PART 39 - The Drug That Is War

 

---

 

Warning: This is adult literature. If you’re not of a legal age to read this stuff, don’t.

Disclaimer: This is a work of pure fiction. No semblance between the characters described here and real individuals – living or dead – is implied or intended.

 

---

 

Plot Synopsis Up to This Point:

Four female postgraduate students in New Mexico (Vicky, Tammy, Louisa and Kim) are living depressing lives fraught with personal and professional failures.

One day, driving through the lonely new Mexico desert, they are commandeered by aliens. Turns out, the aliens would like to come back one day and mine the our earthly sphere until it's Swiss cheese. But in the meantime, they need a little help mapping the earth's geology and occasionally subduing its population. And who better to help with that than a handful of local females, recruited involuntarily? The aliens soup them up with some supernatural abilities and turn them loose. These supernatural abilities include not only absurd strength, but also being absurdly attractive, with the sexual appetite to match. The part of their body that pack's the greatest punch are their breasts, which store enough power to level a city.

Vicky is the leader of the four. She could have any man she wants, but she pines after the heart of the one man who knows her better than any other: Jared. She wants his respect, and hopes that this will lead to a deeper companionship.

Earning Jared's respect means doing superhero stuff, and to that end, Vicky has enlisted the services of her friend Ethan, who heads up the group's command center.

Speaking of superhero stuff, the girls achieved their biggest accomplishment yet in Part 38, The War on Drugs. In that chapter, the girls nearly brought the illicit drug trade to its knees. But the chapter ended with a disturbing note: Vicky was feeling angry pangs in her gut. And that means the aliens are coming.

 

---

 

Vicky writhed in agony. After her collapse on the show, Tamara had hauled her back to the Phoenix mansion at blistering speed. Louisa and Kim returned from Mexico as well.

The thrashing of her superhuman body had left her bedroom in shambles. The bed frame was cracked. The headboard had been tossed into one of the walls, partially collapsing it. Mirrors and glass frames had been shattered by the ferocious volume of her screams. One of the guys had been nearly decapitated by a lamp stand that had blasted through three walls and two floors before coming to rest. After that, the men were deemed too fragile to be in the house, and it was evacuated of them.

"Vicky, tell us what this is," Tamara asked as she entered the bedroom. A nightstand flew errantly toward her. She swatted it aside in a shower of splinters.

"The aliens …" Vicky groaned. "They want us … They want us to do bad things for them."

"And that's causing you pain?"

"It's an URGE," Vicky seethed. Her eyes were wild. "The aliens aren't asking. The are planting the inside of me! And resisting the urge feels more painful than you can imagine!"

"Why aren't I and the other girls feeling it?"

"Because I am holding it back from you. It's like a dam holding back water. Your modules are controlled by mine: if I unleash the urge on you, believe me, you will obey."

Vicky slammed another indestructible fist into the very destructible stone floor. It broke apart like an oyster cracker.

Tammy went to her friend's side and gathered up Vicky's flailing hands in her own.

"I can't hold out much longer," Vicky wailed.

"Is there anything I can do – anything at all?"

"Yes." Vicky's eyes went wide. "Forgive me."

 

---

 

Even without looking at a map, Vicky knew where to lead the other girls. The beckoning of the aliens was that strong. Vicky accelerated to Mach 25 – the fastest the girls had ever flown – forcing the other girls to race to keep up.

The group had discarded their government-issued uniforms. Those uniforms had been issued for noble work. Whatever they were now flying into, one thing was sure: it wasn't noble.

In place of the government-issued garments, Vicky had opted for something fiercer– bikini's made of thick steel cables. She had first commissioned such an outfit while she was stalking Cuthbertson. Now, the artist's craftsmanship had been refined– all four girls wore the menacing steel outfits – black and grey and rust in color. The bikini tops, with half-inch-thick steel cabling, were tight enough and strong enough to crush a normal ribcage. But to the girls, they felt no harsher and no more constricting than a snug garment of silk.

Vicky knew with perfect clarity what the aliens wanted. The alien craft was large and advanced, but it was a mining vessel – not a warship – and therefore was not shielded from attack. The girls' only purpose in life was to protect the aliens and their ship – they could not allow the earthlings to put even a scratch on it. The girls were to clear the area – of all life.

{{You don't have to do it}} Tamara tried to reassure her. {{Maybe the aliens can be reasoned with. Maybe the site of their choosing is unpopulated. Maybe this is just an exploratory visit, an innocuous look around.}}

Vicky did not respond. The answer wasn't something Tamara wanted to hear. 

Fortunately, flying with all haste to in response to the alien's call seemed to satisfy them for the time being. It gave her just enough latitude to think for a moment. She activated a satellite phone, strapped to her upper arm, that Ethan had customized for her. "Ethan," she said. "Use the GPS on my communicator. Where are we?"

"You're north of Afghanistan, maybe southern Kazakhstan. Regional warlord country. Information on the region is scant but don't be surprised if you encounter some nasties."

"I think we already found them," Vicky admitted, looking at an encampment that was quickly coming into view in a valley behind the mountains. It was bristling with weapons. It happened to be sitting right on top of the site the aliens wanted.

The girls alighted in the midst of the bustle of the encampment. It was clearly a warlord's headquarters – pickup trucks with munitions and supplies raced in every direction. And yet, Vicky couldn't be sure that soldiers were the only residents of the area. There were others that did not have guns. That gave Vicky unease: it was one thing to use her power against hostile soldiers, but to use it against a whole encampment?

"What type of ore do the aliens think they are going to find here?" Kim asked, looking at the dull grassy plain.

"Does it matter?" Vicky began to pant. The aliens were getting closer now. She could feel them. The urge was returning with a vengeance, and she had to lean on Tamara's shoulder as they walked toward the main tent. Her voice faltered, but had an underlying strength. "I need to speak to your leader," she said to the guard the door. The warlord's council room was easily visible behind him.

"No you don't," the guard replied.

A shout came from deep in the council chambers. "Underling, you fool, I always have time for fine women. Especially ones like these!"

As Vicky and her companions entered the tent, she saw that it was packed with men. She began to regret the skimpiness of their bikini-like uniforms– not because of any sense of shyness about their bodies, but instead because their bodies were too perfect. Glancing at her three friends, their busts – prominent and firm – were enough to derail a conversation with any man. But looking at them now, Vicky was also reminded of their toned midriffs, elegant hourglass bodies, and the sculpted perfection of their legs. Seeing their bodies so scantily garbed was enough to send a little electric tingle through Vicky. She could only imagine how much more distracting it would be for the weaker sex.

"Serve these fine girls some of our liquor," bellowed the warlord as they were shown into the center of the tent.

Crude metal goblets of foul smelling stuff were handed to the girls.

"We did not come to flirt," she announced. "You are in grave danger here. A major attack is coming to this place, unlike the earth has ever known. In thirty minutes, this tent will be gone. All that will remain here will be a pit a mile deep. You need to leave."

Laughter, a throaty male laughter, rang throughout the chamber. "And what do you know of attacks? What do you girls know of fighting?"

"More than you would care to find out," Louisa hissed.

A deep, earth-shaking rumble permeated the room. A breeze fluttered through the tent. Exclamations from outside made the situation unmistakable.

It was here.

Without bothering to look, Vicky knew what was above. The mining ship was perhaps two thousand feet in the air, hovering, waiting for the girls to clear the area. Vicky began to shake uncontrollably, her body wracked in pain as she tried to resist the urges that were being injected into her.

"Ha!" the warlord was saying. "If you think some thing in the sky will scare me, think again. You!" He shouted at an underling. "Have my men fire the shoulder-launched missile at whatever is above."

"My lord," the underling objected nervously, "have you seen the size-"

"Do it!" the warlord commanded.

"NO!" Vicky shouted with a final spasm.

Vicky felt her own willpower draining away and obedience flooding in to take its place. Yes, YES, her body screamed! It felt good – blissfully good, to be serving the wonderful aliens. She did not know their names; she did not know why they needed these materials so badly. But thinking of them warmed her heart. Then, she looked around her at examples of the worthless monkeys that inhabited this earth, and felt only disdain. It couldn't even be called earth, she realized. It was a spherical resource.

Vicky's hands closed on the goblet with a sudden CRUNCH, reducing it to the size of a plum. She hurled it at the warlord, her exceptional muscles putting immense power into the throw. The warlord's head exploded with a loud POP, hardly slowing the missile, which traveled at many times the speed of a bullet. The projectile hit him with such force that blood spattered on the roof of the tent, twenty feet above.

As his headless body slumped to the ground, a happy, gooey warmth welled up from within Vicky. Gosh, that felt awesome, she thought. She felt the muscles on her face move and realized that she was smiling despite herself – gleefully happy for the first time all day.

Whatever floodwaters Vicky had been holding back with her emotional dam, she now released them. She watched friends' eyes glaze over as the tidal wave of emotion overtook them.

Countless soldiers were cocking their rifles. Some began screaming at her. She ignored the shouts and the pointed guns– and turned instead to her friends. Her three girls stood there. Their breathing was shallow, and there was now a hunger in their eyes. Vicky gazed with pleasure on the muscles she had crafted, with 10,000 times the strength of a mere human's. Her eyes wandered across the skin she had designed– an armor supple and flawless, which had yet to find a projectile that could scratch it, had yet to feel a temperature that could burn it, or a chemical that could blister it. She gazed with pleasure on the facial features of her girls – their eyes, noses and ears representing a reconnaissance technology that put every device on earth to shame. She looked with pride upon the proud, voluminous breasts of her girls, each containing enough stored energy to level a mountain, carve a new canyon, or reduce any foe to an endless sea of withered ash. She and her girls were the ultimate weapons.

She thought about the bustling encampment that surrounded them, and her voice hardened to stone.

"Kill them all."

 

---

 

Kim's knees nearly buckled at the desire that washed over her – the desire to protect the alien mining craft, to eliminate everyone and everything down here. The other three girls exited the tent in a flash, leaving Kim alone with about angry soldiers.

"Thank you, ladies," she whispered to herself.

Bullets began to ping harmlessly off of her steel bikini and her even more impenetrable skin. She picked up a machine gun off the floor. This is what they use all the time, she said to herself, and yet, I've never touched one. I wonder what it's like to use one. Men always seem to have trouble aiming these things: some of the bullets hit me, some of them don't.

She pointed the gun at one of the guys, squeezed the trigger, and waved it about in a seemingly careless circle. The awesomeness of these alien abilities never ceases to amaze me, she laughed to herself – better target tracking than earth's most advanced system, better hand/eye coordination than the most experienced gamer, and my aim – flawless.

When her arm finished it circle, forty bodies dropped to the ground, a bullet hole placed neatly in the center of each one's forehead.

It had been too easy – not nearly enough action to satisfy the fury that was welling up inside of her. Kim would have liked to tear the dead thugs apart one by one. The aliens would have appreciated that. But there were so many others outside the tent still alive, awaiting her attention.

 

---

 

Louisa felt the alien emotions overwhelm her and felt her mind clear with new simplicity of purpose. She blasted out of the tent and into the skies. Shoulder-launched rockets had been fired at her wonderful alien friends. She accelerated to Mach-whatever-the-fuck-it-takes and plucked the two missiles out of the sky with her bare hands. Wheeling around towards the ground, she barreled downward at the attackers and launched the missiles back at them with a disgusted heave. They detonated upon impact. Their explosion scattered bodies across the ground.

Gazing further afield, she noticed that trucks with mounted machine guns on the crossbars were making their way toward the chaotic compound. Louisa smiled, relishing the thought of obliterating them. She descended to ground level, and began to fly toward the trucks, accelerating hundreds of miles per hour in an instant. With flawless precision, she flew only a few feet above the ground at breathtaking speed.

Pointing her fists in front of her, she wasted no time with formalities. When she met the first truck, she blasted straight through the front grille, the engine block, the passengers and the seats with such force the that truck exploded into fragments, devastated by projectile of unearthly might.

Louisa's senses were on overdrive as she steered a course that took her through the other trucks as well. BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM went each vehicle as she flew through each one in turn. To Louisa, it was a methodical process, like making stitches with a needle and thread. To mortal senses, it was almost instantaneous, a series of BOOMS that exploded the trucks into unrecognizable clouds of fragmentary debris.

How many had she killed, she giggled as she spiraled back into the sky? Forty, fifty? She hoped it was more.

 

---

 

Tamara's eyes darted across the warlord's encampment. She was disgusted at the sight of these humans who polluted the aliens' chosen mining site with their presence. How to be rid of them the fastest?

Ah, she noted to herself, the munitions storage dump. Her body accelerated to a blur. She was traveling at hundreds of miles per hour when she landed feet-first in the middle of the area, her indestructible knees taking the impact effortlessly. The dozens of men who scurried about the storage area heard only a brief WHOOSH followed by an incredible THUMP – a reverberation that knocked many off their feet.

The more nimble men in the group drew weapons and prepared to fire at her, but she ignored their silly bullets.

"You fools, you had a chance to leave," she laughed, her gaze landing on a large oil tank, thirty feet long. That must be many thousands of pounds, Tamara noted casually as she strode up to it. She placed her hands on its underside and lifted, hearing the POPS and PINGS as the steel was yanked off its concrete mountings.

The thugs that surrounded her ceased firing now and began slowly to step away.

"Hah!" she laughed. "So you finally get it, huh – how awesomely indestructible we are? It gets better," she elaborated as she strode toward the stored munitions, cylindrical tank in hand. "Your silly bullets don't just bounce off of me. They feel good. That goes for everything that's intended to destroy me – bullets, knives … even fire."

With that, she slammed the oil tank down on the stored munitions. A horrendous BOOM shook the area as delightful, blistering heat washed over her. She spread her arms wide and sighed as gasses heated to thousands of degrees washed over her delicate face, as deadly mortar shrapnel danced lightly across her supple skin.

She gazed at her handiwork. While normal eyes would have seen only an impenetrable wall of crimson flame, hers delighted at dozens of men being consumed by the ravenous explosion.

 

---

 

The driver of the transport pressed his foot into the accelerator with all his might, as if the extra exertion might eek out just a little more speed from the fleeing vehicle. Behind him, he could hear periodic explosions of frightening magnitude. Some sort of attack had erupted in the warlord's compound; he and his troops had not waited to see what it might be. The earth-shaking power of the explosions told them plenty.

"I think we're going to make it, said the soldier in the passenger seat. The explosions don't seem to be coming our way."

The driver smiled to himself. His passenger was right. "What's that ahead, in the road?"

"It appears to be a woman," his passenger replied.

As they approached, they realized that it wasn't just any woman. She was a hell of a find. Even with their lives in danger, he wondered to himself if he could talk her into coming along. He came to a stop about twenty yards away from her.

"Come with us," he shouted, leaning out of the driver's window.

She shook her head.

"It's bad back there," he thumbed behind the truck.

"It's bad where you are, too," she said.

Another explosion rocked the site behind him, twice as big as the others. New fear settled upon him, and he realized that he was still far from safety. It was time to get out of here.

"If you aren't coming, then get out of my way," he shouted. "I am coming through."

She shook her head, the auburn locks of her hair billowing in the wind.

Another explosion. His hands were shaking. His passenger's voice was tremulous. "We need to get the fuck out of there. You have a whole caravan of trucks behind you that are sitting ducks. Run her down."

A third explosion was heard, and the driver needed no more invitation. He slammed the accelerator down and barreled forward, leaning on the horn as he did so.

He fully expected the girl to dive out of way, but it did not happen. Instead, she remained stationary, her hands on her inviting hips.

The speedometer was on the brink of 30 kilometers per hour when he hit her. Expecting to hear the sickening sound of her bones being crushed under the truck, he instead felt himself slammed forward with remarkable force, as if he had hit a fixed object. The windshield exploded and the cabin contorted at an odd angle like a piece of paper being crumpled. He took the steering wheel in the ribs and heard the sound of his own bones breaking as his poorly adjusted seat belt allowed his momentum to carry him forward.

With stars in his eyes, and agony wracking his body, he looked up to see her there. She had an arm extended toward the truck. He felt the angle of the the cabin shift and so felt gravity pulling him not downward, but forward, as she blithely raised the vehicle with her arm. He scrambled for his pistol, but it had become dislodged in the impact and was no longer on his lap. He wondered what had become of the caravan behind him.

But within moments, he received his answer. She flung her arm and suddenly, he saw the ground rushing below him. The truck was being thrown. Within moments, another devastating impact announced his truck's collision with the vehicle behind him. His truck was fully upside-down when it happened, held in place only by his seatbelt, strapping his ass to the seat above him.

The impact was violent beyond words. As he saw the roof of the cab collapsing, he felt his life collapsing with it. In his dying moment, the only thing he could remember was the woman with the auburn hair. She had been devastatingly beautiful. And when he had started at her moments before being hurled backward, her lips had curled into a sinister smile.

 

---

 

Vicky floated hundreds of feet above the melee, viewing the work of her girls. The slaughter was progressing nicely. The encampment was in shambles, most of its occupants dead. The sight of it made her warm inside.

{{Come to me}} she ordered telepathically, and immediately the three girls began to ascend from the destruction.

The aliens would be satisfied with this. But she wanted them to be more than satisfied. She wanted have everything be perfect for them, like a host getting the house ready for a party.

{{They are training their shoulder-launched rockets at us}} Tamara observed as she slowed to a hover aside Vicky. {{Can I destroy them all?}}

{{No, I want to do it!}} Louisa objected.

White trails of smoke marked the paths of the shoulder-launched missiles as they ascended toward the girls.

{{Please!}} Kim interjected, {{let me!}}

Vicky felt the concussive impact of the exploding missiles – enough to snap a plane in two, but to her, more like a playful shove. Shrapnel, powerful enough to shred any fuselage, tickled her skin. Hot gasses warmed her. She turned to gaze at the worms below.

{{No, I am going to treat myself}} Vicky sighed delightedly. Vicky whispered to herself, you fools thoughts your missiles to be deadly. Now, you can see what deadly truly looks like.

A purple beam erupted from her fist, expelling such power that the air trembled with the sound of a hundred thunderclaps. Whereas the missiles has produced aerial explosions twenty feet across, Vicky's beam impacted the ground with such power that a two-hundred-foot plume of debris flew into the air.

The beam danced wildly across the landscape, incinerating everyone and everything in its path.

{{What if there are landmines?}} Kim asked. {{That would make the aliens unhappy.}}

{{You'd better destroy the first twenty feet of topsoil as well, just to be sure.}} Louisa added. {{ It's not like that would take any effort. }}

{{Good point}} Vicky replied lightly. She felt a warmth glowing in her breast as she unleashed two hundred kilotons of explosive power on the landscape, carving it away before their eyes. Each time the beam hit the ground, it was like an enormous aerial bomb had detonated, producing craters thirty and forty yards across. She was transforming the steppe into a moonscape– something that would have taken the worlds most powerful air force many days and many millions. But to Vicky it was effortless.

{{When do we get to do this?}} Tammy pouted.

Vicky ceased her beam. The crater was a mile across and hundreds of feet deep. She had used less than one tenth of one percent of her stored power. There world's armies didn't stand a chance against even one of them. And there were four.

Their locks of gold, chestnut and mahogany spun gently in the wind. Their steel bikinis tried in vain to shield the magnificent curves and flawless skin. Smudges of ash were the only sign that her girls had even been in a battle. Their large breasts heaved as the girls panted, not from exertion, but from the unexpected thrill of the slaughter.

{{ Soon, my beautiful soldiers}} Vicky smiled. {{There will be cities to be destroyed, armies to be crushed. Plenty of fun yet remains for you.}}

 

---

 

The Phoenix sun stabbed at Vicky's closed eyelids, which made the migraine even worse.

In years past, Vicky used to get migraines all the time. This was the first since her transformation. And this was the worst she had ever felt, by far. The contest between her will and the will of the thing inside of her was tearing her head apart. And it wouldn't be the last time either, she knew. The aliens had gotten what they needed from the Central Asian steppe, and had left for now. But they will come again, and again, and again after that. This mining exercise was on the smaller side, too. Others would be much bigger. She knew this just as clearly as the sun was bright.

"Whaaa …" came a feminine voice beside her. It was Tamara. The two had gone to sleep in each others arms last night, shivering with the memory of the horrors they had committed.

Vicky got up and threw on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, turning to look at her friend as she did so. Tamara was as beautiful as ever, but she also looked like shit– the hangover to end all hangovers.

BRRIIINNNGG, sounded Vicky's cell phone on the nightstand. The sound made her head throb.

"Hey," came the male voice after she answered it. "It's Jared. I was just calling to say congratulations."

"Huuuhh …" Vicky replied groggily. "What did I do right?"

"Just stop the drug trade in its tracks. Have you already forgotten?"

Fuck, Vicky lamented to herself. All those good things they had done this week– they seemed a distant memory now.

She shuffled up to the window and was greeted by even more of the the Phoenix morning sun. It bore into her with its brightness – an urgent, engrossing pain that went to the back of her skull. She donned a pair of sunglasses in the hope of some relief. It's almost as if the sun it trying to consume me, her lethargic brain noted.

"Vicky, are you still there?" the voice on the phone asked.

"Um, to be honest Jared, the anti-drug heroics weren't the only things I did yesterday." She shuffled to the window.

"There was even more?"

"Unfortunately, yes," she groaned, stepping out of her window and into the sky. "Is there any chance we can talk in person?"

"Well, sure, but I have to work today. I can't get up to Phoenix until next weekend."

"It only needs to be for a few minutes," she replied, as the terrain below her began to speed by.

"Vicky, listen to me. I'm sitting at my apartment in Las Cruces having breakfast, leaving for work in twenty minutes. I can't get up to Phoenix now."

"You don't need to. I'm almost at your front door."

 

---

 

"All I can say is, 'wow'," Jared admitted as he ran his finger across the screen of his tablet computer. "You girls have dominated three of the top four items on the news feed."

Vicky's lips curled into a timid smile as she finished the last of the cereal Jared had served. She stood up from the kitchen table and circled behind him to look over his shoulder. There was the shattered train Vicky had plucked from near tragedy in the Rocky Mountains– dazed passengers climbing out of rail cars, hugging each other weeping. There were shots of rehab centers where the formerly addicted smiled broadly as bags of needles, crack pipes and other paraphernalia were discarded. And there was the photography from the drug busts – bricks of cocaine lined up for the cameras, thugs being carted to jail both north and south of the border.

Jared turned to look at her over his shoulder. "I can't find the words to say how proud of I am of you."

Vicky blushed, and let sloppy smile cross her face. She brushed a corrective hand across her cheeks. "Stop it, you're embarrassing me. I'm not everything I'm cracked up to be, just as you said before the concert."

"But Vicky," Jared almost laughed. "Give yourself some credit, you saved thousands of lives –- maybe tens of thousands."

Vicky peered back at the tablet computer. There, in the corner, was another headline. "Mysterious Explosion Wipes Out Encampment in Central Asia"

"The only one that didn't involve you guys was this," he remarked, flipping to the story about the utter destruction on the Central Asian steppe.

The picture showed miles of charred grassland surrounding an enormous crater, perhaps a mile long and hundreds of feet deep. The alien ship was nowhere to be seen, nor was it mentioned in the article.

"Authorities have little information on how many people had been encamped there, and have no idea what destroyed the area last night," Jared read. "Some astronomers speculate that this may be a repeat of the 1908 Tunguska Event – a massive meteorite breaking up in the lower atmosphere, causing an explosion of several megatons. If such a meteorite breakup were to have occurred at an even lower altitude, it would be reasonable to expect a large crater combined with the relatively limited three-mile-wide blast radius. However, experts …"

Vicky didn't listen to the rest. Tell him, she said to herself. Tell him the truth. If you wanted to pull the wool over his eyes, you could have seduced him like the others – bent his mind like you did with Alice. No, Jared is the real deal. You need this one to be real. You need to level with him.

"Are you even listening?" Jared chuckled.

"No, sorry, what was that?"

"I was just saying that I'm so glad the bullshit got cleared out of our friendship. Two weeks ago, you were all caught up in how famous you could be, how many guys you could screw, how hot a car you drove, how much money you had. And now, look at this. You're a four-person team of superheroes."

"Thanks," Vicky said, queasily.

"Vicky, you should be happy. Now that you girls are not behaving so erratically, the world trusts you now, adores you. The world knows it has nothing to fear from you."

At that, Vicky ran to the sink and vomited.