:10:02 -0500
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

"Joey, this isn't necessarily a bad thing," I said as we raced over to the
medical complex in Suzi's car.  "The whole purpose of the Cabal is to prevent
the knowledge of the existence of voice from getting out.  With their
resources, they can probably fix everything."

"Can they bring people back to life?" Joey snapped sarcastically.

"You know what I mean," I said carefully.  "They can help handle the press, the
police, and the FBI."

"Yeah, and break up the Group too."

"What?"

"That's what the emergency's about.  They're demanding that we either break up
the group permanently, or they'll permanently disable all our voices."

"Shit.  Can they do that?  I mean, how many of them can there be?" Suzi asked.

"Potentially a lot," I explained.  "The Cabal is a loose organization of
telepaths from all over the continent, maybe even the world, I'm not sure.  All
they really care about is preventing this massive witch-hunt by mobs of mutes
if the world ever found out telepaths existed and what they can do.  If they
decide the Group is a threat to that, they can call upon a shit load of power
to get the job done."

"Of course they don't fucking care that we were only defending ourselves," Joey
spat.  "They'd merrily stand by and watch us all go under if we're quiet enough
about it, but make too much noise and we become public enemy number 1.
Fuckers."

"Joey, do you know if the Inquisitor is in charge of this?"

"No idea.  Sarah, Stan, Alex, and I think Rich are all in the main conference
room with two cabal and two escorts of some kind.  I'm not even sure if we'll
be allowed in."

"Alex is there, but not Wally?"

"Wally's been at Northwest all week for some pet project he's been messing
with, but I imagine he's on his way here now.  Since Alex pretty much runs
Northwest State, I guess he's involved in the meeting to represent them."

"How many voices are at Northwest now?" I asked.

"Eight, I think."

"Eight?!?" I choked.

"What?"

"Why only eight?  Don't they get attacked too?"

"Uhm...  I think one time last year they did.  Not much happens at Northwest."

"Doesn't that seem strange to you?"

"Never really thought about it," Joey shrugged as Suzi put the car into park
and shut off the motor.

We went into the medical complex docking bay door and had to step around all
sorts of debris strewn about from the earlier pickle attack.  The debris was
everywhere, and only when we reached the main hall was there a clear path,
basically from the main doors to the two primary staircases and the elevators.

While waiting for an elevator to arrive, Joey turned to Suzi and said, "Maybe
you shouldn't come up, Suz.  Maybe... Maybe you should just go back to your
apartment, pack and leave."

"I'm not leaving you," she said firmly.  "Nothing is going to happen.  We
haven't done anything wrong."

"Please?"

"No.  You're being overprotective."

"Tim, don't you think it would be safer if..."

"Timmy, tell him he's being..."

"Don't get me in the middle of it," I exclaimed, throwing up my hands.

"Some help he is," Joey remarked to Suzi.

"He's been squeamish ever since he died," Suzi agreed.

"Fine.  If you really want to know what I think," I said as the elevator
arrived and I stepped in.

"Timmy!" Suzi yelled as she and Joey tried to move their frozen feet.

"This isn't funny!" Joey exclaimed.

As the doors closed without them, I thought back to them, "Considering neither
one of you are true voices and they can't silence them the normal way, I think
you both should go home and get some rest and just let Sarah and the others
work things out."

"Then what are you going to do?!?" Joey thought back.

"Nobody but me can represent me.  I'm not in the group, remember?  If Alex has
a right to be there, so do I."

"Well we're just going to follow you up there," Suzi warned.

"Go ahead.  You wanted my opinion, I gave it," I said as the elevator doors
opened and I stepped out into an unfamiliar hallway.

"Uhm, Joey?"

"What!"

"How do I get to the conference room?"

"You'll have to follow me," he said out loud, stepping out of the elevator next
to the one I had just left.

"Oh," I said, trying to avoid Suzi's fuming stare.

"You know I hate it when you make decisions for all of us," she said, hitting
me on the arm as we followed Joey down the hall.

"Let's see.  The way I see it, if I had taken sides, we probably would still be
standing outside the elevator arguing.  Instead I delayed us a whole twenty
seconds by playing a little trick and getting you to come to a decision.  I
could have broken the share link then commanded you both to go home if I had
really made the decision for you."

"So you thought I was being overprotective," Joey complained.

"No.  I think you both should go home.  But I'm not going to make that decision
or any other for you."

"You're right, Suz.  Dieing HAS made him more squeamish."

As we turned a corner, I focused my attention towards the thirty or so clusters
of symbols ahead of us and picked out the seven which were isolated from the
others geographically.

"Looks like Wally's beat us here," I remarked after recognizing his swirls from
the others before checking out the swirls of the four visitors.

I stopped in my tracks when I realized that two were in close sync with each
others.

"What is it?" Joey asked just as Suzi bumped into him when he stopped too.

"The escorts are twins.  Gladius twins."

"Twins?"

My eyebrows shot up in further surprise as I noticed the different neurological
pattern to their bodies, then added, "Male twins."

"Male twins?" Suzi repeated with interest.  "Eww..  this could be..."

"You're not going in there," Joey said parentally. 

"If I'm not, you're not," Suzi said just as parentally.

"Well I am," I said as I stepped past them and headed for the crowd waiting
outside the conference area.

Unfortunately, the crowd, not to mention the two guards, didn't see things my
way.  They were all very tired and stressed, so I couldn't blame them for being
so rude about it, but they didn't seem to understand that...  That...  Well, I
guess I didn't really have any more right than they did to be in there, but at
the time I sure felt I did.

Once I saw I wasn't getting in, I cried, "All RIGHT!", channeling my anger into
an empathic pulse to make them all to jerk back away from me.  I hate it when
people get in your face like that.

As I started walking back to where Joey and Suzi were standing, the room
suddenly got very quiet, then I felt an all too familiar empathic greeting.

I turned around a bit hesitantly, but gave the two male twins the expected
empathic reply, almost as automatically as saying "hello" when picking up a
ringing phone.   

I had never met these fully adult empathic male twins before, yet I felt I knew
them, and they knew me.  I guess I hadn't realized how much I had picked up
over the summer living in the nursery where all Gladius's empathic twins
learned their traits and skills.  There was a particular empathic protocol
twins used when encountering other twins they didn't know, something I had
picked up on, but hadn't been able to quite comprehend or emulate while in the
Nursery.   Or at least not before I had drank that potion and twinned with
Eric, and after that I hadn't come into contact with any twins that I already
wasn't familiar with.

 From that moment on, I trusted them.  As disturbing as that may sound to you, I
knew no matter what their master or mistress may order them to do, they simply
could not betray the trust of another twin, even a twinless twin as myself.

"Timmy?  You're not really thinking about going in there with them, are you?"
Suzi's voice said from somewhere behind me.

"It's okay, Suz.  They can't hurt me any more than Joy could hurt Honey," I
said, my words causing the twins quite a bit of amusement, which I was the only
person in that room who could detect it.

I opened a partial one way to both Joey and Suzi as I walked up to the twins,
then was surprised when the twins turned and opened the doors for me.  In my
experience, twins expected others to open doors for them, not the other way
around.  My surprise also seemed to amuse them, but they were not amused at all
when the two guards refused to allow me to go in.

The guards were trembling at the knees within seconds, erasing any question
that male empaths were just as powerful as their softer looking sisters.

"It's okay, guys," Sarah sighed.  "He can come in.  We're done for tonight."

Wally gave me a friendly nod as he and Alex past me to explain to the others
outside what was going on, and from the expressions he and Alex wore, I assumed
it wasn't going to make them happy.  

Stan was standing behind Sarah's chair rubbing her shoulders as she listened to
a middle-aged woman wearing a very colorful blouse and a ton of jewelry
describing something about blind children.

The Inquisitor came back into the room from apparently using the attached
restroom, and as he walked up to me, the twins stepped to either side of me
which puzzled the both of us.  That was the standard position which twins took
when protecting their master or mistress from possible threats.

"Charlene, call off your pets," the Inquisitor said patiently to the woman.

"Well well...," the woman cooed as she got out of her chair and walked up to me
all smiles.  "Charles, darling.  Introduce us, won't you?...  Boys..."

As my empathic brothers took their positions on either side of her, Charles
grunted his contempt before saying, "Timothy Brandton-Grodmen, Charlene
Stewart-Joules."

"Charmed," she said overflowing with eagerness, holding her hand out limply for
me to kiss.

"A pleasure," I said after giving her hand a peck, then glanced at the
Inquisitor a moment hoping he'd enlighten me with what was going on.

All I got was a shrug.

"Well, if we're done here..." Sarah interrupted.

"Yes, yes, you may leave now, dearie."

Sarah's look of resentment towards her only lasted a few moments before the
twins turned around and hurried her and Stan out with a simple glance.

"Would you mind getting us a drink, Charles?  The poor boy looks as if he's
parched, and I know I am."

When the Inquisitor folded his arms and didn't move, the twins took it upon
themselves to carryout her wishes.

"Uh, thanks.  I guess I am a bit thirsty," I confessed as one twin poured and
the other dropped cubes of ice into a second cup.

The Inquisitor motioned for me to take a seat, which both I and Charlene did,
but he remained standing.

"What's going to happen to the group?" I asked directly as the twins brought
over the drinks.

"That has yet to be decided," the Inquisitor said, watching the twins as they
stood just behind both Charlene and me.  "Since your friends are being more or
less cooperative, we are helping them with the damage control before dealing
with the exact details."

"So you're not necessarily going to force the Group to break up?"

"From what I understand, you're not apart of this organization."

"No I'm not.  But that doesn't mean I want to see it broken up.  Is that still
your intention?"

"Just think of it as downsizing," Charlene answered for him.  "In any case, if
everyone stays as cooperative as their leader has been so far, I'm sure we'll
find a solution that will suit the majority.  Now, why don't we just move on to
the next piece of business so Timothy...  May I call you Timothy?"

"Uh, sure.  Most people call me Tim, though."

"Oh, but you will most certainly find out that I am not like most other people.
Charles, I believe you had something else to discuss with Timothy?"

The Inquisitor's suspicious eyes glanced from her, to me, then very briefly at
the two twins before saying, "What do you know about the man who is supposedly
helping restore old slaves back to a normal life?"

"Who Perry?"

"Yes, if that's what he's calling himself here."

"Uhm, he's just this ancient guy who's immune to voice, walks with a cane that
has switchblades in the end, and basically runs the cleaning program and takes
care of the ressies...  Uh, the severely enslaved cases.  Why are you asking
about him?"

"This Perry is very likely a well known assassin of voices.  He has a price on
his head, so he usually stays clear of potential trouble spots like this.  The
fact that he's still here makes me believe he's up to something."

"Is that why they're here?" I asked, indicating the twins.

"They are here because I am here," Charlene clarified.  "Not to make old men
repent for their crimes."

"Well, I can't read him at all, telepathically or empathically.  But I guess I
really haven't tried to since he's quite capable of castrating me if he thought
I was.  I'm not really sure what I can do to help you.  He'd be a hard nut to
crack."

"I'm not asking you to do anything, just keep your eyes open and be careful if
you have to deal with him at all.  He has a long record of killing in cold
blood, mostly without warning or provocation.  He's not to be trusted for a
moment."

"Enough," Charlene announced.  "The hour is late, and now that business is
done, let us send Timothy on his way so he can get his rest, and us ours,
hmmm?"

The Inquisitor held his tongue, but only barely as she stood and held her hand
out to me to walk me to the door.  Once I saw the Inquisitor wasn't going to
object, I got up and allowed her to lay her arm across my back and walk me to
the door like I needed her support to make it that far.

Just before we reached the door, she said very softly, "Now do go and get some
rest and perhaps the boys and I will stop by in the morning to answer any more
questions you might have.  Would you like that?"

Obviously there was an ulterior motive to her offer, but the vibe I got from
her told me it wasn't anything malicious, and in fact just the opposite.

If nothing else, I agreed out of curiosity.  But then again I also planned on
keeping her to her word about answering any questions I would have.

Suzi met me at the elevator before we went down a floor to wait for Joey get
out of the briefing Sarah and Wally were holding.

"Joey and I will be out all night blanketing the town with the others," Suzi
said while we rode the elevator.

"Then I guess I'll be sleeping for the three of us tonight," I said while
giving her back a rubbing.

"I wish you could," she sighed.

"I was serious."

She looked up at me and said, "You know it doesn't really work that way, and
even if it did, then you'd be just as tired as we were in the morning.  You
need to be on your toes when you're asking 20 questions tomorrow.  Joey can
just link with someone else tonight."

I sighed, then said, "Alright.  Have it your way.  I guess I just miss having
the link to you two.  It's like a hot line.  I know you're both okay every
minute of the day."

Joey's commands diverted her natural response to hug me, and that angered me to
the point where I almost tore the damn things out.  I didn't, and didn't try to
clear up her confusion as to why I was suddenly in a bad mood.

When Joey and the other group members came out, I tried to talk him into
keeping the link open with me and just putting a block on it to keep them from
draining my energy as I slept.  But like Suzi, he wanted me to be as fresh as I
could be the next morning, but he still made me memorize all the questions he
personally wanted answered before cutting the share link and letting me go to
sleep.

I got my sleep out, all right.  Woke up a little after nine and threw off the
covers intending to get up, then next thing I knew the clock said ten forty
three.

My head was full of cobwebs for sleeping so late, so after turning on the
shower to warm up, I went out to the kitchen to grab a glass of orange juice
while absently stroking my semi-hard member.

Extremely relaxed, I let my anything-but-little buddy lead the way back to the
bathroom after gulping down the juice, but nearly jumped out of my skin when
Charlene said from the recliner, "Good morning, precious.  You all rested up
and full of spunk again?"

"How did you get in here?" I sputtered while silently commanding a down boy.

"Is that really important?" she asked while standing up, turning slightly to
the right and stretching, making every inch of her leotard and leather outfit
mold itself to her feminine curved shape.

She was obviously delighted to see her little stunt had the desired effect, but
I ignored my restored hardon and asked straight out, "What do you want from
me?"

"Oh silly man," she said walking up to me.  She ran her hands up my tummy and
chest to my face, my hormones freezing me from pushing her away.  She swirled
her fingers through my hair as she gently and honestly said "You go shower,
then we shall eat a nice hot breakfast and talk about anything you want to talk
about."

"But..."

"Shhh...  Go..." she said, gently kissing me on the tip of my nose.

I dazedly turned to do what she asked, and while in the shower, I couldn't keep
my dick limp with the image of her stretching flashing into my head all the
time.  I had no doubt in my mind she was using my hormones against me, yet she
wasn't doing it to cloud my mind as much as...  Something else that just wasn't
clear to me yet.

I was very tempted to go out there without any clothes on, but some part of my
brain was still working enough to talk the rest of it to at least putting on
something, even if it was only a pair of sweats.

Stuffing my hardon into the tightest, most ragged pair of jeans I owned almost
proved impossible, especially since I was feeling pretty kinky and wasn't
bothering with underwear.

I strode out into the living area in my skin-tight jeans, bright florescent
green-yellow surf shirt, and bare feet feeling all macho and sexy, and then
froze in disbelief at the sight of the male twins cooking while Charlene set
the table for four.

"Well, now isn't that outfit...  unique," Charlene said with a touch of
sarcasm.

"I uh...  Uh...  I'll be right back."

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," I swore to myself as I struggled to peel off my
jeans.  "Rule three to catching an older woman's eye.  Dress accordingly.  God,
how the fuck did I get these on!"

Five minutes later, my discarded jeans were now cutoffs and I wore a more
spacious sized pair of jeans, a polo shirt, and socks (but still didn't put on
the underwear).  The omelet and funny looking pieces of toast were already on
the table, but the twins were just sitting down from having served it.

"Smells good," I offered honestly.  "Never would have believed twins could
cook, much less cook something as nice as this if I hadn't seen it myself."

"There is very little my boys can't do.  They are very special twins.
Especially to me."

I smiled as they expressed their love to her in the most adoring kisses that
didn't contain even a trace of anything sexual in them, then snapped out of my
little daze as it became apparent they were waiting for me to take my first
bite of the meal they prepared.

Relieved to find it was quite good, I ate probably more than my fair share, but
the twins only saw it as a compliment to their cooking which I suppose it was.
Words didn't matter to them, only actions and expressed emotions.  Of course
Charlene couldn't get enough praise for her twins accomplishments, and I
quickly understood she was more of a mother to them than a mistress.

Now her attitude towards me was a bit confusing to my empathic senses.  She was
trying very hard to appeal to me sexually, and while she didn't have much
trouble finding me attractive probably because of my youth, she seemed to have
trouble keeping the feelings she had for her twins being reflected onto me as
we apparently were close to the same age.

"That was excellent," I said, stretching my arms over my head and leaning back
with a full tummy.  "I'm so full I feel like I could go right back to sleep."

There was no doubt in my mind she wanted something from me, and it was becoming
increasingly obvious that it wasn't coincidence that she had come with the
Inquisitor when this crisis had broke.  Yet when I again asked her point blank
what it was she wanted, she insisted we move to the sofa and that I first ask
my other questions first.

"Why?"

"For heaven sakes, trust me, Timothy.  If I told you what I'm really here for
first, you wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else.  That wouldn't be
fair to you and your friends, now would it?"

If I hadn't felt how brutally honest she was being, I doubt I would have
accepted her word and started asking Joey's questions.

The Inquisitor had apparently been watching the Group ever since they started
growing in rapid spurts thanks to Joey's coin, and had recently placed a few
moles in the area to keep closer tabs on their activities.  I found it curious
to learn that the guy across the hall in my apartment building kept the
Inquisitor informed of Suzi's and my activities.  Exactly how he could do this
without my empathic senses warning me Charlene didn't know, but then it also
wasn't the first time someone fooled me like that.

The Group was to be broken up, end of story.  Charlene made it clear that the
Inquisitor would not settle for anything less, and that he would take any steps
necessary to execute his decision.  History has proven time and time again that
whenever a large number of voices joined together and formed an organization
like the Group had, their activities always drew the attention of not just
mutes, but other voices as well.

The Cabal's records showed that in some cases such organizations fell apart on
their own, but in most cases they were conquered by larger more powerful
organizations created out of the common threat the original organization posed
to other voices.

How large a threat one appears to be depends on two factors: the size or
relative strength of the organization, and how secret they maintain their work.
Obviously the larger the size such an organization became, the larger the
threat they became to other individual voices.  But size also made them more
likely for other voices to discover their existence, for no matter how secretly
they worked, these organizations always influenced the mute population around
them which other voices picked up on.  And the more secret they were, the
greater the threat they appeared to be to the outsiders, who's concerns would
eventually become so great that they would join together and...  Well, all hell
breaks loose.

So why didn't the Cabal and their organization fall into this trap?  There were
several reasons.  
A, they didn't give a rat's ass what you did (as long as you didn't make a
public scene of course.)  
B, the members usually hated or feared each other enough that it was obvious
that nobody could use the organization for anything other than what served them
all.
C, the combination of A&B resulted in the general rule that the Cabal didn't
involve itself in protecting members from each other or outsiders.
But mainly it was because of D, the Cabal served every sane voice's self
interests, and anyone who wouldn't see this almost always caught the
Inquisitor's personal attention long before they could ever grow be a threat to
them all.

Through a large network of unsuspecting mute informants, the Inquisitor was a
one-man taskforce who carried out most of the Cabal's rather dirty business.
He spent most of his time searching for the telltale signs of a voice who's
actions may lead to public exposure, and then took whatever measures necessary
to correct that situation, rarely ever needing to call upon other members to
help him do so.

The Group's size and secrecy actually wasn't as big an issue as their rapid
rate of growth and their focus on defensive maneuvers and strategies.  The
Inquisitor had actually resisted a few of the other member's increasing demands
that he take action to break up the Group before now, seeing that the Group
could be reasoned with and dissolved peaceably given the right circumstances.
Those circumstances he knew would happen fairly soon given the number of
individual attacks against them, and had even put safeguards in place in case
something like what happened the day before occurred.

Charlene actually seemed impressed by the Inquisitor's handle on the situation.
She hadn't expected Sarah to submit to his terms without a fight, but after
announcing their presence and intentions, they were only subjected to a short
barrage of annoying probes before they were led to the medical complex to meet
with Sarah and the rest.  Together Charlene and the Inquisitor explained the
situation, and after offering their help in cleaning up the group's mess, Sarah
agreed to the terms with the only condition that the Group as a whole was
allowed to decide the means of their breakup.

After Sarah had accepted his terms, the Inquisitor tested her strength like he
had mine when we first met.  Apparently Sarah gave the Inquisitor a fairly good
fight with all her creative offensive tactics, but she simply wasn't strong
enough to hold out against his superior strength and he overcame her defenses
within ten minutes.  

Her twins shared how terrified Sarah had been by the challenge and yet she
hadn't let it show.  I would have said she was just maintaining her fearless
leader roll, but Charlene's twins' senses were sharper than mine.  Sarah had
done it to keep the others from taking action without thinking, and Charlene
had a considerable amount of respect for Sarah's high degree of intelligence
and self-control.

Charlene couldn't really answer most of Joey's questions since it was the
Inquisitor who would have the final say on things and she could only guess what
that would be.  I sensed she wasn't really concerned what happened to the
group, but she had taken the time to learn all she could about the whole
situation in hopes in aiding her in winning my favor.

I obviously surprised her when I pressed her for as many details as I could for
the Inquisitor's plans concerning Perry.  Apparently the Inquisitor didn't know
of the... agreement between Perry and I, otherwise he wouldn't have told me
that he knew Perry's true identity or hint that he may take some kind of action
towards him.  All Charlene knew was the Inquisitor was already investigating
Perry's intentions and would deal with him if he found anything he didn't like.

Actually, if I had really thought about it, I might have suspected I was being
used to flush Perry's motives to the surface, but it really didn't matter one
way or the other.  I felt honor bound to learn what I could and report it to
Perry since it obviously endangered Perry's safety.  I only wondered if Perry
would have actually done the same for me as he had agreed to.

Once I ran out of questions, Charlene took an interest in the painting I had
painted last fall of Suzi, Joey and I, asking questions about them, my parents,
my brother, and Honey and Joy which her twins immediately encouraged
discussing.

After mentioning them by name, Charlene revealed that she had also named her
twins, but only used them when the three of them were alone.  Curious, I tried
to worm them out of her, but she wouldn't budge and I couldn't talk her twins
into giving me any empathic hints to what they were either.

She had been walking around the room studying the painting, the few pictures I
had of my family, and the other knickknacks I had brought from home, then sat
down beside me and studied my features with such an intensity I kept breaking
out into grins.

I knew she was about to reveal her true intentions, and despite the uneasy
feeling I had about it all, I couldn't help but feel she meant me absolutely no
harm so I allowed her to get to it in her own time.

"You are a very unusual and unique young man," she finally said softly,
stroking my left cheek gently with her fingertips.  "When I first heard of you,
I believed you would be a spoiled and selfish child who couldn't possibly trust
another being he didn't control.  I have seen so many young voices who grew up
with a parent who also had voice waste their youth believing that only through
testing and using their power could they be happy.  They never really find
their happiness, not like you and I." 

"I, uhm..."

"Shh..." she said, putting her finger over my lips and leaning closer.  "You're
nothing what I expected to find, and that makes it... much harder for me to ask
you for what I came here to ask.  If you had just been like those others, I
wouldn't feel so..."

Charlene's eyes were so full of motherly tenderness and empathy she was very
nearly triggering a empathic connection to form between us.  She wanted
something very badly, yet her motherly feelings for her twins were interfering
with that so much, she was scrambling for the strength to put her wishes into
words.

Avoiding the empathic link trying to form, I turned away and stood up, finding
myself a bit shaken by the intensity of her own emotions and ended up walking
over to the kitchen's counter to steady my weight and give us some space to
think.

Every nerve of my body sensed her get up and walk up behind me.  I held my
breath when she embraced me from behind, then tensed up when her hands started
feeling around my chest.

"I'm forty three years old, Timothy, and I've had four children who I've loved
and spent every moment I can watching and helping them grow up into good and
well adjusted human beings.  I love them all with my heart and soul, and they
have given me everything I ever wanted and plus some.  But they do not have
voice, and for years I lived believing I would never pass on what my mother
taught me and what her father taught her because no third generation voice
could have a child with voice..."

"Then you heard of me," I concluded.

"I didn't really believe it at first, but after I looked into it I...  As I
said, you are a unique young man.  Perhaps one of a kind if your little brother
doesn't develop voice when he grows older, but by then I would be too old...
You're my only hope to give me child so I could teach them what has been handed
down to me by my family..."

"You... You want me to father your child?" I stated incredibly.

"Yes."

I turned around and looked her in the eyes, catching the glimmer of tears
leaving her eyes from the emotions battling inside her.

"I..." I began, struggling to get a grasp of how to sort out the maelstrom of
conflicting emotions running through me.

"Please don't try to give me an answer now," she said with a sincere and
empathic smile, obviously relieved that my initial reaction hadn't been an
instant negative one.  "I know how hard of a decision it may be for you to
make, and you should take as much time as you need to decide, but I hope you
will allow me to show how much this means to me and that I love any child I
bring into this world more than anything else as my boys can tell you."

I didn't catch her double meaning immediately, but when I glanced at the twins
standing a good three yards behind her (which for twins is a considerable
amount of private space to give up), I suddenly saw the resemblance between
mother and sons.

"You're their real mother..." I stated for the record.  "Are the other two
....?"

"No, they're not twins.  And I wouldn't want them any different than they way
they are.  Glenda is fifteen and Robert is eight.  If you would like to meet
them, we could go to my home...  I don't feel comfortable about bringing them
here under the present conditions."

"I can understand that," I said, finding the whole situation a bit too surreal.
"Uhm, how old are the twins?"

"Twenty.  Twenty and three months, actually.  Although sometimes they act like
they're ten."

"You can tell a difference?" I chuckled, remembering how the little ones in the
Nursery acted very much like the adult twins, only with less experience.

"Of course I can.  I'm their mother," she said slightly amused.  "They can pout
like no other child can."

"Yeah, I guess," I said, imagining it, then wondering...

"If we did... you know... and they turned out to be twins, would you..."

"No," she said with a touch of regret.  "I would want them to experience all
the joys of life without the need to please and protect their mother like the
boys do.  I've finally gotten them to think seriously about someday choosing a
pair of girls they date to marry and start a family with.  I doubt I'll ever
get them to move out of the house though."

"They date?  And they can have... kids?" I sputtered out.

"Certainly they can.  Do you think I would deprive them the same opportunity I
was given when I had them?"

"I think I need a drink," I said out of the need to distract myself to clear my
head a bit.

Charlene sat down at the kitchen table and watched me as I poured a glass of
lemonade and gulped half of it down, then without making an audible sound, she
signaled the twins to leave, which they did with only the click of the door
marking their departure.

"Why did you send them away?" I asked.

"Because it disturbs them whenever I try and seduce a man, you especially...
They seem very protective of you."

"Is there any reason why they should protect me from you?" I asked, wishing I
was asking the twins rather than her.

"No.  Please believe me I mean you no harm, no matter what your decision," she
said honestly.

I swallowed the last drop of my lemonade, put the cup down, then stared at its
bottom as I asked, "Would we... sleep together?"

"Do you mean would we have sex?  I would prefer that, but if you have problems
with having sex with an older woman, we could..."

"No, sex is fine," I stammered out before turning to look at her.  "I mean,
that is if I decide to go through with it..."

"I doubt I can compare with girls your own age, but I like to think I still
have an appealing body," she said, giving me another look at her profile.

"Very appealing," I admitted.

"I've already seen how beautiful a body you have," she stated a little
nervously as she approached me.  "If you would like to examine mine a little
more...  I won't mind."

I hesitantly reached out to touch her leotard covered stomach with my right
hand, then after feeling the feminine softer firmness there, I put both hands
on her tummy, then slid them to the sides and ran them up her back, then back
down to her butt.  Her body was in excellent shape as far as I could tell, and
got brave enough to remove her leather like jacket that hid the shape of her
breasts.

Once the jacket was removed, the leotards couldn't hide her breast's growing
arousal as her nipples' erections pushed the material even further out.  The
thought of sampling those breasts' milk was driving me crazy until the thought
of her twin boys having once used those breasts in their intended function and
brought me around to reason.

"I need to think about it," I said stepping back and getting a hold of my lust.
"Alone."

Seeing the crestfallen look on her face, I quickly said, "You're as sexy as
hell, and if you stay much longer I'll be ripping both our clothes off for
sure.  Please, I need to think about this with a clear head, and a clean
conscious."

"I understand," she said with a wave of relief, and started heading towards the
door.  "But I am going to leave you with something that I hope will keep your
attention."

She picked up a box sitting beside the door and put it on the table before
gently stepping over to me, kissing me on the cheek, and saying, "My number is
inside.  Thank you for giving me a chance."

I looked in her eyes and truthfully said, "I'll call you tonight whether I made
a decision or not."

If she had looked into my eyes a moment longer, I would have kissed her on the
lips, hard.  But she turned away the last moment and walked out the door
without looking back.

I watched her swirl of symbols join her sons in what I imagine was a van or
something equally spacious, and smiled as it appeared they were hugging.  My
smile started to fade as one of the two young men sat down in front while the
other remained in the back with their mother, then I was astonished to realize
that the one in the front was driving the vehicle as they pulled away.

When I turned my attention to the two-foot long plain brown box, I was startled
to see not just one set of small swirls of symbols coming from inside, but two.

My hands shook with uncertainty and excitement as I opened and carefully
unwrapped the gray metal figure of Charlene's naked body arched backwards in a
pleasure filled stretch of pure sexual loveliness, her nipples made out of the
same red amber-like material as the coins.  I stood there a long time astounded
by its beauty, its priceless nature, and the raw sexual urges it generated
within me.

Joey called about an hour later to let me know they were going to sleep in the
medical complex and to hear what I had learned.  Between I not making much
sense and he being overtired, he gave up on getting the details and hung up
saying, "We'll just come over tonight, k?  Night."

It was well after two o'clock before I had spurted enough seed that my head
cleared enough to get my priorities straightened out.  I managed to catch Joey
just before he fell asleep and got him to form a share link with me, he being
careful to block sharing out his fatigue thankfully.

I knew I would need to be on my toes while warning Perry, not as much to defend
myself from him incase he goes loco, but more to keep myself from getting
caught in the middle of his troubles.  I considered the share link a sort of
safety line I could tug on in case he did go loco, but I really had a hard time
believing he would harm me if I told him what I knew and then left him alone.
Didn't happen that way, of course.

The moment I stepped into the building, I knew something was different.  The
ressies upstairs were making all their usual sounds, and Perry's fog hiding his
swirls of symbols was in his office, but there was an elevated level of
tension. Or perhaps it was expectation.  I couldn't quite tell which.  Maybe
both.

Expecting him to leap out at me at any moment, I walked up to the open office
door as calmly and nosily of footsteps as I could make on the old linoleum
covered concrete.

When I reached the door, I found him sitting in his chair with his back to me,
the last position I expected a hunted man to take when the hunters were nearby.
As I raised my hand to knock on the open door, he cut me off saying, "What do
you want," in a tense yet calm voice.

"I uh...  Need to tell you something," I said as my heart pounded in my ears.

"Tim..." he said, spinning his chair to face me with just a faint look of
surprise on his face before it vanished into the cold expressionless mask he
wore all the time.  "Don't you have other things to worry about than to come
and bug me?"

"Actually, I have a lot...  Wait a minute.  Like what?" I asked suspiciously.

"Hmm?!" he grunted, then saw I expected an answer and said, "I'm busy!  Go
away!"

"The Cabal knows who you are and are investigating to see if you're up to
something.  If they find out you are up to no good, they're going to do
something about it.  Now I'll go."

I turned around and stepped out of the office, then had to forcibly ignore his
command "Wait."

A few seconds later I heard the "sching" sound of his cane's blades that made
my heart almost stop in fear as the Inquisitor's words came back to me, "has a
long record of killing in cold blood...  He's not to be trusted for a moment."

"I trusted you!" I exclaimed without looking back, quickening my pace sharply
to a trot.  "I'm not a threat to you, and I..."

I fell when his cane tripped me only two paces from the exit doors, and before
I could gather my feet up to leap through them, he knocked the wind out of me
with is foot and then sent me into a daze with a hard chop to the back of my
neck.

"... down, damn good for nothing grunt.  You know you're a fool for coming in
here, but not as big of a fool as your pipe smoking, bible thumping, poor
excuse of a protector for believing I would fall for such a transparent trick.
Get up."

"You might as well kill me now, you bastard," I spat as I tugged on my
lifeline.

"Oh, so you want to die, do you?  What's the matter, grunt?  Can't decide
between your loins and your sanity?"

"What?"

He sighed, twisted the cane's neck to recoil its blades, then leaned against it
a bit while he offered his other hand down to me.

"Well, don't take all day!  You think I like bending over like this?" he
snapped when I didn't move.

Not knowing what else to do, I let him help me up to my feet, then stood there
confused as he just walked away, heading back to his office.

He was just sitting down when I poked my head around the door frame, and we
just looked at each other a few moments before he grunted, hung his cane up on
the edge of his desk and said, "Come in here and close the door."

Unsure of his motivations, I entered the room and closed the door like he
asked, but didn't release the doorknob so it wouldn't latch.

"You jumpy because of what that preacher said?  Or because Charlene's trying to
get your sympathy?"

"How did you know about that?" I said, amazed.

Perry took a moment to enjoy holding me in suspense, then grunted, turned
towards a pile of file folders on the right edge of his desk, pulled off the
top one and tossed it to me.

"I pulled a few too many strings while I was gathering that, and it must have
drawn enough attention for someone to look at what it was I was getting.  Hell,
I didn't know you were a fourth generation.  Like everyone else, I didn't know
you could exist."

I looked up from the birth certificates and other documents he had gathered on
my heritage background, and simply asked, "Why?"

"Before I get into that, what did that preacher tell you that made you run from
me like that?"

"He said you were a known assassin who targets voices.  That you've killed in
cold blood without any apparent reason and I wasn't to trust you."

"And despite all that, you still came back to warn me.  Alone.  I bet you
didn't even tell anyone, did you?"

"No..."

"You are by far the stupidest voice I've ever met.  Hmmph...  Rose would have
adored you."

"Who?"

His eyes sharpened like I had just insulted him, and then he snapped, "For your
information, grunt, your preacher friend was partially right.  In my earlier
days, I killed more voices a year than you'll probably meet in your whole
pathetic life.  But I always had a reason."

"And what was that?" I said, ready to send a big enough pulse through the share
link to knock Joey out of bed and probably clear across the room.

"I'm not sure you could handle it.  Oh what am I worried about?  I doubt you'll
even believe it."

"Then maybe I shouldn't hear it," I said, opening the door.

"Timid like a field mouse, just like your grandfather," he snorted.  "Jasper
never did like hearing things that might upset his little world."

"You don't really think I'd believe that you knew my grandfather, do you?"

"Hrmm...  No, not if you had any sense about you.  Close the door and sit down,
Tim.  I'm not here to murder you or anyone else."

I hesitated, then opened my mouth to ask why and was cut off by the last word I
thought I'd ever hear come out of that old man's mouth.

"Please."

What could I do?  The guy was really trying to put my fears at ease, and
despite knowing that he could very well be lying through his teeth and I'd
never know it, I couldn't help but believe he was sincere.  So I reentered his
office, closed the door, wiped off who knows how many months of dirt and dust
off the never used chair intended for guests, and sat down.

"You tell another living soul about any of this, I'll cut your tongue out," he
warned.

"Do you want me to stay or not?" I said grouchily.

"Yes, damn it.  Hrrrgh..." he growled, cleared his throat, and then turned his
chair so his back was to me.

"My mother was a popular dancing girl during the early twenties, but not too
smart when it came to men.  I never knew who my father was, though my older
sisters both met theirs once, and we lived with my little brother's and
sister's father for four years before black Tuesday hit and he took off on us.

"Now my ma wasn't a prostitute or anything of the sort.  She was just not too
bright about people, or money..."

I sighed and got a little more comfortable in the chair, then said "Sorry,"
when Perry paused from the interruption.

"You ever hear of Hoovervilles?"

"Uhm...  Yeah.  Weren't they like the towns the poor built out of trash during
the depression?"

He grunted his confirmation, then said, "We lived on the streets for two weeks
until my mom hooked up with an old friend from the dance clubs and we moved
into the shipping crate he called his home.  It was better than sleeping on the
streets, but not much better.

"About a year later, I was a streetwise nine year old looking for my next meal
when I spotted a young zoot-suit with two dames heading towards the old Crandon
hotel.  But I wasn't the only one to see them.  Every kid from six to sixteen
kept a watch on that hotel.  It was a popular place for rich men to take their
sluzies to, and a gold mine for anyone brave enough to sneak inside their room
and snag their wallet or their watch while they were occupied.

"I couldn't believe my luck when it looked like everyone decided they didn't
have a chance and went back to what they had been doing.  I figured they all
were just too chicken with there being two dames, but I hadn't eaten in almost
two days.  Hunger can make you fearless, especially when you're nine.

"It wasn't hard to figure out which room it was with all the noise they were
making, and I couldn't believe my luck when I found they hadn't even closed the
door.  

"I walked in, took the wallet, and walked right out without anyone seeming the
wiser.  I stupidly went down to the basement figuring nobody would think to
look in the same building as they were in, and started counting the bills.  I
was just reaching a hundred when he walked around the barrel I was hiding
behind and said 'I think that belongs to me'.  

"I fainted out of fear when I saw he was buck naked and his pecker still hard
and wet from the dame's insides.  I thought for sure he was going to make me
pretend to be a girl for him.  I had heard of those kind of things happening on
the streets and I was terrified of it happening to me."

"I take it he didn't make you into a girl," I joked.

"No.  When I woke up, he and his wallet was gone, but he had left me forty
dollars and an apple.  That money kept me fed me for nearly a year."

"You didn't share it with your family?"

"My brother and sisters never shared anything with me, and I knew better than
to give it to my ma.  It would have been gone in a week without us getting much
out of it.

"In the two years after that lucky day, the Hoovervilles grew bigger and more
crowded.  My mom's friend left us one day and never came back, but another man,
Big Jake he had us call him, moved in with us so we could keep our two crates.
My oldest sister Tammy took a likin' in Big Jake, and when my ma wasn't around,
he'd take her into our crate and they'd make it creak.  

"When I was eleven and it got warm enough outside to sleep out there, I started
living on my own more and didn't go home much after I found out Tammy was going
to have Big Jake's baby.  I spent most of the summer running wild and getting
into all sorts of trouble, staying as far away as I could from my family until
it started turning cold and I had no where else to go.

"The crates were there, but somebody else was living in them.  I spent a week
looking for them, but nobody knew where they went.  And nobody wanted another
troublemaker living with them, so I got kicked out after I tried taking some
bread from another kid.

"After that I managed to find enough food to stay alive, but I was getting weak
from being cold and sick all the time.  I doubt I would have lived through the
winter if the man I had stolen the wallet from hadn't turned up again.

"It was on the day after the first snow that year, and I had found a half-eaten
apple in the trash and was running from the other scavengers in order to keep
it.  I tried to eat it as I ran, but I only had two bites down before they
tackled me to the ground.  I curled up into a ball with the apple in my arms
trying to hold on to it, but they were too strong and eventually got it away
from me.

"Someone yelled from down the ally and they all scattered, but I stayed on the
ground trying to hold down the couple of bites of apple I had eaten.  I knew
someone was coming, but I was afraid to move and lose the only food I had eaten
in three days, so I just played dead.

"I heard the feet stop right beside me, but nobody touched me or said anything
until I couldn't hold the apple down any more and threw it up."

"I didn't recognize him from looking at him.  He had an overcoat on and a hat
on, and I don't think I ever really saw his face in the basement.  He waited
for my heaving to stop, then helped me up and asked me if I had thrown up the
apple he had given me before.

"I didn't know what he was talking about until he mentioned the money, then I
got really scared and took off.  I know he didn't run after me, but I was just
starting to catch my breath after slipping into an abandoned warehouse when I
felt something cool touch my cheek and found him holding an apple in my face.

"He yelled my name when I started to run again, so I stopped and asked him how
he knew it.  He said he'd take me to my mom, then waved the apple in front of
him and offered it to me.  When I took it, he told me his name."

Perry cleared his throat a few times, then turned around and said, "That man
made me who and what I am.  He took me to my mother, paid her a thousand
dollars to sign me over to him as his adoptive father, then took me away and
gave me a life, an education, and a purpose.  They call me an assassin.  I
suppose I am in their eyes.  But I was the only weapon the world had to keep
the voices out of the war, and to prevent them from tearing the world apart
when it was over."

"So you saved the world," I said a bit sarcastically.

"No.  I was only the weapon, the instrument one man, one voice used to save the
world.  And his name, in case you were wondering, was Timothy Brandton."

I was... stunned?  Nah...  More like overwhelmed with disbelief.  My grand
uncle saved the world?  Yeah, right.  

"I knew your mother when she was just a little girl," he went on when he saw I
didn't believe of word of it.  "Tim took me with him a couple of times when he
went to visit Jasper and Rose.  Sammy loved company.  The poor thing was
starved for it with Jasper trying to live like a hermit on that farm of theirs.
I never understood what Rose saw in him.  I would have given her the world if
she had given me the time of day.  But she didn't have eyes for anyone but
Jasper.  Except maybe for Tim.  Never could figure those three out
completely..."

He paused, apparently lost in his own thoughts, but not so lost he didn't
notice me shifting in the bare wooden chair and stifling a yawn.

"You still don't believe me.  Hmmph...  I take it you're planning on going home
for your little brother's birthday in a couple weeks.  Tell your mother Berry
Livingston said hi.  Now get out."

I walked out of the building with only a bruised knee and a head spinning with
questions.  The campus was virtually deserted, partially because of what
happened the day before, but mostly because there was no finals scheduled until
the following Monday.

The sky was pretty cloudy, and I kept getting small chills whenever the breeze
picked up while the sun was hiding behind the clouds.  I felt like my life had
suddenly spun out of control again, and I was having a hard time deciding what
I should be worried about the most.

The idea of fathering a baby which I would have no contact with or who's life I
would have no role to play in bothered me a lot.  I wasn't sure if I could
leave such a child alone, especially if they did inherit the voice Charlene
believed they would.  I believed she was a good mother and all, and from what I
could sense she was a good person, but rarely are people really what they
appear when they want something from you as much as she did from me.

I stopped by the medical complex to try and talk to the Inquisitor but found he
wasn't there.  He apparently had also worked through the night and had left to
get some sleep, strangely without leaving a number or where he was staying in
case there was a need contact him before he returned.

The medical complex was full of activity, mostly mutes cleaning up the mess and
starting to make repairs.   After finding out the Inquisitor wasn't there, I
turned to leave so I wouldn't be in their way, but as I was walking to the
door, the receptionist I had just spoken to called me back by name.

"Dr. Harrison would like to speak to you.  Go to room three ten, please," she
simply said.

I opened my mouth to decline, but then shrugged to myself and just headed
towards the nearest elevator.  I knew I would have to face Sarah sooner or
later for having involved myself in the mess, but I hadn't expected her to want
to do it while she was worn out like I knew she had to be.

You could say I was a bit startled to find "Dr. Stanley Harrison, Associate
Dean" on the door, and when I entered, I was greeted by a male receptionist who
gave me the old corny line, "The doctor is expecting you," and let me in.

Stan was on the phone when I entered his rather modest office.  He greeted me
with a friendly nod as he continued to interject "uh-huh", "yes", "no",
"right", and other verbal acknowledgements to the person on the other end of
the phone.  After a couple of minutes, though, he rolled his eyes and made
gabby motions with his hand, then covered the mouthpiece and said, "Dean's
wife."

"Ahhh..." I said.

"Yes, Fran, I'm listening," he said, rolling his eyes again.

My eyes drifted over to the framed documents on the wall behind him:  Bachelor
of Biochemical Science - 1979; Doctorate of Medical Science - 1983;
three or four awards in Biochemistry and at least a half a dozen for
outstanding achievements in the medical science education.  All these were in
black plastic or wooden frames, but the crayon drawn award for the best dad in
the world - Father's day, 1988, was in a gold frame and hung in the center of
the rest.

"All right, Fran.  Thanks for calling," I heard him say, drawing my attention
to his rather comical expressions while trying to end the conversation.

"I swear that woman thinks she's just as much the dean as Rodney is," he sighed
when he finally hug the phone up.  "She's almost as big of a pain in the ass as
the school lawyers are."

"Did he marry her out of love, or to avoid a lawsuit?"

He chuckled, then said, "Probably both.  They got married a few months before
she gave birth to their first child."

"Heh."

"I have a favor to ask you.  You're the only one here who's awake and not tied
up with the cleanup."

"Sure.  What's up, doc?"

"The little girl won't communicate with us, or even acknowledge us unless we
touch her, and then she just screams and throws a fit until we either leave or
she wears herself out.  I was hoping you could use your...  empathy on her to
get her to trust us enough to get some answers out of her.  Or at least get her
to eat something."

"I can try, but...  Could you fill me in on what happened after she got the
coin?  I kind of missed it."

The little girl was not only confined to a wheelchair, but she was deaf and
blind as well.  I quickly realized it was only natural for a deaf, dumb, and
blind child with symbolic sight to have new insights and learn different uses
for it than someone more fortunate like myself would.  Yet to learn that none
of the adults that I, and the others, had traced the probes and direct
telepathic attacks to had any signs of voice afterwards made me reconsider
this.  Surely such power was beyond the average telepath.  At least I certainly
hoped so.

I apparently had startled her with my probe, and her natural reaction to repel
it caused her to divert the power she was using to drive the adult's battle
with the Group long enough for the Group to take them and end the whole thing.

And the little girl hadn't seemed to care that her soldiers were in the hands
of the enemy.  She just sat in her chair holding the coin contently up until
the moment Sarah sedated her and she passed out.

They kept her unconscious until workmen finished paneling a room with the
telepathy-proof wood and had transferred her inside it.  When she awoke and
found herself not only totally blind and alone, but coinless too, she let out a
loud whimper before throwing herself out of the chair and dragging herself all
over the room in search for a way out.

I was somewhat glad to hear that when Sarah finally got the time and courage to
enter the room, the little girl didn't try anything.  She did let Sarah help
her back into her chair, but neither Sarah nor the Inquisitor could penetrate
her shielded mind to try and talk to her.

Stan had a grad student who worked in one of the group's projects come and take
me up to the room the girl was in.  I admit I was a bit nervous about being in
the room alone with this powerful little girl, but one glance at the video
monitor that showed her sitting motionlessly in her chair told me all I needed
to know.

She felt totally alone.

Her swirls of symbols were barely visible through her telepathic energy
barrier, but I could tell she knew I had entered the room from how the activity
behind the barrier fluctuated.

My own barrier was purely defensive and I was purposely keeping it as
transparent as I could in hopes she would read my intentions and let me talk to
her somehow.  At that time I figured she either couldn't read my thoughts
through her own heavily distorted field or simply didn't want to, but I later
realized that perhaps it was more that she didn't know how to interpret them.

Nothing I tried got through to her, and after an hour of begging, pleading, and
even shouting, I tried shaking her gently to try and get a reaction from her.
All I got out of her was a couple of silent tears.

By that time my empathic senses were seriously making it difficult for me to
stay objective without trying something stupid like opening the door and
wheeling her out.  So after giving her an unacknowledged hug, I promised her
I'd be back and left the room so I could sober up and think.

I found an empty office and sat down in the middle of the floor and just let my
thoughts run wild.  After letting all the crazy ideas work themselves out of my
head, I let my mind drift a few minutes and ended up seeking out Joey's and
Suzi's swirls in the building to check on them.

As I confirmed to myself they were still asleep, I recognized the smaller
signature of Joey's coin apparently hanging around his neck.  My mind raced as
I leapt to my feet, but then I slammed on my brakes as I reached the door
realizing the girl might not give the coin up again without a significant
fight.  I wanted to use it to gain her trust, but that trust would be crushed
if I had to force her to give it back.

Seeing I really didn't have any other options, I made my way up to the room
where Joey and Suzi were sleeping and gently roused Joey.  I only had to tell
him I wanted to borrow it for Joey to take it off and hand it to me.  I
wondered if he'd even remember he had given it to me when he woke up when he
fell right back asleep before I even left the room.

I told the people watching her and the room what I was going to do, and was
rather surprised when they didn't put up any resistance to my plan.  They did
warn me that if anything appeared wrong they would gas the room, and I had the
feeling that wasn't the only precaution they had standing by.

The girl didn't react any differently than last time when I entered the room,
and didn't show the slightest interest when I held the coin out in front of me.
But when I put it in her hand, she jumped in startlement, then hugged the coin
against her, sniffing after happy tears formed in her eyes.

Her fears slowly dissipated the longer she hugged and fondled the red
translucent coin, then suddenly she reached out with her mind and like two
fingers squeezing a grape, she squashed my barrier and... felt me out.

She wasn't using symbols to probe me, just...  feeling me out telepathically.
When just thinking to myself that I wanted to help her, that we didn't mean her
any harm and were just protecting ourselves from her, stuff like that didn't
seem to catch her attention like it should, I instinctively looked into the
unfocused and wandering eyes and attempted to form an empathic connection.

I just couldn't quite get it to form with her eyes roaming everywhere like
that.  In a surge of frustration I commanded her eyes to look straight forward,
then we both held our breaths as she stood ready to pound my mind into
telepathic goo while feeling the empathic connection form.

At birth, a child's mind is entirely composed of their immediate physical needs
and feelings.  They have no sense of past or future, just the immediate now.
So naturally at first there is only emotion, but as time goes on the developing
mind begins to learn how some sensations lead to other sensations, how the
sensations of sight and hearing work, and before you know it, the little bugger
begins constantly searching for new images and sensations to associate together
to bring them even more new sensations.

All the senses are explored.  The sense of taste being the main reason babies
put everything in their mouth, while the sense of sight is the reason simple
objects can hold them spellbound for long periods of time.

With the sense of sound, the human mind begins the all-important association of
sound to thought.  Before a child can even learn how to form these things we
call words with their mouth, they first have to grasp their meaning when they
hear it, and quickly the mind learns to use that sound to convey the same
meaning to another.

Essentially, the very format of a child's thoughts are defined by the language
they use to communicate with.  As a child grows and matures, the mind uses
these memorized sounds internally to explore linear derived topics to their
learned conclusion.  An example would be feeling your stomach's emptiness and
perhaps having visions of food generate the word "hungry" in your mind.  I
personally tend to verbally say out loud, "I'm hungry," whenever my body tells
me it's chow time.  Of course there is a very good reason for me to say it out
loud, but I do not wish to disclose the reason at this point of my little
story.

Children born deaf tend to still learn to think in a very similar way through
the study of other people's mouth movements.  It's a little slower process, but
many deaf children naturally learn how to talk, and of course read.  It is
usually more difficult for a telepath to read a deaf born person's thoughts,
but the underlying emotions, images, and other sensations are enough for any
half decent voice to interpret them correctly, especially if the subject
learned how to read at an early enough age.

But this girl's thoughts were nearly indecipherable to me due to their unique
wordless form.  Part of her language, if you could call it that, was loosely
based on the patterns of symbols she had learned from watching them swirling
around in peoples minds.  Her thoughts were more emotion with a slightly
structured combination of senses and a few symbols, and as I carefully shared
my side of the empathic link with her, I concluded my best method of
communication with her was through emotion rather than thoughts.

In just a few hours, I was able to roll the poor girl out of that room to
change her soiled diaper, give her a bath, get us both a dinner, then meet
Sarah, Stan, the Inquisitor, Charlene and her boys to explain what I had
learned.

Since she had no concept of what a name was, she obviously couldn't tell me
hers, so I chose to call her Helen after Helen Keller, the blind deaf woman who
learned not only to read and talk, but to teach others how as well.

For as long as Helen remembers, she had been alone.  I got the impression she
was an orphan who had lived in several different foster homes before she fell
out of her wheelchair and hit her head and started sensing the minds around
hers.

Like any child, she quickly explored this new sense, and while she never
learned how to interpret other people's thoughts, she did recognize their
emotional states.  Within a matter of days she trained herself in influencing
their emotions to do what she wished them to do, a slower, more subtle, but
just as effective, form of mind control.

 From what I had gathered, that had been over a year ago, for even Helen knew of
the seasons changing the weather outdoors.  During that year she began
exploring the world using the people around her as conduits of both her will
and power, and it was on one of these expeditions that she encountered another
voice.

At first she believed the voice was just playing with the three people's minds,
but when the voice didn't put them back to the way they had found it, she
realized the woman had done something to them, something not right.

Helen watched that voice for a long time without the voice ever noticing.
During that time Helen studied and learned how to emulate what the voice was
doing, but didn't understand exactly what it did or what it was for until
trying it on one of the men who gave her a bath at night.  After the shock of
having a tongue lick her between her legs and trying to penetrate her hymen,
Helen quickly decided the woman voice was evil and kept a close eye on her.

The voice eventually came across an Eta who had gone home to visit with his
family over a weekend.  Shortly following that, the voice went in search of the
person behind the Eta's hidden programming which she had been unable to
uncover, and was quickly dealt with by the group when she attacked the first
voice she found.

Helen was horrified by the existence of so many people with the power who in
her mind were just as evil as the woman they had enslaved from the things they
made their mutes do.  Yet she would have never involved herself with the group
at all if she hadn't observed Joey using his coin to test some students about a
month ago.

The way I understood it, Helen believed it had been calling to her ever since
she first started feeling the minds around her, but she hadn't known where the
call was coming from until seeing Joey pass it around.  After that she began
feeling out the mutes on the campus to see which were the strongest conductors
for her power and working out some sort of strategy to get the coin.  I had
felt the strength of her obsession to get to the coin.  It had simply blinded
her young mind to the consequences of her actions, even the deaths she had
caused.

Helen ended the meeting by impressing her desire to go to sleep.  I was fairly
tired myself from the long empathic links and other activities of the day, so
after tucking Helen in a bed she picked out through feel, I left her and the
coin to the capable hands of the child psychologists and doctors for the night.

Part of me didn't want to go back to the apartment because I knew that statue
would be there tempting me, yet I couldn't think of anywhere else to go that
was close.  So I went back to my place and went to bed with the door shut so
the statue couldn't see me in there.

Didn't help.  Those nipples were like two eyes glowing in the dark.  I could
feel them constantly watching me, and as I fell asleep, I could have sworn they
were calling me, desiring me to caress them and suckle them dry.

I was startled awake when an arm fell across my midsection, but relaxed
instantly when I recognized Suzi's symbols swirling lazily beside me, and
Joey's beside hers.

As my eyes picked her features out of the dark, I decided to keep my business
with Charlene to myself for the moment.  They had enough on their minds to deal
with.  I'd try to figure things out for myself first, then talk it over with
them before giving Charlene a final decision.  I'd probably take her up on her
offer to visit her home just to make sure she was the type of woman she led on
to be.

Around midnight, I got up and called Charlene just to let her know it'd
probably be a couple of days before I'd really know how I felt about it.  I
think she had been asleep, for she wasn't too coherent, but I had promised her
I'd call her and she had thanked me for doing so before hanging up.

"I have to admit," Joey said with a shit-eating grin on his face standing next
to the kitchen table when I turned around.  "I never thought you'd go for an
older woman."

"What are you talking about?" I said as my cheeks burned guilty-as-charged red.

"What are you talking about?" he mimicked me before picking up the statue,
holding it up in front of his face and answering in a higher pitched voice,
"He's talking about me, with my cold naked body and my red glowing titties
standing on your kitchen table waiting for you to call me and say, 'fuck me,
you big stud.  Fuck me and make me young again'."

"It isn't anything like that," I said while my dick screamed, "Yes it is! Yes
it is!"

"What, she's just loaning this to you for the weekend or something?" he said as
he took another close look at the nipples.

"She thinks I can give her a kid with voice, okay?  She's trying to buy my
genes."

"Really?  Shit.  So are you going to put your dough in her oven?"

"I don't know... She's been nothing but honest with me and isn't trying to rush
me into deciding, and I think she probably is a good mother, but..."

"You don't know if you like the idea of having unlicensed Timmys and Timmyets
running around outside of your backyard."

"Yeah, something like that."

"Well, looks like you got some soul searching to do," Joey said, yawning.  "You
hungry?"

"Yeah, actually," I said, feeling better from just telling him about it.

"Well, I got cherry flavor and raspberry favor," Joey joked with the statues
tits.

"God, put that thing down.  It's already given me blue balls once today."

"Really...  Shit, Tim.  Maybe we should see if Suzi is up to...  Okay, okay...
It was only an idea."

I put the jar of m&ms down I was threatening to throw at his head, then
followed him into the kitchen area to raid the fridge.

After getting some odds and ends out and sitting down to eat them, Joey paused
before his first bite to ask, "So why you?  There's lots of other young stud
voices on campus."

"Fourth generation voice," I simply said, not expecting him to understand the
relevance, but I figured it was enough to get him to shut up at least a minute
so we could both eat.

"And I'm a sixth generation blonde, so what?" he said only ten seconds later.

"All the experts say that a great grandson or great granddaughter of a first
generation voice can't get voice.  My dad's, dad's, dad had voice.  I'm not
supposed to have it.  Plus there's the fact my mom and dad both have it and
that's never supposed to happen either.  Charlene thinks that even though she's
a third generation voice, I could give her a kid with voice so she could pass
on her family voice heritage or whatever."

"Oh."

"What would you do if some woman wanted you to father her child so her child
could form share links and stuff?"

"Depends on what Suzi thinks."

"Oh come on, Joey.  That's a cop-out.  What would you do if Suzi wasn't in the
picture?  Besides shriveling up and dieing I mean."

"Let's see...  Tommy doesn't seem to have it, so I probably wouldn't do it
because the kid wouldn't live up to their expectations.  And even if he or she
did have it, if I couldn't raise the kid myself, I wouldn't want to take the
chance the kid grows up without the right upbringing that they use the share
link in bad ways.  So I guess in both cases I'd say no.

"But," he added after draining his glass of lemonade, "If it was because they
wanted their kid to have my good looks or something, I'd charge them a thousand
bucks an orgasm."

"Oh yeah?  Who's orgasm?  Yours, or theirs?"

"Heh.. Both."

"Heh... Yeah, me too."

Suzi walked in yawning, "I hope you guys left something for me to eat."

Joey popped to his feet and rushed over to the refrigerator ahead of Suzi, and
after Suzi saw he was taking care of getting her something, she sat down where
Joey had been and asked, "So what's the story with the stone slut with the red
head lights?"

"Let me, Tim," Joey inserted before I could say anything.  "The slut wants Tim
to knock her up so she has a kid with voice even though her slut mother's
mother had voice and it's against the genetic rule book for there to be a
fourth generation slut with voice.  Since Tim's dad's, dad's, dad had voice, he
already broke the rules, so she figured he could do it again with her."

"Oh," Suzi yawned.  "So the slut gave you the statue thinking she'd buy you
with trinkets.  Have you told her to go to hell yet?"

"Thanks Joey.  Now she has the completely opposite picture I wanted to paint."

"Does it matter what the picture looks like?" he asked, setting Suzi's sandwich
down in front of her.  "I know you.  You won't do it.  Too many consequences to
worry about."

"And besides," Suzi said with a full mouth. "What would Jennifer think?"

"Oh shit.  You're right!" I said in horror.  "How could think of such a thing?"

"Timmy," Suzi winced.  "I didn't mean to make it sound..."

"It's okay, Suz," I sighed.  "I haven't actually done anything.  And you just
saved me a lot of personal grief trying to decide."

"I guess that means she'll want the statue back," Joey sighed.  "Ya think she'd
notice if we pry the nipples out and replace them with some kind of clear red
plastic?"

"You think you'd notice if I pry your nipples off and bronzed them?" Suzi
teased.

"You want them?  They're yours," Joey teased back.

"Hmmm... Maybe later."

I told them what I had found out from Charlene about the breaking up of the
group, and as it turns out it wasn't anything they didn't already know.  Around
one o'clock they went up to Suzi's so we all could go back to sleep, but I
ended up laying awake even after they had made love and fallen asleep
themselves.  I couldn't stop feeling the size and shape of the empty space
inside me that I had reserved for Jennifer, and Jennifer alone.

I dreamt I was chasing little Timmys through fields of pink, blue, and yellow
blooming corn, trying to round them all up before someone decided to snag one
and use them to take over the cornfield.  I was carrying three of them while
chasing a fourth, yelling at the one riding my right hip to stop tickling the
one on my left while the one around my shoulders was trying to cover my eyes
with his hands.

And then suddenly there she was.  Standing in the middle of my cornfield that
darkened and disappeared as I stopped to stare at her.  She had been watching
me playing with the kids...  

She said, "I miss you..."

I awoke feeling her faint thoughts slipping away, my mind frantic to keep the
already disintegrated link open to tell her, to ask her, or even just to be
with her one second more...

But she was gone...

I felt dead inside again.

Suzi appeared at my bedroom door wrapped in her robe with worry written all
over her face.

"Jennifer touched me while I was asleep.  She said she missed me," I explained
with very little energy in my voice.

"Oh Timmy," she said, sitting down on the bed beside me.  "It was just a dream.
I'm sorry I mentioned her."

"It was her, Suz.  I know it was."

"Timmy...  It was only a dream.  It couldn't have been her."

"It was her," I repeated, putting my arms around her waist to hug her, my left
hand going beneath her robe and finding bare skin.

She jerked to her feet at that moment, and as I recovered from my shock I
realized Joey's damn commands had triggered it.

"I am so SICK and TIRED of these things!" I spat as I tore them out of her
head.  "If I get horny from hugging you, that's my problem, not yours!"

"Shit, Timmy..." Suzi said, her head spinning slightly from the intensity of
which I had performed my altering of her mind.  "Don't do that without warning
me next time!"

"Sorry," I said guiltily.  "I'm just...  Oh, I don't know what I am," I sighed,
rolling over to bury my face into the pillow.

"What's going on?!" Joey yelled, standing at the foot of the bed naked as could
be.  "Suz, you okay?"

"I'm fine.  Timmy, scoot over.  Joey, go back to bed.  Timmy and I need to
talk."

"Yes ma'am," Joey said hesitantly, then went back upstairs to Suzi's bed as
ordered.

Suzi took off her robe and got in bed with me, carefully scooting herself
against me and began stroking my chest soothingly.

"It had to be her, Suz...  I want so badly for it to be her..."

"Maybe it was Timmy, but it's been a year since she left.  Don't you think it's
time to let her go and get on with your life?"

"No!  I don't want to let her go.  I want to prove to her..."

"Timmy stop it!  She's not coming back."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes I do...  Joey and I looked for her last year before coming down for
Christmas..."

My world was now spinning violently from beneath me.  I was frozen, afraid to
look at her to see her expression, terrified that I really would never see Her
again.

"They had moved to Lake City, Florida, but they somehow knew we were coming...
The house was empty by the time we got there, but she left a note...  Joey
burned it he was so mad.  He didn't want you to know any of this because he
thought you'd be happier not knowing."

"What did it say?" I said with my heart already smeared across the highway of
life.

"Tell Tim to leave me alone," Suzi said with teary emotion.

"Joey put a memory block in your head," I reasoned out loud.  "I must have
mistaken it as part of the other commands.  Does he remember?"

"No..." Suzi sniffed, deeply worried I had switched my emotions off again.

My emotions were very much on, but didn't know what to feel except I didn't
want to be alone.  At least I knew I wouldn't be with Suzi right there.

I hugged her, and relaxed in a sort of temporary state of emotional
contentedness when she hugged me back with a ferocity I really needed right
then. 

Waking up the next morning with Suzi sleeping naked beside me generated an
assortment of conflicting emotions in me I hadn't felt for a long time.  Trust,
guilt, love, sorrow, lust, loyalty...  Half of them were against me staying in
bed with her any longer, while the other three, trust, love and lust, for once
teamed up and argued why I should stay.  But it was Joey who decided for me,
sleepily walking in wearing tented shorts and crawling in bed beside me.

"Morning," I said softly as my own tent started to go down a bit.

"Mmmm.." he acknowledged, rolling onto his side to face me but leaving is eyes
closed.

Feeling a little wicked and playful, I sent my hand over to his crotch and dug
his semi-soft wood out.

"I hope you have a permit for that," he said, his eyes still closed, but only
because he sensed I was up to something.

"Never needed one before," I replied as it hardened under my slow strokes.

"Shit," I groaned in dismay when it suddenly went soft from Suzi's commands
kicking in.  "A guy can't even have a little fun."

"Nope," Joey said as he got out of bed, pulled his shorts back up, then crawled
back in bed on Suzi's side.

"Mmmmmm..." Suzi sighed, then reached over to Joey and pulled herself on top of
him.

After exchanging a lazy kiss wet kiss, Suzi straddled him the rest of the way,
then slid down to where her head was laying on his chest and went back to
sleep.

"She'll wake up again in about ten minutes for some loving," Joey said softly.
"We can go upstairs if you want..."

"What, and spoil the mood?" I said, kissing Suzi on the tush before crawling
out of bed and tossing my boxers off.  "I'll just go shower and wank off, then
fix breakfast, okay?"

As I headed into the bathroom, Joey thought to me, "Tim?"

"Yeah Joey?"

"Thanks."

"No problem, buddy."

In the shower I thought of the old days when in situations like this, Joey and
Suzi would have joined me in the shower to surprise me and make love to me in
their own special way.  But I stopped that line of thinking, for it was
becoming more of an erotic fantasy than anything else, and ended up not
orgasming in the shower after all.

They were both asleep when I left the bedroom, so I held off making breakfast
until they were for sure up and instead lay down on the couch to think.

My thinking didn't get very far with that damn statue calling me to seduce its
red horny nipples.  I studied it from the couch with both visions, admiring the
workmanship, the detail, the simple steady flow of energy the red translucent
material generated as the strange not quite human symbols traversed it, and
sometimes crossed the empty space between them.

There was some sort of telepathic... attraction to the material.  I could just
barely sense this tiny pull from them, and I realized that's really what Helen
had been describing.  I smirked to myself that maybe they really were calling
me to sample their nipples, then quickly checked to make sure Joey and Suzi
were still asleep before sucking on each one for a moment to see what would
happen.

Other than tasting the dirt left behind by who knew how many hands, I didn't
get anything out of it but another woody.  Just a bit infuriated by this, I
decided to do what I had been wanting to do since I first saw the damn thing.
I wacked off and sprayed the lavish sex object with my cum.

I used my fingers to spread as much of my spunk over its surface before
cleaning up the spatters off the table and started making breakfast.

"What?" I said, hiding my amusement when Joey and Suzi finally came out and
found me still naked eating my breakfast with a cum-frosted statue in the
middle of the table.

"Shit, if you were that horny, why didn't you just say so?" Joey said
grouchily, probably due to not having gotten laid that morning like he had
expected.

"Are you okay?" Suzi said worriedly, hugging me around the neck from behind my
chair.

"Yeah, I'm fine.  I just had to get it out of my system, that's all.  The twins
would approve of my artistic inspiration, don't you think?"

"If they didn't just see it as a waist of good spunk," Joey commented as he
fetched the eggs and bacon I left in the pan I had cooked for them.

"Heh.  That's exactly what Charlene will probably think too.  This is all the
spunk she's going to get from me.  But I'm thinking she doesn't need it any
more."

"Why?" Joey asked as Suzi sat down in her chair and Joey divvied up eggs.

"Because there's already a little girl with voice needing a good mommy, and
between the two nipples and Charlene's twins, I think Helen would be happy with
her."

"That's a wonderful idea, Timmy," Suzi said.

"Is it?" Joey said skeptically.  "Do we really want to turn something as
powerful as that little girl over to someone we know almost nothing about?"

"Do you ever want to get your coin back?" I teased.

"I don't care about the coin," Joey said defensively.  "It's already caused
more trouble than it's worth.  And explain to me how turning Helen over to her
is any different than you fathering her a kid with voice.  Jennifer and all
that shit beside."

"Joey, what is wrong with you?" Suzi snapped.

"I'm tired, okay?  And I'm not hungry," he said, getting up without having
touched his food. "I'm going for a walk."

When Suzi stood up to go with him, he added firmly, "Alone."

"I really worry about him sometimes," Suzi said after he slammed the door
behind him.  "First he blames himself, then he gets so angry..."

I nodded, then said, "At least he's letting some of it out now.  He'll be
okay."

Suzi sighed, then looked at me thinking the same thing as I was.

"I guess he's right.  There isn't much difference," I admitted.

"I don't know, Timmy," Suzi said, sliding Joey's plate over to hers scraping
his eggs onto her plate.  "One creates a new life, the other doesn't.  Someone
has to teach Helen how to live, and it sounds like that's what Charlene wants
to do."

"Yeah, you're right.  Plus I think I could sell it to Charlene by pointing out
Helen could very well be a first generation voice, and that means Helen could
pass on what Charlene taught her to another generation.  I can't see how either
one of them could say no if they just think about it."

"Well then you go get dressed and get going.  I'll take care of the dishes and
lock up when I leave," she said, patting my bare thigh.

I looked her in the eyes and playfully said, "You gave me a boner just my
touching me like that."

"Really," she said, rubbing my thigh, then smacking it just hard enough for it
to sting.  "Maybe tonight I'll touch you there some more, but right now you
have a job to do.  Now go!"

"Yes ma'am," I sighed while giving the old down boy command.

I had expected some sort of greeting, or at least a positive acknowledgement
from Helen when I joined her, but instead she gave me the cold shoulder and
once even tried to make me leave the room.

She wouldn't let me form an empathic link either, but after spending a few
minutes studying her shielded mind, I decided I would have to get her to open
up to me again in a more natural way.

 From the little bit I had been with her, I knew Helen loved her baths, but I
ruled out a swimming pool from suspecting she feared deep water since her legs
were useless.  So I took her to the next best thing I could think of.

After draining the water to where it was only at her knees, I sat her down on
the Jacuzzi's bench, started the fill and switched on the jets while making
sure the temperature wasn't set too high.  She started getting a bit nervous
when she realized the water was rising, so I stripped and sat down beside her,
holding the hand that wasn't holding the coin at the time.

I felt her mind probing me for my intentions, then slowly relaxed as the water
reached high enough for the jets to kick in and she felt their soothing
vibrations.  When the water got up close to her neck, though, she panicked a
moment and grabbed my bare chest with her fingers and sharp nails.

After I winced, I instinctively pulled her into my lap and held on to her as
she hugged my neck, soothing her fears with calm supportive words while rubbing
her back.  She may not have been able to hear my words, but she could sense
enough of the feelings behind them for they to have the intended effect.

She eventually turned around in my lap to enjoy the bubbles and warm water.
There was a moment of panic for both of us when she dropped the coin in the
water and it went straight into one of the jet intakes, but the symbolic vision
show us both it only went in about an inch before stopping.  I just assumed
there was a filter of some sort preventing foreign objects from entering the
jets and tried to explain that to her without any luck.

Helen wasn't happy until we got out, turned off the jets and retrieved the
coin, but then after she hugged it several long moments, she held it out to me,
then directed me to put it somewhere safe before we went back in.

After ensuring the coin was safe sitting in her wheelchair with her clothes, we
got back in with the jets on full.  Helen's smiles were all I needed to see to
know I had her trust again.

I had told Charlene to meet me for lunch and to bring her sons along, and Helen
didn't fight me when I picked her up and got out to keep our lunch date.  But
she must have picked up what I was planning to do for Helen started giving me
the cold shoulder again by the time we left the Jacuzzi room.

So I picked her out of her wheelchair and carried her, hoping the closer
physical contact would help her feel my intentions were for her best interests
rather than my own.  She was a limp noodle in my arms until I reached the
cafeteria and saw Charlene and her boys waiting for me, my hesitance making
Helen clutch on to me in a sign of not wanting to go.

Despite the short time I had spent with her, I was becoming very attached to
the helpless girl.  This conflict between doing what I knew would be best and
my feelings of loss comforted her in a way I doubted anything else could.

Charlene listened to my idea and my reasons why it would work, then surprised
me by admitting the idea had occurred to her as well.  The twins seemed a
little skeptical she would do it, but it didn't surprise them when her motherly
feelings kicked in while looking the girl over and triggered something in Helen
I could never have.

Helen held her arms up to Charlene in a sign to be held.  Charlene carefully
took her and held her against her, her eyes widening in concern as I felt Helen
focus her mind on Charlene's and popped her mental barrier like she had mine.

The twins tensed and readied their empathic punch to protect their mother, but
I managed to get them to hold off long enough for Charlene to understand what
was going on and relax.

That evening, Charlene handed me the coin after convincing Helen she didn't
need it, then tried to talk me into keeping the statue which I certainly felt
tempted to do.  But in my mind it already belonged to Helen, and I wasn't about
to keep what wasn't mine.  

I gave Helen a kiss goodbye before they left that night, and I am proud to say
I received Helen's very first kiss.  

I just wish it hadn't been in my eye.

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> |
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html>  Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Archive: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository |
|<http://www.asstr-mirror.org>, an entity supported entirely by donations.         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+