Descend- Seeing Stars by Sean Oswald (the ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Jessie. I’m so proud that you were able to learn how to do what it was that you did there. And truthfully, it was my fault. I thought I could stand up longer than I did, or I guess I didn’t take into account the mental attacks. I am going to have to figure out how to strengthen my mind more.”

      Jay could feel the tension in Amelia and Trina. They both wanted to be down there hugging him. He knew they had been worried, and he would have probably apologized to them for biting off more than he could chew but they had chosen this tactic and now he would let them stew in it.

      Besides, it only took thirty seconds for the rest of his fuses to all come over. They were connected to him as one and while they might not be officially wives they were as close to him as any two people could be or in their case any twenty-three people could be, twenty-five if you counted all the Scarletts separately.

Eventually even Amelia and Trina broke down and it turned into a big hug fest for all of them. Jay didn’t think about it till later, but for once he had been physically close, kissing and hugging with all of his fuses that were present and he hadn’t even thought about sex once. When it occurred to him, he wondered if it was the first sign of growing up.

      The girls finally explained how they had been trying for a while to replicate what Jay had done with Meikiyo and Trina. The results had been so impressive that they wanted to be able to do it and since he always stressed that they were all fused together not just with Jay, it stood to reason that they should be able to do it with each other.

      The results were as they explained short lived in that they couldn’t hold the full fusion for more than three minutes so far and not with more than three of them. Even to get to this point they had needed to rely upon another girl, Trinity who’s power enabled the formation of links between other peoples’ powers. Still, Jay was impressed with their determination.

      After this conversation, the next few days became a blur. That would have been bad enough but with the time dilation, those five days turned into several years for him. Jay went from one responsibility to the next.

As the first week of an expected three-week trip was coming to a close, Jay was encouraged on several fronts. He had maximized the refinement of his fuses, at least physically. He still wasn’t willing to try refining the brains. Everyone’s skills had shot up incredibly, which is likely to be expected.

      For everyone else only a couple of years passed but because Jay was spending eighteen hours a day in time dilation, he almost felt like he was losing touch with the others. Sure, the sex was great and most of the girls had kept all their enthusiasm for it. Yes, the fusion allowed him to keep close to those girls. But single-minded dedication to a purpose, even one as important as rescuing his son and creating a safe place for the rest of the human race, was draining.

      Jay was a changed man, something which his wives regularly commented on. The only thing that kept him from turning into a hardened drone of a man was the connection with his fuses. Well, that and his kids. They had zero-time dilation so for them only five days passed. They helped to keep him grounded.

      He came to appreciate the time he spent with his children and their mothers more than anything else. Because of time dilation, Mia had long since delivered healthy twins, Chloe, and Daniel. They were still just tiny little bundles even with their accelerated growth, but they were further reminders of the future that he was fighting for.

      Jay was thankful that Ava hadn’t pushed the issue. She was being very patient, and they had settled into a good rhythm. He knew he was stringing her along somewhat by not giving her children yet, but he rationalized it that no matter how many years it felt like, it had actually only been five days.

      Other improvements had been made along the way. All of Team Jay and Team Miguel were now proud owners of the new implants rather than the A’snkarnt ones. This provided a sense of freedom. And from what he could tell the new implants worked even better than before. He could now open doors, operate the systems that produced food and other goods, or do simple things like shutting off the light with nothing more than a thought. It simplified many things.

      Some of the other tech was coming along nicely but the science division always tried to make it clear that while a few years of training for combat might seem like a long time, it wasn’t a long time in terms of developing inventions that were centuries if not more beyond anything they had known on Earth.

      Improvements to their body armor, a communication network that everyone could use for long distance transmissions, some vehicle options for those that were just faster under their own power, and some liquid metal thing that had a few of the girls all excited. He still remembered when they showed it to him.

      They had escorted him into one of the labs and Trudi had insisted on riding on his back with her hands over his eyes.

      “You realize, I can just scan everything in here, right?” Jay asked.

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that? Don’t you want some wonder and excitement in your life?” ,Trudi replied.

      Huong laughed and said, “Oh he gets plenty of excitement in his life. I make sure of that.”