Lockdown

When the air raid siren sounded, activity in the gymnasium stilled. Everyone went silent. The alert tone’s pitch and volume slowly scaled up before tailing off again, repeating its cyclic undulating wail.

Marisa tapped her toe impatiently waiting for the siren to end. Her nervous energy always ramped ahead of a competition. As a coach, Marisa felt the same anticipatory excitement that had prefaced her own high school and collegiate wrestling matches. Burning still with a competitive fire, she now channeled it into shaping every aspect of her star athlete’s performance.

Marisa’s style was to lead by example. Kellen had been diligent before they’d teamed up, but she knew the young wrestler could work harder. And she’d been right. On seeing her coach—a woman twice her age—train right alongside her on conditioning, stretching and strength training, Kellen had upped her game to match Marisa’s fierce intensity.

Before the alarm, Marisa had observed Kellen spending more than a few final minutes with a boyfriend, Darian. Her focus should have already been on mentally preparing for the second match. It had irked Marissa to see the two still talking. After a long internal debate—far too long—she’d finally decided to act subtly. Just walk over, using her proximity to send a message that Kellen needed to get on with things. The fact that Marisa had hesitated at all, instead of just going straight over, was a sign that their dynamic had shifted. It sent up warning bells—just not as annoyingly loud as the damned klaxon. The responsibility—no, the fault—was hers. How many of my own rules have I broken?

No, Kellen wasn’t to blame. But Marisa couldn’t start seconding guessing herself. She’d vowed, six weeks earlier, that if Kellen’s focus slipped, they’d have to make changes. And that’s where they now stood.

Marisa ran a hand along the nape of her neck, compressing tense muscles. Her headache was intensifying. Tied in a messy top knot, her mid-back length hair was a stunning uniform grey. Loose strands hung at her temples and along the nape of her neck. Marisa’s ashen locks had always been more grey than blonde, starting when she was fourteen. It had been striking as a young woman, turning heads. At forty, her smooth complexion, delicate bone structure and piercing blue eyes still conveyed youth. And she still turned heads.

Marisa’s body had remained slender, her muscles toned. She was about 15 centimeters shorter than Kellen, at 1.55 meters. Her diminutive stature made her no less intimidating.

After her divorce, Marisa had wanted a change. She’d adamantly refused to simply wait for the remaining year of her marriage contract with Magnus to expire. Having already renewed their partnership three times, they admitted they’d lost their spark and were merely friends, raising a son together.

For Magnus, ending things in divorce hadn’t stung as much as anticipated. Afterall, he understood that once Marisa had made up her mind, she wouldn’t be swayed. It wasn’t personal.

For years, Marisa’s employer, the University of Oslo, had allowed her to pare back her scouting as she and Magnus raised a young son. She’d limited her activities to Europe and North Africa. Over three years earlier, once Davis had become a bit older—and given Magnus’s willingness to accommodate her travel schedule—she’d expanded her scouting to Asia, Australia and the Americas.

She was the talent scout who’d discovered Akissi Djedje and convinced her to compete collegiately in Norway. The African wrestler had gone on to win two Olympic silvers for the Ivory Coast. As a result, Marisa was accorded a fair amount of leeway.

At a high school tournament in Victoria, British Columbia, Marisa had identified Kellen’s talent immediately. The seventeen-year-old athlete was truly gifted. Marisa contacted the university’s Athletic Director, praising Kellen’s potential. During the conversation she just may have dropped the O bomb: Olympics. That got his interest. Then, she made a request; both parties understood that demand was closer to the mark. She would recruit the young Canadian but wanted to coach her personally. She’d still scout, but Kellen would be her priority.

The AD hemmed and hawed before giving his response: sorry, but no.

Marisa’s resignation sat on the official doc server for the better part of a day before her implant signaled the receipt of an official communication. She read the cover letter, from the University President:

Dear Ms. Nyland,

We accede to your legitimate and reasonable proposition concerning Ms. Kellen Bennett’s recruitment and training. Please see the attached, proposed employment contract. As you would be, henceforth, both coach and scout, I have authorized a commensurate annual salary increase. Additionally, please find the attached recruitment package that you may present to Ms. Bennett.

With great esteem, Anita Enberg. Rector, University of Oslo.

Kellen’s parents had been anxious about the distance. As their first team act, Kellen raved about the university’s academic and wrestling programs while Marisa impressed them with her steady charm and serious demeanor. She also dropped the name of her greatest recruiting success. As Kellen’s was a wrestling family, Marisa’s role in Akissi’s many accomplishments held weight with them.

The recruitment package was solid: the foreign student tuition, waved for four years; an unshared campus studio apartment at no charge; travel, food, academic tutoring and incidental expenses, covered. And a generous top-up of Kellen’s universal income, that kicked in globally at age sixteen. That fall, Kellen moved to Oslo.

The air raid siren finally stopped. The noise had really been getting on Marisa’s tits.

“Lockdown,” the female AI voice stated calmly. “Lockdown.”

A drill? Marisa wondered. Holographic displays and handhelds exploded around her with flashes and alerts. So, not a drill.

Marisa realized that she’d disabled her implant. She could see others tilting their heads. It was something that people just seemed to do, especially if they hadn’t been implanted for long. Marisa blinked. The motion, and her clear intention behind it, reactivated her system. She put a hand to her ear, before quickly withdrawing it. It was an automatic gesture from her teenaged years; something she’d always done to ensure that her ear buds were firmly seated. She felt stupid doing it, but she hadn’t been able to break the habit. At least she wasn’t tilting her head, like an idiot. Still, she didn’t query the device. She did what she should have done long before, approaching Kellen.

Alarmed voices got louder; panic was starting to rise in the gymnasium. It was as if people felt a need to fill the vacuum in the siren’s absence.

The four panels of the event display hanging from the gym’s rafters switched to a grid of thumbnail views. They showed the university’s perimeter cameras. Waterloo’s Layton University was not one of the sprawling campuses of two decades earlier. It was one giant complex, a design that both lowered its carbon footprint and made it more easily defensible. If the lockdown lasted for days, or even two weeks, they would have access to essentials, from food to accommodations. She would push for the tournament to resume, of course, but ultimately, the AI would determine the protocols. It wasn’t her first lockdown. If nothing else, she hoped that she and Kellen could continue training; let Kellen’s competitors get derailed and treat the interruption as a long, unanticipated break.

The AI cycled through full-screen views of various ingress points. Marisa watched as Wurtzite boron nitride plates slid into place, meeting in the middle. Self-repairing carbon fiber polymers strengthened the material, slowing the aliens. External defense forces would slow them further. Or turn them to an easier target.

As the laminae silently met on screen, Marisa imagined a metallic clang as each door or window was sealed over. The camera feeds weren’t accompanied by audio, and even if they had been, Marisa knew the hermetic system was entirely silent. Her brain just thought that there should be a sound, so it provided one.

Marisa studied Kellen as she strode over. Kellen was twenty years old. She had long, rich brown armpit-length hair with golden highlights. Her lovely brown eyes matched her hair, while the lighter highlights softened her look. For the match, her hair was tied in a loose ponytail.

Kellen smiled when she spotted her coach. Their eyes met. Marisa’s stern expression never wavered, but she gave a quick wink in return. Kellen’s smile broadened.

When the alarms had gone off, Kellen automatically reached for her handheld but—of course—it wasn’t there. She was about an hour from the start of her match and Marisa’s number one rule was no distractions before a bout. Well, Marisa had about a hundred “number one” rules, and that was one of them. And then Kellen saw the event display and realized there had been an hour—about twenty minutes earlier. Marisa would not be happy, quick wink or no.

But those words kept creeping up on her, stealing her focus: I love you, Kellen.

“What’s going on?” Marisa asked.

Darian’s eyes went wide. “It’s a snatch. A full-scale attack,” he said.

Kellen side-eyed Darian’s holographic display. His fingers spread apart in the air and the display widened.

The growing panic was understandable. An attack was frightening enough, but everyone feared abduction by the aliens. Not the same fears that had worked their way into pop culture when an alien invasion was pure science fiction. People didn’t fear living out their days in some sort of galactic zoo. Or being put on the alien’s lunch menu. And certainly not the homophobic “alien” fear of a rectal probe. Or being forced into sex with tentacled creatures. The taken were altered in fundamental ways and then quickly returned.

Once released, a person could be activated at any point, like a dormant terrorist cell. Some lived their lives normally, for years, no one the wiser, including the abductee. And then, one day, they were triggered to commit heinous acts. Others went on a rampage almost instantly.

And then there was the flipside of the coin. The paranoid. Those who believed others had been snatched, often on the scant evidence that their whereabouts, for a length of time, were unaccounted for. That too, had led to a fair number of killings. And murder charges.

Those out in the open were at the greatest risk of abduction. Lockdowns provided the best security. But panic was contagious, and sometimes, as dangerous as the extraterrestrial threat. So, the AI launched autoinjectors, seeking those requiring sedation. As the needles met flesh, hysterical men and women slumped sideways, unconscious. Crisis averted.

“Thank fuck for that,” Marisa said. Her hyperacusis made her intolerant of noise. It was her personality, however, that made her intolerant of moaning, bitching, and in this case, vacuous men and women screaming. Her implant, once activated, could have kicked in to filter the sounds, if she’d allowed it. It could have also provided a moderate sedative effect if the annoyance got bad enough. Marisa wanted to have her wits about her for the duration of the crisis.

The AI lit up directional floor lights in various colors to guide people to their designated muster points. Kellen and Darian’s colors led them in opposite directions. They didn’t think, just moved. You didn’t question the AI. Not if you wanted to live. Not if you wanted to avoid being snatched.

In fact, Kellen hadn’t once thought about Darian. She’d started to move, and then stopped in her tracks, closing her eyes. She pictured herself parting with Marisa, their interlocked hands sliding apart until only the tips of their fingers were touching. And then the contact broke, as the two followed their respective colored paths…

A hand on her arm brought her back to reality. Marisa was at Kellen’s side. Kellen relaxed instantly. Not being with Darian didn’t bother her in the least. It was far better to be with her coach. Infinitely better, she thought as she side-eyed Marisa’s shapely tits.

The two women went down a flight of stairs as indicated by the yellow lights. Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Marisa thought. They didn’t find the Emerald City. Instead, they entered a sparsely appointed bunker. Soon, they were joined by sixteen other women. They were all either wrestlers, coaches, trainers or specialists of one kind or another. The bunker door sealed. The women sat, silently.

After about ten minutes, during which people accessed their devices or queried their implants, the plain grey walls morphed into floor to ceiling displays. The women in the room reacted when they saw loved ones climbing into the morgue-like sliding coffin pods, used for cryogenics. If they were freezing people, the threat was not merely physical, but likely biological as well. And that meant a long lockdown.

Kellen wondered why she and the others in the room weren’t being put into stasis. The women, who just a minute ago had been completely silent, were now all talking at once.

Marisa noted that not all the tournament wrestlers and coaches were in the bunker with them. It was huge and could easily accommodate twice their number.

The displays shifted. A feed from a local news station played, displaying the word “live” at the bottom. The anchorwoman and her meteorological counterpart were exchanging idle banter. And then the displays shifted once more. They showed outside views of the Waterloo, the small Canadian city. It was just a normal early summer day. There were no alien craft, no fires, and no tall, armored extraterrestrial humanoids.

Voices overlapped.

“This doesn’t feel right.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Who’s missing?”

Marisa had been the one to voice that last question.

“What do you mean, who’s missing?” Kellen asked.

“We’re all wrestlers or working with the athletes. But some of us aren’t here. Where are Ciara and Geri?”

Ciara’s presence tended to dominate amongst the group of wrestlers. She had just aged out, collegiately, where she been ranked number one in the world. She’d twice been decorated with Olympic medals. The first, a bronze, as a sixteen-year-old. She’d won gold four years later. Her wife, Geri, was entered in the tournament. She was ranked near the bottom of the collegiate group.

The displays changed again, and then Ciara appeared on the screen. She was climbing into her pod. Geri, who had stripped to panties and t-shirt—as one did—slid onto the next slab, beside her. Once sealed, the pods moved up the wall, and new pods slid into place, opening at ground level. The women on the display were all involved with the tournament.

Marisa idly wondered why people stripped down before stasis. It wouldn’t make any difference to them. They’d be blissfully unaware the whole time. For circulation? she wondered. The suspension field would prevent contact with the slab surface. Muscles would be stimulated, and joints worked to prevent aches and stiffness upon revival—or the start of atrophy if the statis was extended. Yes, she decided, a tight garment might not be ideal.

Marisa often focused on trivialities while her brain worked on deeper questions. It was puzzling, but she’d no sooner mentioned the absence of the Ciara and Geri than they’d appeared on the display. What was that about? The other thing that gnawed at Marisa’s consciousness was the division of the groups, both in the bunker and on the displays. She’d never seen people grouped by sex, and certainly never based on a common athletic interest. Logically, if that was what had happened, Ciara and the other women should be with them. And none of the male coaches or trainers were in the room with Ciara and the tournament women. The inconsistencies nagged at Marisa. She caught herself chewing on her bottom lip but stopped when she realized she was doing it.

The wall displays turned static. Gridlines divided the walls into eighteen columns, one for each woman in the room. Below their names were the names and vitals of loved ones, each of whom was in statis. Beneath each name, along with the various stats such as blood oxygenation, heart rate, and blood pressure, there was a line of bold red text. It read: Health at 100%.

“Oh my god! No!” Marisa shouted when her eyes found her own name. Apparently, it was her turn to panic. Another woman had much the same reaction, but Marisa was oblivious to everything around her.

Kellen looked at her coach. It was so out of character for her to lose it like that. She followed Marisa’s finger which pointed to the name that was listed under her own: Marisa Nyland, Kellen read. And below that was the name Davis Nyland, the coach’s eleven-year-old son. And further down were his vitals and the red designation: Health at 100%.

“Davis isn’t even here,” Marisa said. “What’s the fuck is going on?”

“My father lives in France. How is he up there?” asked Neeva, a Bangladeshi woman based in Europe. She had thick dark eyebrows and a long straight nose that suited her handsome face.

The AI spoke with its calm, even tone.

“You each have someone who has been cryogenically frozen. Follow the rules of the tournament and no harm will befall them. And no punishment will befall you, other than when you lose a match.”

The women in the room gasped. Some shook their heads silently, eyes wide. The AI spoke again.

“Some of your competitors have been disqualified. They did not meet the threshold.”

“What threshold?” Asta asked. She was a forty-three-year-old former multi-sport athlete turned conditioning coach.

The AI answered. “Your lesbian and bisexual colleagues have been barred from competing.”

Voices overlapped again.

“What the hell?”

“The fucking AI’s gone rogue.”

“This isn’t happening.”

The AI let out a metallic laugh that sent cold fear through the spines of the women in the room.

“Follow the tournament rules, and they won’t be harmed.”

“But I’m bi,” one woman said. Her name was Sora, but Marisa called her Sori. In her humble opinion, the young woman was a sorry excuse for an athlete. “I’ve kissed a woman, had her hands all over my body. I don’t want any part of this. Put me in stasis.”

“No,” the AI stated. “Your cousin kissed you when you were younger. That doesn’t make you bisexual. How did you react?”

Sora looked stunned. She didn’t answer. The display under her name now showed a live image of her boyfriend. A needle pierced his arm, and his vitals went haywire, heart rate spiking. The red line of text now read: Health at 89%.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Sora screamed. And at the same time, she wondered: Can this fucking thing read my mind? I never told anyone about Leslie.

“How did you react, when your cousin kissed you and put her hands on your tits?”

The screen showed a prod slowly approaching Sora’s boyfriend’s leg.

“Stop,” Sora yelled between sobs. Seventeen pairs of eyes were locked on her.

“How did you react?” the AI asked again.

“I pushed her. Knocked her flat on her ass. And I called her a perverted dyke. The whole thing was so fucking…gross.” Gross wasn’t right though. She’d thought about that day so many times. Unexpected would be closer to the truth. That, and she’d been thrown by the fact that Leslie was her cousin. Sora tried to stifle her thoughts in case the AI was indeed somehow able to access them. Which, of course, only made her only think about her unexplored sexuality more.

“Not bisexual then, are we?” the AI chastised. “In fact, all eighteen of you are as straight as they come.”

“It read my mind,” Sora said without intonation. But not with the same conviction she’d felt when the thought had first occurred to her. “It must have.” Unless…

Marisa and Kellen exchanged glances. They were both thinking the exact same thing. Kellen had recently come out to her coach, revealing her bisexuality. She’d completely lost focus in a match six weeks earlier and had suffered the worst defeat of her collegiate career. She was doing well, was in control of the match, when her opponent caught her in an illegal leglock to the head. She twisted in vain to free herself; her face was directly against her German competitor’s warm, fragrant crotch. She was inhaling hard, and not merely from exertion. And her squirming wasn’t entirely a result of trying to get free. She was so turned on that when the match resumed, despite her opponent starting in a penalty position, Kellen was soon pinned. Shoulders to the mat. It was a timed match and things only got worse from there.

Marisa had glared at Kellen.

“What the fuck just happened?”

She’d sounded furious, which was out of character. Sure, she was always stern—some said icy—but irate? Not ever. Kellen led her coach to a quiet corner of the gym, turning red as she debated what to say. She trusted Marisa. They’d been working together for three years. Kellen had no choice. Not if they were going to continue working together. For a second, Kellen thought of guarding her silence, but was unwilling to lose Marisa. There was just over a year to go before qualifications for her first Olympic Games. And, more importantly, she liked her coach. She like-liked her, as they’d said when she was a girl. No, that wasn’t even the half of it.

In a whispered tone, she admitted that she was intimidated by her blonde German opponent’s raw sexuality, even before they’d started. And, that the strong whiff of sweaty trim had turned her muscles to jelly. Marisa laughed, hugged her, and said that it was okay, but not ever to be repeated.

“No more defeats,” she said, “but Kellen…your sexuality is your own and I accept you fully for who you are. Who wouldn’t? But you control it. It doesn’t control you.”

They shared another hug.

“No more snatch and jerk,” Marisa added, her expression returning to its default strictness.

Kellen wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. The snatch, clean and jerk was a weightlifting competition. Was that an actual smile pushing up the sides of her coach’s mouth? Kellen didn’t want to be saddled with one of Marisa’s nicknames. She asked anyway.

“It means one whiff of snatch and you turn into an irresponsible fucking jerk.”

And then Marisa laughed. She was enjoying this.

Kellen shuffled into the change room. Her coach followed. While Kellen’s opponent showered, she sat dejected by her locker, head hung in shame at the loss, and embarrassment over the confession to her coach.

Marisa didn’t coddle. She left her charge to her own devices. Instead, she boldly strode over to the blonde athlete’s locker. Without so much as a glance to see if she was being observed, she reached into the woman’s gym bag, which was lying open on the floor next to the faux wooden bench. Marisa extricated the woman’s sopping panties. She knew a training aid when she saw one.

That evening, Kellen was forced to do an additional practice with Marisa. That had never happened before, not in the middle of a tournament. All the while, Kellen had to wear the blonde woman’s fragrant panties tied over her lower face, stretched over her mouth and nose and tied in the back. The “mask” was extremely tight, as the blonde’s underwear was small. Time and again, Marisa easily pinned her. That scent. That wonderful fucking scent. Finally, Kellen got pissed off at her own weakness. As she grappled with her coach, the two locked together. Kellen inhaled sharply. It was a decoy. At long last, she was able to ignore the tantalizing whiff of pussy. Marisa, expecting another lapse in focus, went for the pin, but this time Kellen had her wits about her. She countered and achieved her first pin.

Marisa had wanted to ensure that Kellen’s competitive and libidinal drives would never again be in conflict. Shame would do that, she’d felt.

Earlier, Kellen had been relieved that Marisa hadn’t asked why she’d hidden her attraction to women. No one really cared, one way or the other. But she’d always fiercely desired her coach; she could no longer remember a time when she wasn’t in love with her. The string of boyfriends was a defense mechanism, to mask her true feelings.

If “don’t fall in love with your coach” was one of Marisa’s rules, she’d never gotten the memo.

In their shared room that night, Kellen still felt the burning humiliation, but it paled in comparison to how pissed off she was at Marisa’s panty stunt. Her revenge was childish, but oh so satisfying in more ways than one. While her coach showered, Kellen snuck into the bathroom and scooped her panties off the tiles, leaving the German athlete’s soiled underwear in their place.

When Marisa climbed into her bed, and turned off her light, Kellen was determined to prevent her coach from sleeping.

Kellen fingered herself, all the while very loudly inhaling the intoxicating aroma of Marisa’s panties. She was building towards a much-needed orgasm. The scent of pussy—first the wrestler’s and then her coach’s—had her near the edge in short order. Her exaggerated moans were accompanied by repeated phrases like “fuck, your cunt smells good” and—to be sure that Marisa was clued in—she sighed in ecstasy “Oh Marisa, your snatch smells even better than the blonde’s.”

Marisa’s bedside light flicked on. She patted the floor until she snagged a pair of dirty underwear. To her horror, they weren’t hers. That fucking sneak, she thought. Her own panties were bunched under Kellen’s nose.

Kellen grinned in the dim light, covers thrown aside, two of her fingers buried deep in her pussy. Marisa’s unamused glare made Kellen shudder with an orgasm, hips bucking wildly.

Marisa squeezed her thighs together at the erotic display of Kellen’s orgasm and decided that she couldn’t let the smug satisfaction of the revenge stand. Well played, she admitted reluctantly.

Marisa straddled her star wrestler and wrangled the panties—her panties—from Kellen’s hand. Kellen was laughing so hard that Marisa easily pinned her arms behind her head. Then, she hitched up her nightshirt with one hand and moved to kneel astride Kellen’s face. She settled in as Kellen snaked her tongue out to taste her coach’s vulva.

Kellen was greedy for Marisa’s wetness. And she couldn’t get enough of that wonderful smell, the delicate florid musk. She inhaled sharply. She wanted to touch herself, but her arms were pinned by Marisa’s splayed knees. Kellen rolled a fleshy labium between her lips, tugging it, before delving between the folds. Each long tongue stroke lapped at Marisa’s cleft, moving further up and then retreating. From time to time, she brushed against the sides of the Marisa’s clitoral hood. She focused on her coach’s breathing, intensifying or easing the pressure of her tongue, gauging the reactions that her mouth created. She shortened her strokes. Circled the older woman’s clit. Her lips formed an O. She sucked lightly on the stiffened nub, varying the pressure, not moving too fast. As hitched breathing and undulating hips signaled that Marisa was on the precipice, Kellen eased off.

Marisa groaned her displeasure.

“Don’t you dare fucking tease.”

Kellen went back to her clit. She circled it with her tongue, before taking it between her lips, sending Marisa tumbling towards her ecstasy. Thighs clamped down on Kellen’s face. She was beyond turned by the force of her coach’s contractions. Kellen didn’t release her engorged flesh until the pressure of clamping thighs became too much. She released the nub with an emphatic, final slurping suck.

Lying side by side, they opened their mouths to one another. Marisa could taste herself on Kellen’s tongue. After they’d made out for far too short a time, Marisa brushed hair back from Kellen’s ear.

“First sleep,” she whispered softly.

“Then compete,” she added, before nibbling the young woman’s lobe.

“And if you win both matches tomorrow, and make it to the championship match on Sunday, more sex.”

As Kellen slept in her arms, Marisa’s mind was in turmoil. She’d never had such a strong orgasm, and never with a new lover. And, most definitely, never with a woman. She wanted to take things as far as Kellen wanted, but at the first sign that Kellen’s focus had slipped, they’d stop sharing rooms on the road and Marisa would hang a figurative “no entry” sign on her very satisfied pussy.

Kellen won every remaining match, and once again faced Lola Fischer—the unranked German blonde with the fragrant entre-cuisses. It was no contest.

Marisa and Kellen became lovers.

Kellen had told Marisa that she planned to break things off with Darian when they saw each other in Waterloo.

She finally had her heart’s desire.

“Wait until after the tournament,” Marissa had responded. Marisa would have protested that she didn’t have to end things at all, that she wasn’t the jealous type. But she also wasn’t an idiot. She’d known for some time that Kellen had fallen for her. Marisa’s own fondness for Kellen, too, had progressively turned into something more. Tenderness. Desire. Pesky feelings. Love. She felt she’d done a better job of hiding it than Kellen had. The tipping point had been the match with Lola, when it had become clear that the distraction of a relationship was far weaker than the fatiguing business of both women denying the attraction.

But then, at the start of the Waterloo tournament, Marisa had fucked up. She’d instructed Kellen to break up with Darian after the tournament. Minimize distractions. Hold off on things that can wait. Their lovemaking was molten hot, but It was the kissing. That had always been her weakness. That wonderful, passionate, weak-in-the-knees fucking kissing.

She’d inhaled Kellen’s ragged breaths as her fingers sent the beautiful young woman over the tipping point. And then she’d looked into Kellen’s liquid brown eyes, and it had just slipped out: I love you, Kellen.

In the bunker, the two women’s knowing glance was all they’d needed to communicate. Sora was so wrong. The fucking AI, of course, could not read minds. Marisa vowed to question every assumption, her own and those of the women around her. There was no other way for them to gain the upper hand in a desperate situation. Marisa’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud strident voice.

“Wait a minute. Wait a goddamned minute,” Fiona Holland said, pointing at Kellen. Fiona and Kellen despised one another. Always had.

“Why does she get to have her coach? That’s not fucking fair at all.”

“You have your physical therapist, Malena. And how is that fucking fair?” Kellen responded.

Some of the women were nodding at the points both wrestlers had raised. They had no support personnel there.

The AI laughed again. It was chilling.

“There are no coaches, trainers or medical professionals here. Only competitors.”

“What?” a thirty-something trainer named Devlin Thomas yelled. Kellen knew her well and didn’t think the woman’s voice could even reach the high octave it had just achieved. “I can’t compete. I destroyed my knee years ago and a replacement wasn’t viable. I can’t wrestle anymore. Some days, I can barely walk.”

“It will be repaired,” the AI said, evenly.

“What the fuck?” Devlin said. “If it could be fixed, I’d have already done it. So what? You’re going to magically transform me into the six-million-dollar fucking woman?”

While a few mouth corners quirked up, most of the women queried their devices to look up the reference. The recently remade pilot, the six-hundred-million-dollar woman, had bombed and practically no one had seen it.

The AI spoke again. “We can repair you. Human meditech can’t fix you, but I’m not limited to human technology. As you have likely gathered, the only alien invasion here today is mine. You will obey, and you will compete to your full abilities, or there will be punishment.”

“This doesn’t make a fucking lick of sense,” someone commented. Heads nodded in agreement. “Why are you doing this?”

The metallic voice rang out after a long alien laugh. “Because I can.”

It was no more satisfying than George Leigh Mallory’s famous response when asked why he climbed mountains. The phrase “because it is there” was more commonly attributed to Edmond Hillary, but erroneously. All those geezers had done was climb mountains, Marisa thought. The AI can snuff us out in a million fucking ways. Well, she conceded, up in the death zone, a mountain could kill you in a lot of ways too.

The AI continued. “Any nagging injuries will be healed. Destroyed knees,” it added, as a live view Devlin’s stunned face appeared on screen, “will be repaired. You will start on a level playing field. Only talent, desire and experience will determine the winners. The first match will be in fifteen minutes. Jessie Jenkins against Farrow Spalding.”