[Fiction] The Facility: a getDare Sci-Fi

[TheFloss]

I love this story! Your attention to detail and pacing demonstrates a ton of brilliant forethought. I went back and reread the beginning part I skimmed at first (oh hush, we all skim :P), and yoru backstory is fantastic!

I really hope you continue writing!

[dounowhoiam]

I have to say that is one of the best stories on Facebook, it is unique to others I have read because although there is an element of Truth and Dare, it extends far deeper. I really do enjoy this story because it's presented in a manner that makes the reader enticed and enjoy each part in a flow.
Although the wait between parts can annoy some getDare readers, I find that it treasures the story more; excites the reader to want to read on and allows the writer to improve the story more.
Thank you pm90, and I hope you continue this story on it's great path.

[1101]

In my opinion, this story is up there with ShinyDemon! Its one of my favorite reads!

Keep writing!!

[Vladimir]

How much longer do we have to wait?!

[pm90]

I hope to have the next chapter posted later tonight, actually, so stay tuned!

[pm90]

aw, I'm really sorry guys. I got done writing the next chapter, and it was a super long one, but it really sucked, so I have to rewrite the whole damn second half of it. It'll be worth it, though, I promise. hang in there, guys!

I have some extra time tomorrow, I'll be cranking it out.

[TheFloss]

You can do it, man!

[Doctor Octogonapus]

Excellent story! I hope you continue soon. This is the best story Ive read on here. Would you please pm me when you post the next chapter?

[Vladimir]

Are you still working on it?

[pm90]

Yes, still working on it, no worries. I had a rough couple of weeks, coupled with some painful writer's block, but another chapter is definitely on it's way, not to worry. Sorry for the delay, my friends!

[pm90]

The Red Rover Project
Chapter 14: Surprise!



“Couldn’t sleep again, eh?” James asked as they stepped into the bathroom.

“Nope,” Hannah confirmed.

“You seem to have even more trouble with that than I do.”

“Yeah, well… You don’t mind, do you?”

“Hah! No, no I really don’t mind.”

“Oh good. It’s far more interesting being awake when I get to visit you.”

“I should hope so!” he laughed, as they hopped up to resume their posts on the half wall surrounding the showers.

“Did you like how I woke you up this time?” Hannah asked, remembering how nice it felt laying on top of him, as if trying to smother him.

“Well I didn’t hit my head. That part was nice – ow!” She elbowed him in the ribs. He was grinning at her, so she knew he was joking, but he deserved to be reprimanded anyway.

“I’m glad you liked it,” she said, “I rather enjoyed it myself. Especially after you stopped panicking.”

“Yeah, well I was surprised. You’d be surprised too. And you know I panic.”

“Yes. So considering your head is still intact, I’d say my plan was a success.”

“I concur. Thank you.”

“Are you two gonna go swimming again?” They both jumped, and Hannah grabbed James’ leg to keep from falling backward off the wall.

“Taylor?” Hannah asked, recognizing the voice, and searching in the direction she’d heard the voice. A pair of feet appeared below one of the stall doors, and Taylor pulled it open and stepped out.

“I heard you get up,” Taylor explained to Hannah, then asked her question again. “Are you two gonna go swimming again?”

“Uh, hi,” James said awkwardly. “We hadn’t really decided that yet.”

“Oh,” Taylor said. “Well you should. Can I join you guys?”

“Sure,” Hannah said, shrugging. “Are you gonna wake Dmitri up?”

“Nah,” Taylor said, after thinking for a bit. Hannah and James looked at each other and shrugged. They hopped back down off the wall and followed Taylor back to the stall, where she was already climbing back on top of the toilet.

“Next time,” Hannah remarked to the other girl’s backside, “let me know when you’re gonna tag along, so you don’t scare us like that.”

“Sorry,” Taylor said, not sounding sorry at all. She hoisted herself up into the ceiling, and Hannah stepped up onto the toilet behind her, fully aware that James was behind her and staring at her gluteal muscles again. She squeezed them a little for his benefit, while she too hoisted herself up into the dusty ceiling.

“Why don’t you want to wake Dmitri up?” James asked as he pulled himself up into the ceiling behind them.

“I dunno,” Taylor said, crouched in front of them on the catwalk, “He’s nice, but… I dunno. We’ll just let him sleep.”

Hannah ducked a mass of wires and pipes, and stood up by the ladder, as Taylor stepped off into the room above. As she took the first step up the ladder, she heard a thud from behind her, and one of the pipes next to her shoulder jiggled a little. James grunted.

“Watch your head, James,” Hannah called over her shoulder. She couldn’t help giggling a little at his expense.

“Ow”

James was rubbing his head as he emerged from the hole into the light of the grimy mechanical room.

“You really shouldn’t hit your head so often,” Hannah jokingly admonished him. “It kills brain cells, gives you syphilis, and makes you go blind.” Taylor laughed.

“Yeah, whatever. It’s a bad habit, I know. But it’s easier and faster than other, more pleasurable forms of self-abuse.” This time Hannah laughed, and apparently Taylor didn’t get the reference.

“Water tank’s that way,” he said, pointing with one hand and still rubbing his head with the other.

The girls followed him, and they quizzed him on all the different machinery and plumbing, amazed at how he could figure it all out. Apparently there were several geothermal heat exchangers; lots of the pipes were for radiant heating; there were air ducts for both forced-air circulation and exhaust venting, electric generators, several different types of water reclamation, the list went on and on!

“What about the holes with the ladders?” Hannah asked him, wondering. “Do you think they all lead to different rooms?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “I think they connect to all the bathrooms, where the plumbing is most needed. Most of them are gonna be other group suites, but I suppose some of them are like the kitchen or the smaller bathrooms off the classrooms or the weight room or what-not.”

“Hannah,” Taylor said suddenly, with that mischievous look, “pick one. I wanna see what’s down there!”

Hannah looked at her mortified. “We’re not even supposed to be up here, and you want to go exploring other places, too?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, why not?”

“Maybe we won’t get caught up here, but if we go snooping around in other suites… I don’t think we should go on pressing our luck, you know?”

“Alright, fine. You don’t have to come down with me. But I wanna see, so pick one for me!”

“… do you have to do it tonight?” Hannah asked.

“Oh, yes. Right now.”

Hannah sighed. She definitely wasn’t going to be going down any of those holes, like Taylor wanted to. Just hers and James’. But if Taylor was gonna go do something stupid, that was her choice.

“Fine. That one,” Hannah said, pointing to the nearest one to where they were standing.

… … … … … … …

Lizette sat back in her chair. The rest of the Project had gone to sleep, and it was just the two girls and that skinny boy still awake, wandering through the mechanical level. It was curious that it was just the three of them, they hadn’t woken up the others, like before.

She wondered if they were going for a swim again, they were certainly headed that direction. She crossed her legs, physically and mentally holding herself back. She was already wet, though, just from the anticipation, and once again, in the absence of underwear, she was starting to drip just a little. Good thing this skirt doesn’t show wet spots…

She found herself rubbing her hand up and down one thigh, while she continued to watch the Subjects.

Her hand was halfway back up the inside of her thigh when she froze. They weren’t heading toward the water chamber anymore. There were stopped, talking to each other at one of the clusters of holes in the floor that provided plumbing and maintenance access to the lower level. Then “Taylor” started to climb down a ladder.

“Oh God…” She was in trouble now. It was okay when they kept to themselves, stayed on the mechanical level, but now… Should she trigger the alarm? She hadn’t before… Nobody had noticed then. But what if they did notice this time, now that they were starting to incorporate other groups? If somebody found out…

“Taylor” had disappeared into the hole, but “James” and “Hannah” had stayed behind. Why weren’t they following her? Oh, no. They’re splitting up. This keeps getting worse and worse…

Her employers paid well, and didn’t demand much of anything from her. She was required to show up every single night, no sick days, no vacations, no days off. She had to arrive at the exact same time, and leave at the exact same time every day. She had to watch the viewscreen and report any situation that was dangerous or compromised the security of the Project. And every two weeks she had a substantial sum of money deposited into her bank account. The money and the easiness of the job made it more than worth it, but she knew her employers weren’t exactly… reputable. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to find out what would happen if she didn’t follow the instructions …

I already broke the rules. The Project’s security was compromised weeks ago. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. … Fuck. She didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t trigger the alarm anymore. Her employers would most certainly discover her failures. She had to hope that they still wouldn’t notice anything was amiss… This was getting bad.

…and it was getting even more exciting. She was definitely dripping now, and she uncrossed her legs. She let her hand finish rubbing up the inside of her thigh, then she slid it back down again, sending a slight shiver up her back.

“James” and “Hannah” just stood next to the ladder into the floor, talking to each other. A separate window popped up on Lizette’s viewscreen as “Taylor” lowered herself from the ceiling onto the toilet, and tiptoed out of the bathroom stall.

… … … … … … …

“You s’pose we should wait for her?” James asked when Taylor was gone.

“We have to,” Hannah said, “You’re the only one who knows your way around up here. I might be able to stumble my way back to our holes, but she’s no better at that kind of thing than I am. Probably worse.”

“Then I guess we wait,” James said. He stepped back to a vertical galvanized steel air duct, and tested the temperature with the back of his hand. Apparently satisfied that it would neither scald nor freeze him, he turned, and leaned his back against it, motioning for her to join him. She did.

… … … … … … …

Earl watched “Taylor” tiptoe out of the bathroom and into the bunk room. She approached the nearest bunk and leaned over the occupant’s head. She checked another bunk. And another.

Is she looking for somebody?

His viewscreen automatically zoomed out and swiveled, catching him a little by surprise. Usually it only did that when-

A boy hopped down to the floor from his second-level bunk right next to the doorway, and strutted in to use one of the urinals. The viewscreen split to follow him, and to stay on “Taylor”. The boy had been sleeping naked, which wasn’t uncommon in the mixed-gender groups, so he just took his wide footed stance in front of the urinal and let loose, shaking it a few times when he was done to make sure he didn’t drip. “Taylor,” back in the bunk room, had tiptoed back to the doorway after him, and was peering around the corner and through the bathroom doorway to watch him. Bold girl, Earl thought.

The naked boy turned around and returned to the doorway. “Taylor” didn’t try to hide. The boy, of course, saw her immediately, but it must have been several steps later before he realized she wasn’t one of his group mates, because he stopped short and said something.

Whatever he said, it must have been louder than a whisper, because two more viewscreens popped up as two more subjects sat up in their beds.

Oh what I’d give to be able to hear this, Earl thought. The two additional subjects, a boy and a girl, both climbed out of bed to see what was going on, and the four viewscreens converged into one in the lounge of the suite, where tense body language and wild gestures were being thrown around.

I’m dead. Dead, dead, dead. So dead. Earl began contemplating ways to flee his job. How to you buy a new identity?

It wouldn’t work, he realized. “You can’t run from Finch Industries,” he’d heard a friend say once, referring to a well-publicized scandal in which an employee had made off with a large sum of money, and disappeared. He believed his friend. The guy turned up in his apartment weeks later. He’d only been dead a few days. The newscaster Earl was watching at the time had made a point saying that the man hadn’t died peacefully, and hadn’t died in the apartment.

No…can’t run.

Earl was sure that no matter what he did, the burly giant who hired him – the closest thing that he had to a real boss – would find him. Earl had only met the intimidating man once, during the job interview, and he had no desire to meet Geoffrey a second time.

… … … … … … …

James had both of his hands on the back on Hannah’s pelvis, under her shirt. Her skin was so warm and soft, and his hands fit so well right there.

She caught his lower lip between her teeth and tugged gently, making him gasp a little, and he felt her smile, and tug again, before letting his lip slowly slip away, and kissing him firmly again.

“What are they doing?”

Hannah yelped, and dug her nails into James’ back. James nearly jumped out of his skin, and whipped his head around to see who was there.

“I think they were kissing,” Taylor was saying to a young, brown haired boy next to her.

“Jeez, Taylor!” Hannah sighed, unsheathing her nails from James’ shoulder blades, and turning to their audience. “Don’t sneak up on us like that! And who are these people? You brought them back with you?!”

“Sorry,” Taylor said, “We weren’t exactly quiet though. And this is Oliver and Cassie and Aaron. I kinda accidently woke them up, and they wanted to come see what I was talking about.”

The three newcomers were looking around bewildered. Aaron was the tallest, and was stark naked, with impressive muscle definition that made James feel rather inadequate. Oliver was the shortest, and youngest-looking, even though James recognized them as all being from the same group. The fifteen-year-old mixed gender group. Oliver, at least, was wearing both his t-shirt and his underwear. Cassie stood next to Oliver, a few inches taller, though still fairly short. She had that deep chocolaty skin of the central Africans. Whoever her family was, they didn’t appear to have diluted their gene pool much with other ancestries, which was far more unusual than it had been less than a century ago. She was beautiful though, in a striking kind of way. James blushed and immediately looked away when she turned around to face him and he realized that she wasn’t wearing underwear under her night shirt.

“Huh,” Oliver was musing, ignoring the introduction. “I guess I always imagined a kiss being more… careful. And less… tangly.” He made an awkward intertwining gesture with his arms and hands, wiggling his fingers every which way for emphasis..

Hannah cleared her throat self-consciously and took another shuffling sidestep away from James.

“Why… why aren’t they wearing their clothing?” James asked Taylor.

“We were sleeping,” Cassie said frowning, as if that were obvious and self-explanatory.

“And…you don’t sleep in the clothing they give you?” James prompted, still confused.

“Well…no?” Cassie said, “I mean sometimes I do. Sometimes not. Aaron never sleeps in his clothes. But Oliver gets cold, so he always does. Why, do you guys always sleep in your clothes?”

James looked at Taylor and Hannah. “Well … yeah. I mean, pretty much everybody in my group does, at least.” Taylor and Hannah both nodded in agreement.

“Weird,” Aaron said, sounding rather uninterested. “What is this place?”

“It’s a mechanical room. It’s huge,” Hannah told him. James realized she wasn’t looking at his face, though.

“Yes, the entire floor is one room,” James agreed a little firmly, again feeling rather inadequate.

“Wow,” Oliver said. “And does it all look like this? It’s so… dirty. And hectic.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “It’s pretty much all this crazy, at least as far as we’ve seen. James knows what all of it does, though, and he knows how to get around. I just get confused.”

“I don’t remember anything like this,” Oliver continued. “It’s amazing. How did you guys figure out how to get in here?”

“James figured it out,” Hannah said, making an obvious effort not to look at Aaron. Her eyes kept flicking over that direction, though, and it annoyed James. He knew rationally that he had no claim to her or her attention, and she really was making a good effort not to look, even though the boy really was impressive to look at… but James wanted her to be looking at him like that, dammit, not some other boy.

“And there’s a pool in here, too?” Aaron asked. “Taylor said you guys were gonna go swimming?”

“Not a pool, really,” Hannah said.

“It’s a heat reclamation and cooling tank,” James informed the strangely un-modest boy. “But you can get inside, and it’s nice and warm, so it’s sort of a pool, I guess.”

“You mean like a hot tub?” Cassie asked excitedly. “I love hot tubs! Are there bubbles?”

“Only the bubbles you make yourself,” Taylor laughed. “But otherwise, yes. Like a really big hot tub.”

“It’s this way,” James said, pointing and leading the way, catching a glimpse of Cassie’s bare… bareness when she clapped and jumped up and down in anticipation. He quickly averted his gaze – just in time to step over a bundle of wires that appeared out of nowhere to tangle his feet. He swore the wires and pipes and ducts were out to get him around here. Of course he was a lot taller now than before when he’d crawled around in places like this.

…Places like this? Before? He didn’t remember ever being anywhere like this before. But he had the fleeting feeling that he’d definitely been around mechanical rooms and large machinery…before. When he was shorter.

He was trying to pin down why he was sure of that when Cassie loud sing-song voice interrupted his thought train.

“What’s a dare?” she asked. “Taylor said something about you guys daring each other last time you went swimming?” James groaned a little inside. What hadn’t Taylor told them about? Jeez.

“Yeah,” Taylor confirmed. “A game. Truth or Dare. A dare is something you tell somebody to do, something they wouldn’t normally do, and they have to do it. They can’t say no. I guess it’s usually something risky… or embarrassing.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay. That sounds kinda weird.”

“Sounds fun,” Aaron said.

“Yeah, it can be,” Hannah told him. “As long as you’re not too mean to each other.”

“Here we are,” James announced, indicating the brightly lit glass chamber in front of them. They hadn’t had to walk very far at all. The door to the glass enclosure was at the top of three tall steps outside the chamber, and three more steps inside the chamber leading back down into the water. James stepped up the first two stairs and held the door open respectfully.

“Cool!” Aaron said, and bounded up the stairs in all his glory, and splashing loudly as he entered the water.

“Hah, Alright!” Cassie and Oliver called, both of them peeling off their shirts. Cassie, also completely naked now, bounced (BOUNCED, James couldn’t help but see) up the stairs behind Aaron. After he got out of his boxers, Oliver excitedly ran up the stairs after her, making a third splashy entrance into the water.

James, Hannah, and Taylor exchanged gape-mouthed looks of surprise and awe. Cassie and Oliver had just stripped without a second thought. The three younger kids from the mixed gender group didn’t seem to have any notion of modesty at all. And all three of them were so… exuberant!

“I guess we should join them,” Taylor said, shrugging and pulled her shirt over her head.

“No sense getting our clothes wet again, I guess,” Hannah agreed, and followed suit, shedding her shirt. They both dropped their underwear to the floor, and bounced (BOUNCED!) up the stairs to join the rowdy three already in the water.

James just continued to stand holding the door slack-jawed. “C’mon, James,” Hannah said, smiling to him as she climbed past him and through the open glass door. She saw him staring at her posterior, and winked at him over her shoulder, before jumping into the water.

Well fuck, he thought. He didn’t have much of a choice anymore. It would be awkward if he were the only one in there still wearing his clothes. But somewhere in the last few seconds his semi-firm penis had throbbed to full mast and beyond. He swore, and wished that he had more control over the damned nuisance of an appendage. But he threw his shirt to the side, dropped his boxers to the ground, and made his entrance into the water as speedy as possible.







Long overdue. I'm so sorry, guys. I'm just gonna quit making promises about when the next chapter will be out. I do promise that I wont stop writing, though. The story must go on!

Anyway, Octagonapus is getting a PM now, when I post a new chap. Anybody else want some spamaliciousness?

Love and Hugs,
~pm

[Doctor Octogonapus]

thanks for the update! I can only see it get better from here.
PS I dont think its considered spam if you are waiting for it eagerly...

[Silvercola]

Thank you and that is a 10 star update! Please keep it up

[kmacroxs]

this story is so great. please continue.

[pm90]

The Red Rover Project
Chapter 15: Wet Again



“Oh man, the water feels amazing!” Cassie exclaimed, leaning back to let herself half-float, with her arms stretched above her head, with the effect of her small perky brown breasts pointed up toward the sky and her kinky black hair fanned out around her head in the water. Wow, Hannah thought, She’s shameless. But she looks so good that she can get away with it. James, stop looking! Oh, you’re trying not to. I guess I can’t really blame you, though. She’s definitely attractive. Maybe if I stand up in the water a little… She stood up, and let her long, wet strawberry blonde hair drape down her shoulders. She turned her body, almost facing James, but didn’t look at him, instead watching Aaron and Oliver splashing around, and pulling Cassie and Taylor into the mayhem. She idly twirled a dripping hank of her bangs around her finger, watching James out of the corner of her eye.

It was working. She could tell he didn’t think she was paying attention to him, and he was definitely looking at her, exposed to the navel above the water. That look of awe was priceless. She hoped that expression never went away, no matter how often he saw her like this.

He must have realized he was staring, because he quickly dropped further back into the water and tried looking away. She decided to let him know it was okay to look. She turned all the way toward him, and flashed him her best smile, looking at him through her lashes. He forgot his efforts not to stare.

Hannah flicked her eyes down to briefly examine her torso, willing him to follow her gaze. She looked back up at him, and found that it had worked, again. She had his attention completely.

Feeling quite satisfied with herself, she dipped down all the way under the water and tipped her head back so that when she slowly stood back up her hair stayed back obediently. This motion also had the added benefit of placing her neck, shoulders, and chest on prominent display as they each came dripping back up out of the hot water. She giggled a little as James tried not to look too excited.

“Come here,” Hannah said to him, to quiet to actually be heard, but she stepped closer to him, and he sat a little higher in the water, so their eyes were level, and reached her arms around his neck, and he obediently wrapped his hands around the small of her back. She used her arms around his neck to pull herself closer, and place her lips next to his ear.

“If you look that excited every time you see me naked,” she whispered to him, “then I promise you can look as much as you want.”

He was about to reply, but she pressed herself into him and sealed his lips with a kiss. He melted, relaxing his shoulders and pulling her hips into him. She complied, admiring again how soft his lips were. Mm, that feels so good…except, … something was pressing into her abdomen, between her navel and her mons pubis. There’s not supposed to be a bone there… OH! Wow, his penis is really hard! And warm… all that extra blood… maybe that’s why he’s not standing up… Why don’t we just do this all the time? His lips are amazing… oh, please do that thing with your tongue again!

He slid his hands off her hips, up her sides, and then wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. She responded by dropping her arms, and sliding her hands down his shoulders to place her palms firmly over each of his broad shoulder blades.

Their lips were still connected when Aaron said “Wow, guys.”

Apparently they had an audience now. Dammit. Hannah opened her eyes, and could see the other four watching them. She slid her hands back over the tops of his shoulders, and rested her palms on top of his solid (if not necessarily well-defined) chest. She pulled her head back and gave James another one of her best smiles.

While he still looked a little breathless, she took advantage of his casual stance in the water to briskly sweep his feet to the side, and push back and downward on his chest with all her bodyweight.

She laughed mischievously as his look of awe changed subtly to a look of shock as he capsized with a yelp. The other four standing to the side echoed her laughter.

“Hell of a way to sneak up on him,” Taylor laughed surreptitiously.

“Was that another kiss?” Cassie asked, still laughing, but looking a little confused, too.

“Hah, yeah,” Hannah said, as James spluttered back to the surface. “It probably worked better on him than it would on those two, mostly because he’s not used to seeing these,” she turned partially back to James, and rubbed her hands over her small breasts as seductively as she could manage. She was getting more comfortable being naked. The fact that the younger three were completely unphased by nudity probably helped a lot. She was starting to like them, even though she still hardly knew them. They were so strange and different. And she admired how uninhibited they seemed to be.

James squeegeed the water off his face with his hands, and continued looking at her wide-eyed as her hands dropped back to her sides. Hannah laughed at her success, and splashed more water at him, before diving out of the way as he lunged to grab her and dunk her back.

James only barely missed her, and Hannah ran as best she could, grabbing Aaron’s bicep and pulling him between her and her pursuer. James stood and faced Aaron, who had assumed a comically protective mock wrestler’s stance. Oh wow… his back muscles...

James looked unsure exactly how to proceed with his pursuit, and Aaron took the opportunity to jump out of the water and dolphin-dive at James’ feet. In the course of this, Hannah watched the younger boy’s exceptional posterior rise out of the water and crest like a small, aesthetically marvelous whale before following the rest of his body down into the water.

Cassie and Oliver were laughing at James, as he yelped and was once again toppled over into the hot water, while Taylor was smirking at Hannah. Oh, you saw me looking at that, didn’t you? Aw, dammit, you did. I couldn’t help it, okay? It was right there infront of me, and- Yes, fine. I enjoyed it. But you know I only like James. Hannah could tell that Taylor understood it all, but the girl just continued smirking at her.

Well, at least she did until Oliver’s head appeared from behind her between her legs, and lifted her up out of the water on his shoulders, and flipped her backwards behind himself. Hannah and Cassie couldn’t stop laughing at that, while James and Aaron were still locked in epic mortal combat.

“Careful, Oliver,” Hannah giggled. “Taylor fights back.” But before the boy had time to process the warning, Taylor had jumped on the young boy’s back, forcing him face first back underwater.

“You weren’t kidding,” Cassie giggled in agreement, as the two tangled underwater.

Hannah started feeling a little guilty as Aaron dunked James for a third time. James didn’t seem to stand a chance. The younger boy was taller, muscular, and at least equally quick on his feet.

“Let’s help James,” Hannah said to Cassie.

“Haha! Okay!” Without further encouragement the perky girl jumped on her group mate’s back and latched her legs around his waist, covering his eyes with her palms. Hannah took a breath and ducked under water to grab one of his feet. Once she had a good grip on his ankle, she planted her feet firmly on the concrete bottom and used her whole body to push the ankle upward into the air.

Hannah caught about half a breath as Aaron was toppling before James full-body tackled her backward on top of Aaron and Cassie. Aaron wriggled underneath her, and James had a death-grip around her chest, pinning one arm to her side and holding her underwater.

She kicked her legs and flapped her arm, wildly trying to make it back to the surface for a full breath of air, but James just held her, hardly moving, and he was sinking her like a rock. She got her free hand on his shoulder and shoved downward, and his arms slipped on her wet skin, allowing her to pull her other arm free. She shoved down again, and hi arms slipped, and she pulled her legs free from his grasp. They both surfaced spluttering, and James was blushing profusely, but Hannah was too busy gasping for air to be embarrassed about the fact that his face had just slid straight past her crotch.

Aaron and Cassie had also surfaced, and now Aaron was standing with Cassie sitting on his shoulders behind his head, with just her ankles dangling in the water.

“CHICKEN FIGHT!” Cassie cried, holding her mount’s forehead for balance.

Hannah was still trying to figure out what they were talking about when James pushed his head between her legs underwater, and lifted her squealing up onto his shoulders the same way that Aaron was carrying Cassie.

“James!” she cried, squeezing her legs together around his neck and wrapping her arms around his face in terror. “What are you doing?! Put me down! Ack!”

Cassie and Aaron were both laughing so hard at Hannah’s reaction that Aaron had to grab Cassie’s shins to keep her from falling off. As Hannah calmed down a little and got her balance, she and James started joining in the laughter as Oliver rose out of the water on Taylor’s shoulders, with about the same reaction as Hannah’s, except it was even funnier coming from a naked fifteen year old boy on a busty girl’s shoulders.

“Quit whining,” Taylor admonished him, “We have a fight to win!”

And with a chorus of war cries, Taylor, James, and Aaron all charged at each other, with their riders flailing to keep their balance.

… … … … … … …

Rita had given up worrying. A long time ago.

Tobias Finch was conducting a secretive study of adolescent social and psychological development in an extreme environment. What was happening in that controlled environment beneath the Finch Industries chemical plant was just a result of the study, she’d decided. She figured the Project was too big, too expensive, too secretive to rest its security in her hands alone every night. She couldn’t possibly be the only one who knew what was going on.

She hadn’t lost her job. That had been her initial concern when she hadn’t raised the alarm the first time. But she hadn’t even been reprimanded. Her employer rarely made contact, and these events apparently didn’t warrant an exception. This was all just an unusual outcome of the extreme social environment. She was a little worried that the six of them might hurt themselves, the way they were playing around in the water like that, but she figured as long as nobody drowned or broke a bone or anything, everything would be just fine, and in the mean time it was amusing watching the sexual tensions between them continue to build and build, almost to bursting.

Smiling to herself, Rita pulled a big long carrot out of her bag. Such a lovely carrot, brilliant orange, thick and long with lateral wrinkles all down its firm length. She’d grown it herself, and was rather proud of it. She had a whole garden full of them at home. And cucumbers. She loved cucumbers. But they weren’t quite ready to be picked yet.

She kicked back in her chair and propped her bare feet on the desk. Her muddy boots were by the door. She rearranged her old, fading, flower-print skirt around her knees so it wasn’t twisted and bunched. Contentedly, she began gnawing on the end of her carrot and she watched the social experiment continue to unfold.