Chapter 103: Chapter Eighty-Eight Dark Games, and Uncertain Plans

Kiru made her way down the road. Honestly she was barely paying any attention to her surroundings, and was more lost in thought about what she had witnessed recently. What was going on in that resort did not sit well with her. It made her wonder how many girls were victims of child theft. So many questions were raised by that, and it left her wondering, how far did it go. To what end? 

It was tempting to try, and ask Qelu, but she knew that would only get her so far. Qelu had been a source of information, but she wasn’t all knowing. Elements of this went way up the chain. If she had to guess, it went all the way up. Kiru had little doubt that the Iniri had the Imperial council, family and everyone else at that level wrapped around their tentacles. In fact she recalled a conversation from the other day in which she had discussed that with Megumi. During that conversation, Megumi had mentioned assigning a cell, along with a few drones to investigate the leadership. How well they had done, she didn’t know, nor did she know what they had uncovered. 

Kiru hoped that Megumi would tell her during their upcoming conversation. She wasn’t sure what they were going to do, but she felt it was time to act. Time to do something. They could not let this go on too much longer. It was with those thoughts in mind, that she wandered into her apartment. 

Rather idly, she made her way into the bathroom, to find Qelu with a notepad. Qelu smiled, when she spotted Kiru, and tossed the pad in a drawer, “Ah, I thought I had missed you.”

Driven from her thoughts, she noticed that Qelu looked especially clean, and that her hair had been styled. “Going somewhere.”

Her smile turned slightly impish, and she nodded, “Unfortunately. Nana insisted I go on a date with Kirie.”

“Kirie? Isn’t she twelve?”

Qelu let out a breath, “She is, and I tried to get out of it because of that. Nana was quite insistent, however, so here I am.”

“I uh, see.” said Kiru as she slumped onto the seat. “I know you Iniri have somewhat different standards, but is this really okay?”

“No, it isn’t, but nothing I said got through to Nana. Mom tried to convince her as well, but that didn’t go so well.”

Kiru frowned, “I see. Would you like me to come along? As support?”

“That might be nice.”

---

Starblossom Academy, Special Campus:

Terqu slipped onto the special campus grounds. By now the hour had changed, and above her she could see blue sky. Naturally, that blue sky was artificial and meant to simulate daylight. Here at the Starblossom facility it was now about mid-morning timewise, and her first day here had certainly been rather busy. She had arrived early before first light, and almost immediately started helping with patients. Hell, she hadn’t even had time to unpack. A fact that seemed to indicate what her future might be like, incredibly busy with every minute packed naturally. At least the pay was good. Once her contract expires, she figured she could settle down somewhere nice, and live out her dreams. 

With those thoughts in mind, she checked her map that she had thoughtfully retrieved. The patients she was to pick up were supposed to be waiting for her in the main lobby, and there were five of them. The details she had been given included photos, names, and some basic information on them. They were early enrollment students on the officer track, but why they were being brought to the clinic wasn’t listed. Terqu could guess, but she figured that was a waste of energy seeing as she would find out soon enough.

Turning towards the lobby, she considered the girls she was picking up. Naturally since they were early enrollment students, they were all younger than the minimum official age for enrollment in the campus. With one exception most of them were either twelve or thirteen with the other one being ten. Apparently, that last one was a real genius, and as such she was in the same class as graduate students. According to what she had been given, all five of them were graduate students from the same class. Nearly ready for their first posting.

She found the group waiting for her in the lobby, wearing the local academy uniform. It was based on the military uniform, and as a result covered about the same. Honestly she thought they looked a little silly in it, like little kids playing soldier. The uniforms came with the same stuff the military uniform came with, including a tool belt, and a cute little side holster attached to their skirts. That holster was empty at the moment, but there wasn’t much surprise there. Weapons were typically kept in arms lockers, unless needed.

Terqu made her way up to the group, introduced herself, and mentioned that she was here to take them to the clinic. The youngest stood up, and stretched a bit, “Glad to see you are so prompt. Last time the clinic had me wait here for a procedure I was here long enough to get bored.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

She giggled, gestured for the door, and said, “Well let's get going. Don’t want to keep the doctors waiting, and we can talk on the way.”

She nodded, and gestured for them to follow her. The group all headed for the door, and after a moment, “Out of curiosity, did they tell you what our procedures are?”

“I’m kind of new, so no. They just gave me a pad with a few details about you five. Nothing about why I was taking you to the clinic or for what.”

“I see. Guess that gives us something to talk about then. I was told that I could discuss my procedure with any of the medical staff, and so were they.”

She blinked, “Wait? Do you mean you know what they are going to do?”

Her face lit up, “Sure do! Unlike those at the other campus, we are allowed to know what they do to us. Well, while we are here anyway. Once we leave, those memories are to be archived. I’ve heard it's a precaution.”

“That does make sense.”

“A lot of it. You can’t give up information you don’t know, and since anything we know about this place will be archived we can’t give it up if captured.”

“True,” replied Terqu as they slipped out of the lobby. The girl quieted down for a moment, as she looked around then she turned back to Terqu.

“Anyway, about my procedure. Since I am graduating soon, my memories are to be archived. Along with a couple of other procedures.”

Another girl spoke up, “We all are. As graduates, we can’t leave without our restricted memories being archived. Of course since we are from the special campus, that isn’t the only thing that needs to be done.”

“Oh? Really what else needs to be done?”

The youngest spoke up, “Nothing much. We all have special implants that will need to be removed, and since we are going straight to command level ranks we need to be sterilized”

Terqu blinked, that was odd. “Sterilized? At your age? Surely that can wait a few years?”

“Perhaps, but that’s what the implants are for. They take advantage of our ovulation cycle to drain our ovaries. It's much slower than the normal method, but significantly fewer eggs are lost.”

“I see, but you wouldn’t happen to know why they bothered to do it this way? Is the other method not sufficient?”

“They said we had really nice eggs, they wanted as many of them as possible. They never said why, and it's not really our place to ask.”

“Ah, well. Anyway, I’m curious, what was growing up like for you? You all grew up without any contact with your birth mothers.”

The youngest lit up, “I had a lot of fun, and honestly I don’t care much about not knowing my birth mother. Although I would like to see my caretaker again, she was such fun.”

“Hmm?”

One of the others elaborated, “After entering the academy, our contact with our caretakers was restricted to encourage us to focus on our classes. We have to earn hours with them.”

“Ah, I understand. So I take it you all loved your caretakers?”

They all nodded. After that Terqu slipped into a different topic, but all the while she was wondering why these girls were being sterilized so young. It meant they would never truly have children of their own, but at least they might be able to serve someone else when they are older. Having no eggs, doesn’t mean their womb was suddenly useless. Their wombs could still be used by someone else, for their young.

It didn’t take too long to reach the clinic, and she ushered the girls inside. Where they promptly stripped down to nothing. Tossing their uniforms into provided baskets, and sighing in relief. The youngest even voiced, “So much better. That thing is nice and all, but I hate wearing it.”

“Then why do you wear it?”

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“Cause it's required, when we go out. I prefer the other version of it frankly.”

Terqu noted that down mentally, and led the group deeper into the building. She already had instructions for where to take them, and she led them right to a special exam room. Without her even prompting, the youngest went up to the exam bed, and the others settled on a waiting bench.

Terqu used a comm panel to signal her boss, and then went to make sure the little one was nice and secure on the bed. By the time she was finished, her boss had arrived.

“Ah, good. Qiri is the one I wanted to look at first. Did they tell you anything about what they are here for?”

Terqu nodded, “She mentioned an implant, sterilization, and a memory procedure.”

“That does cover the gist of what we are doing. Although with the sterilization part of things, we’ve already been doing that gradually. With the egg drainers, we’ve been slowly removing their eggs.”

“So they’ve already been partially done?”

“Sort of. The egg drainers stimulate ovulation, and drain the eggs at a set rate, which we can adjust. We raised it dramatically, with Qiri since she was going to be graduating younger than normal. When I last checked her ovaries were almost empty. We just need to make sure the drainer got them all”

“I see. Out of curiosity, what are we doing with these eggs anyway?”

“A few things, there are a few parties interested in Qiri. She is of very good genetic stock with superb intelligence, and physical traits. The breeders want her eggs, for breeding purposes. Both for breeding superior Neku, or for their own children. Some of her eggs are being sent to them.”

Terqu frowned, “The breeders?”

Her boss nodded, “Yes them. They monitor the students, and control the local pairings. Most of the pregnancies among the student body are from natural pairs, but the rest are from implantations. Done with eggs harvested from various ‘donors’.”

“Like young Qiri here, I see. So does that mean she is a mother?”

Her boss smiled, “indirectly, but yes. She has ninety-eight registered infants already born, and sixty three more scheduled to be born in the next few months. Of course that just covers the Neku girls that have been impregnated with her eggs.”

Terqu glanced at the young girl in question, she considered asking for her opinion, but decided not to. She had little doubt that the girl’s feelings on the matter had long since been conditioned. Little Qiri was likely more than happy to let her eggs be taken, and used at the discretion of others. “That's quite the list for someone so young.”

“Just a sign of how much demand there is for quality eggs like hers. Now why don’t you get started by checking the remaining egg level in her ovaries, and how much the drainer has collected.”

Terqu nodded, and got started on that. It took her only moments to find that her boss wasn’t kidding about Qiri nearly being out of eggs. On the display Terqu noted that the drainer was actively stimulating her ovulation cycle, and pulling out what few eggs remained, and she only had a couple dozen left in her ovaries. The drainer had a special collection module in which it was storing the extracted eggs, a module whose contents didn’t account for all the missing eggs. From the look of it, the drainer was designed so that the collection module could easily be swapped out. All evidence that supported what she had just heard.

“Interesting device, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Yes, it is quite something, and very efficient at what it does. Anyway, how many eggs does she have left?”

“A couple dozen in her ovaries, and about a hundred in the drainer,” replied Terqu.

“I see, not quite empty yet. We’ll just let it run for a few minutes, then, and get to work on her other procedures.”

“Well, If we are letting that run, I guess that means we start working on her memory? Seems odd, normally that is done last.”

“Nah, general health check, followed by the final administration of her special regimen.”

“Special regimen?”

“Nothing you need to know about, and before you ask. This regimen is only for Qiri, the other four don’t have it.”

“I see.”

“I’ll go ahead, and prepare that regimen. In the meantime, I’d like you to do a general health assessment.”

Terqu nodded, and got to work doing just that. Hooking up probes, and adjusting scanners so that she could get detailed information. As she ran the scans, she monitored the data. The picture she got back was of a remarkably healthy girl. Well aside from being nearly sterile. Her ovulation cycle had also been put into overdrive, but there was little sign of ill effects from that. Maybe the regimen her boss mentioned had something to do with that? For some reason she doubted that. The next item she noticed raised a few more questions, as some of these figures seemed more in line with a girl a couple of years older. Yet the rest was right in line for her age. With a sigh, she turned to her boss after the scan finished. 

“Sounds good, right in line with what I expect.” she replied while holding a series of injectors filled with various compounds. There were twenty of them. Terqu eyed them, wondering what exactly they were doing to Qiri. This whole treatment felt... unusual. 

“Some of these figures aren’t quite right though?”

“Perfectly in line with what I expect, especially with the regimen I have her on.”

“Can I ask what that regimen is supposed to do?”

“In short it is doing several things. Most importantly it allows her to realize abilities not normally found in the Neku population. Our implementation isn’t perfect, and only works in a small number of cases. Qiri here is one of those rare cases.”

Terqu nodded along, but she found herself wondering what she wasn’t being told about this. She barely even realized that under her breath she was asking some of those questions she had. Even as she started to administer the compounds as directed. Inject this one in soft tissue of the thigh, inject that one into the vein of the neck, inject this other one directly into the breast, inject that one behind the eye. With each one she had new questions about this, but she didn’t think she was going to get an answer. She had joined a military hospital after all, and it seemed information was even more closed off. At least for certain patients, and Qiri was one of them.

Eventually they moved on to checking her egg drainer implant again. By that point her ovulation cycle had ended, and surprisingly, at least for Terqu, her ovaries were empty. Qiri was now officially sterile, as all of her remaining eggs not already taken were inside that implant. Once that was removed, who knew where they would be sent. Terqu did have to wonder what other parties wanted Qiri’s eggs, and for what. As her boss had already said they weren’t being used for just breeding.

“Impressive, she lost far more eggs in a single cycle than she should have.”

“Yes, the implant dramatically increases the number of eggs that leave the ovaries during ovulation, not just the number, and speed of ovulation cycles. Quite impressive isn’t it?”

In a creepy sort of way, it was. Not that she said so. Instead, she inquired, “Would her cycle normalize after the implant is removed?”

“Mostly, it may take a few weeks for everything to normalize. Her body is currently used to ovulating multiple times a day. That will have to be monitored, naturally, especially since the implant will no longer be regulating her cycle.”

Terqu had to agree with that, and before she knew it they began removing the implant. Something which was thankfully designed to be easily removed, and that removal process answered another question she had previously had about Qiri. Once the implant was removed, they moved on to her memories. Archiving them, and storing a large number of them on a memory crystal. Some of those spaces were then filled with fake memories, others were left as blank spots which she was programmed to ignore. Apparently these spots were intentionally left blanks, so that they could be used later for imprinting special information. Information that would then be purged once there was no longer a reason for her to have it.

Once they were done with Qiri, she was asked to wait outside, and they moved on to the other four. Who all proved a little simpler. They didn’t have any weird regimens to inject them with. Each of them proved to have empty ovaries as well, and an implant with the final batch of eggs to extract. As for what was being done with the eggs of those girls, she got no more of an answer then she did about Qiri.

---

Megumi, having watched all of this, had her drone tag the individual Qiri. It seemed something interesting might be up with that. This academy was proving quite interesting. She wanted an agent on the ground to investigate it more thoroughly. How she was going to get one, she wasn’t quite sure yet. Having to insert one would be difficult.. Perhaps it was time to recruit? As for who, she seemed to already have a possible candidate.

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