Corrupting Power
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Quaranteam: Unbroken Mold - Ch. 7 (all)
🕑 Added 2025-03-29 04:33:32 +0000 UTCChapter Seven
July 18th, 2020
Joe had wanted to complain when the text message had sprung to his phone saying that their usual 9 AM morning meeting had been postponed to 3 PM instead, but his frustration quickly dissipated once he realized that meant he could sleep in instead, and so he, Liv, Tori and Clara decided to spend the morning in bed relaxing, enjoying the extra rest time. They would let the problems for later be the problems of later, and instead spent the morning cuddled against one another, enjoying the laid-back morning of rest.
Getting used to the girls being identical from the neck down was certainly not a thing he was adapting to quickly. He’d feel a hand on his chest and couldn’t tell which of the three girls it was without following the hand up the arm to the neck where he could see her face. And he knew there wasn’t going to be a way to change that. Having identical bodies was an utter trip, and it was difficult for him to focus sometimes.
When they all finally showed up for the meeting at 3, Joe immediately knew they were in for big changes, because not only was Tom in uniform, but he was also wearing Lieutenant’s bars. Joe and Tom had been roommates for years, friends for longer, and Joe knew that an upgrade in rank like that didn’t come lightly or without meaning. Things had certainly gone down between yesterday and today.
Before Joe could get a chance to ask Tom about it, however, the Doctors Meyer shuffled into the room with their usual escorts. He considered himself a decent reader of facial expressions and as much as they were trying to hide it, Joe was certain he could see a hint of frustration behind the Doctors’ eyes. They were excellent at hiding it, but Joe had cut his teeth playing poker with law students, and that meant he was used to spotting the tiniest of tells, like the nervous flit of eyes over in one direction, as they had towards Tom’s new bars.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” the male Meyers said to them. “I know this isn’t our usually scheduled meeting time, but my wife and I had our own meeting this morning to attend, informing us of some changes that were being handed down from up on high, in order to ensure a bit more… oversight into our work. In some ways, we feel this implies a lack of trust in us and our work, but we also understand that certain…recent events, which we have only just been made privy to, contributed to this decision, and that is definitely something we can respect and honor.”
“It certainly wasn’t anything personal, Doctors Meyer,” Tom said to them. “But you were probably briefed even better than I was about the potential security risks we have, and why it’s essential that we protect the integrity of your research. And it never hurts to have a bit of oversight from an outside group watching to ensure you maintain the set goals you’re working towards.”
‘Don’t tip your hand too much, Tom,’ Joe thought to himself, watching his best friend present a strong front. ‘You don’t want them to know everything you know.’
“Yes, well, as such, Mr. Holt-Hodge is being commissioned and made 2nd Lieutenant, effective immediately, and will be serving as the official liaison on the project moving forward,” the female Meyers said. “He will be given access to all the paperwork, the research, the reports and the results as we have them.”
‘Not all of them,’ Joe thought to himself. ‘No way, no how. These two have got secrets upon secrets upon secrets. No way in hell are they letting Tom get a look at everything.’
“In addition to the Lieutenant keeping tabs on us from now on, we’re going to be divvying you up,” the male Meyers said. “With the ever-increasing size of both of your Teams, it wouldn’t be especially suitable for the two Teams to be sharing a common area, as sooner or later, you’d be tripping over each other’s toes in the morning. As such, we’re going to be moving both of you out of this building and giving each of you your own structure here at the base. Not a permanent home, obviously, but an expanded place that will be your home away from home, at least until either the experiment has run its course, or the plague has been contained and life can return to its more normal cadence.”
“Furthermore,” the female Meyers continued, “those of you in your final year of education are being fast-tracked and graduated, given your full degrees, so that you can begin your life after school once the walls come back down. It’s a tad unorthodox, I’ll be the first to admit it, but the lack of a degree can still be held against some people in the professional world, and it is through no fault of your own that the universities are closed.”
“It’s not like there are a whole lot of jobs to go to right now,” Joe said, unable to stay quiet the whole time. “The world’s locked in their houses right now, praying not to die to this DuoHalo plague.”
“Just like the rest of us,” Liv muttered beneath her breath.
“But it won’t remain this way forever, Mr. Barton,” the female Meyers said. “And when the world is ready to open up again, we want all of you to be ready to take your place in helping society rebuild from the disastrous state it’s going to be in post this epidemic.”
Joe couldn’t help but notice the way the Meyers were glancing over at Tom, their eyes looking at him and his uniform as if he represented a sword of Damocles over their heads, but they were trying to remain as cool as possible and not draw attention to their uncomfortableness. It was clear, however, that a formalized military presence was not something they were eager to have around the project on a daily basis.
“Team Holt-Hodge will be over at Barracks Zulu, and Team Barton will be over at Barracks X-Ray,” the male Meyers said. “The buildings are only a couple of buildings apart, so you’ll be close enough to go and see each other easily enough without having to worry about the sounds of your reinforcing your bonds going heard by the other Team.”
“You get used to it,” Mel said with a laugh.
“Better that we don’t have to,” Meg countered.
“Oh I dunno,” Liv said with a smirk. “It could be kind of a turn on, hearing other folks getting it on. Incentive to make sure you don’t miss your dosing.”
“You won’t have any problem with that,” one of the Meyers’ two bodyguards said. “When the need hits you, you’ll know. Believe me, you’ll know.”
“The barracks being a few buildings apart meets with your approval, Lieutenant?” the male Meyers asked Tom.
“They’ll be fine, Doctor,” Tom responded. “I see we have new candidates for pairing arriving right now?”
Joe glanced out the window that Tom was looking out, seeing the bus pulling up in front of the building. “Rather fortuitous timing,” Joe said.
“The hope was that they would be here earlier in the day,” the male Meyers sighed, “but alas, the airport redistribution system is still running at less-than-optimal efficiency. But this will give them a chance to sit and talk with you before they decide if they want to take the serum.”
“They’ve all volunteered for this, but considering the changes that are before them, it wouldn’t hurt to let them know more about the process and see first-hand what we’re expecting them to shift into,” the female Meyers added, as the bus came to a stop in front of the building.
“They were drawn from the University of Washington, so the pool was a little light, seeing as that state has had a particularly rough go of it,” the male Meyers said. “But we wanted to evacuate what few students remained at the University, for their own safety.”
“Boo!” Meg said. “Why the hell would you want to pick up some scrubs from U Dub?”
“Yeah! Huck the Fuskies!” Ainsley echoed.
“Like most of the universities, not a lot of students remained on the campus when they went into quarantine, and we were already trying to do search and recovery for the area,” the female Meyers said. “Why, is there a problem?”
“Old rivalries die hard, Doc,” Mel said. “And believe me, there’s no rivalry like a college sports rivalry. We’ll get over it. It’s just something to tease them about.”
“While we’re all in the PAC-12, we don’t have any major rivalries with them, outside of the usual conference standings, so it should be fine,” Liv said. “How bad is it?” She already knew the answer but wanted to rile the redheads up with a little levity.
Ainsley smirked a little. The rivalry between UW and Oregon may have been more well known to those outside the Pacific Northwest but the Apple Cup, the yearly matchup between UW and WSU, was steeped in tradition and a major event within the state of Washington. “Imagine if they’d told you they were bringing in Stanford students.”
Olivia banged her fist on the table in mock outrage. “Burn them all and salt the earth where their ashes are scattered. Leave no trace, no memory, no grave marker… nothing but the foul stench and residue where once they departed this mortal realm.”
“Yeah, wrath of God type shit?” one of the bodyguards laughed.
“You know it,” Liv shot back. “We tore down our own goalposts one year after beating them, marched through the streets of Berkeley with them like trophies hoisted over our own head.”
“Your own goalposts?” the other bodyguard asked.
“Yeah, well, we got caught up in the enthusiasm of it all,” Tori said with a wicked little grin. “You can’t blame us for our excitement. We may not be the SEC, but we still take our rivalries damn seriously.”
“The memory of that win was one of the things that kept me going through chemo,” Clara said with a smile as she remembered watching that game from her hospital bed.
“Mr. Barton, your two new partners are Anna Park and Nora Sato, who are both teammates on the lacrosse team,” the female Meyers said, trying to bring them back on track. “Both attackers, whatever that means. Their one insistence was that they be kept together, which we are honoring by pairing them both up with you. Assuming they don’t object, and neither do you.”
“We’ll talk to them,” Liv said before Joe could get a chance to get a word in edgewise. He didn’t mind, though, because Liv was right – there would need to be a bit of personal vetting before they let these people in, and the body transformation might be a dealbreaker for them anyway, although it seemed from the Meyers tone that they’d at least been given some warning about what they were signing up for.
“As with all of you, they’ll also be graduated, given their degrees and their college debt will be wiped out,” the male Meyers said.
“Lieutenant, you’ll have three new members showing up today – Nicole Fisher, Natalie Franklin and Amanda Ellis, all from the University of Washington. They’re all basemen for the school’s softball team, although I’m meant to understand some of you have some history together,” the female Meyers said. “Nothing too problematic, I hope?”
“No no,” Meg said. “We know Nic and Nat. They were sort of the yin to our yang growing up playing sports in Puget Sound, and so we’d see them around. They were always close friends, much the same way Meg and I were. They’re cool, despite being U Dub folks.”
“I’d forgotten they switched from playing both volleyball and softball to just softball after junior year of high school,” Mel said. “I haven’t thought about them in years. We used to be really good friends growing up and then when I stopped seeing them around, I guess I stopped thinking about them too. They must have stayed local while we moved to Oregon. I wonder if they saw our names and decided to hop on.”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“We could ask them.”
“Hey, we could ask them,” Mel said with a laugh.
“They’re not the only one,” Ainsley said. “Mandy and I were friends growing up, and I know why she’s here. She…” Ainsley looked down at her hands before looking back up. “She lost both of her parents, her brother and her fiancé to DuoHalo in the last couple of months, so she’s kind of devastated and is looking for someplace to land.”
“That’s a lot of loss, Ains,” Tom said to her. “Are you sure she’s going to be able to process all of that while joining up with us?”
Ainsley smiled softly. “I’ve been talking to the soldiers here on the base, and they say that with the regenerations comes a sort of ‘deadening’ to trauma and stress, which is part of the reason I sort of nudged her to enroll in the program with me. I’m one of her only friends left, and so she needs something to hold onto. I figured that can be us.”
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on this working, Ains,” Tom sighed.
“Doesn’t sound like she’s got much else in the way of options,” Joe said. “Best to give her a branch to hold onto.”
Tom rubbed the back of his neck and nodded, a slightly glum look on his face. “Yeah, fair enough. I just don’t want her to come and resent me in the end.”
“She won’t, Tom,” Ainsley said, taking one of his hands in hers, squeezing it firmly. “We’ll make sure she doesn’t.”
“I hope you’re right, Ains.”
“I am. I will be. Trust me on this one, Tom.”
“Okay.”
“You will have the rest of the day to both explore your new habitats and to discuss things with your new arrivals before they will be injected tomorrow morning, and then you can imprint them in the afternoon or early evening, so as to not disrupt their sleep schedules,” the male Meyers said. “That said, we do have a schedule to keep, and we will want to make sure they go through the regeneration and retrofitting process without too much incident.”
“Have you all been remembering to drink lots of juice?” the female Meyers asked.
“Considering how much of it you have lying around the place, it’s hard to forget,” Joe said with a slightly bitter laugh. “But we’ll try and make sure everyone’s having plenty.”
“If nobody has any further questions, we’ll dispatch you for the day,” the male Meyers said. “So, until tomorrow, go and meet your new partners, enjoy your new quarters and get your new members prepared for the transformation they’re about to undergo. It can be quite the thing for someone to wrap their head around, so they’re lucky they have all of you to help them be prepared in advance.”
Joe wondered how lucky they’d all feel at the very end of it.
*
Tom was pleased to see the new barracks that him and his partners had been assigned to was significantly larger than the bachelor’s barracks he and Joe had been given upon their initial arrival. It was much less decorated, obviously originally intended to house a full squad, but the interior bunks had been stripped out, and five queen size beds had been left in its wake, along with a cabinet of new clothes, all in the exact same sizes, Tom would wager. There was a second cabinet, much much much smaller than the first, which Tom suspected held all his clothes, as he saw their things had been brought over from their old place during the briefing.
The three new girls had obviously been sitting around waiting for a bit, watching television and trying not to talk too much. Tom understood that nervousness, that sense that what you were being told was too surreal, too much like science-fiction and nowhere near enough like reality to make sense. Regeneration? Reconfigured bodies? If the doctors had been completely upfront with them at first, Tom himself would’ve had to laugh, but now that he’d seen it with his own eyes, he knew exactly how much of a shock this would be.
“Oh hey, they’re here,” the girl with the brown hair said to the others. Tom was a little surprised to see how different and varied they were in their appearances, ranging from 5’5” to 5’9”, one of them blonde, one of them brunette and the last raven haired. He made a mental note to focus exclusively on their faces, as that would be all that would remain physically after the transformation process, which felt strange, but made sense in his mind. “Hey, I’m Nic.” She was the mid-sized of the three, which Tom noted and then immediately kicked himself for taking the time to notice. “The tall blonde is Nat and the little one is Mandy, although I guess that’s not going to be true in a couple of days, is it?”
“Holy hell, Ains!” Mandy said, rushing over to her friend. “You weren’t kidding when you said you’d look a lot different when I saw you next!” The short raven-haired woman reached an arm up and placed it on Ainsley’s shoulder, marking clearly how much of a difference the two women had in stature now. “You’re a fucking giant!” She blinked for a second then looked over at Tom. “I’m going to be a giant too?”
“Well, giant might be a bit much,” Tom said with a laugh as Ainsley wrapped her arms around Mandy’s body, leaning down to make the hug a little less awkward.
“I’ve had to relearn how to walk and run and everything,” Ainsley muttered into her friend’s ear loud enough for Tom to hear her. “I’m so glad you’re here, Mandy. I know it’s been tough, but it’s going to start getting better right fucking now, you hear me?” The two were holding onto each other pretty tightly, Ainsley stroking Mandy’s dark hair tenderly. “You’re gonna miss this when it’s gone.”
“Fuck that,” Mandy said with a giggle. “New me needs a new look, and ginger is in. Besides, look at the rack on you, girl! Am I gonna get cans like that?”
“Not like that,” Mel said, “exactly that.”
“That’s why they told you not to bother bringing clothes – nothing you used to wear’s gonna fit anyway.”
“I had some very cute outfits that I’m sacrificing for this, so it’d better be worth it,” Nat said with a scowl.
“Look at the tits we’re gonna get, though!” Mandy said, pointing at Ainsley’s chest. “And how tall we’re going to get!”
“I’d have thought it was all science-fiction if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes,” Nic said, shaking her head. “You three really are identical from the neckwaist down. If we didn’t know Meg and Mel growing up, I would have assumed you were fraternal triplets or at the very least sisters. It’s equal parts cool and creepy.”
“Equal parts creepy and creepy, if you ask me,” Nat said.
“Or cool and cool,” Mandy said. “And you should stop being such a downer about this, Nat.”
“I’m just… still wrapping my head around the idea that my body isn’t going to be my own within a couple of days’ time, and I’m gonna look like I stepped off an assembly line of ginger fembots.”
“Hey, all our faces remained the same,” Meg said to her. “If we all had exactly the same faces, I’d have been with you, but—”
“Do you all have identical fingerprints now?” Mandy asked.
“Whatnow?”
“If you’re physically the same from the neck down, shouldn’t you all have the same fingerprints?”
“They told us we would still have unique fingerprints, but, you know, none of us have thought to actually check that,” Ainsley said with a grin. “C’mon, let’s see if we can find some ink and paper.” Her and Mandy headed off in search of office supplies as Tom looked over at Nic and Nat.
“You two really are okay with this, right?” Tom asked them. “Because if you aren’t, there’s still time to change your minds.”
“I mean, other than getting paired up with a few friends from your high school days who are now couple of people from a rival school, we’re not really all that bothered by it,” Nat said. “It’s… just a lot to get used to, y’know?”
“And in a very short period of time,” Nic added. “A couple of weeks ago, we were just bitching about being cooped up and not getting a chance to meet boys, and now we’re here, being told our bodies are going to get changed to be taller, redheaded and more fit, and that we’re going to fucking the same boy for the rest of our lives.”
“Although you’re definitely cute, Tom,” Nat said. “And we’ve heard the orgasms are pretty intense.”
Meg snorted in laughter. “And ‘Legally Blonde’ was ‘a pretty good movie,’ Talk about underselling things a bit. Mel, on a scale of one to ten, how good would you say the orgasms are?”
“On a scale of one to ten?”
“On a scale of one to ten.”
“Mmmmm… I’ll say… a thirty-seven.”
“A thirty-seven!” Meg cackled with laughter. “You heard it here first, folks. College athletes addicted to high-powered orgasms given to them on the reg by their partner.”
“C’mon…” Nat said. “It can’t really be all that.”
“Honestly?” Mel said, looking over at them. “They’re better. A whole hell of a lot better. If anything, we’re underselling it. They’re so much stronger than we can put into words. They’re almost addicting, they’re so damn good.”
“Like sweets,” Meg added.
“Or Pringles!” Mel giggled. “Once you pop, you can’t stop.”
“I guess we’ll see for ourselves soon enough,” Nat sighed. “Not that you’re not a good-looking guy, Tom. I mean, if we’ve gotta be stuck fucking the same guy for all eternity, you’re easy on the eyes and don’t seem to have put your foot in your mouth yet.”
“The night’s still young,” Tom grinned.
“It’s not even night yet,” Ainsley said as she and Mandy came back in the room. “What were we talking about?”
“How good the orgasms are post imprinting.”
“5 stars, no complaints, would recommend highly,” Ainsley giggled. “Ay plus plus plus.”
“So, Mel, can I see your right hand for a second?” Mandy asked.
“Sure, I’m curious,” Mel said.
They took a set of fingerprints from Mel’s right hand and compared it against the prints that they’d taken from Ainsley just a couple of minutes ago, and the results were conclusive – each of the women may be physically close to identical on a large-scale level, but the fingerprints were sizably different between Mel and Ainsley, something that seemed to relieve both women.
“That makes me feel a bit better,” Nat said, glancing over at Mel, Meg and Ainsley, who were sitting next to each other on one of the beds, Mel’s hand sliding along Meg’s back affectionately while Ainsley toyed with a strand of Mel’s hair. “You three seem like you’ve gotten quite close in a relatively short time.”
Tom was about to answer when Mel turned her head and leaned into kiss Ainsley hard, Ainsley leaning right into it immediately, as they locked lips in a kind of heated kiss that made Tom’s cock twitch just a little bit, something he tried to get to relax, knowing he was going to have a big day tomorrow. He noticed that Mel’s hand stroked along Meg’s leg, as Meg grinned and waited for her turn, which came momentarily, when Mel turned away from Ainsley and locked lips with Mel, as Ainsley, a little breathy giggled and flashed Nat a wink.
“Are… are you three… intimate with each other, as well as with Tom?” Mandy asked.
“We weren’t originally,” Mel said, “but there’s something about either the virus or the serum that seems to make those kinds of distinctions…”
“Less important,” Meg finished for her. “We’re all in this together, and since we all have the same basic body—”
“We all sort of know what makes each of us squirm and shiver in the best ways,” Ainsley carried on, as if the three were sharing one sentence and thought. “And sometimes Tom’s not in the mood or busy or whatever, and we have each other.”
“And it just feels right,” Mel said. “Like this is how we’re supposed to be.”
“I mean, there’s probably some trauma bonding mixed in there too,” Meg added. “Considering how many people we collectively know that have died in the past few months.”
“And are probably still going to die,” Ainsley sighed. “They’re trying to save as many people as they can with the serum, but they can only go so fast, only make so much.”
“Plus all the weird side effects are probably making some people nervous,” Mel said. “But people are just going to have to get over that, if they want to live through this plague.”
“And it’s like this for everyone, no matter what version of the serum they get?” Nat asked.
“That’s what it sounds like,” Tom said, “but really, we only know what we hear, and they’ve been working pretty hard to keep us on a need-to-know basis.”
“So what’s that mean for the future for you, er, us?” Nic asked.
“We’re not entirely sure, but I’m hoping the world’s going to change, so the three of us can all get married to Tom, not just one of us,” Ainsley said. “I’ve always wanted a family, but I wouldn’t want to deprive Meg or Mel from getting in on it as well.”
“We’re a family,” Mel said. “That happened somewhere along the way, but I think it was pretty early on, when we just realized we all wanted to be with each other and hold onto each other for sanity as best as we can. Us against the world if we want to use that old cliche. I think with so many women being attached to smaller numbers of men, they’ll have to change it to allow marriages to be between multiple people. To not do it would be insane.”
“Obviously, if you three decide you want in,” Meg added, “it’d be pretty hypocritical of us to deny you. But you’ve got plenty of time to make that kind of decision on your own. Hell, you’re not even imprinted onto Tom yet.”
“Speaking of which,” Tom said, “we should probably talk about sleeping arrangements. We’ve sort of taken to sleeping in the buff, just because a newly imprinted person has a clothing allergy for a day or two.”
“Well,” Mel interjected, “that and the fact that the A/C doesn’t seem to work half the time around here. I swear, it’s more on the fritz than it was in the dorms.”
“This base was sort of in reserve status until the Meyers started their testing here,” Tom said, “so that’s probably why a lot of the buildings aren’t in the best of states. But we’re making it work.” He saw that Meg was already pushing two of the queen sized beds together, knowing it would be easier for the four of them to be in the one bed together if it was all shoved into one big sprawling space like that, but it still left three other queen sized beds littered around the room, so each of the new girls could have one to themselves if they wanted. “Anyway, I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine,” Nic said. “It lets us get a better look at how we’re going to look—”
“And what we’ll be working with,” added Nat.
The four of them began to strip, and Tom could feel the eyes on him, and when he glanced over, all three of the new girls were all smiles. Then they looked over at Meg, Mel and Ainsley, and he heard a single appreciative whistle escape the lips of one of them.
“My god,” Nic said. “Below the neck, they are absolutely identical.”
“Just like we’re going to be,” Nat added.
“Could be worse.”
“Could be a lot worse, but I’m just not thrilled about losing my entire wardrobe.”
“You’ll get over it, Nat.”
“I guess.”
“Look on the bright side Nat, once we go through with this we won’t have to worry about holding our tempers anymore,” Mandy joked trying to cheer her friend up.
“Or having a soul,” Nic added as Meg, Mel, and Ainsley had all jokingly flashed her the bird.
Nat flashed a smile. “Guess we’ll have one last night of normalcy before we become a set of temperamental, soulless, nymphomaniac, redhead sexbots off of the assembly line.”
“No need to say that many words, you could have just left it at redhead,” Mel quipped much to the laughter of everyone. “Welcome to the family.”
“Don’t worry,” Tom said. “Nobody will get busy tonight, since I’ve got to take on all three of you tomorrow, and we really only have the one big room, so I don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable.”
Ainsley climbed into the dual bed, with Meg on one side of her and Mel on the other, making an Ainsley sandwich, as Tom slid into the other side of the bed. Nic, Nat and Mandy each moved to one of the beds as Tom flipped off the light, knowing tomorrow was going to be all sorts of chaos.
