Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Crystal - by Deacon Blues

   Eleven - On the Road Again

   I awoke to the sound of Marcus clearing his throat.  Crystal groggily
came to along with me.  As soon as he was sure I was awake enough to hear
him he said.  "Dude, pack it up, we gotta go." Crystal popped out of the
bed like she had been zapped by a electrical cord.  I heard Marcus say
"Erp." Followed immediately by the door closing over my head.  I threw back
the sheets and started to dress.  After a few moments he knocked.  "You
decent now?" Crystal smiled and pulled down a tee-shirt over her panties.

   "Yeah, sorry, she's covered." I said.  Grinning back at Crystal.

   Marcus stepped in then.  "I intercepted a interdepartmental email on the
city servers." He said quickly.  "They know where we are, but the right
people don't know...yet." He started stuffing stuff away for us.  I began
to move quicker, and Crystal did, as well.  "Pretty soon, though, they're
gonna notice no one is answering their messages and someone will make a
phone call." He looked at his watch.  "We got minutes, man."

   I had my shoes on and was stuffing our few unpacked belongings into my
suitcase.  Marcus had already packed his computer and peripherals up. 
Crystal did the same, stuffing her few personal items into her smaller
suitcase.  My heart was starting to triphammer in my chest as adrenalin
kicked in.  "How did they find us?" I asked as I folded my laptop and
scooped it into its case.

   "Probably an anonymous phone call." He muttered.  "Amber alerts get a
lot of attention." He looked over at Crystal packing her bag and zipping
it. "We're gonna have to change her look more.  She just too pretty, man."
He said, with a note of appreciation, along with a note of annoyance that
her very beauty is what might get us caught.  "People look closer at pretty
people, notice details more.  Someone probably saw her here and saw the
program and made the connections."

   I looked at Crystal myself.  Indeed she typically stood out in a crowd a
bit, her lean, athletic frame and startling green eyes, and graceful walk
made her very noticeable.  Marcus gave her his shades till we could get her
some.  I slipped in my blue contacts and we carried our bags to the Jeep.
Marcus jumped into his pickup and toodled out of the lot, and we followed
about half a minute later.  He told me how to tune the two-way to police
frequencies, and I did so.  Soon I was hearing the babble of a medium-sized
city's police department.

   We trundled our vehicles onto the interstate, and headed south west. 
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, we were in Alabama, scooting down the
freeway at seventy.  Marcus called me on the two-way.  "I think we're
clear. They only had a small suspicion, and we didn't make a ruckus on our
way out." He said.

   "Good." I replied.  "These Amber Alerts go until they find her or she's
thought to be surely dead, so we're kinda gonna keep catching this."

   Marcus grumbled into his radio.  "I know.  Somehow we gotta `uglify'
your gal, there."

   Crystal giggled at that.  I said.  "How?"

   I almost heard the shrug.  "Makeup maybe?" He suggested.

   Crystal chimed in.  "Maybe I could put it on backwards." She said.

   "Huh?" I said.  I repeated it to Marcus, who said the same thing.

   She became animated.  "Look, normally makup is used to cover up
blemishes, and stuff." She said.  "Like shadows under the eyes, and
pimples, and skin tone blotches." She pointed around her virtually flawless
face.  "But I could try to put it on to accent those things, instead."

   I shrugged.  "Worth a try." I said.

   Crystal giggled like a schoolgirl.  "Goody, I get to wear makeup,
finally." I had never let her wear it before, saying that she didn't need
the stuff anyway.  She didn't either, still, but this might be our ticket
to anonymity.

   She laid down in the back seat, like she was sleeping, while I ran into
a CVS Pharmacy and bought several selections of makeup and a couple of
makeup guide books.  I dropped over two hundred dollars before I got out of
there, and Marcus piped into the two-way.

   "Took you long enough.  You going fruity on me?  I think you liked
that." He said, a hint of joviality in his voice.  The tension from our
flight this morning was dissipating.  Crystal greedily snatched the sack of
makeup from me and began rifling the contents.

   "Oh my God, dad, these colors are horrid." She said.  "Good job." She
added.  We got back onto the interstate and headed south again.  We were
hoping to make Birmingham by the time we stopped for the night.  Marcus had
checked out the reports, and our vehicles were still safe, whoever saw us
didn't get a good look at the vehicles.

   Marcus informed me that he knew a few folks in Birmingham, and we might
actually be pretty safe there, if one of them was a straight shooter and
had the type of facilities that he bragged he had.

   We stopped quickly for fuel and sodas then got moving again.  I felt
like we were somehow more exposed while moving, like we were just running
right into trouble.  I longed for the feeling of security in my home,
though that appeared to be an illusion.  I saw Marcus talking on his cell
phone as we crossed into the city.  He crackled on the two-way a few
minutes later.  "Friend says he'll hook us up for five hundred and fifty a
day."

   I muttered "Some friend." Then told Marcus okay.

   "He don't know shit about you two, he thinks I'm running form my
embezzlement charge." Marcus said.  "He won't even be where we're going,
we're just renting a place from him for a bit."

   We drove off the interstate in a decidedly seedy part of town.  As we
rolled down the street, I noted that most of the cars actually looked worse
than my Jeep.  Many black faces watched us roll by, or me, rather, as
Crystal had laid down again.  We pulled up to a warehouse, fronting onto a
side street.  Marcus hopped out and opened a combination lock on the huge
rolling door that was big enough for a semi to drive through.  We drove the
cars into the building, and Marcus closed the door, shooting a huge
deadbolt into place.  It was indeed a warehouse.  A pretty damn big one, I
might add.  The walls were bare brick up to about twenty feet, then there
were large blocks of small-paned windows.  About half of these were either
missing or had been replaced with wood.  Dust drifted in eddies around the
drafty place.

   There was power, however, as I saw a light burning at the other end of
the warehouse.  We got out of the Jeep and Crystal looked around, jaw
agape. "This is nice." She said.  "Some curtains and a bit of wallpaper,
and I could do things with it." She giggled at herself then farther afield.
"Actually, a house you can play basketball in is pretty cool." She
commented.

   I looked over at Marcus.  "Well, it is spacious." I said, giving him a
grin.

   Marcus shrugged and held up his palms from hands down low.  "What?" He
said, defensively, "You didn't specify star rating or anything." He pointed
to the light.  "Besides, the living area is over there." He gave me a small
smile.  "Maybe they're nicer."

   I nodded and said "They have to be." We set off across the large room,
our footsteps echoing off the walls and stirring up little dust clouds as
we went.  We got to the lighted area, and opened the door beneath the bare
bulb.  It opened to a staircase, going down.  Flipping the switch inside
the stairwell lit a single bulb halfway down.  It was steep, and pretty
damn long.  We descended maybe thirty feet to another steel door.  There
was another combination lock.  After referring to his wrist, Marcus
unlocked it and opened the door.

   It was nicer.  A lot nicer.  The room beyond looked like a normal living
room, sans windows.  It had a large conversation pit around a coffee table
and a big-screen TV larger than my own.  There was a compact, but
well-equipped kitchen against the wall to the left, and a small table
beside it.  On the far wall were three doors, marked bedroom, bedroom, and
bathroom.  Dominating the room, however, was a massive computer desk,
without a computer.

   Surprisingly, the air was fresh and cool.  Someone had spent a fortune
making this into a livable home.  I thanked them for their efforts. 
Crystal said appreciatively.  "Nice." I looked at Marcus curiously.

   "Hey, us hackers like our comforts." He explained.  We started moving
stuff down there, after moving our vehicles right up to the door to the
stairs.  Once we got it all down there, we started unpacking.  Marcus set
up his computer and its support equipment.  I got myself and Crystal set up
in one of the identical bedrooms.  The place had a broadband connection,
satellite TV, and three phone lines.  For the first time in days, I
actually felt safe.  We all did.  We put our weapons on a small shelf
inside the door, and settled in.

   By the time the clock said ten, we were quite comfortable.  Marcus and
Crystal working on the third journal, while I scanned the letters into his
computer using a smaller scanner.  We called it a night, and gathered at
the table.  Crystal had microwaved some chicken wings, and we ate them
greedily, sipping beer, except my angel, who drank apple juice.  At about
eleven we all headed to our rooms, and I fell asleep quickly, despite the
presence of one of the top ten sexiest creatures on the planet next to me.
We kissed goodnight, I laid down, and I was out.  I supposed the stress had
drained my energy.

   In the morning we were all up somewhat early, and we started our
archiving detail again, scanning and entering the third journal, and the
letters.  My laptop chirped that it had completed a file of the encrypted
data.  We all gathered around it to see what it had unearthed.  The file
was a movie.  It showed Jennifer!

   She was as beautiful as I remember her being, her huge mane of wavy
brown hair cascading over her shoulders and her luminous green eyes staring
at the camera.  She smiled nervously at the camera.  Her face showed signs
of having cried.  Jennifer cried seldom, but she, like her daughter, was
not a pretty person when she cried.

   She was sitting on a bed, in a room I didn't recognize.  "Nathan." She
said.  "If you're getting this, I'm deceased." She sighed.  "But you
already know that don't you?" She giggled nervously.  "I made this video
and compiled the data in these files for you." She looked ashamed, her face
dropping and eyes leaving the camera.  "I should have told you the truth
long ago, now I'm not allowed to."

   "You've always thought I was cheating on you, but that's simply not the
way it really is." She said, trying to look back into the lense of the
video camera.  "I have to do what I do to live." She finally met the glass
gaze of the lense.  "I also had to do some stuff to bring our daughter into
the world." She muttered.  "Stuff that you would have left me over, had you
known about it." She smiled.  "You suspected, but you never accused." Her
face twisted to one of pain.  "God, I love you." She sobbed at the camera.

   Marcus had found good reason to go back over to his own computer, and
Crystal had also walked a short distance from where I stood.

   "This DVD was to be gotten to you in the event of my death." She
sniffed, curbing her tears.  "I convinced Nelson to make it and burn it and
to promise to get it to you somehow." She rolled her eyes.  "You don't want
to know how." She answered my unspoken question.

   "Anyway.  I wanted you to know about us.  I am and my daughter is a
Chimera." She said.  "We're genetically modified humans.  Created by a
crazy bastard of a German scientist back in the war." She held out a hand.
"They intended us to be their `Ubermensch,' or rather they intended us to
bear their super soldiers.  But the experiment failed." She gave the camera
a sad smile.  "Sort of.  We are a viable sub-species, but we're afflicted
with a number of problems.  Some of these you have to know about, raising
one of us."

   She held up a hand, and pointed to her index finger with her other hand.
"First, we have to eat semen to live, and lots of it." She sighed.  "We
need almost three...orgasms...worth a day." She said.  "More if we exert
ourselves a lot." She ticked off the second finger.  "Second, we need to br
pre-inseminated by a mule before we can become pregnant by a man." She
grinned.  "No, not that kind of mule, a mule is a male Chimera." She took a
big sigh.  "Third, and this is the kick in the nuts.  We have to find a
genetically compatible mate.  Normally this isn't so hard, as literally
millions of men have been genotyped for various reasons, from paternity
suits to rape trials," She smiled widely, "to college genetic sampling for
the Human Genome Project." She said, "That's how I found you, by the way."
Her smile evaporated.  "Unfortunately, you're the only person I found that
was a close match, there were a few moderate matches, that might
successfully result in pregnancy, but you are a near perfect match." She
looked down again.  "The real bad news is that there is no match for
Crystal." She looked up again.  "She is going to have just as much drive to
have a baby as I did, and YOU are the only match."

   Jennifer started crying again.  "I know what I'm asking you to do goes
against everything that you believe." She looked into the camera again, her
eyes swelled from crying.  "You have to take Crystal as your mate,
Nathaniel.  If you don't she'll go crazy from wanting a baby.  She grew up
with you, she knows you're compatible, we can sort of sense it." She looked
aside, then back.  "She won't accept a mate who is less compatible, honey."

   "I know that's a hell of a bombshell to drop on you, but there it is."
She pulled herself together again.  "I've never lied to you, and I'm not
lying now.  You have to become Crystal's husband, darling." She paused. 
"And love her, she will love you." She finally looked deeply into the
camera, and said simply.  "Good bye, Nathaniel, I will always be yours."

   The video ended.  I realized I was crying.  Any reservations I had about
taking Crystal as a mate were gone now, but so was the little illusion that
my wife had a solution.  My angel came up behind me and put a soothing hand
on my neck.  "I'm sorry, daddy.  I didn't know she had made that." She was
weeping, too.  "If I had known, I would have waited until you had seen it."

   I grabbed her, and hugged her to me.  I felt almost like I was crushing
her, but she stoically bore the embrace.  Putting her arms around me and
stroking my back.  I could hear her voice in my ear, murmuring sweet
nothings.  Her mom had done that with her when she was a baby.  I pulled
back.  "Well, that tears it, doesn't it." I grinned half-heartedly.  "It's
good to know I was doing what she wanted."

   Crystal smiled up at me.  "Yes." She agreed.  "It is.  For both of us."
There were tears on her face, too, but they weren't sad ones.  I came to
the sudden epiphany that I had never really cried over Jennifer's death.  I
was too busy being a `man' about it, and helping Crystal through her grief.
Sure I had a little weep when I would miss her in a moment.  But I had
never had a good hard cry over it.

   Marcus spoke up from over at his desk.  "Go to bed, man." He said. 
"This stuff will be here in the morning."

   I walked to our bedroom and went in, Crystal followed me.  I sat on the
corner of the bed, still weeping a little.  She sat beside me and put her
hand on my back.  Her head tilted a little and she smiled wanly.  "I've
been waiting for you to cry over mom since I was eight." She said.  "I
guess you weren't ready until now."

   "She said good bye." I said.  And a new wave of tears overtook me. 
"Please, tell me the mob didn't kill her."

   "No, dad, they didn't." Crystal affirmed.  "The Chimeras were livid over
her death until the Mafia managed to show solid proof that the accident had
been just an accident." She chuckled.  "It was a pretty interesting time. I
think it was as close to throwing off the mob as the Chimera's have
managed."

   I took her hand and kissed it.  "I love you, angel." I said.  My heart
was wrenched in my chest, and I felt that soon it would collapse and I
would die.  But it didn't, and I kept kissing her hand.  Crystal let me do
it, and stroked my head while I did.

   "I love you, dad." she paused.  "I love you, Nathaniel." She kissed my
forehead.

   "They're the same thing, you know." I said.  "Since your mother died,
all Nathaniel has been is your father." I shrugged.  "So, they mean the
same thing."

   She smiled, and a touch of her predator peeked through.  "Well, I love
both, and both make me happy." She said.  I could see now how much strength
she, and likely the other Chimeras, drew from the predator.  It allowed
them to do incredible things when need be.  It also allowed them to bypass
any norm, or rule, or taboo to get what they needed.  The predator was
their will, and their power.  It was what took control when one needed to
kill someone, or seduce their father.  The monkey that is man couldn't do
those things well, but the predator could, and enjoyed them.  To accept
Crystal, the girl, or young woman, I had to accept the Nereid inside. 
Nereids were creatures of nature, and hard to control, and spiteful when it
is tried.  I looked at the marvelous creature beside me.  Beautiful,
fragile, affectionate, and quite deadly.  I knew she could kill callously,
I had seen her do it.  I knew she could whore like a professional to feed
her need, then love me like no woman save her own mother ever has.

   The question was could I accept the predator?  I had to.  Do I accept
the predator?  Yes.  Do you accept your daughter to your bed as your lover
and your bride?  Yes.  Do you promise to love her and her beast no matter
the outcome?  Yes.  Will you be strong for her, because if you aren't you
will die and she will be alone?  Yes.  Then she is yours, Nathaniel, she
has given herself freely to you, all you have to do is love her.  Yes.

   I looked up from my reverie.  Crystal was just sitting there, watching
me with worried eyes.  How long had I just stared into space?  No matter. I
took her hand and pulled her toward me.  She came willingly and let herself
be embraced.  This was no coerced action, she was what she was, and she
wanted it more badly than I.

   I kissed her, gently, and slowly.  She returned the kiss, sighing as she
did so.  I lovingly kissed her lips, and neck and shoulders.  I caressed
her back and sides as I kissed her, and I began to lift her shirt off her.
She raised her arms to help and then fumbled with the buttons on my shirt.
We parted lips to let the shirt pass, then began the soft kissing again. 
There was no lust in these kisses, they were tender, sweet, and full of
affection for one another.  Our pants got taken off at some point, but
slowly, and our underwear.  We wound up naked beside each other, lying on
the bed.  Our hands explored each other, softly, touching every spot and
feeling each other's pulse through the fingertips.  I could feel the
intense heat she generated within, and the softness of her skin, and the
toughness of her will.  I wondered what she felt through my skin.

   Her eyes wouldn't stay in one spot, they flickered from one point on my
face, to another, like she was trying to soak me up into them one photon at
a time.  I let myself be absorbed by those vibrant green orbs.  I fell into
them.  Part of me was lost, forever, the part that held back.  She took it,
and the predator killed it.  She gave me a part of herself in exchange, the
part that no one else had, or ever could have, her love.  They could have
her mouth for a while, maybe, or her body, but her love, they were not even
able to see it, much less take it.

   After what seemed hours, I finally took her, slowly and gently, I
entered her.  Again, I was absorbed into her being, wrapped in her
furnace-like heat.  Our bodies intertwined, but there was no urgency to it,
no haste, only patience, and caring, and a final understanding.  I was now
closer to Crystal than I had been to Jennifer.  I loved Jennifer as much as
I could have, but that Nathaniel didn't even know of the beast.  He had
called the beast `cheating' and `infidelity.' It was neither of those
things, it was power, and strength, and it was a large part of what made
both women marvels.  It made all the Chimeras marvels, but mine were my
Chimeras, and that put them a new category.

   We slowly made love for a long time, and time had little meaning while
it lasted.  She let me into herself, more than just her body, she was
giving me all of herself, her heart, her mind, her soul, and her body. 
They all entwined about me, burning me, incinerating all my doubts, I felt
my own worries melt under the blast-furnace of her acceptance.  I could see
across the floor my insecurities flowing like water.

   We exploded together, our bodies glowing white hot with our acceptance
of each other.  We cast off our weaker selves like a nova casts off its
excess matter, revealing the unimaginably hot core of pure material.  At
some point we collapsed, still embracing.  We laid like that for hours our
limbs and our spirits intertwined, until time healed the rents and we
awoke, still embracing.  I was still inside her, and she still accepted me.
I looked around the room, half expecting to see scorch marks on the ceiling
and the sheets, but no.  It had all been in my mind, well, most of it. 
Crystal's smile as we awoke together was beatific.  "Good morning, lover."
She said.  She languidly stretched beneath me.  Then grabbed me in her
embrace again, at five points.

   I returned her look, she was incredible, even just as a body, but she
was so much more inside that I longed to just fall into her again.  But we
had things to do first.  She saw the set of my face change, and released
all the points of contact.  "You've decided something." She said, smiling,
"A good thing."

   I rose from the bed.  I felt like I was twenty again.  My limbs were
light, and my stance straight.  "I have decided many things, honey." I
looked at her as she slipped out of the bed and stood up.  "The most
important one is good, yes." I smiled as she started to dress.  "Some of
the others may or may not be good, time shall tell." I bent and retrieved
my pants from the night before.  The belt was snapped, not undone, but
broken.  I discarded it and got another out of my suitcase.  Crystal picked
it up and looked at it.  "I don't remember doing this." she said.

   "You didn't" I said, plainly.  "I did.  It was being stubborn." I smiled
a bit at the look that crossed her face.  It was a new one for the records.
Surprise mixed with admiration, I liked it and hoped to see it again.

   I walked out into the living room with only my pants on.  Crystal was on
my coattails, excited, and hoping to see what was transpiring.

   Marcus was just coming out of the other bedroom.  "My God," he said,
"You two are like jackrabbits." He looked at me with bleary eyes.  "Till
frikkin five am!" He shook his head, then sat at the little table.  "I
wanna check into your pharmaceuticals, man, there's something awesome in
there." Marcus was a great guy, and he seemed quite accepting of our
relationship, which made me love him more.

   I ate some cereal and Crystal had a pack of Pop Tarts.  The dehydrated
milk that I had to use left a lot to be desired, but it did its job.  I got
up from the table as Marcus finished off his coffee and piece of toast. 
"What now, man?" he said, sensing a change.

   "We're going to war." I said flatly.  Marcus just stared at me, and
Crystal gasped.

   He looked at me for a long moment.  "Allright then." He said finally. 
"Not like we have a choice, do we."

   "No." I said.  "They've got the police and their own goons after us." I
looked at both of them.  "If they catch us, we're dead, we'll never see
trial." I shrugged.  "So we go after them."

   Crystal looked worried, but then said.  "What the hell.  I won't get to
live in peace otherwise, will I?"

   "We'll be on the run until we're either picked off by the mob or
arrested by the police and then picked off by the mob.  So no." I replied.
I wasn't sure I liked the tone of my voice, but neither of them seemed to
be bothered by it, they responded to it.

   "Marcus, you're going to find out where the head of that familia is that
is controlling the Chimeras." I looked at him.  "Pull favors, make
promises, hurt people, but find him." I turned to my daughter, "Crystal,
you get hold of Marcie, and find out what if any help we can expect from
the Chimeras." She nodded and went to my laptop.  "Nathaniel, you're going
shopping." I said to myself, and headed upstairs.

   I wasn't sure where I was going, but when I found it I knew I was there.
It was a seedy-looking pawn shop that was way larger than it had a right to
be.  I went inside, and perused the racks of crap that decorated the front
area.  Finally I went to the rear counter, where there were weapons on wall
hooks behind a high glass case full of more weapons.  The owner came to the
counter in front of me.  "Interest you in something?" he said.

   I looked at the rack and the case.  I slid five hundreds onto the
counter.  "Bullshit me if you want, and I'll walk." I looked into his eyes.
"If you want to make a LOT of money today, give me what I want."

   He looked at me askance for a second, then took the money.  "No cop
would be that stupid.  Come with me." he said.  He took me behind the
counter and through a door.  I half expected him to brain me or shoot me,
but he didn't he showed me to a small room filled to the rafters with
military grade ordinance.  "Chief, I dunno who you're going to kill, but I
feel for them, you've got that look." He said and stepped back outside. 
"Just put what you want in that basket, and I'll give you a price then." He
went back to the counter and started haggling over a handgun with some guy.

   I went through the room, pulling and prodding and picking up.  I threw
the things that interested me into the basket, and it filled quickly. 
Finally I pushed it into the little hallway and called the manager.

   "Holy shit!" he said, seeing my choices.  He poked through the pile. 
"I'll cut you a bulk discount," he said.  "Ten thousand."

   I handed him a thick envelope and said.  "There's twelve in there. 
Where can I load it into my Jeep?"

   He pocketed the money without looking in the envelope.  "Guys like you
don't lie." He said, pushing past me and opening a steel door that opened
into an alley.  "Just pull around and load up." He said.

   I did as he said, he did count the money, but had the decency to do it
out of my sight.  I had drained half my total account balance.  No matter.
Soon either I'd be free or dead.  I drove back to the warehouse and let
myself in.  I unloaded my new toys onto a big blue tarp on the warehouse
floor.

   Three hard-plate armor vests, one the smallest they make.  Four more
Browning pistols, holsters, web belts, extra magazines.  Two uzis with
spare magazines.  A dozen grenades, both smoke and fragmentation.  Six
rocket propelled grenades with a launcher.  Two pounds of plastic explosive
and eight detonators and a remote for them.  Three sets of night vision
goggles.  Black fatigue sets, again one being the smallest size he had. 
And lastly, the coupe de grace, a anti-tank missile with disposable
launcher.  This was the gear of war, and war was at hand.