Wilderness hannah, p.24
Wilderness Hannah, page 24
part #3 of Damsel Series
Hannah ignored that, and looked at Kate, just inside the door.
“So, that’s different. Why would Pond claim that?” It was true, but the man wasn’t exactly a media figure. “Outing his daughters as his... Well, it’s a bit petty, screwing with Diaspora’s cover like that, and I guess it could mess with you, but... does it make sense?’
There was an annoyed laugh, from her friend.
“No? It really doesn’t. Even putting out genetic tests won’t really hurt us. The worst that happens is that we’re all shown to be what we are. That won’t destroy my life. I mean, not just for having a bad father and being a clone. This won’t come back on any of us, exactly. Well...”
She made a face then, as if suddenly considering something that she hadn’t before.
“Ah, well, I mean, there was a video, wasn’t there? Of Sendra torturing you and Reese, Megan. That pretty much means that, if it was leaked, it might seem like I did that. Maybe mom? I need to check on that. Um... Thanks, for the assist, with the cab.” Meg got a hug.
Hannah did that too, since they were clearly buddies now.
“I’ll be in touch, later, if we figure this out. Maybe if not?”
That had Kate grabbing at her arm, whisking her away in a blink. Not to Lash’s, or even Hannah’s. No, they ended up at her house. Sinclair House. Which made sense, or at least she figured it might. After all, Hannah had some computers and a couple of laptops. Her friend probably had a whole bank of the things, used in her crime fighting, that Hannah had never even seen.
A moment later, she did something very different than running to her computer lab, leaving her bedroom and going out into the hallway.
“Mom! We have an emergency! Mom!” There was jogging then, so Hannah followed. Feeling just as awkward and uncomfortable as she ever had at the big house. It took a minute before Kate’s mother came out. She was older, easily in her fifties, or possibly a well preserved sixty something. Her hair was blonde, as it had always been. A thing that wasn’t real at all, even if it was incredibly well done.
Her makeup distorted her face, and the woman had gotten at least a bit of surgical work done. That wasn’t an unknown thing. Hannah had always assumed that it had been about vanity, instead of what made more sense, suddenly. Protecting her daughter. There, underneath it all, the woman who hustled into the hallway, very clearly, didn’t just have a family resemblance to Kate.
They were, without any doubt, the same person.
Not that she’d ever noticed that before. Then, it had never occurred to Hannah to check people for being clones, before, for some reason.
Samantha Sinclair, looked concerned, but didn’t flip out at being summoned.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Her friend looked rather annoyed.
“Henry Pond. He’s telling everyone that Diaspora is my sister. If he’s saying that, he might be saying other things. We need to get on top of this. What do we do?”
They both looked angry, and a bit scared. They also didn’t speak, as if not having a plan for that kind of thing at all. Then, most people wouldn’t, so that one was probably fair.
Hannah tilted her head.
“Tell the truth before he can? The person sharing the truth first, loudest, is the one believed.” That wasn’t perfectly true, but after a moment, Samantha nodded. There was an efficiency to the move that spoke of being the one in command that hadn’t been there even a few seconds before.
“That’s an idea. I need to talk to my daughters. This way.”
Chapter sixteen
For some odd reason, Samantha Sinclair didn’t kick Hannah to the curb as she asked her clones to come over for an emergency meeting. She would have, if the roles had been reversed. Sure, Hannah knew Kate, Veronica and had a passing acquaintance with Vidya and Samantha herself, but the others had no clue who she was. Plus, even though she wasn’t planning to broadcast the idea, she’d straight up murdered Sendra.
A thing she didn’t even feel bad about.
Some of the people coming in might just have an issue with her, given that.
Instead of teleporting around, most of the people decided to drive in, or catch a ride, for some reason. Mainly because only two of the women remaining had that ability and no-one else really figured that it was fair to have Kate go and get them all. Which probably meant Hannah was abusive as fudge and kept using her friend as if she were a car, instead of a person.
She didn’t love the idea, really. It was just so handy to teleport around in emergencies. Of course, the lesson there would be in what they were going to call such things. Maybe going shopping wasn’t actually a thing she had to do, via moving instantly from place to place.
Two of them did come in that way, though. Devya, who could do that on her own and Leslie, who worked on the west coast, as an emergency room doctor.
That was a bit of a shock to Hannah, when the woman got there, since, while she’d been altered enough to not look like Kate or Samantha, the woman was clearly Veronica. As in, if the woman had come in and hugged her, Hannah would have bought the idea and not even thought about it. She didn’t even look any older than the other woman. Hannah got the basic idea, of course. Doctor Pond had a type, so had made two of his girls into his perfect wet dream for sex abuse, instead of just the one.
Everyone got into the large house at about the same time. It wasn’t actually as nice of a place as the one she’d grown up in, but it was solid, large, and filled with a lot of nice old junk that was the sort of thing old money had around. Antiques, which would have been called hand-me-downs if less money had been involved in the equation. Not that the Sinclairs weren’t in the richest thousand or so families in the world.
The richest family, as a group, was actually Hannah’s. The European branch, not her dad, directly. He was lumped in that way, as was she, of course. A thing that didn’t really matter at all. Money made a lot of things easier, but it wasn’t a virtue, in and of itself.
Still, it was a good place to sit and wait, meaning that Hannah was there, feeling a bit uneasy when everyone walked into the room in the grand house. Vidya, Diaspora, was in a nice skirt, in an off-white color and wearing tasteful silver jewelry, with lightly applied makeup. Veronica was in casual wear, which was slightly dressed down for her and Kate had made a point of changing into jeans and a plain button up. As if to not show off her wealth.
Hannah was in tan slacks and layered shirts, since she needed to hide her weapons and a lot of higher end outfits didn’t come with pockets. The rest mainly did the same thing. Showing up in clothing that wasn’t trying to make a statement about wealth or style.
Devya, who looked like Kate, or more like how she would in ten or fifteen years, which was still nice, glanced at everyone in the room, after the hugs had been passed out and finally ended on Hannah, for some reason.
“Wilderness Hannah? Are we needed to fight bears? If so, I vote we put her in charge. She has experience.” The woman wasn’t even being snarky. Inside she was a bit mean, but it was clear she was fighting that externally as hard as she could.
It worked, Hannah had to admit. She seemed friendly and charming. On the outside, where it actually counted.
“No bears so far. Um... Sendra died earlier.” She didn’t know what to say on that score, meaning Veronica did it for her.
A bit more firmly than Hannah would have.
“The stupid bitch tortured and killed Superion X’s family. His wife and son. Hannah and some of her friends, took their bodies to a different reality, and managed to bring them back to life. Superion X was going to kill Sendra himself, but it was decided that letting him kill anyone on purpose was a bad idea. No-one wants the word to get out that he’s willing to do that. It would scare people too much. So Kate and Hannah took her away. I don’t know what happened after that.”
That, it seemed, meant it was Kate’s turn to talk.
“Hannah killed her, when I couldn’t make myself do it. Then I destroyed the body, teleporting her into near Earth orbit and letting it burn up on reentry. No-one will find it. There’s nothing left to recover.”
Hannah took a deep breath, waiting to see if she was going to be yelled at, hit, or vaporized. Some of the women there had different powers after all, and she doubted she understood what they all were. Devya looked pissed, for a moment, and stood up, her right hand clenched into a fist.
She glared, directly at Hannah, and made a very displeased face.
“You killed her, without me? That’s no fair.” She was actually sulking, or doing a great job of acting, and dropped back to her seat, her face back under control, almost instantly.
Vidya hopped up as well, and moved to give Hannah, and then Kate, a hug.
“Good work. Both of you. I should have handled that myself, years ago. Is this why we were brought here? That’s... Well, we could have cake? It’s nice to see you all. Most of you.” She glared then, at Leslie, who gave her a look back that didn’t seem even remotely scared of her amazing superhuman abilities.
Kate sighed.
“No. Not just for that, this is just the good news. The press was told that Vidya and I are sisters. There’s no reason to think that Father won’t simply put out even more information, since that was the source. He has pictures, genetic codes and pretty much everything he needs to screw our lives into oblivion. I don’t know what all has come out so far.”
Samantha held up her left hand, and moved to a rather standard looking laptop. She tapped for a while, as the others chattered about the idea. It was a nice combination of being annoyed, since their lives were going to be impacted already, and plans to silence Doctor Pond with a nice missile strike. That or possibly poison. That one wasn’t as popular, since the man was thought to be immune to a lot of things like that. After all, his mind was currently in a genetically altered clone. Just killing him with arsenic wouldn’t be enough, given that.
Vidya grunted, clearly seeming disgruntled. It made her lovely face mean seeming for a moment.
“An air strike might not work either. He has defenses.”
There was a stirring then, as Samantha cleared her throat.
“Well... Everything has been dumped on-line. Several major news sources are just now putting the information up. We’re all tied to this. Well, not you, Hannah, so there’s that, at least. Regardless, it’s done. We need to get out in front of this. How do we do that?”
She glanced at the others, and then, finally, at Hannah. As if that made sense.
She spoke anyway.
“News conference. Tell the world what he did to you, and that you’ve hidden it, in shame, knowing that he couldn’t be touched by the U.S. legal system. Turn this on him, so that the interesting part isn’t about any of you, or your lives, but what he’s done?”
She got them not wanting to do that, since it sounded pretty dark and she was nearly certain she didn’t know the half of it.
Hannah didn’t know if anyone else would go for it, but after half an hour of arguing the specific points, Samantha set the whole thing in motion, by having Vidya and Kate call in resources for a press conference. This time they all rode in cars, taking the hour-long trip into the city. Ending up in a conference center, with everyone put at a long table, sitting side by side. There was a team of lawyers there as well, having dropped everything, to show up for one of their higher-powered clients.
Hannah, naturally, was off to the side, in a chair, tucked into a corner.
She hadn’t changed clothing, but the rest of them had. Oddly, they could all share, being the same size as they were. It was a thing that she’d never thought about before. Veronica was a bit bustier than Kate, but they had similar dimensions, otherwise.
The lawyers didn’t tell her anything new, but Samantha Sinclair started out with a story that was almost totally new to Hannah. She moved to the microphone for it, in the center of the table, standing behind a podium. She took an obviously deep breath, and looked at the room, which was filled with reporters. Ones who seemed restless and eager for a good story to fill some airtime.
“I’m Samantha Sinclair. When I was twenty-two years old, I was kidnapped by a man named Henry Pond. I was kept for seven months, before I escaped, thanks to the aid of one of his workmen, on the island he owns. During that time, I was raped more times than I could keep track of, by at least fifteen different people. The man did surgical procedures on me, and harvested eggs from me. Not that I understood what was being done. I tried to put that behind me, and... well, it didn’t happen. Twenty years ago, I found out the rest of the story.”
The room wasn’t silent, but no-one was speaking. People were putting information into devices and they shifted and moved, with a few people changing their camera positions, trying for better shots, or closeups they hadn’t bothered with before.
“Doctor Pond, the madman and villain, had used my genetic material to make sex slaves. Over twenty of them. Nine of them had escaped, and not having anywhere else to go, came to me, first thing. I did my best by them all, some of them adults at the time. The memories as to how they’d come about weren’t pleasant for me, but they were blameless in that. Genetic alterations had been made to all of them. At least those who had escaped. So, even if they look different, they’re all my clones. My daughters.”
Instead of taking questions, Vidya got up, and patted Samantha on the arm, then gave her a small hug, to comfort her.
“I’m Vidya Pond. Diaspora, from The Society. First, I know that the press releases said that I was an alien. I wish that I was. Instead, I was genetically altered by my father, and kept as a sex slave, for the first fifteen years of my life. I was raped in hundreds of ways. Given to guests as a toy to play with. Assaulted by superhuman animal men, also made by Henry Pond. I...” She sighed. “There were control collars used. If we didn’t obey, instantly, there was unimaginable pain. At least for some of us. Others had been forced using other methods. That isn’t my story. I just wanted to point out that this is true and yes, even looking a bit different from these others, we’re all clones of the same woman, originally. We were changed, some of us several times.”
The others each told their own stories, which were different, but very similar. Veronica was the first of the stories that changed a lot.
“I was genetically altered, three times, in my early life. The first time left me rather homely, and Father does love pretty little girls. So that was changed, and I was forced to be his plaything, for years. When I was too old to be of interest to him, he tried to make it so that I could produce diamonds from my skin. That gives me a sort of armor, on demand. I also produce diamond crystals from my tear ducts, a few times a month. That’s horrible torture, by the way. I’m Cry Diamond. A minor superhero. I’m also an Uber driver and had a background part on the television program Life of Kate. Everyone should watch that.” Then she covered the horrors of her life, which involved far more violence than anyone else had made it seem like.
Kate went last, being the youngest.
She seemed annoyed, when it was her turn.
“I was abused, as a child. Thankfully, I don’t recall most of it. I was born with the power to teleport and move objects with my mind. It’s fairly powerful. I’m Wisp. I work with The Requiem. I’m also Kate Sinclair, from Life of Kate. I agree with Veronica. Watch the show. Also, in this last season, people think that Hannah wasn’t really put through all of that survival training. That isn’t the case. She actually did all of that. So everyone should pay attention to that, and not to this other stuff. Hannah, why don’t you come up and end this for us?”
No-one seemed shocked at that, even if Hannah kind of was. She didn’t know Doctor Pond at all. A thing she was glad for. Instead of the self-promotion that Kate likely had in mind, she scrambled up and then took a deep breath as she worked in behind the microphone.
“These people had horrible things happen to them. None of them let themselves live as victims. They fought, sometimes physically, sometimes with other skills, and helped people. Each of them is a unique individual. We ask that the press be polite and honest about their stories. They didn’t tell everyone all of this before today, because they knew that nothing could be done. All they had were their secrets. That was taken away from them by Henry Pond, earlier today. Also, by the press and other media. Now, you have the whole story. What you do with it will be up to you. For once, how about you do the right thing, as a group? Also, I’d like to take this time to point out that some wonderful companies have not only helped Kate Sinclair with a food bank and jobs program, but that they all stand behind all of these women and what is right.” She quickly mentioned every name of each company she could recall. Hoping that they would count her doing that as advertising, not putting words in their mouths.
She didn’t storm off, since eighty odd pounds of tiny stomping wasn’t really worth doing. She did leave, and wondered if anyone was going to move with her. They didn’t, getting to answer questions then. The press did not actually behave themselves. They were, in fact, incredibly rude. Hannah had to resist shooting several of them, when they kept asking if the women were going to be doing porn or if it was all a publicity stunt.
They all handled things better than she would have, in the same position. Finally, thankfully, the lawyers ended things, and cleared the room. After that, everyone went home. Back to Sinclair House first, for most of them, since they had cars there. Leslie was taken back home by Kate, directly, and Devy vanished all on her own.
Which meant that Hannah ended up in her apartment, with Kate, Veronica and for some reason Vidya. That was about three hours after the press conference had ended. At first, she didn’t get the real reasoning there. It made sense not to be in touch with people, since a lot of them were going to ask annoying questions.
