RanPorn World

by The Altered Destinies

What if women ruled the world and men were all but extinct? How would that affect the events of "Ranma 1/2?" Not necessarily for the better as Ranma learns that there is a downside to being the only guy around in a world chock full of beautiful and horny women (Proof that some Pervert fantasies are not necessarily worth realizing)...

9. Chapter 9

RanPorn09

Porn World!

By Jim Robert Bader

(Inspired by the works of Rumiko Takahashi and so many others who do not deserve the blame for putting me up to this series...)

The Ninth Encore.

The XXX Factor

("World Without Men...")

WARNING-LEMON MERANGE FANFICTION AHEAD!
CONTAINS SCENES OF AN ADULT AND HIGHLY SUGGESTIVE NATURE THAT MIGHT NOT BE TO EVERYONE'S PALET. THIS IS A FANTASY WORLD IN WHICH 99.9% OF THE MEN HAVE BEEN KILLED OFF DUE TO AN ERRANT WISH MADE BY HAPPOSAI,
WITH THE SECONDARY CONSEQUENCE THAT ALL THE WOMEN ALIVE TODAY ARE YOUNG, BEAUTIFUL AND QUASI-IMMORTAL WITH A HEIGHTENED LIBIDO THAT COMPELS THEM TO MAKE LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER AT THE SLIGHTEST PRETEXT, WHICH THEY DO WITH GREAT ABANDON. YOU HAVE BEEN DULY WARNED!

Beijing Institute of International Health Studies (Adjoining the former Forbidden City), Beijing, China

"Welcome, ladies," Madam Chairwoman Ching Fa bowed deeply to the foreign visitors and guests arriving for the conference, "You honor us with your presence. May this meeting be both productive and fruitful in our mutual endeavors."

"On behalf of my delegation, Madam Chairwoman," the lead member of the Japanese delegation replied, "I thank you for personally inviting our participation. We trust everything has been arranged as per our prior agreement?"

"Indeed," Lady Ching replied, turning to indicate the members of her own delegation, "This is our Minister of Health and Advanced Traditional studies, Kho-Hom from the Qing-Hi province, her associate and assistant Ministers, Sarong and Silk, and over there is our advising representative of the Technical Bio-Research Institute, Doctor Lao-Kane, who also hails from the Qing-Hi province..."

"The so-called 'Amazon' delegation," the Japanese representative remarked as she took in the oddly assorted (but extremely attractive) trio of ladies from a near-mythical region of central China, "I've read all of your published reports so far concerning Project Jusenkyo, and I confess that I am extremely interested in hearing a more analysis of those magical springs and the properties that they are said to contain. My name is..."

"Doctor Katsuragi Noriko," the very tall and extremely well-built Professor Kho-Hom replied with a nod, "Indeed, I confess to be just as interested about your research with the Antarctica Project. And this young lady beside you?"

"Major Gozen Tomoe," the so-designated 'young lady' in full dress military uniform replied, "Office of Special Military Intelligence, called OSMI for short, though in some more informal circles the term most often used is something more like..."

"Ahem," Doctor Katsuragi interjected, "You'll have to forgive Major Gozen...she tends to have a rather salty tongue and speaks her mind quite freely...and this is not just personal testimony for her technique, I assure you."

"So, I'm a little outspoken," Tomoe shrugged her shoulders while giving Doctor Kho-Hom a blatantly interested scrutiny (one that caused Kho-Hom's wife, Silk, to bridle slightly), "This conference is about getting to the root cause of our latest pending crisis, right? So, I should think a free spirit who isn't afraid to say what's on her mind would be a welcome feature on this occasion."

"Yes," Doctor Lao-Kane remarked with a frank regard of the Japanese intelligence officer, "We can all see that for ourselves. Just what exactly does the 'special' part of your outfit stand for?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Tomoe gave the powder-blue haired woman a confident smirk, "The normal kind has proven inadequate for dealing with most of the problems that have arisen since the outbreak of the Virus, so obviously a special kind is what's called for in this situation."

"Did I forget to mention that she's also possessed of a deadly wit and fancies herself an incorrigible punster?" Doctor Katsuragi dryly noted.

"Thank you," Silk replied dryly, "We'll try not to incorrige."

"Frankly, I wouldn't place odds over who'd come out the better if these two get started," Lao-Kane murmured to her aunt, and Kho-Hom just smiled as she eyed her wife in a coy-yet-wary manner.

"Lastly there is Doctor Himosho Nagisa of the Kyoto Institute of Health and Safety," Doctor Katsuragi indicated the third member of her entourage, a mousy looking girl with short-trimmed ash blonde hair set in a classic "pageboy" style, "She will be presenting the findings of her research teams recent excavation of the Antarctic Project. We trust security will be maintained since many results of her expedition have been labeled highly confidential."

"You may be assured of this," Madam Ching replied, the waved a hand towards the conference center and said, "Shall we join the other delegates? I am certain that they are as eager as we are to hear your presentation."

Moments later these six women joined the other thirty-seven in attendance of this high-level conference as representatives of the major powers of seven continents convened for their briefing. Madam Ching was quick to call the meeting to order then turned the floor over to the first speaker, who was none other than Kho-Hom, who got down right to the point as she sensed that the mood of her fellow delegates was as randy as a class of first-year freshwomen anticipating an orgiastic recess.

"As you all know," she began, "Fifteen years ago the tragedy known as the Millennial Virus swept out from the Middle East to engulf the entire planet, and nearly three billion men died as a consequence over the subsequent five year period. There are now virtually no men left anywhere on earth, and yet the Virus continues to thrive within the bodies of the surviving women, reaping largely beneficial results for most of us but at the cost of rendering the vast majority of the worldwide population a tide of screaming nymphomaniacs who will drop everything at the spur of a given moment just to have sex with one another, often to the exclusion of daily, routine business."

"So, what's the problem?" Major Gozen spoke up all of a sudden, "The people, by and large, don't seem to mind the new status quo, and you have to admit it is a quieter planet-except for all the screams and orgasms."

"Ahem," Silk glared across the table at the Japanese intelligence officer then turned back towards her wife and said, "You were saying, Dear?"

Kho-Hom resumed her speech as if uninterrupted, "All of us lost family and close friends to the ravages of the Virus, yet we ourselves are advantaged by the perpetual youth, health and beauty that it bestows upon women. No other disease can thrive within our bodies since the Virus boosts our immune systems to nearly superhuman levels, and we can regenerate from even serious trauma that is not immediately life-threatening, so the death toll over the past ten years has plummeted to a mere fraction of a statistic. This has caused a considerable reshaping of worldwide social order as all societies have struggled to cope with the loss of men and the ascension of women, and problems once viewed as insoluble have been forced into a secondary role by the requirements imposed by such vast redistribution of power and influence. For example, here in China there was a rapid disintegration in the old social order with the loss of almost the entire politburo, and many of the far-flung provinces were quick to declare independence since the Chinese army itself had been badly decimated, culminating in the disaster that took place not too far from here in the Tianamen plaza, and the widespread breakdown of institutions charged with maintaining social order proved-in a great many respects-to be almost as great a threat to public health and safety as the Virus.

"But now a progressive society has taken the place of the old collectivist state, a transition accomplished through a great deal of pain and sacrifice yet which has allowed our nation to emerge from behind its bamboo curtain to take its rightful place as an equal among all civilized nations. As such over the past ten years a new order has gained predominance in the world, and many have even begun to adjust to the new ways of doing business and consider them superior to the old order that is long since dead and buried.

"Yet we cannot allow complacency to set in just because many of us are comfortable with our newfound liberty and power. Though men have perished their primary function as the instruments of our fertility has not yet been completely superceded. Despite great strides in the fields of recombinant DNA and cloning, which allows women to be artificially fertilized upon petition, we still suffer a serious obstacle to replenishing our overall populations, and if a more permanent solution is undiscovered we might even risk the extinction of the human race within a generation. That is why some research projects have been undertaken with the goal of finding a means of bringing men back into existence."

"But efforts in that regard so far have proven largely ineffective," Doctor Katsuragi pointed out, "I know since I oversee several of those working projects, and we've yet to overcome the fundamental problem that is posed by the continuing existence of the Virus."

"That is true," Lao-Kane agreed, "Even if we could somehow inoculate a handful of men with a cure for the Virus-assuming one could exist that did not first kill the patient-the women whom they might impregnate would be faced with the same problem. Boy children would either die in the embryonic stage or be converted into Herms, as happened with one out of every thousand men who were infected by the Virus, and the rest would grow up to be pure-strain women."

"Ladies," Madam Ching chided pointedly, "I believe that Doctor Kho-Hom still has the floor? Doctor Kho-Hom, please?"

"Perhaps it would be best to give a simple overview of the Virus itself and what fifteen years or research has told us about it," Kho-Hom resumed, touching a remote control set near to where she was sitting and causing the lights in the room to dim somewhat before a picture display came on, giving a holographic image that all the delegates could make out as a DNA-style double helix.

"This is what it all boils down to, ladies," she dramatically declared even as a set of genetic GATC letters with bar-code-like strands circled about the double helix, spelling out a complex molecule chain in full technical detail, "This is the Millennial Virus as we have come to know it. This...is Lilith."

She paused to let that thought sink in then called up another image that displayed a microscopic image of the Virus then resumed, "When it first appeared upon the world stage none of the health organizations of the time had any idea what to make of it, let alone how to cope with such a pernicious bug that seemed to appear everywhere at once and strike with such inexorable precision. It took three years and a staff of over a thousand doctors coordinating the efforts of thirteen medical teams on seven continents before the Virus could even be identified, and by that point it had already begun its work ravaging the world's civilization. Two years after its discovery and not a single remedy or anti-viral therapy could be implemented fast enough to spare the last of the men from going the way into extinction."

One of the delegates leaned closer and said, "There's something unusual about that molecular formation...it doesn't look like a normal DNA strand..."

"It's not," Doctor Katsuragi informed them, "My team took years to fully unravel it...and it's far more complex and overlapping, but still surprisingly terrestrial in ways that we are still trying to fathom."

"That's putting it mildly enough," Kho-Hom remarked before turning back to her diagrams and continuing her dissertation, "The effects the Virus had upon its victims were at first very subtle, the symptoms difficult to distinguish from a common flu, but once it set in there was no relent as the inevitable happened. First the patient developed respiratory symptoms, then their immune system would collapse, then cardiovascular problems would arise, followed in short order by intense fever, followed by a coma and then death as the body would simply shut down from total neurological melt down. Not even the corpses of the victims would be spared since the Virus, as a lingering after-effect, would cause rapid decomposition over the period of a week following death, so hasty burials or cremation became the standard practice the world over. The Virus could be spread either through airborne or physical contact and seemed to leapfrog international boundary lines with a ridiculous ease that confounded early investigations.

"But it turns out that the Virus was not so mysterious in its effects as we at once had imagined. Turns out this bug was specifically designed to promote the 'X' gene and to eliminate 'Y' chromosomes as though they were alien matter. The Virus truly had a benevolent intention in that it reinforced our genetic code and fortified the integral structure of the X-chromosomes that make up a woman's body. That had the effect of rejuvenating even worn out or exhausted cellular tissues and could revitalize stem cell reproduction to reverse the aging process and thus maximize our health and beauty to whatever ideal standard was most natural to us individually. Excess body fat tended to be metabolized more efficiently rather than stored as excess mass in the body...all save for those most desirable places around the chest, ass and hips, where the effect is most aesthetically pleasing..."

There was some tittering and chuckles from around the table, for everyone present was more than amply aware of the fact that improved physical appearance had been a general effect enjoyed by the vast majority of women upon the planet. Kho-Hom herself smiled at the irony of her own statement and could not help glancing down at her considerable bustline, which-even disguised by conservative dress- projected outward from beneath her clothing in a rather unmistakable manner.

She cleared her throat and then continued, "Also too, the restoration of youth and vitality makes it all but impossible to determine a woman's age by surface detection. Only a full medical examination of bone density and tissue fiber in certain areas prone to gradual calcification can a person's age be properly estimated, and even there the Virus has greatly slowed down the natural progress of cellular and neural degeneration."

"You're telling me about this?" Silk gave her wife a coy look, "My withered old grandmother now looks like a girl in her early twenties, and you should see the way she carries on, chasing other girls around young enough to be mere toddlers when she was in her nineties."

"Don't even get me started on my own grandmother," Kho-Hom murmured as she glanced down and examined her crib notes, then resumed, "About the only ones not noticeably affected by the Virus were young girls beneath the age of puberty, and even there the health benefits are noticeable since the Virus works from early conception to maximize cellular integrity and insure all children are born without defects and grow up to be healthy adult women. Of course, I don't need to inform anyone here of what happens when a girl enters her adolescent phase and the hormones start to kick in with a vengeance, as happened a few years ago with my own eldest daughter..."

Again there was a chorus of laughter, for many of those present indeed had first-hand experience with the phenomenon known as "Teen Rage," when girls began to notice other girls in a very decisive way, and where the first experiments in sexual behavior were initiated, with all the resulting trauma and social disruption that occurred as collateral damage.

"Of course another feature of the Virus is that it is only effective upon humans," Comb continued, "Which is fortunate since any other organism that lost its male counterpart would immediately become extinct within a single generation..."

"A good thing that," one of the other representatives quipped, "My cat is hyper enough as she is, and God knows what she'd be like if she were climbing the walls in search of other girlfriends."

Comb sobered noticeably as she began the next phase of her presentation, "That is why it was so fiendishly devastating to our men, for what the Virus did was to undermine their physical structure so that they literally began to fall apart from within down to the basic cellular level. It could take only a few days or as long as a couple of weeks before reaching terminal conditions, but there was no slowing it down or even reversing the process once it had started. And as for the means of transmission...well, it turns out that women themselves were the ideal carriers, and that the sidereal effect that it had on us-both psychologically and physically-all but made it inevitable that men would succumb to the ravages of our libidos."

"In other words we fucked our men to death," one of the other delegates rather crudely framed things.

"Speak for yourself," Tomoe spoke up with a mildly ruffled dignity, "Men weren't my thing even when they were around, and I certainly don't own up to giving any of them the Virus directly."

"But what of the number of women you were with at the time?" Doctor Katsuragi pointed out.

"Ah...well, there you have me," Tomoe reluctantly conceded, "But even if it's only indirectly, I don't much like the implication that we collectively share in the guilt for the deaths of our menfolk."

"What my Airen is attempting to explain," Silk volunteered, "Is that contact between women became a major means by which the Virus was spread from one party to the next, and yet once given to a man he himself became a carrier and could spread the disease with a simple cough or a handshake. And women he subsequently infected would become carriers of the Virus, and so on, and as such thwarted all efforts at containment until even the most cloistered man living in solitary conditions was ultimately infected."

"Quite," Kho-Hom resumed, causing another shift of images to accompany her lecture, "Perhaps a word here is necessary in the defense of all infected women. You see, one of the unfortunate side-effects of being given perfect health and vitality was the sudden increase in sexual appetite that came with a constant flood of hormonal stimulation. Women found themselves perpetually on the rut to have sex and it became a drive as intense as eating and sleeping, so much so that the desire for sex overrode normal reason and became spontaneously compulsive...so long as there was even a slight attraction between them and another person. Obviously this onslaught of carnal appetites made it difficult for the men to resist the Lemming-like call of temptation, and since it took time before anyone realized the true nature of this crisis the worst of the damage was already done within the first six months of the release of the Virus. Up until anyone made a connection it seemed to many minds as though these infected women were suffering from a kind of congenital madness, and some attempts were made to isolate them, even going to the extreme-in a few cases-of killing the women, though even there the Virus made it hard to permanently slay them."

"But-historically speaking-men would do almost anything to avoid the fear of death," Doctor Lao-Kane observed, "And the men in power back then were very desperate to try anything to save themselves from elimination."

"Just so," Kho-Hom nodded towards her niece before resuming, "But nothing that they tried would work, and so many of them subsequently died that power naturally was delegated to those women who were still able to function in a level-headed and reasonably objective manner. That was when the international community got really serious about finding a cure for this problem, and all sorts of radical therapies were proposed and adopted. The short time frame made it imperative to find something that could counteract the effects of the Virus, but the technology and best minds of the time drew up short in the end, and the last male patient...died in intensive care never knowing that he was the last man on the planet. Or effectively so as far as historical records can determine."

"And that last man being none other than your husband, Auntie," Lao-Kane said gently, seeing the tight expression on the face of her elder.

"Yes," Kho-Hom replied, her face and tone briefly tensed with an effort to regain her self-control, but then at last she sighed and added, "He was a good and brave man...and I very much miss him."

Silk touched the hand of her wife in silent solace, and for a moment all around the table gave their respectful nods in sympathy for the purple haired doctor.

"But not all men died off," one delegate murmured softly to another at the far end of the table, "Some were converted by the Virus into Hermaphrodites...and some women as well according to what I've been hearing."

"I have heard those rumors too, of course," the delegate beside the other woman whispered, "Of a select few women who were born as men, endowed with extraordinary gifts...but that's for another time, if you catch my meaning..."

"So much for basic history lessons," a delegate from the African Congressional delegation at last remarked to break through the sudden tension, "But we all have suffered our share of tragedy and know what happened when the men of our societies began to drop like wheat before the scythe of Azrael. We are here to learn something more about the very nature and origins of the Virus itself, such as why you have begun calling it 'Lilith...'"

"Ah yes," said Doctor Katsuragi, "I believe that Doctor Kho-Hom was about to arrive at that point, but in all honestly I feel that my team is better qualified to explain how we arrived at our conclusions. But first...please continue with your presentation, Kho-Hom-san."

"Another point to be raised at this stage of my lecture," Kho-Hom began again in a normal tone of voice, only to pause with a slightly self-effacing smile, as if to apologize for her next statement, "On why we all behaved with such little restraint over our own actions in the times of such widespread tragedy, and how-though things have mellowed out considerably in recent years-we still continue to be affected by the Virus like a bunch of hormonally driven teenagers, so quick to lose all control and self-restraint at the drop of a kerchief."

There was considerably squirming all around the chamber, and many embarrassed grimaces by various delegates caught off-guard by the bluntness of that remark, yet struck by the honesty as well since few of them were in a position to deny the gist of Kho-Hom's statement.

"As I said before," the purple haired Amazon continued, "Women, for the most part, have been affected by the Virus in a way that enhances their natural sex drive to a point where ordinary levels of self-control and discretion are largely ineffective. At first this was observed in the form of increased heterosexual appetite, but as the number of available men began to drop away women turned to the next most available resource, each other, and when two Virus-affected women go at it the results put to shame the most lurid male fantasies of the pre-Virus era. Women would go at it for hours, even days without relent and find their appetites hardly whetted, yet thanks to their increased stamina and general vitality they could afford such exclusive exertions...which was not true for the unfortunate men who got ravaged, who generally tended to die from exhaustion."

"Thus giving rise to the common term used by coroners for cause of death, 'Died with a Smile on his face,'" Silk remarked, earning a cross look from her wife and general snickers from around the table.

"Yes, well...gallows humor aside," Kho-Hom resumed, "The present situation is that, with no men in the picture, women have-quite naturally-turned to one another in the pursuit of physical and emotional satisfaction. To us now, living in the present, this fact seems quite natural and is taken as ordinary by the younger generations, but for those of us who remember what life was like pre-Virus it is often difficult to believe how stridently opposed many of us were to the whole idea that we could be in such relationships. Why, most people even commonly believed that homosexual impulses existed only in a decided minority of the general population. Ask most women of the pre-Virus era and they would vehemently protest that they had no interest whatsoever in sleeping with another person of the same gender..."

"I remember hearing that rot growing up," Tomoe snorted, "Back then people would point the finger at me and call me 'ecchi' or 'hentai,' calling me a 'Retsu' behind my back and implying that I was somehow inferior to them because I'd rather eat tail than suck cock. Guess that sure showed them, eh?"

"In defense of that now antiquated and highly discredited pattern of belief from the old days," Silk spoke up once again, "Most women in the world were conditioned to believe that the world consisted of a strict separation between what were rather laughingly referred to as 'Gay' and 'Straight' people. It was a commonly held attitude that you were either one or the other, and that being with the 'Other' was somehow bad for you and would mark you as a social pariah."

"Yes," Kho-Hom agreed, "But it seems that there is a biological basis for some aspects of the old prejudice, something our research has uncovered that gives a greater understanding to the workings of the Virus. It turns out that the distinguishing characteristics of both X and Y-chromosomes have a certain...compatibility to one another that is both complimentary and antagonistic. It is true what the old poetic legends say about us being two halves of a perfect whole that come together to form a union that is greater than the two parts taken separately, and that women without men in our lives are...incomplete in some ineffable fashion..."

"Oh come on there," a woman from the English branch of the European delegation protested, "Are you saying we're all incomplete just because we don't have husbands and boyfriends? What a load of bloody rubbish!"

"I'll certainly go along with that, ma cheri," the French delegate said with a look of coy appreciation for the beauty of her nearest companions, "I do not feel incomplete where there are ladies to be had and who share the warmth of their charms for our mutual...appreciation."

"I believe that Doctor Comb meant to imply something other than an atavistic need to be like our mothers," a third member of the European delegation spoke up, one who bore the name of Farnia Von Volker and was as famous a celebrity scientist as any other woman present, which accorded her a measure of respect from her colleagues (who were equally taken by her charming looks and presence), "I am no less enthralled with the enjoyment of sex with other women than any full-fledged Lesbian present, yet I confess to having at times sensed a certain...absence in my life that I find quite inexplicable."

"You mean...such as the ability to become mothers by having children?" the Italian delegate pointed out, "After all, as satisfying as sex may be with another woman, such activity hardly perpetuates the species."

"Actually," Kho-Hom remarked, "We have come to believe that bisexual activity played a crucial role in the early development of human civilization. Long before the rise of the somewhat brutish Iron Age culture, where men asserted themselves somewhat more aggressively over their women than was typical in the earlier Bronze age period...or so the records of our own Amazon ancestors would incline us to believe..."

"Your example is hardly typical for all of us," the Russian delegate noted, "Granted that your Scythian ancestors share a common heritage with my own people, but the three or four millennia that your people have dwelled in central China as an isolated community would tend to make your views...somewhat unique around this table."

"Granted that," Kho-Hom conceded, "But indications are that early human tribal cultures allowed for some bisexual activity among women and men as different sub-groups as a sort of social bonding process that actually assisted in reproduction and child rearing. Extended families were built around highly nomadic hunter-gatherer cultures with labor shared along strictly gender-oriented lines...and with a somewhat higher mortality rate for men than women...those tribes and clans often had to allow for more than one woman sharing a campfire and the duties of nurturing their young for the sake of their male providers. It is also a known fact that the majority of men found the sight of two women making out to be highly erotic, which no doubt added variety as a spice to their vigorous sex lives. The flip side is that women often died from complications arising through childbirth, so allowances had to be made for women to raise the children of their late female companions, and a fertile male would often find himself fathering children on more than one woman in a lifetime."

"So much for monogamy being an exclusive lifetime contract," Tomoe sniffed, "One reason why I've never felt the urge to settle down myself, though from what you're saying it sounds like polygamy in the cavewoman days had definite biological advantages."

"You just want to feel smugly justified for being a promiscuous wanton who takes her pleasures wherever and whenever you can find it, eh ma cheri?" the French delegate said slyly.

"Hey, does the Pope eat pussy?" Tomoe grinned back, earning a scowl of disapproval from the Italian delegate.

"As I was saying," Kho-Hom made a point of clearing her throat and glaring at the delegates in particular who were interrupting her lecture, "The urge to bear children is instinctive in most of us, but not exclusive to the desire for physical pleasure found through casual sex for purely recreational reasons. In the most ideal sense two people who form a bond have a natural desire to perpetuate their genes through the act of procreation, and in the backs of many minds the notion that 'Lesbianism equals Sterility' or exclusivity was a strong reason why Iron Age civilizations began to pass laws forbidding or curtailing bisexual and homosexual behavior. But as we all know now the two desires for love and child-rearing do not have to be at odds with one another, and Lesbian couples make just as could a parenting role model as the old Heterosexual ideal of the 'Nuclear Family.' Thus a means must be found to allow all couples who desire to have children to bear them without risk or complication to the offspring."

"That is more-or-less of a given," Doctor Katsuragi murmured with a thoughtful expression, "But surely procreation alone is not the sole exclusive reason for our wanting to bring men back into existence?"

"What else are men good for?" Tomoe asked before shrugging, "Unless you're heavily into penetration with a real dick instead of a fake one, and if that's all you girls are after, then any good Herm ought to satisfy the bill."

"But the supply of those types is a serious issue that needs addressing," the American delegate known as Colonel Lake pointed out, "At present they are the primary source for sperm that can be used to fertilize some select few women, but it would be vastly unfair to heap yet more burden on their lives than most Hermaphrodites experience now as a coveted minority risking widespread female persecution."

"So, we come back to the issue of Men once again," the Russian delegate snorted, "Yet aside from breeding purposes, you seem to be implying that they were essential to our lives for other reasons?"

"It's quite simple, really," Silk explained on behalf of her wife, "Men and women were as different from one another as night is from day, yet the two genders balanced each other out, and not just biologically but psychologically as well, which was why most men tended to drive most women crazy."

"And yet those differences, in the end, were the things that determined the outcome of their fate," Lao-Kane pointed out, "And not just the hormones that flowed when both sexes tended to be in the same picture."

"True enough," Kho-Hom sighed, "You could tell the difference just by holding hands with a man that there was something different about them right down to the cellular level. The 'Y' gene, after all, was something of a mutant variation grafted by nature on a perfect 'X' gene some half a billion years or so ago back when the primordial ooze covered most of the planet. Asexual reproduction...a form of self-cloning, kept a uniform sea of plant-like bacteria at the stage of slow evolution, but once the 'Y' gene imposed bisexual-or, if you prefer-Bi-Gender reproduction upon the world things really started to take off from a biological standpoint. With two sets of chromosomes coming together you get genetic diversity and the potential for change from one generation to the next, and when the best traits come together the resulting hybrid is often an improved adaptation over the parents. That is how nature brought complex life forms into the world...and yet with the disruption of that pattern our genes still cry out to be satisfied, to find the other set that we need for our potential growth from one generation onto the other."

"Sounds to me as if you're justifying the prejudice of 'Straight' people against homosexuality," a delegate from Russia frowned deeply, her bushy eyebrows nearly coming together.

"That was not my point at all," Kho-Hom assured them, "I am merely attempting to explain why, for most of us who liked men in the old days, the loss of masculinity in partnerships is always in the background. Mind you, I love my current wife very deeply...even when she vexes me something awful and makes my life that much more complicated..."

"Always happy to do my part to keep things lively, Airen," Silk smirked with a sweetness that was the rival to her namesake, "Of course with us the choice was either to get married or to kill each other, and we pleasantly chose the lesser of two vices."

"Anyway," Kho-Hom stressed the word to partially conceal her exasperation, "Without men for partners we turned to other women and found great satisfaction in our new unions. And yet, as hard as we try to be satisfied, those of us who had Hetero-inclinations always feel the yearning for the missing 'Y' gene, and so our lust is tinged with frantic needs that can never be wholly sated, which is why so many of us seek for variety and try out a good many partners in search of our 'perfect mate,' the one who can leave us feeling whole and complete. This need is so intense at times that we jump every time we come close to finding some aspect of our missing components, and yes, we have the ability to enjoy our sex with just the same fervor as we might with men when we find a woman who can satisfy our psychological and emotional needs for a life-partner."

"Or with a Herm," Lao-Kane pointed out, "For those of us who prefer deep penetration by something other than a dildo."

"Yet inn our case it was a little like finding what you needed in your own back yard," Silk winked at Kho-Hom in a meaningful manner, "We've been friends our entire lives, even experimented a little when we were younger, but only after we lost the men who mattered most in our lives did we turn from grief to find love and aggravation in the arms of one another."

"Particularly the latter," Kho-Hom murmured faintly before returning her voice to a pleasantly mellow tone, "The difference between those of us who might-for lack of a better term-be labeled as 'Bisexuals,' and those who fall under the categories as 'Lesbians' and 'Hermaphrodites' is that we lack what they have...they meaning that Lesbians and Hermaphrodites have a decided advantage in biology that allows them to maintain a greater degree of control over their lusts. You see, true Lesbians lack any kind of a need for male sexual companionship and simply do not respond to the 'Y' gene with any great intensity or favor. They are not 'anti-man' in any true sense of the word, they are simply indifferent to masculine attractiveness and are unable to relate to the need of we 'Hetero-chicks' to feel a cock between our legs. Similarly-as was mentioned before-some men who did not die from the Virus were changed into Hermaphrodites, or 'Herms' for short, possessing both traits of male and female genders. Their genes were somehow altered by the Virus from 'Y' to something more like a hybrid 'XY,' or even 'XYX,' which was just enough of a change to camouflage them against the negative effects of the Virus. They still enjoy the positive aspects of life and beauty enhancement, but they lack the intense need of a 'Y' gene that tends to drive most other ladies to distraction. Possessing a penis themselves helps a lot in that regard, but their need for companionship is somewhat more muted, and thus they can think rationally at most times and not feel compelled to wildly promiscuous behavior."

"So, in a word we're normal and you guys are the ones who have a problem," Tomoe helpfully pointed out in her typically crude manner.

"That is one way of putting it, yes," Silk replied, "Which is why so many Lesbians have risen to positions of power and influence, what with your ability to control the lusts that drive most of the rest of us to such distraction."

"There is something else that ought to be taken into consideration here," Lao-Kane pointed out, "Lesbians, while admittedly in better control of their sexual needs than most of the rest of us, do suffer in relationships with regular women who lack their ability to remain constant and faithful. Longstanding biological needs have conditioned most women to desire fidelity in a partner, something few normal girls are even capable of at the present, while in the bad old days of before the Virus the common tendency for most women was to eye a partner as exclusively their own, which automatically made many of them suspicious of the attentions of another female towards their partners. This is just as true for Lesbians as it was for Hetero girls in the days where men were considered guarded property, and women would tend to sharpen their nails on one another rather than risk the loss of a loved one's personal attention."

"That was a large reason why so many women refused to perceive their own bisexual tendencies in the old days," Silk remarked, "They would eye one another and subconsciously size their opponents up while comparing their own assets and matching adequacy versus inadequacy, which was why women of the old era tended to behave so catty."

"Not too surprising on the whole," Doctor Katsuragi observed, "It is a known fact that women tended to dress up and make themselves fancy for the benefit of other women, not so much as for the men, who tended to be...shall we say, much less observant of fashion and tasteful apparel?"

"They ought to just have gotten themselves laid with a few girls to work that out of their system," the representative of Brazil remarked, which earned a few guffaws around the table since it was well known that Rio de Jinaro (her name as well as the city of her birth) delighted in throwing huge orgiastic parties that involved lots of women freely partaking in a hedonistic free-for-all that was literally no-holds-barred.

"Well, that certainly wouldn't have hurt them much," Lao-Kane conceded before resuming, "As bad as it can be for Lesbians having to relate to the lase faire attitudes of their Bisexual sisters, Herms have it especially bad since their possession of a cock automatically makes them a target for discrimination, especially since most Bi-girls are hungry for cock and tend to lose all self-control when they see one."

"I know," Colonel Lake sighed, "I have a daughter of my own who has that problem, and anytime she appears in something that shows even a little bit of crotch she tends to start a riot. My wife and I have tried everything we can think of to help her fit in...but she still winds up having to adopt masculine dress with a specially padded jock strap."

"Look," another one of the American delegation put things bluntly, "That's all fascinating, well and good, but if it's all the same to you, we came here to learn more about the Lilith project, and I'd rather we got to that before the next term's elections."

"Incidentally, Colonel Lake-taisa," Doctor Katsuragi mused as she eyed her blonde colleague from across the table, "Who do you favor to win the White House next year...Snow or Clinton?"

"I'm not into bloody politics," Colonel Virginia Lake of the American Defense Intelligence Agency sniffed softly, "I'm only in favor of whichever leader will let me do my job of protecting the interests of both my country and the world, which is why Lilith needs to be addressed here."

"Ah yes," Doctor Katsuragi bowed apologetically to Kho-Hom, "If you would yield the floor to me for a moment, Doctor?"

"By all means," Kho-Hom agreed, "If it meets with your approval, Madam Chairwoman?"

"I see no reason to object to this," Chiang-Fa agreed, "Indeed, I am as curious as anyone else here to learn more of what you and your team discovered in the Antarctic, Doctor."

Katsuragi Noriko acknowledged the request with a nod then said, "You have heard some portion of what has been discovered concerning the origins of the Millennium Virus, how an East European specialist in Bio-weapons research named Gregorio Chezlovski spliced together a new strain of bacteria that had been discovered in the Antarctic with the Ebola Virus to create a lethal hybrid that he code-named Lilith, and that this modern plague was unleashed upon the world as the indirect-and quite unintentional-result of the long-running Middle East crisis. You may also have heard the rumor that Doctor Chezlovski created the Virus out of grief and despair caused by the recent death of his wife in the days when there was still an Iron Curtain. Something about wanting to punish all men and protect all women from future defilement and exploitation. Of course it is doubtful that he had any idea what the ultimate results of his labor would mean for life on the planet, nor did he live long enough to see the extent of the tragedy that he unleashed upon all of us..."

"Get to the point, please," Tomoe urged her companion (and nominal superior) before turning a smile on the other delegates and adding, in a cocky voice, "Just wait'll you hear this, it'll blow out your vibrators."

"Yes...well," Katsuragi replied as she used her own remote to conjure up an aerial image of the continent of Antarctica, "Tracing down the origins of the other half of the Lilith Virus brought us to this remote area buried beneath a mile of permafrost where we set up our investigation. Preliminary analysis led us to suspect that the area was the remains of an ancient meteor crater that crashed into the southern hemisphere over four hundred thousand years ago, sometime during the mid-range period of one of the last great ice ages. Subsequent analysis, however, concluded that the meteor was the remains of some manner of spacecraft, quite obviously of extraterrestrial origins."

There were murmurs around the table, and then someone asked, "Are you serious? An alien spacecraft? And from that far back in the ancient past?"

"Believe me, we were just as skeptical and incredulous as you at this discovery," Doctor Katsuragi assured them, "Even more so when traces of residual organic matter also found at the crash site proved to be nearly human to a degree of kinship that defies mathematical odds and calls into question the very notion of parallel evolution."

"Nearly human?" one of the Russian delegates asked, "How so?"

Doctor Katsuragi called up another holographic image of two DNA strands and held them up for comparison to one another, "Less than one tenth of one percentage point, which is considerably less than the two percentage points that separates us from the lower primates. The difference in this case is that the Mitochondrial strands preserved by the ice proved beyond doubt that the crew of the vessel were entirely female and would have resembled us so perfectly that if one were in this room right now we would be unable to discern any physical difference whatsoever. Only a detailed medical analysis would turn up any internal structural anomalies, and those might well be the result of thousands of years of genetic drift that have taken place since the crash landing."

"Are you suggesting that these aliens and ourselves are in some way distantly related?" a European delegate asked with an incredulous expression.

"That is one possible theory," Katsuragi admitted, "Of course we have yet to eliminate the possibility that these alien women might well be our direct genetic ancestors, and I'm sure you could see where the implications of that investigation are leading."

There were more murmurs from around the table, then Tomoe Gozen straightened up in her chair and adopted a serious mien before saying, "It gets even better than this, ladies. Further analysis of other genetic samples taken from the sight turned up an anomalous jelly-like compound that, after much study and further testing, proved to be itself organic in nature...and-get this-it appears that this compound was also, at one time, human, but possessing of a rudimentary 'Y' chromosome pattern. In other words it was male, but far less structured than our own genetic pattern."

"Are you saying that this research turned up not one but two possible alien ancestor races of the present human race?" an American delegate asked, "And that they both arrived here somewhere during the mid-Paleolithic period...when Homo sapiens were just then emerging as a species?"

"Hai," Tomoe agreed, "But it may be possible that the two groups were not really together as we understand the term. There was some evidence that the ship had been through some sort of military action prior to the crash landing and that it was clearly designed as a warship. Of course I could just be paranoid in my thinking, but it comes with the terrain in my line of work."

"I'm still not clear about what this has to do with the outbreak of the Virus," the African delegate named T'Cheil from Wakanda remarked, "Are you suggesting that these aliens were the source of the strain known as Lilith?"

"Hardly," Katsuragi replied, calling up the aerial map once again, only turning the focus away from the edge of the crash site towards a large dark mass that was visible as a dot a hundred meters from the crash site. Indicating this the head research said, "This...is Lilith."

The image was magnified several times over until its shape could be more readily discerned, at which point there were astonished gasps from around the table, for the scale of the thing as given marked the humanoid shape to be over thirty meters tall with a pole-like projection protruding from its stomach.

"In ancient mythology," Tomoe began, "Lilith was a fertility goddess who became identified with dark forces hostile to humanity. Jewish mysticism converted her into the first wife of Adam, said to be his equal in every way but possessed of a sharp tongue and a strongly independent spirit. She proved to be less than an ideal wife for the first man, so God created a second woman named Eve from Adam's rib cage. Eve was obedient and submissive to her husband's will, so Adam turned towards her, leaving Lilith feeling deeply rejected. Accordingly she turned against the children Eve bore to Adam and sought to murder them, only to be repelled by three Angels who then set about to murder the children of Lilith, thus symbolizing on earth the fratricidal nature of a war that was already raging in heaven."

"Are you saying...?" the Australian representative gasped.

"That this is the real Lilith," Tomoe replied, "We know it to be her name because it was inscribed upon her body in Enochian lettering, the written language said to be the tongue of the Angels. Similarly, notice that long weapon that is presently protruding from her stomach? Researchers dubbed it the Lance of Longinus, though in actuality we have no idea what it's called, only that it seems to be the only thing that is holding her at bay, for-incredulous as this may sound-the body shows no signs of decomposition and even has a faint metabolic signature, indicating that she may still be living."

This time only silence greeted these words as the delegates all sat and reflected upon this new information, then at last someone said, "You mean an actual living goddess was discovered in Antarctica...and this is the first that any of us have even heard about it?"

"Hey, be glad you haven't heard of her until now," Tomoe shrugged, "Because if that bitch ever wakes up it could mean a very bad day for the rest of the planet."

"There are some indications, based on interpretations of certain obscure passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls, that imply the very thing that Major Gozen is referring to," Katsuragi noted, "It appears that the ancient Jewish mystics had some sort of inside information that hints of a great war in the heavens that affected the destiny of both men and angels. The legend has it that, should Lilith ever awaken, that there will be final judgement and eventual unification of all living beings, and then the world as we know it will be no more and all will be of one mind and flesh in perfect harmony...or words to that effect anyway, though they seem ominous enough to imply terrible things would be in the offing."

"Allegedly we'd all have to undergo the 'Trials of the Seventeen Angels,' or something like that," Tomoe shrugged, "Ancient languages and mythologies aren't my thing, but what we know for a fact is that the source of the Millennial Virus itself came from samples that the initial Russian team of investigators who discovered Lilith's body took away for study in Moscow, and which eventually found their way into the hands of Gregorio Chezlovski."

The Russian delegate was on her feet in an instant, "This is outrageous! Are you saying that the very existence of the Virus is all due to us...?"

"Sit down, Ivania," the American delegate urged, "This happened during the days of the bad old Soviet Union and doesn't apply to the current government, and more than you could be held accountable for the weapons programs that used to eat up so much of the resources of both our countries."

"No one is blaming anyone here for the way things turned out, Luchesko," Madam Ching said reassuringly, "The ones who committed these crimes are long since dead and finding punishment in the afterlife, but our purpose here is to serve the interests of the living."

"Precisely so," Katsuragi noted, "However it came to be so, there is now no doubt in our minds that the key component to the Millennium Virus was none other than the genetic code spliced from a sample taken from the being known as Lilith and grafted to the Ebola Virus to make it a particularly deadly and pernicious form of bio-weapon, the kind that killed by discriminating between genders with a clear bias towards our fair sex that has totally remade the face of an entire planet."

"Where is this Lilith being now, cheri?" the French representative asked amid the many hushed voices who were silently chewing over that last statement.

"Right where we found her, encased in ice and undergoing intensive study," Tomoe responded, "We don't have the facilities to move, let alone hold and contain her, and no way are we taking any chances of accidentally waking her up. Maybe a man might do something rash and machismo-like and ignore all of the warnings, but not my people."

"I find it an incredible notion that some giant alien, whom you claim is a progenitor, being not only alive after nearly half a million years, but still able to influence events in the present era?" the Russian delegate said frankly.

"But not so strange when you consider the complexity of the genetic code for the subject named Lilith," Doctor Katsuragi remarked, then turned to her other companion, the until-now silent Himosho Nagisa, "But Doctor Himosho has something else of value to contribute on that subject. Nagisa-san, please relate the results of your group's collective studies."

The mousy-seeming blonde Japanese woman sat more erectly in her chair and gave the delegates a courtesy nod before going spreading out a folder and its contents upon the desk in front of her, then saying in a serious tone, "As previously stated, our research regarding the entity known to us as Lilith has turned up some troubling yet intriguing correlations to ancient manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls regarding a prophesy about the end of humanity and all life upon this planet. An event called the Instrumentality would, allegedly, cause a fusion of all the living people left upon the Earth into a singular entity, where we would be nothing more than cells in a colossal body of Brognadanian proportions. Necessarily this would mean the suspension of individual human consciousness, an event that none of us here, I should imagine, would look forward to with any great enthusiasm or approval."

"Why would anybody want such a bloody thing?" Colonel Lake asked in appalled dismay, "And why would any allegedly superior being want to cause such a thing in the first place?"

"Because certain modes of philosophy on that point holds that the suffering and unhappiness of the world was brought about by separation," Doctor Himosho explained, "The scrolls indicate that, at one time in human existence, such separation did not exist, that all were part of a collective pool of consciousness called the Unimind, that our far-distant ancestors were once superior beings who strode the Universe with godlike ease and could shape the flow of both energy and matter with a thought as according to their needs as defined by the collective good of all people."

"Sounds like bloody nonsense to me," Tomoe snorted, "I've read those texts and I'm inclined to think that the bozos who wrote them were eating the wrong kinds of mushrooms with their unleavened bread, and who knows what Ergot combined with the water out there was doing to their ascetic meditations? I'd probably think I talked to God too if I had their kind of diet..."

"If only we didn't have that rather inconvenient body buried deep in the icepack," Doctor Katsuragi pointed out, "Otherwise I'd be inclined to agree with you, Major."

"I fail to understand how uniting everyone into some sort of colossal blob with no individuality or free will is supposed to make an improvement on the lot of human existence," Colonel Lake scoffed acidly.

"It is a bit unclear to know where truth ends and legends spawn into myths," Doctor Himosho said with a bit more assertiveness to her tone and direction, "But what is known is that Lilith is also a descendant from that Elder Race that the texts refer to as the Old Ones...the beings who existed before there were even Gods and Mortals. As near as we can reconstruct things, our world was visited some six million years ago by these Elders, who were tall and ethereal and not entirely what we would call corporeal, being that their physical form was partially extra-dimensional. They were more like energy beings who could create a self-enclosure out of physical matter to house their vast potential in this world. I think the best term to describe them would be the giants of ancient legend that we may call the Seraphim, who served in a great celestial chorus in perfect harmony with the Unimind, their version of Godhood."

"Fascinating, mes amies," the French delegate pointed out, "But what is all this leading towards, me qui?"

"It's quite simple, really," Doctor Katsuragi replied, "These Ancients found our primitive ape ancestors and began to toy with their genetic code to speed up the process of our evolution in order to create a companion race that could serve their needs on an entirely physical level."

"That is more or less what our conclusions lead us to believe," Doctor Himosho noted, "In a sense they were toying with the natural order, but to their way of viewing things they were simply trying to help us to become more like they were, a process that went on through the long centuries of our mutual association, and eventually they helped give rise to our Cro-Magnon ancestors, who were very much like us in terms of anatomy and development, save that they had larger brain cases and had evolved psychic abilities that have long since atrophied in the current Homo sapiens species."

"What?" the Russian delegate sat upright once again, "Are you saying that we are inferior to these creatures...?"

"Not precisely, no," Doctor Himosho explained, "Only that evolution took a somewhat different turn than a strictly upward incline. You see...the early Cro-Magnons were far more ape-like than ourselves, but their mental abilities were quite staggering, having been developed in tandem with long time association with the Ancients. Gradually they began to lose their more animalistic qualities, became more upright and far less hairy and lost the vestigial tails to become more like what we regard as human. Unfortunately, there were unforeseen consequences that came from their accelerated development into a superior race of sapient creatures...those atavistic qualities from their animal sides began to interact with their higher consciousness, and in turn infected the Unimind with the more earthly contamination of emotions that were never previously held by the Ancients."

"Emotions such as greed, rage, envy and hatred," Doctor Katsuragi duly noted, "Before, when there was unity, there was no need for such things among the Ancients...they had everything that they could wish for and wanted for nothing besides companionship. There were no differences between them, no cause for resentment, or want, or despair either."

"What we can deduce from the records is that these Ancients lost their unity and began to quarrel among themselves, even to covet things that were previously forbidden," Doctor Himosho continued, "And one of the inevitable consequences of this was that they started to breed with their own creations, to lust for them and to bring about several types of hybrid species, among which was the race known to us by the term Neflim..."

"'And it came to pass that the Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair,'" Tomoe quoted, "'And they took them wives of all which they chose...and so came there to be Giants in the earth, and also after that, when the Sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were, of old, men of renown...' or some bloody suchlike nonsense."

"Nonsense or not," Doctor Himosho continued, "The existence of these Neflim is very real, and further research has determined that members of this hybrid species exist to this very day...that they are in the world hidden among us and yet still have power to shape our destinies and affect the lives of all women, a fact that we must be on guard against lest what happened before be allowed to happen once again in the present."

"Now that sounds rather ominous," T'Cheil of Wakanda steepled her fingers and regarded the mousy blonde frankly, "Have you any immediate examples of what sort of threat we might be facing?"

"Have faced, Princess," Tomoe pointed out to the African delegate, "And if you want a bloody example...does the name Gojiro mean anything to the people at this table?"

A suitably ominous pause followed that revelation, punctuated by Colonel Lake saying, "Are you serious? But I thought..."

"We all thought that Gojiro was a mysteriously resurrected offshoot of an ancient species of dinosaur," Doctor Katsuragi explained, "But it seems that we were quite mistaken about that. Gojiro is, in reality, a surviving Neflim whom, over the countless millennia that he has been alive, has taken on the form of a gigantic aquatic lizard who breathes atomic fire like some nightmarish version of a dragon."

"Nor is he alone in this," Doctor Himosho resumed, "We have reason to suspect that his companions on Monster Island, such as Rodan and Mothra, are also surviving Neflim...but that is not the full extent of the types of enduring monstrosity that we have uncovered via our researches."

She indicated the air above the conference desk, and once more a holographic projection gave an aerial satellite image of the South China ocean, with several "hot-spots" denoted by red dot coloration.

"Using the data collected from the Lilith site," Himosho explained, "We have tracked the movement of at least six other surviving Neflim...with no clear indication of how many more may be in hiding or lay dormant awaiting the summons of the Instrumentality. One in particular drew our attention since it ties in with an ancient Chinese legend that our Amazon friends here can confirm at their leisure."

The image intensified, then magnified on one of the dots, revealing in close-up mode some type of sailing vessel located directly atop one particular red spot.

"This was most difficult to obtain by long-range sensors," Himosho explained, "But to date it is our best image of a mysterious sailing ship that is perpetually surrounded in a dimension-distorting cloud bank that rolls along, obscuring it from normal detection."

Computer graphics came into play, sharpening the image and delineating it so that the delegates could see what type of vessel it was, which brought many an astonished gasp from the people sitting at the table.

"What is it?" Doctor Lao-Kane marveled.

"Looks like an incredibly large piece of Junk to me," Kho-Hom remarked.

"It can't be..." Silk whispered in astonishment, "The legends...it's for real?"

"Apparently so," Doctor Himosho noted, "The vessel you see has been identified by historians as a kind of sailing ship originally produced during the Mongol era, some eight hundred years back. It was crafted during the brief period of exploration that China experienced before a change of Dynasty caused the Middle Kingdom to pull back within its borders and ignore the world at large in its prolonged isolation. It is one of only two that were shaped in its particular class, but we know from ancient records the name of the ship, as well as the identify of its original creator. It is the Tung Chiao, the creation of the ancient Taoist alchemist and inventor, Han Bolo, who-under the aegis of the great Kublai Khan, set out in search of the legendary lost continent of Lemuria...only to vanish into the mists of history and legend, along with his ship and all its crew, to be heard from again only on the witness of sailors as a sort of 'Flying Dutchman' legend. Well, here is proof beyond denial that the legends were true...as is the cause for the fabled ship's continuing existence."

The delegates murmured over this, and Himosho allowed them their moment before resuming once again, "The creature that we have detected swimming directly under the boat is that legendary beast known to many a mariner as...the Kraken. Somehow it is tied to the ship and never moves far beyond it, and we believe that somehow Han Bolo bound the two of them together by means of his alchemy, though the exact mechanism itself so far eludes us."

"A ship that serves a Neflim?" Kho-Hom remarked, "That is truly ominous...but is there anyone on board that craft, or is it strictly a ghost ship?"

"Oh, there's a crew there all right," Tomoe said for the benefit of those currently gaping in discomfort at the mere mention of a magical legends brought to life, "Seems it has a rather notorious reputation as a Slaver ship that's been used in the past to ferry cargo and human goods all throughout the South China Sea region. Word has come to us that after the male crew died out the female prisoners took over, and that one of them now styles herself as Madam Ching the Pirate, and that she has taken up the slack as a White Slaver of the coastlines."

"No relation," Ching-Fa hastily pointed out, "The name actually belongs to another pirate lady who used to ply her trade in the seas almost a century or so back."

"A pirate...and a white slaver...in this day and age?" Doctor Lao Kane asked in shocked disbelief.

"But why would anybody want to buy and sell human sex slaves?" Colonel Lake asked, "When these days just about anyone is willing to make out on the slightest invitation?"

"Ah, but total power over human life has always been a peculiar vice of humanity's," Doctor Katsuragi sadly noted, "And in this we women are no less prone to bad behavior than were men...but the real crime that we suspect Madam Ching of engaging in is the illegal trade in male sperm samples, taken from hospitals and acquired by other means that we would rather not speculate upon, but which may involve somehow turning women into men for the purpose of gaining such samples."

"Say what?" Kho-Hom sat upright.

"There is...another Neflim in the region whom we believe manifests itself as a gigantic turtle who excretes a curious liquid that can turn women into men...with all the resultant...complications that would be implied here," Doctor Himosho said reluctantly, "The legendary Island of Tomobiki, to be precise...but obviously if such a means exists then it would constitute a virtual death sentence to the women so affected...unless a means exist to restore them to their proper gender."

"This is monstrous," Lao-Kane protested, "Such criminal activity must be stopped..."

"Even if the production of black market sperm might, in fact, be of use in helping women obtain yet more children?" the German delegate pointed out.

"It doesn't matter if there are beneficial effects to this trade," Lao-Kane insisted, "It is still an unethical practice and ought to be brought to heel for the good of all humanity."

"One thing at a time, please," Doctor Katsuragi turned back to the mousy blonde and said, "Nagisa-san...you skipped over several rather crucial elements in what your group has discovered. Perhaps it would be best to go over those things now for the benefit of the others?"

"Oh," the blonde looked momentarily taken aback and hastily flipped through the file sheets in her folder before reading one line and saying aloud, "Among the qualities of the Virus that we find most curious is that it not only reinforces the pattern of X chromosomes to enhance feminine aspects, but it seems to operate in an almost intelligent manner to correct defects and inadequacies, to effectively maximize one's inherent potential for beauty so that women these days are all quite attractive and healthy with no obesity or physical impairment of any kind..."

"That wasn't the section we meant, Nagisa-chan," Tomoe chided, "Tell us about what you discovered at the crash-site of that space vessel."

"Oh," Nagisa seemed to blush for a moment before regaining her composure, "Well...it is difficult to translate any sort of written language that we encountered there, and their technology was quite advanced, but half a million years has taken its toll on both the software and hardware components..."

"But still you were able to reconstruct one name out of the wreckage," Doctor Katsuragi smiled, "Which is why we are calling them the Solnoids."

"Solnoids?" Colonel Lake asked, "As in solenoids?"

"Not quite," Doctor Himosho replied, "You see...the crew was only marginally different, anatomically and genetically, from the women of our era, but the crew was quite distinctively female, which seems to suggest that this sort of thing might have happened before somewhere in the distant past. Our working theory is that there have been many ages in which human civilization has risen and fallen, such as in the end of the Golden Age, when the Unimind fragmented and the Ancient race gave way to a lesser race of Giants."

"We call that the period of the Psychic Wars," Tomoe explained, "When those god-like beings went to war with one another and damned near tore apart the planet before the whole thing was over."

"Um...yes," Himosho nodded somewhat uneasily, "The Psychic Wars would be a good description of it since forces unimaginable to us were unleashed at that time, and entire continents appear to have been altered by the struggle. Eventually one camp, calling itself the Legion of Light, won out over their opposite number, and they banished their defeated enemies to the Outer Abyss, where they degenerated into a race of demonic beings over the course of time, warped by habitation of their chaotic and hellish dimensions."

"This sounds more like mythology than a genuine scientific inquiry," an American named Doctor Ororo Munroe observed, "How reliable is this information?"

"Reliable enough to serve as a working model," Himosho insisted, "One consequence of this Psychic War is that it left a lot of collateral damage and some residual images burned into the collective minds of many of our primate-descended ancestors. Mankind appears to have turned away from the further development of our psychic potential as a consequence of this struggle, so only a few people retained the skills and knowledge of this era...while the rest of humanity turned towards the more rational pursuit of scientific inquiry, bringing about the Silver Age that culminated with the rise of ancient Atlantis."

"Somehow I'm not surprised," Colonel Lake mused, "The way this conversation's been going I just knew Atlantis would be somehow in the picture."

"The Atlantean civilization appears to have achieved a level of star-faring that perhaps led them to colonize many distant worlds with cousin branches of the current human bloodline," Himosho continued, "But the Solnoid craft predates Atlantis by a couple hundred thousand years, so obviously the Atlanteans were not the first humans to walk among the stars, so perhaps something like a million years ago a parent race of humanity was evolved enough to achieve space travel. But what the findings on that ship imply is that this earlier race encountered the selfsame problem that is facing us now, namely the outbreak of a 'Y' gene destroying Virus, perhaps a forerunner to the one that currently flows within our systems."

"So, we are back to that again, are we?" T'Chiel mused, "So...would the suggestion you are making here is that this Lilith being has tried more than once to wipe out the male half of our species?"

"Tried and succeeded more like," Himosho corrected, "The difference being that our version of the Virus is infinitely more advanced than the one they suffered. The remains we discovered did not show the same regenerative aspects that is typical for us, so we might construe that they were also much less affected by the rampant sexual urges that makes normal business for us so difficult to conduct without significant...pauses."

"So, perhaps it was an early prototype," Lao-Kane considered, "And perhaps it died off after a few years, allowing them to restore men to the gene pool."

"But only after grafting in the alien genes of an entirely different species," Himosho pointed out, "By combining Solnoid DNA with an alien 'Y' gene that their Virus did not recognize they were able to craft a hybrid man-child and use him to restore male chromosomes to the gene pool."

"That figures," someone at the far end of the table snorted, "I always knew that men were from some other planet."

"So...what happened to these Solnoids?" Kho-Hom asked, "And what became of their civilization?"

"They died off because they could not adapt to changing times and circumstances," Silk spoke up with a somewhat distracted expression, "Inflexibility and a military mindset insured that they would meet their end and give way to a newer and more aggressive species."

"That is...more or less the case," Himosho said somewhat evasively, not indicating how disturbed she was at the accuracy of Silk's comment, "But perhaps their fate will not be our own if we learn to adapt to new changes. Unfortunately attempts to alter the Virus itself have proven to be entirely...misguided. The Virus is Lilith's handiwork, precisely grafted to achieve the effects that we have observed, and any attempt to modify or alter its nature has produced a purely lethal strain that would be harmful to all women. That is why my group has recommended that we abandon that particular line of research and concentrate more on enhancing fertility among the general public."

"But let's not get too aggressive there, shall we?" Doctor Katsuragi cautioned, "With an extremely low death rate like ours, the need to reproduce to replace our numbers isn't that great anymore, and if we try too hard we could well overpopulate the planet with young and immortal females."

"That wouldn't be a problem for me," Tomoe grinned, "More opportunities to date, I always say, and what's wrong with adding a few more cuties to the roster of the younger generations?"

"But you're technically with the military," T'Chiel helpfully pointed out, "Doesn't it bother you that circumstances in the future may require that your services be rendered? After all, we are at peace in the world for now...but as these Solnoid persons suggest, who can say about the future?"

"Hey, no problem for us in that regard," Tomoe chuckled, "Anytime we want to go to war with someone I just point at the enemy and tell my girls that the girls on the other side say we look fat wearing our uniforms...and that always motivates them."

"I thought the idea of the current age was to make love and not war?" the French ambassador leered in a meaningful manner.

"Speaking of which," Madam Ching Fa spoke up, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm quite famished. Would anyone object if we table this meeting for now and summon up some refreshments?"

"Sounds good enough to me," the Russian ambassador agreed, "I second the motion, anyone else with me?"

"Sounds good enough to me," Katsuragi turned to Himosho, "We can pick this up again where you left off later, Nagisa-san."

"H-Hai," Himosho reluctantly agreed, sensing all around the room the shifting mood and mindset of the women at this conference.

Madam Ching clapped her hands together then said a few words in Mandarin, and a moment later a door opened and in stepped a line of beautiful young hostesses wearing skimpy and revealing dress, each one bearing a tray with some manner of refreshment. At once the attention of each of the delegates riveted upon one or more of these comely young things and received in reply a smile, wink or nod of tacit acknowledgement as one-by-one these teenaged hostesses selected a delegate and presented themselves for closer inspection.

"Among the blessings of Capitalism that we have adopted in recent years," Madam Ching explained for the benefit of the others, "Is the concept of 'Service With A Smile,' as these comely volunteers from a local catering service will provide on behalf of the Middle Kingdom and their own natural inclinations."

The delegates all smiled in uniform approval of the "service" that their hostess was so generously offering, nor did any of them feel the slightest moral qualms about taking advantage of the comely young women presenting themselves for lascivious inspection. They were all above the age of seventeen and quite appealing to the eye and other senses, and in these days of free and casual promiscuity there was no question about their being "taken advantage of" or exploited by the older delegates drooling over them from all around the table.

After all, Oriental food was universally coveted the world over, especially when served this hot and spicy...

Comb gave a passing glance to her wife, who nodded in reply, and then the both of them accepted the offer of the lady currently standing before them, guiding each girl to sit down upon the table so that they could be undressed and examined thoroughly by the skilled fingers of the older women. Hostesses began at once to spread their legs all over the room, revealing that not a single one of them was wearing panties under their outfits, and that the material itself was easily removed to allow full access as hungry and horny delegates began to indulge in their favorite recreational hobbies, spreading food out upon the "human trays" formed by these girls before setting to work devouring these goodies.

"Now this is my idea of hospitality," Tomoe mused right before bending her mouth to the task of exploring the moistened young bit of succulent vagina that was offered to her for inspection.

Only Nagisa Himosho excused herself from the table, accepting the hand of one hostess so as not to see impolite but privately musing to herself that there were certain advantages to be had in being able to control one's libido. An advanced Bioroid such as herself knew how to pass as human in most social settings, and that included a healthy repertoire of vigorous and creative sexual techniques, but there was a big difference between choosing to accept the offer of free sex and needing it so badly that she was likely to lose all objective perspective.

The girl she was with was more than accommodating as Nagisa bade her to kneel then spread her legs wide and allowed her pants to be unzipped, exposing her genitalia to the human girl so as to keep the pretty little thing too busy to notice the calculating gleam in the Bioroid's eyes as Nagisa thought over all that had been discussed at the conference so far, then opened up a mental channel and relayed her findings though a Subspace Com located in her lower hind-brain.

It was an undetectable means of communication and it was answered almost immediately by her Matrix Mother, who replied over the lines, **Report, Agent 117.**

**It is as you suspected, Mother,** Himosho answered, **They are discovering more about the true nature of the Virus, but I have recommended for now that they suspend looking for a cure to concentrate more upon coping with the need for reproduction.**

**You did well, Nagisa,** her mother's mental reply flowed gently, **I am reviewing the date files now and will continue to recommend ideas that you can suggest to keep this conference moving in the direction that it needs to.**

**But Mother,** Nagisa projected back, **They now know about the Solnoids and the Angels...what if they discover that one of our own was responsible for the re-introduction of the Virus?**

**That can't be helped for now,** her mother answered, **The renegade has done well to cover her tracks, but it is all that we can do to try and amend for much of the damage she has caused through her actions, providing those gene samples to that human so that he could graft them into the creation of the Virus.**

**Do you think the renegade might try and disrupt things here, Mother?** Himosho asked somewhat nervously, **I know that security for this conference is high, but...**

**I have put Nam on the project and she is coordinating a defense screen,** the woman on the other end replied, **But all the same, Nagisa, do exercise caution, and look after those delegates...they are important to the future of the human race.**

**Understood, Mother,** Nagisa replied, **Agent Nagisa...out!-OOOOOOHHH!" all at once she bowed her knees as the girl currently lapping at her loins began to stick her tongue ever deeper and swirled it around within the Bioroid's snatch.

Many thousands of kilometers away a woman named Catty Nebulart (01002369) smiled and wished the best for her matrix-daughter, then sighed to herself as she sat back in her command chair and wondered if her distant ancestor would have handled things better...or if even her legendary skills might be daunted.

It had indeed been four hundred thousand years since the Solnoid/Paranoid war had wiped out most of humanity, leaving only the race of gene-spliced hybrids behind (called the "Third Race" by her ancestors). The Solnoids were long gone, erased from all memory of human existence, but recalled only by their last living remnant, Catty the Observer. Down through the ages in a succession of bodies her android line had watched and maintained a silent vigil over humanity, observing and recording the history of the Third Race and its progression from one stage of evolution to the next, always watching, seldom interfering as the experiment put in motion by her namesake ancestor continued to progress, slowly building back from what had been lost during the last pole shift when the end of the most recent Ice Age had flooded the world and reduced humanity to the level of the stone age.

And yet-shamed though she was to admit it-one of Catty's line had indeed strayed afar from the original mission. Growing embittered with the direction that humanity was taking, she had elected to break the cardinal rules governing their line and had conspired with the renegade Neflim known as Lilith to engineer the Virus and see to its widespread dispersal across the planet. That renegade Catty had become convinced that the goal of bringing men into the world had been a mistake that had contaminated the "pure" stream line of Solnoid evolution. Determined to "correct" this error by totally eliminating all men from the gene pool, this defective unit had engineered the great disaster, slaughtering nearly three billion people in her quest for "purity," and thus bringing shame and dishonor upon all the line of Cattys stretching back to the time when Terra had been ruled a "sacred" homeworld.

This had caused the Great Machinery that helped create and maintain new Cattys to prematurely awaken the next line model in order to do battle with the renegade, and thus Catty had been reborn to right a great wrong that had all but invalidated the very purpose such a line had been created in the first place. Originally they had been patterned after the Solnoid captain who had been the first human woman of the Catty line, the woman who had been charged with overseeing Project Unification in the first place. But now she and her twisted sister were engaged in a fratricidal war in which both side strove to make their competing visions become a reality, with the renegade having already set the rules of the game in her favor.

(Itako, my defective predecessor), Catty thought to herself without projecting those words beyond the confines of her own internal matrix, (Your crimes against the Third Race are monstrous and unforgivable, and because of you the rest of us must labor hard to repair the damage you have done to the human gene pool. One day I will discover a means of undoing the ill work of your creation, but for now we must work slowly in the background finding ways to adjust and accommodate to the world that you have forced upon us. Somehow, someday you will be made to atone for your crimes...but for now I must work slowly and have patience...and hope that at least one of my many current projects bears fruit in the near future...)

As she thought of this her mind naturally traveled in the direction of one particular project that centered around a rather promising youth by the name of Saotome. For close to fifteen years she had been monitoring the progress of that particular individual, assigning agents to keep track of her movements and to safeguard her from possible discovery by certain hostile interests. Among those who might wish ill for the budding young heir to the Saotome Ryu were those clandestine agencies working directly under Itako's shadow-direction, the Evist terrorist groups and Hydra itself, as well as its many outlets. Keeping them from discovering Saotome's true nature had been something of a full-time endeavor, but now that Saotome Ranma's mother had elected to unlock her daughter's curse in order to permit Ranma to revert back to her true gender...

(How I wish that I did not have to risk her health in order to attempt the development of a resistant "Y" chromosome that could produce a male child who can survive to full adulthood), Catty fretted, (The risks inherent in this project are so great and so troubling that I sometimes question the wisdom of permitting things to progress in such a fashion...and if Itako gets wind of what I intend for this male line then she will surely act to destroy him...but for the sake of the future of the Third Race...I suppose that some sacrifices must be risked or undertaken...)

(And if all else fails, there is always Moroboshi...)

Those words suddenly dredged forth from the deepest recesses of genetic memory the images of faces belonging to people long dead, to ancient Solnoid warriors who had sacrificed their very being in order to protect the Unification Project that had been set in motion by Catty's distant ancestor. Four hundred thousand years old those memories were, yet somehow burned into the very core of her internal matrix, along with images, thoughts and even emotions recorded by much earlier Cattys, which brought a brief moment of intense pain, remorse and wistful longing to the current heir to that unbroken Bioroid line, along with a certain knowledge that these "Old Friends" had given their all in sacrifice for the benefit of those who would come after.

(Perhaps some sacrifices are too much to endure), Catty realized upon further reflection, (Saotome must live...as well as those to whom she is presently engaged, including-curiously enough-the daughter of one of those delegates currently attending the conference. I must do more to insure this project's success...as well as Saotome's survival. Perhaps I should delegate more agents and resources to monitor progress in the Tendo household...)

(On the other hand), Catty paused to reconsider, (Such increased activity on my part is bound to draw Itako's interest. Perhaps less direct means are called for...such as an agency outside of my organization, one that might, in fact, do better than I might hope to accomplish by my own methods...)

With that she called up a pertinent file and reviewed it in holographic display, of a promising young entrepreneur whose activities she had been following for some years now. A most curious example of the strange phenomenon noted fifteen years back, when a select few handful of male children the world over had been transformed by an unknown agency into gifted young women whose talents Catty was only just beginning to appreciate.

The seventeen-year-old CEO of Love Destiny Enterprises...a highly talented young girl by the name of Moroboshi Tariko.

"Agent Nam," Catty mentally projected to one of her field sisters, "It is time for you to report once again...I have an urgent need for you to convey a message to your present owner..."

Continued.

My special thanks to Frederick Herriot for his ideas and inspiration that contributed to my restarting this long-inactive series. His own side-stories set in the Pornworld, centering around Moroboshi Tariko, helped suggest to me many promising ideas that I felt the urge to incorporate, and I hope you will take the time to read his works as he relates the adventures of a youth who was once given the name of Ataru. For my own part, I plan to do a few more chapters in this series (for now at least) before resuming work on my other much-delayed (and in much demand) projects, so please indulge me a few more Lemony flavored chapters set in this "World Without Men," and stay tuned for the next exciting chapter where we discover just what happened to all those men in a fiendishly silly chapter to be titled, "Devilish Business," or, "Hell Hath No Fury Like Too Much of a Bad Thing Brought Together!" Be there!

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