Overlord Ch. 04

June turned to July. The evergreen shrubs of Farren Heights were joined by a host of flowers, red, purple, blue, and green, a field of multi-coloured stars surrounded by the city. Winston and Julia lay under their sumac bush, watching the sun gleam off of the glass towers of the office district and the chrome spires of the Command Center.

"Those flowers are green," said Julia as she pointed to one of the clover blossoms with petals as emerald as her eyes that poked up around the sumac roots.

Winston, who was lying on the blanket on his stomach, leaned over to inspect the flower. "Huh. Didn't notice. I guess they're like the glowing butterflies; Overlord makes things beautiful while it crushes them."

"Ohh, do you really think Oh-vuh-load will crush me?"

"What makes you think it's made you beautiful? OW!"

Julia gave an outraged gasp and gave his naked bottom a hard slap. Sharp, electric pain pulsed through the twenty-six pale stripes that crisscrossed his prominent buttocks. Winston put both hands on his ass and twisted his body away to protect it from further assault. The switch Julia had used was still lying under the bushes a few feet away, next to the scarf he had finally managed to pry his hands out of. His "sneakiness" lessons were coming well, but at a painful cost.

"Just wait 'till it's your turn," Winston growled at her, still rubbing his mistreated bottom.

Julia grinned, watching the sun shine off his earthy skin. "We'll see." By way of apology, she put her little hands on each of Winston's stripey bum cheeks and gave them a gentle massage. He groaned appreciatively while plotting how to get back at her.

"I wonder how much damage we could do," Winston got back to an earlier topic, "if we brought down the Command Center."

Julia stopped massaging for a minute and looked back at the glimmering spires.

"They say Oh-vuh-load's a distributed consciousness. I don't know if destroying one node would slow its global network."

"They say a lot of things. If Overlord was really as big and as powerful as it wants us to think, would people get away with as much as they do?" He shook his head bemusedly as they kept staring out at the spires. "If I hadn't been around when it took over, I wouldn't be sure that Overlord existed at all."

"Huh." Julia's pretty eyes narrowed as she thought about that. "You're right. It hasn't done anything since it brought us to this city. Maybe its asleep?"

"Or planning something."

"Could it be working on black flowers?"

Winston snorted. "I'm sure that's it."

They lay in silence for a while. After a few minutes, the sting in Winston's bottom started bothering him again. Sensing this, Julia went back to massaging it, giggling as she saw his penis starting to return to life.

"So..." she began slowly, letting one fingertip run ever so gently across his round buttocks and toward his privates, "when we blow up the Command Center and free the city, where do we strike next?"

Winston raised his body a little bit, giving her access to everything he wanted accessed. Doing this also stuck his striped bottom further out in her direction, and she couldn't help squeezing it with her other hand. He gasped softly.

"Let's try to be more realistic," he said, "the first step is to start a movement. Or join it, if there already is one. Getting people out of the city would be a good first move. Maybe plan a mass ambush for the coppers."

Julia giggled as she rested one hand on either of his buttocks and tickled. Winston shook his head a little as he grimaced. He understood that he might be hard to take seriously from that angle, but seriously, sometimes he felt like Julia was only a rebel from the waist do-

"Why so slow? Thirty or forty people can distract them while we plant a bomb in the command center. We only need to win one battle if we do it right, unless Oh-vuh-load has something else to protect it."

And sometimes, just like that, she surprised him.

"There would be repercussions," he tried to play devil's advocate as she massaged him, "forces sent from the other cities."

"We'll have all the weapons in City-71 by then. Mm, yummy."

She leaned forward and moved her tongue along the stem of his penis, squeezing his big, muscular ass harder with both hands to support herself. That was the last straw. Winston pulled himself out of her grasp, almost causing her to collapse forward onto the ground before he turned around on his knees and seized her. A cool breeze flowed past, chilling his naked lower body as he pulled her against his chest and kissed her. As always, she grabbed his head and guided him around her mouth, their tastes mixing and filling each other's tongues. When their lips parted, they held each other close, just gazing at each other's faces. Faces that it was so easy to forget were less than a year old.

"Did I tell you Montag gave me the promotion?"

They both giggled, and then kissed again to celebrate. Winston twisted a finger through her curtain of glossy black hair.

There was a high-pitched, mechanical whine, and Winston felt an electric shock sting the back of his neck. Then his body suddenly weighed three hundred kilograms. He gasped in surprise, tried to grab onto Julia for support, but his fingers were barely strong enough to close themselves. As he collapsed onto her petite body he heard another whine, and Julia fell onto her back under his weight.

"Two more under the Sumac," said the smug voice of Disciplinarian Charrington, "both suspects are subdued."

Craning his head around, Winston saw two figures in skin-tight blue wetsuits poised between the alder trees. Charrington still had his nerve disrupter pointed down at them. Winston recognized that snakish grin from when he and O'Brien had chastised Maria back in April. Winston felt his heart rate leap, his arms and naked legs tremble with adrenaline, but there was nothing his muscles could do with it. He felt Julia struggling to breath under his weight, and used all of his strength to roll himself off of her body and onto the grass. Nerve disruption stopped the signals from the brain from reaching the muscles, but they did nothing to impede signals going the other way. When his birched bottom rolled onto the sharp grass, he yelped.

"Suspects ID's as Winston Fisher and Julia Wong. Violation of civic decency is two hundred points apiece. Public violation is another one hundred. Conspiracy to destroy the City-71 Command Center and instigate a violent revolt against the Disciplinary Commission is... just a moment, it's in here somewhere." He used his free hand to scroll through his wrist-mounted computer, somehow holding the nerve pistol steady as he looked at the screen. "Ah, here it is. One thousand and two hundred points apiece."

"Twelve hundred points," said another male voice, this one unfamiliar. "Well damn. Doesn't that equal a Class A?"

"Class A Disciplinary Violation, yes. Even with zero points outstanding on either record, that's an automatic arrest."

Winston managed to roll up onto his side, using both arms to hold himself steady and keep his ass off the greensward. Blue-suited figures with luminous green stripes across their chests and thighs were spilling out of the trees, surrounding himself and Julia. He made another attempt to get to his feet, and made it as far as his hands and knees before a boot landed on his back and pressed him back on his belly, knocking the wind out of him. He looked up, wincing against the suddenly too-bright summer sunlight. A female Disciplinarian with charcoal skin and petite, West African features smirked down at him, making eye contact above her substantial bust which bore a badge labelled "Beatty." She had a nerve pistol of her own, and was pointing it at him warningly. Winston wondered how much worse the paralysis could be made. Perhaps there was a stun setting? A kill setting? He didn't want to find out. Beside him, Julia growled and clawed uselessly at the pair of Disciplinarians that were trying to get her in cuffs.

"Wait wait, hang on," said Beatty with a subtle African accent as she gestured to Winston's naked lower half, "how can Princeton have no balance?"

Charrington looked back at his colleague, one eyebrow raised. "Princeton?"

Beatty stammered a bit, grinding her boot heel nervously into Winston's back. "You know, this guy." She pointed down at him with her free hand.

"Oh, Winston. And... what was the problem?"

"Well," she said excitedly, taking a moment to fix her hair and bend over a little bit to point more closely at Winston's naked cheeks, "he looks pretty... y'know... disciplined. Is there a bug in the thing?"

"I don't see how there could be," Charrington mused as he walked up beside her to investigate Winston's upturned nates. He looked back at Julia, who the others had managed to hoist to her feet and put in irons. "Perhaps she can tell us?"

Beatty looked confused for a second. "How could she...?"

Charrington sighed and pointed at the abandoned switch and scarf lying on the grass near Julia's feet. Beatty's eyes lit up.

"Ohhhh, okay. So we write her up for vigilancy too?"

"Vigilantism. And yes, four hundred more points for Miss Wong."

The foot that wasn't on Winston's back was just a couple feet from him. Beatty wasn't paying attention; even with his unresponsive muscles Winston was sure he could pull her to the ground. For a moment, as he stared at that blue-wrapped and well-fleshed leg, he actually thought he would do it. One last, doomed act of defiance from a man who had nothing to lose. But then Beatty had her nerve pistol trained down at him again, and the opportunity was lost.

"She did a great job," Beatty mused as another female officer took Winston's hands and held his wrists together behind his back.

"Oh yeah. Pity she didn't join the force." The other officer slapped Winston across both cheeks, setting his switch marks on fire again and making him hiss. Beatty laughed vapidly and (finally) took her foot off his back to give the other woman room to cuff him. Soon, Winston was securely bound, and being half ushered and half dragged toward the similarly captured Julia. For the first time since he rolled off of her, their eyes met. The thin, jade rings that had first captured his attention that April were wide and wet, but they weren't calling out for help.

"I'm sorry," Winston whispered at her.

Julia shook her head, dishevelled black banks falling in front of her. "No. It was my idea to begin with. I'm sorry."

Beatty interposed herself between them, blocking Winston's view of Julia and almost dropping him. "Quiet, you two!" She grabbed Winston's arm again and pulled him against her body before he could fall. He felt her warm, curvy body through her thin uniform, and hated her more than he had thought possible.

"Eight suspects so far," mused Charrington as he scrolled through his wrist computer again, "and not even noon. Sergeant O'Brien was right about this park."

It was then that Winston noticed the green Corporal stripes adorning Charrington's crystalline chest. Apparently, Julia wasn't the only one who had gotten a workplace promotion recently. Sergeant O'Brien. Well, that just figured, didn't it? Still, at least that meant she wouldn't be here in person.

"So, we check in with the Sergeant when we bring them in and she handles the jailing logistics, right?"

"You're such a clever girl, Beatty."

"Ha-ha! Thanks!"

Winston almost shouted, but stopped himself. He wouldn't act out. Wouldn't give them the satisfaction of watching a fruitless struggle. After they had gotten Winston's pants back up ("how are we supposed to walk him if he can't walk, Corporal?") the Disciplinarians dragged them unceremoniously back to the Farren Heights driveway where a pair of windowless hover vans were parked. Winston went along meekly, moving his heavy feet to keep pace. Would they restore his mobility? Probably not until he was in his cell. Too many Disciplinarians to evade even if it did wear off early. A voice from his childhood told him to pray, but he was in a different world from then. There was only one god in City-71, and its name was Overlord.

"I still love-" Julia started to mouth, but she was cut off as two Disciplinarians yanked her to the back door of a van and ushered her inside. Beatty pushed Winston against the side of the van and threw the weight of her body against him.

"What did Jillian try to say to you?" She demanded.

Winston closed his eyes. "Just take us already."