Within the confines of my two-roomer, my all-due-haste receded in favor of licking my wounds. I felt like a pussy for feeling snubbed by Blondie, all because he didn’t need a lift home. Truth was, I’d put myself out there for him beyond anything considered smart or reasonable by my own rules of engagement only to get shut down.
Loneliness wasn’t an emotion to whine about. It was a way of life.
Checking my tackle, I made sure my balls were swinging and my cock was still attached. Yep. At least that was something.
My isolation was compounded by the hair-raising feeling of constant scrutiny combined with the utter CO dependency forced upon all Territory residents. Almost all the roads once webbing outward from this city had been systematically destroyed. What little movement there was among the Territories had to be approved well in advance, and a ticket out was given only for a damn good reason. In the eyes of the Company, there weren’t many excuses legitimate enough to warrant leave.
Communications crawled with spyware.
Entertainment meant chaperoned socials or meeting friends for the latest propaganda blockbuster. Not the kind of knees-up I was talking about.
Hookups were damn near impossible and nearly always a bad idea.
The few freedoms to be had were saved for those who worked for the CO and their best little breeder families. The rank and file had something to aspire to, at least, which led them to step left, right, left, right, left into the authoritarian ideals.
Independent thinking was discouraged. By discouraged I meant you’d get thirty in lockup for anything unsanctioned. Books, music, art were branded a big bad no-no unless on the list of endorsed materials.
Given my rank, I had a little leeway but not much. Not enough to, say, uproot and leave Alpha. Besides, there wasn’t really anyplace else to go.
Guess I’d keep making do with right here and right now.
I was stationed in the epicenter of Alpha Territory, one of four map points in North America, where humankind resided, one of the sixteen divvied out among the other died-out, dried-up land masses across the globe. The rest of the continental United States—the Wilderness—had been left to the primitive Nomads, who protected their land with fierce savagery.
This particular southeastern enclosure of razor-wire barricades, blank-eyed buildings, and budding regeneration became home after I left Basic, my skills needed in subduing any fomenting nonconformists. My intonation didn’t fit the southern drawl hey, y’all at all. In fact, there wasn’t anything smooth about me, care of Corps boot camp, which had beaten all the sweetness out of me. But I wasn’t the only one. We were a mashed-up population made of migrants from the Purge.
Delayed waves of death and environmental destruction had annihilated an ever-decreasing circle until the survivors became exiles in the final four Territories of North America. It was the same all across the world, if the rumors could be believed. People were forced closer and closer to the hearts of big business—London, Tokyo, New York…Atlanta—as if willed by the CO itself. Those cities no longer existed, having been swallowed into Delta, Nu, Beta, and Alpha Territories, to name the Big Four.
Each Territory had its own CEO voted in from a pool of Company applicants to convene with the InterNations Ruling Committee. It was a pretty incestuous affair, but they didn’t seem to have a problem with that. Especially since it left the general pop with no say over their leaders or laws.
The governance of the Company, including our little piece of paradise, had been welcomed. With parades, promotionals, and cleanups. Followed by raids, rules, and rat-outs.
The business sector of this formerly large city had folded in, conscripting the citizens and reprogramming them. Consumption, consumerism, connubiality, for those who kowtowed of course. Capitalism had a new brand name and an awesome marketing strategy. Unless you were gay.
By the sound of Blondie’s accent, he was homegrown, and he sure as hell seemed gay when he was on his knees with my cock down his throat.
Fuck. I need to stop thinking about him.
In my bare-bones apartment, free of curtains, carpets, clutter, and any sense of interior decoration, I figured I had enough time for a shower before my order came to report for duty. Dropping my clothes, I stepped into the shower stall and set that shit to cold. Freezing cold. As cold as Blondie’s face when he’d dismissed me.
Still thinking about him.
The arctic trickle didn’t help my erection, and since I hadn’t turned on my Data-Pak yet, I had some leeway. I went for a jag-off in addition to my rinse-off. Turning the weak jets to steaming hot, I got really warmed up with a lather in my hand, my dick in my fist, and images of Blondie licking his lips before sliding that naughty mouth down my shaft to my balls, coming back up with a curl of his tongue. Figured the sweet bastard knew just how to suck me off. The memories were all the masturbation aid I needed. And more lather to add to the fat drops of preejaculate dotting out and dripping down the tip of my cock.
My hand the most faithful lover I had, I glory-holed my fist, taking it easy on the upswing, loosening over the crown of my head because I liked a damned good tease, and if I was gonna get myself off, it better be worth my effort.
A hand planted on the shower wall, I dropped a pair of fingers to my balls, filled with the image of Blondie’s plump lips wrapped around my cock. My stomach muscles tight as a drumhead, my cockhead taut at maximum PSI, I went up on my toes and rammed harder. Gasping, I thrust the hefty handhold of my dick in and out in a pounding rhythm, groaning when my sac banged my knuckles, wishing I had him between my legs, parting my ass with his tongue—
Ripping aside the shower curtain, my hand flew across the scant distance to the back of the commode and came up with my SIG cocked.
Liz.
She grinned at both weapons I hefted, one as rigid as the other. “Thinking about me, Commander Bravado?”
I lowered the muzzle, tempted to shoot between her feet. I shut off the water, not bothering to cover up. Number one: She’d seen it all before in the locker room. Number two: I didn’t give a fuck who saw my junk.
I draped a towel around my neck. “How’d you get in?”
“Better question is where the hell you been, and how’d you let me get into this pisshole without tripping your sensors?” She referred to my internal sensors, not a series of security alarms my pisshole definitely didn’t possess. I wasn’t into the techy bullshit shoved down our throats on a daily basis.
Lounging against the door, Liz had the presence of a sleek, well-oiled Luger, her tall frame coiled like a hairpin trigger. “You left the door unlocked, sir.”
Jesus. I never left anything unchecked. Not my surrounds, not my rooms, not my troops.
I covered my lapse with a brusque, “You forget to salute me?”
“Think you’re doing enough saluting for both of us.”
She was right. There was no willing my hard-on away. But I could ignore it. After painting my cheeks in foam, I started scraping the few hours’ growth of dark stubble from my jaw and neck with precise moves. In the mirror, I kept my eyes on the motions of razor blade over soap, softening the turns around my chin, lengthening up the width of my neck.
Possessing no compunction at all—another thing to like about Liz, that and she threw a mean right hook and had sharpshooter aim—she kept up with the observation…on my groin.
“Yep, still hard enough to hang my jacket on.”
Her staring had me deflating, finally. I flung a towel around my hips now that my cock wasn’t gonna punch right through it and smirked over my shoulder. “Thanks for that.”
She slunk to the opposite side of the doorway. “Way to stroke my ego, sir.”
“Aw. You wanna get your sissy card stamped?”
While she continued to watch me, she curled her arms around her waist in an uncharacteristic gesture. I glanced back when she said, “My dad used to shave just like you. All routine, efficient, in the same order.”
I reached over and clasped her shoulder, just once. Her father, a noted Corps surgeon and geneticist, had died gruesomely at the hands of Nomads during a repair-and-retrieve mission gone wrong in the Wilderness. We didn’t talk about it before. And we weren’t gonna talk about it now. I could tell by the way she straightened up and pulled her face back together, pressing her fingertips into her hips to steady herself.
I’d joined the Corps because I needed to do some ass kicking after the Plague. When I came of age ten years ago, I was Johnny-on-the-spot with joining up. Who knew I’d have a fucking flair for it, quickly scaling the ranks? The bonus? Because of the lethal nature of the job, we weren’t expected to reproduce. Condoms and birth control were doled out in abundance to us, whereas they were ratshack commodities for civilians.
Certain items remained widely available: lube, for instance. Sex toys had been banished unless Company sanctioned and straight-couple orientated. That didn’t stop the backstreet hustlers from coming up with their own erotic aids. I had a snug cock sleeve myself, hidden in my closet and used only when my hand became old hat.
Likewise, abortions were illegal backdoor affairs, the stuff wire hanger nightmares were made of. The aftermath of the carnage liberally propagandized during the day-long helpful promotions on the public Data-Pak because planned parenthood was something to aspire to and promiscuity was discouraged. The CO was raising good, wholesome single-family units in healthy home environments.
Aside from being a looker, Liz was as asexual as they came, so I figured she hadn’t made the Corps her calling to keep the heat off of her own forbidden behaviors. In fact, I didn’t know what she got out of it. A vendetta against the Nomads who’d done the number on her dad, or maybe a genuine belief in Company credo. I didn’t ask, she didn’t offer, and I didn’t care. It was nice to have some camaraderie, and we kept our lips sealed about anything that could get us in trouble.
“What you been up to?” she quizzed me.
“Just a day in the life, Lieutenant.”
That earned me a brief chuckle. “Oh yeah? Been a good little drone today, have you? Let me guess.” Liz tapped her lips, scanning me head to toe. “Did your time at the clothing factory, but forgot to pick up your own identical uniform, which explains why you’re still dressed in a towel. Or maybe you got your hands dirty culturing food and splicing together oh-so-tasty new tidbits for us to gag on?”
I’d gotten my hands dirty all right. Grinning at her, I played along with a wink. “Yep. Joined in with the civvies; wasn’t mind-numbing at all.”
We made fun of the CO’s worker bees, but we knew all about their colorless existence. Food and goods such as electronics, munitions, and a host of other gadgets were churned out from the chain gang. Always just enough and not one bit more.
But what were you gonna do?
Tie up your bootlaces and do your duty no matter how despicable it had become.
At least my daily duties included hitting the gun range with Liz. Drills, raids, and keeping the streets clean of any little hint of revolt added the thrills. My free time was spent working out, working on my bike, and working on the kink in my dick.
“You had your Data-Pak turned off?”
“It’s my birthday. I’m on leave.”
“You want spankings or to blow out some candles?” She referred to some old notion from a time when birthdays were something to celebrate, winding her hand back to smack my ass.
“How about you get the fuck out?”
“I could, but I won’t. You missed the party starter. Where were you? Other than having another mind-blowing date night with your hand?”
As soon as she said party starter, a growl of excitement in her voice, I jerked around. “What?”
“Hand. Cock. Fucking it.”
“Liz, what starter? What happened?”
“The rebellion.”
“I heard it was a raid.”
“Re-bell-ion.”
“Rebellion?” Rinsing off the razor blade, I faced her. Liz and I could be twins. Her dark hair was regulation short, spiky as a jackknife. Her lips full but hard, her eyes a daunting and deadly brown where her pupils bled into the irises. She could have been my sister, but Erica was gone. Liz was my family now. We’d made a pact. Always have the other’s back, because this shit could turn ugly in an instant.
Sounded like it just had.
“Confirmed.”
“Where’d it start?’
Suddenly, First Lieutenant Liz Grant was all business, just the way I liked her. Twin chrome Desert Eagle .44s were holstered on either hip. She had a hard-on for the classics, same as me. Her lightweight flak jacket buttoned like her lips; she didn’t distract with unnecessary gestures.
“Sector Five, water supply shorted, then contaminated.” She let loose with a grin and added, “Guess I should’ve told you as soon as I saw you in the shower.”
S-5. I knew it, where the water-purification plant was and where Leon lived with his mother. The four-block neighborhood was a desolate afterthought on the fringes of Alpha. Leon’s mom’s house always boasted flower boxes filled with bright blooms hanging from the windowsills. I had no idea where she got the seeds, but among the squalor of S-5, her home was the only standout.
I sped to my spartan main room, flicking on the in-house Data-Pak. Broadcasting secure intel channels to Corps and Company execs only, the flat screen dripped a different IV-feed to civilians. Anti-Nomad, antihomo, pro-CO programming with a side of sexual brainwash, such as best timing of the month, basal-body temperatures, optimal sexual positions, all rounded out with scare tactics.
The feed was scientific to a fault, sucking the fun out of fucking, making it more a job than any whoremonger ever had. No wonder needy heteros got a healthy leg-over at the Theater too.
“Isolated?” I asked, skimming the updates.
“Territory wide.” She came up beside me, her eyes leaping back and forth in time with mine as I ingested the details. “All the Territories. InterNation insubordination.”
Holy fuck. I hardened my expression until my jaw didn’t even tic. “We gotta get to Command.”
“Affirmative.”
“Where are the rebels?”
“Converging on the Quadrangle.”
“And the infantry?” I asked.
“Holding pattern.”
“Someone’s behind this besides plain old rebels.”
“Yes, sir.”
For half a century, people had been pretty accepting of the regime. It was amazing what you put up with when your basic needs were met after teetering on the brink of extinction.
Noble in the abstract but clumsy as fuck in action, dissent had been fermenting recently. Last time there’d been any excitement had been the surprisingly well-oiled assassination attempt on CEO Cutler eight weeks ago. Backed by my troops, with Liz at my side, I’d busted into his swanky apartment to find him swathed in a towel from the waist down, hand clutched to his neck, and fury mangling his mouth. Of all the goddamned things, he’d been attacked by the stand-in masseur sent to service him. Massage him. Whatever.
No sign of forced entry, no love note from the would-be assassin. No matter how deeply we scoured the streets, we’d met only closed lips and blank looks from our usual cache of canaries.
The only reason he escaped with a nick on his neck instead of bleeding out all over his thick, white carpet was because we’d been tipped off just in time from the head honcho in charge of hack jobs, some CO kid called Rice.
The renegades were becoming more organized, less stupid. This water workup smelled similar to the kill-Cutler attempt, minus fair warning.
Armed, in uniform all the way to the cap sitting on top of her head, Liz was ready to move out. Meanwhile, I stood in nothing more than a towel, rather like Cutler. Called to action, I hauled dark blues up my legs and over my arms. Firearms were the only accessories required. Double cross-chest holsters snuggled my SIG P229s and were joined by a set of matchy-matchy Glock 40s at my hips. A nice even four guns—I was ambidextrous, as I’d been about to demo on my dick—and my pointy friend, a KA-BAR knife, strapped to my thigh, for more delicate work.
When I flicked on my handheld D-P, I got a shock. Hell, I should be used to that; it was only the third pube-curler of the night. I expected to be called into Corps Command along with Liz. Instead I was to be briefed by CEO Cutler.
My first reaction of so ass-fucked showed.
Liz scowled. “What?”
“I’m reporting to Company HQ.”
She shook her head, turning pale. Nothing good ever came of that place. It was where those in the Corps were sent, at best, for a severe strafing. More likely it was for impersonal interviews of the most personal kind.
“No.” Her voice was injected with the correct amount of fear.
“It’s standard protocol in this case, remember? Executive roundups and evacs.” I reasoned with her and myself.
“Yeah, but—”
“Don’t but me, Lieutenant. This is textbook: Maintain order, split the executives, and appoint each of them a handler from the Corps. The only reason Cutler is calling me in is to give me my mission.”
Unless he’s figured out I’m not just a Corps commander but also an ace cocksucker.
Exiting my apartment building, Liz asked, “You think you’re headed to the Outpost?”
“No other explanation.”
“That place is bullshit.”
The secure regrouping point for Company assets ranked with old-timey tales about a so-called Area 51. It was myth. But right now I wanted to believe in it, especially after I’d let my guard way frigging down at the Amphitheater.
“Let’s hope not.”
She nodded. “You lead. I’ll follow.”
“Always,” came my gruff reply.
* * *
Throttling my bike again, I took a swift jump over a craggy crop of debris. My Harley was one of the last hangers-on. With gas hard to come by, vehicles were few and far between. My bike was fast, loud, obnoxious, and about the only possession I loved, besides my weaponry.
A goddamn rebellion? I couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea the rebels had gotten their shit together enough to pull something of this magnitude off, InterNations wide. It lent a heady taste to my lips, lips I still wanted wrapped around Blondie’s cock.
I had zero time to savor either off-limits flavor because shit went from bad to FUBAR the closer we got to the Quadrangle.
Usually a trip like this would be almost scenic, if you considered pockets of poverty overshadowed by the supershine of money to be something you wanted to take a picture of with your multifunctional D-P. The straight gridded roads were glossed to a high polish nearing City Center, care of the litter-uppers. On any given day—in the event of heavy foot traffic, since most citizens couldn’t afford a car—I simply gunned onto the sidewalks, because I liked to raise a little hell once in a while.
At this time of night, dawn approaching, the roads were supposed to be quiet due to the mandatory curfew. The Company was really into oppression for our own good like that, because that scary boogeyman of sexual liberation was most likely to spread after dark.
Tonight was a different story, one quickly progressing to Armageddon proportions. The blare of sirens added to the violent commotion. This was a vastly different scene from the one I’d returned to an hour earlier.
The sector flew past, my head whipping left, right, and to my rear to check Liz’s position on my tail, dodging fast on her dead black bike. Each block in more disarray than the one before. Coming from S-4 and S-5 at the back of us, columns of belching black smoke rose, chimneys taken to the sky, buildings licked by fire as revolt became hell on earth.
Sector Two, where I lived, butted against S-1, home to central operations and all it entailed. The roads narrowed for basic herding tactics and the utilitarian housing became subsidized businesses rising in needlelike buildings with sleek reflective surfaces and tiny slits for windows, manufacturing shit most citizens didn’t need, couldn’t afford, but longed to buy. Looming sky-high condos soared into the air, lording it over the gen pop with their expensive expanses of terraces complete with plants and outdoor lounging furniture. Housing for Company hotshots.
Here, in the heart of Alpha, chaos swarmed, the CO cannibalized by its own children raised to kneel at its despotic altar. I planted a blank look on my face instead of shouting out the cheers bubbling up the back of my throat.
As always in City Center, there were more patrols—had to keep the assholes safe, after all—more cameras perched on building corners. The once-thriving metropolis consisting of over 155,000 square kilometers had been reduced to an area of 16,000 kilometers over the past half century. Easier access to resources for the scaled-down population, the Company claimed. The reality? It all came down to controlling the animals in the zoo.
Worst-case scenario happened side by side in the seething, writhing mass of bodies from which screams rose, blood gushed, and bullets whistled. I hunkered over my motorcycle and trammeled through the flailing bodies, spinning off groups of Nomads going at it beside homegrown rebels, both factions giving as good as they got to Corps troops.
I homed in on the wild Nomads. Hefting bows, axes, sharpened farming implements, they put the archaic tools to good use, hacking, sawing, and garroting. Their homespun clothes covered in patchworks of foraged armor, their hair longer, they looked exactly like the brutal barbarians they were rumored to be.
They’d breached the gate or been let in.
Beside me, the sound of flesh meeting flesh made a pulpy squelch. Blood cascaded across my arm. A kick and a crunch, the shrieking rebel’s foot dangled like a chew toy from the string of his ankle tendon. Staring ahead, I revved through the fallen bodies and the pound of boots as more troops infiltrated the area.
By the time we reached the Quad, the fog of smoke bombs ghosted across a pink-tinged dawn. And I was barely holding in my shakes to go back to the fray, join the agitators.
Dismounting, I caught Liz’s eye as she headed in the opposite direction. She stopped, giving me a full salute, fucking finally. The smirk on her mouth faded before it reached her eyes.
I went due north to the Company headquarters, the government seat. To my left stood Corps Command; to the right was the hospital now on five-alarm status, casualties from all quarters being wheeled in, and squat at my flank was the Tribunal. Court and prison and where RACE executed gays in inglorious numbers. The three-meter-tall walls surrounding the whole of the Quad kept the dissenters at bay.
For the time being.
I waited while the prestigious doors of HQ opened after my retinal scan. At the desk, I stated, “Commander Cannon for CEO Cutler.”
An extra iris imprint, a D-P check, and I put my weapons on safety before heading to the bank of elevators in the black marble hall that swallowed the sounds of my boots and spat them back at me.
The elevator whizzed from the lobby to fifty-five in the blink of an eye, depositing me onto a plush carpet that hushed my footsteps. I didn’t have far to go; the fifty-fifth belonged solely to Cutler. I smelled like smoke, tasted blood in my mouth, and still heard the groans from outside, embedded in my think tank.
Walking into the well-appointed office, I came face-to-face with…Blondie.
Jesus Christ.
This was an oh-shit moment of the highest magnitude, and I almost gagged on the hunky-dory I’d told Liz earlier about this meeting.
Except this version of Blondie didn’t resemble a snitch. Not at all. His sleepy blue eyes were sharp. Angular jaw clean of sun-hued stubble. His hair was pulled back, revealing a little bit of hotness I’d missed before. Buzzed with a number-two razor guard, his hair was close on the sides of his head in two wide swaths, with that long, grade-A Mohawk pulled back in a ponytail. Add the double-helix piercing through the cartilage of his ear and he was straight-up sex, modeling a suit that probably cost as much as filling my tank for five months.
Shock? More like shell shock at this point. Blondie knew I was gay, yet he was a Company exec or else he wouldn’t be here. I was his butt boy in the worst possible way.
When I squinted at him, he gave nothing up. Neither did I. I had shit on this newly minted man too.
Double fucking jeopardy, jackass.