Eito frowned, “Interesting thought, but not possible. The powers as you call them aren’t completely separate, even when apart they’re still connected, which is why the control and restoration power can track them anywhere in the universe and with the right access even recall them instantly. If we were to do as you suggest, it would be… catastrophic. Even without full access, they could be used by others they inhabit like the six of you, so he could still use them. There are subtleties I’m skipping over because it would take hours to explain even if you had the necessary scientific knowledge, but it won’t work. It would require rewriting the control software from scratch, which would take ten years.”

  “What if we just changed access to someone else? Gave them to someone else, full control access while revoking his. Then if that person had the control and restoration power, they could pull all the powers from him, me, or the others.”

  Eito frowned in thought, “That may be possible with years of preparing a new A.I. host. But he is unique.”

  I shook my head, “You made a foolish mistake.”

  Mina hissed, “Jack!”

  Eito held up his hand, “Explain.”

  “Mina was the proof of concept, correct. Extremely powerful, but not so much she couldn’t be taken down, corralled, and put on ice if she ever turned on you and humanity.”

  Eito looked guiltily at Mina, “Essentially correct, but I love her and she is my daughter.”

  I nodded, “I don’t dispute that, the evidence of that is obvious to me. The mistake was when you went to full scale production of the defender of humanity, you probably followed the same stable A.I. setup and called it good enough, but you took away his humanity. Or I should say, you didn’t give him any humanity. He is too liquid in thought and nature, able to truly become alien when infiltrating other species for data acquisition. Then you sent him to the Grexscil, who probably see us as an insane backstabbing hypocritical species. Of course he wants to destroy us, he has no connection to us.

  “Mina told me her relationship with him was always distant if cordial enough. That was the mistake, not giving him a human body like you did with Mina, and just giving him a power that could make him any species instead. That didn’t change anything technical, but it changed his psychological makeup in a huge way. Which completely invalidates the precursor test.”

  Eito frowned, “You may be correct. That may indeed be the root cause of his turning on us. The council insisted he be a flawless infiltrator, which he can’t be if he has residual human morality and human outlooks. Such things would make him different in subtle ways, and he’d stand out and be caught. It was thought his loyalty to his creators and his connection to us growing up would be enough. How does that help us now?”

  “My point is he’s not entirely unique as you just suggested. You already have a proven protector of humanity in this room. Who went to great lengths to prevent humanity’s destruction. One who loves a human and wants a family, one who loves her father and dreams of the mother she just now met. One who was willing to sacrifice all of it to hold her brother in a mutual hell for all eternity, out of love for us. She can also still infiltrate, in a temporary alien body as a Shard. Sometimes things have to be sacrificed for others, this is one case where that’s just true.”

  Mina gasped, “No, Jack.”

  I patted her leg, “If you need to transfer the powers to someone, I can’t think of a better person to receive them. Can you?”

  Eito’s eyes glazed over, then he jumped up, “I need to get to work now, if I’m to have a chance to have it ready by tomorrow late morning. Excuse my haste,” then he ran from the room.

  I looked at Mina, and I decided I was in a lot of trouble.

  “This place is beautiful,” I injected into the awkward silence.

  Mina and I were walking around the gardens. I was totally getting the silent treatment, and I could tell she was fuming and that she didn’t want to fight with me at the same time. She was even holding my hand, but she wasn’t walking all that close to me at the same time.

  “You know, I’ll never do it again. I didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice.”

  She snorted, “You had to handle me, keep me in the dark about your plans? I knew you had an idea, but you glossed over it and changed the subject.”

  “You hate the plan.”

  She snorted, “What tipped you off?”

  I chuckled, “That’s why I had to do it. Your logic is compromised when it comes to power. You are my partner, in every way, but not that one. Because you can’t be.”

  She stopped walking and looked at me, and I turned to her.

  She asked, “What are you saying?”

  I shrugged, “You were willing to live in hell for eternity to save your family, give me up to save me, sacrifice everything. So why so averse to solving the problem by truly gaining power and becoming the protector of humanity. You have the heart, ability, and even desire for it. You’ve already taken on that role.”

  She frowned in confusion.

  “Remember when we first met? The first rogue we took down, I suggested sharing another power with you, and eventually four more to give you five, plus your five would’ve been ten in total. You were completely scandalized by the idea, as if I was asking you to break a powerful taboo. You refused in a way that told me to never bring it up again. Might as well ask you to join an orgy with your family kind of thing. I think you’ve been… compromised in that area, or at least helped along so you wouldn’t get lost in ambition for more power.

  “I think that’s why your ambitions are so focused on ends, even though your avoiding gathering the means to better accomplish them. You were… I hate to say it, but you were programmed not to seek out more power. So if you ever went bad they could handle you. I suspect you also could’ve built weapons in the past, to help us take down hunters and shards, but you didn’t even consider it, did you? If your energy bolts weren’t enough, you just stood by and let us take care of it. It was horribly out of character for you, baby. The Mina I know should’ve been building a physical weapon of some kind to help in those situations, or begging me to give you a physical power so you could help to protect us.

  “But, I also bet neither of those options ever even occurred to you. But you had no trouble building a containment shield via advanced technology to be used against you.”

  She bit her lip, her eyes unfocused, and I kissed her forehead and held her close.

  I said, “In every other way you are a poised, vibrant, and very independent woman, who I’m honored to be with. Joyous that you have chosen me to walk by your side. But in this case, I couldn’t afford to give you a choice. It’s the only solution that makes sense, if Eito can pull it off. I’m sorry.”

  She looked confused, as if having trouble even grasping the logic of my argument.

  “I love you, Jack. I need some time alone to figure this out and check on a few things, maybe talk to father. I think you may be right, but at the same time I really can’t see it. That makes me think you must be right, because I can always see both sides of an argument, normally.”

  She sounded a bit lost.

  I kissed her softly, “You are my goddess, and my good girl.”

  She smiled, “Always.”

  Then she walked off toward the house.

  The pain in her eyes had made me want to kick Eito’s ass for putting a leash on her. But I guess I could kind of see the point of it as well. She was powerful already, smarter than humans, and they’d feared the precursor experiment would be a failure. So of course they’d taken steps to minimize the risks, given she was as immortal as her brother, if with a whole lot less power.

  Ayumi said, “You handled that well, I think you may be worthy of her after all.”

  I turned and looked at her questioningly, surprised she was even there as she walked around some bushes.

  Ayumi shrugged, “If Eito had treated me like you treated Mina at the breakfast table, I’d have cut him off at the knees and left him. Call it my first act as a concerned mother, I wished to hear your explanation. I admit to finding myself pleasantly surprised at what I discovered. You clearly know her extremely well, listen and pay attention, and treat her with respect save this one exception with valid cause. I for one will welcome you to the family when the time comes, despite your… non-standard arrangement of a triad.”

  I nodded, “That’s good to know. I don’t blame you at all for eavesdropping.”

  Ayumi smiled, “Yes. As to how you spoke to Eito, try a more tactful approach next time. He’s a brilliant man, but admittedly scientists can miss the obvious in life at times. I assume you are unaccustomed to our customs and society, so I will make an allowance this time for your rudeness in delivering the point.”

  “Right, more tactful, like you’re being right now with me as you set me straight?”

  She laughed, honestly delighted, “Yes, exactly that. You are an interesting man, and I wish you the best in your pursuit of my daughter.”

  She turned and walked off, and I shook my head. Scarily perceptive, if she already picked up that we were sleeping with Kristen as an equal. I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew about Julia too, but considered the matter to gauche to mention. I did wonder however if she realized it was her daughter’s idea in the first place.

  Julia was in a guest room. It was as big as Mina’s, but a little barer and more unlived in looking for obvious reasons as I looked around it. There was a bed and nightstand, simple yet elegant woodwork, as well as a cedar chest and wardrobe. Save a single painting on the wall, the rest of the room was bare of decoration.

  It was, to my memory, the first time I was truly alone with Julia as I walked in and closed the door. Mina had reversed her original rules, saying I was free to sleep with either Julia or Kristen without her there to watch, quite a long time ago, but it hadn’t really come up before now. Usually Mina was around me constantly, and when Mina was in the containment field cell Kristen hadn’t left my side either.

  In fact, it was probably the first time we were ever alone in a bedroom, period. Which was reflected in her slightly nervous carriage and the question on her face as I sat on the bed next to her. Mina was still investigating and coming to terms with what I told her, and I thought Kristen was with Lori and Shannon giving them an introduction to meditation class. I wasn’t sure though, I wasn’t the type to need to know where my woman was at all times, and with two or maybe three of them that kind of thing would turn into a true nightmare. I was a team player by nature, not a control freak.

  I took the liberty of kissing her softly, a brief kiss of affection, and I took her hand when it broke.

  She looked, confused at my presence.

  “You want to fuck?” she asked bluntly.

  I chuckled, “I’m a guy, so sure? But I wasn’t assuming. Wanted to see how you were doing with all this, and what happened before we left our time. We don’t get to spend much time alone together.”

  She blinked, “I’m good, and assume away.”

  Her lips were soft against mine when she leaned into to kiss me, conforming and teasing as she opened my pants expertly and fished me out. I had come in to talk and check on her, a lot had happened, but apparently she didn’t want to talk about it. She was changing, warming up, but she was still the same woman I’d met in a lot of ways, and apparently as available to me as Mina was.

  Her go to move seemed to be taking my cock into her body, anywhere in her body, or between her tits.

  She was also a blonde goddess, with gorgeous gray eyes, a face of severe and significant beauty, and a flawlessly lush and supplely nubile body of mouthwatering curves and perfect silken skin. That only a barely legal eighteen-year-old could have, with a delightfully pleasurable body.

  So, I wouldn’t be saying no to her advances.

  Her hand started to stroke me, and our kiss deepened with passion and need as I teased her body with my fingertips. I was lost in a daze of lust and in her silken lips, the feel of her hand stroking my cock while the other stroked me all over my body. It was subsuming, and before I knew it we were naked, our stripped clothes piled haphazardly on the night table.

  I laid back and pulled her down on top of me, and she moaned as she straddled me and started to grind her sex against mine. Pinning it down against my abdomen, and deliciously sliding her slightly moistened labia against the sensitive underside of my cock.

  She did that for a while, as I was lost in her kiss and the sensations it engendered, the pleasure of her growing heat against me as her sex left dirtier and dirtier trails of liquid anticipation coating my cock and cockhead. Her soft grinds at the top of her slide ground her clit against my sensitive cockhead, and never failed to drag a gasp, moan, or hiss of pleasure from both of our lips.

  She was working us both up to a feverish pitch, while my hands devoured her lush and supple curves, her double D breasts so firm and delicious in my hands, and her supple and juicy bubbled ass just as amazing under my firm and squeezing fingertips. The sharp valley of her waist so tight yet soft and silken to the touch as I squeezed her.

  She was a goddess above me, as she stroked just a little longer and twisted her hips, and I moaned deeply as my cock head was taken into her hot lush body. Her pussy was so tight for me, so deliciously hot around me, as her eighteen-year-old body sucked me inside and milked me hard as she started to bounce her way down my eight inches. Her liquid anticipation mixing with my precum to ease the way, and her breathy passionate kiss completely stealing my senses.

  When our bodies met fully, and I was buried in the depths of her heated and snug paradise, she broke the kiss and looked down into my eyes with wide-eyed pleasure. That was the moment I finally realized just how much she’d come to mean to me. How much I cared for her, and how much affection I had for her. Not the deep love I held for Kristen and Mina, but certainly the start of it. It wasn’t epic, but it was love, and there was a deep need and powerful drive in my chest to both possess and cherish her, to protect her, even from herself if necessary.

  Over the last few weeks she’d warmed up, increased our intimacy, and I felt compassion and empathy for what she’d been through. Compassion and empathy which had opened the door between us. What had made her so… not broken, but certainly unique, blunt, and a little wild, and I don’t mean that last in a sexual way, though she was that too. It had taken this private moment, this first private connection for me to see it, without Mina rubbing one out and staring at us, without Kristen’s presence next to us on the bed, it was deeply intimate and just us.

  Her warm gray eyes filled with terrified hope, so much so she ensnared my senses and emotions as powerfully as the pleasures of her nubile body did.

  She was shocking blunt, to the point of being rude at times, though we were all used to it and never took offense. It’d be too easy just to see that, to just see the crazy woman who was barely holding it together.

  But the truth was I saw her beautiful soul, and it was blinding.

  Even after everything she’d gone through, she’d joined us to save humanity. To save humanity, who had made her teenage years an absolute hell, and I got the idea even before that her mother wouldn’t have won any awards, she’d sold her child for drugs, after all. She hadn’t joined us for my cock, that had come later, she’d joined us to get off the street and make a difference.

  She didn’t trust others had empathy and would do the right thing, but she always did, always had. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, and I wasn’t talking about her face. Not poised like Mina, or trustingly sweet like Kristen, but all three had the same generosity of spirit, which was easy to miss in Julia if you focused on the crazy.

  But it’d made me fall in love with her, like I had with Mina and Kristen, just not yet as deeply, and that was mostly because she was hard to get to know below the surface. But what I did see in her had been quite enough to ensnare my heart. I’ll admit the fantastic and mind-blowing sex didn’t hurt either, but I wasn’t talking about the shallow affection that came with the pleasures of the flesh.

  It was somewhat of an epiphany, and I felt overwhelmed in the moment, with her hot body wrapped around me, holding me so snugly and warmly within her body.

  It was driving me a bit crazy, staring into her warm gray eyes, that I couldn’t tell her how stunningly beautiful her warm heart was, and how I loved her. Not yet, she wouldn’t believe it, and it might even make her run.

  But maybe I could show her, so I pulled her down into a kiss with one hand behind her neck, while I grabbed her ass firmly with the other, and sat back up, forcing her to straddle me closer in the face to face position. Our torsos flush, and her warm and vast breasts crushed against my chest.

  Her eyes just inches from my mine, as the kiss broke, with her arms around my neck tightly for support. She looked so entirely vulnerable, staring into my eyes from just two inches away, our breath mixing. She tightened around me and let out a quivering breath as she ground our bodies together, milking me so hard the pleasure of it suffused my body and filled my mind with a haze.

  It was so intense, and so intimate. The most intimate position I knew, our eyes too close to hide anything, as I ground back up into her and squeezed her ass firmly to control the angle and speed of it.

  I told her with my eyes, that she was loved, and she trembled against me.

  For the longest time we did that, my eyes reflecting the potent emotions she engendered in me, and every once in a while, we ground our bodies together, raising our pleasure higher and suffusing our bodies with blissful waves raising us higher toward ecstasy. Our vulnerability deepened with each movement of our bodies, as I made love to her in the face-to-face position.

  Eventually she added small rises and falls to the rhythm of our languid movements, squeezing tightly around me, rising up and dragging her breasts against my chest and face, and she drew deep moans unbidden from my lips with the potent milking action, only to drop back down and grind in an exaggerated and slow motion.