Brave New World Ch. 04

"And... I am very much in love with you, Roy."

He looked deeply into her eyes, then slowly bent down, his mouth close to hers. Hesitantly, almost shyly, her lips parted, and the kiss they shared was tender at first, but soon became passionate. Their tongues met and, the last remnants of hesitation gone, they threw themselves into the kiss with complete abandon. Her arms found their way around his body, while his hands caressed her hair, her face, the side of her neck... Their embrace became tighter, their bodies fitting together like they were made for each other. They kissed, they caressed, they inhaled each other's breath. After a while his hard cock found its way into her hot wet pussy almost on its own, and their embrace became a slow, unhurried lovemaking. They moved as one, and he held her tightly while she cried out and shuddered in orgasm, her legs around the small of his back, his seed spurting deeply into that most intimate part of her body. Love and pleasure blended until they became an almost spiritual thing, as much of the soul as of the body. They held each other for a long, long time.

* * *

"Nice psychologist you are," Roy said with a soft chuckle. "Hadn't you noticed that I've also been having some very serious thoughts about my feelings for you for you for quite some time now?"

She looked up at him and slowly shook her head.

"No... Not really." Her soft smile looked almost shy. "But then, I've been distracted whenever I looked at you... Every time I thought about you."

He held her close.

"So... Tami, can I ask you something?"

"Sure. Always."

"When you told me to go with Chia... You and Reesh deliberately set us up, didn't you?"

"Of course we did." She laughed softly. "Not that it was very difficult. She's been looking at you since she first met you, you know."

"But... Didn't it bother you? I mean, you pretty much expected her and me to have sex, right?"

She looked into his eyes. "Yes, my love. I did."

"And... You were okay with that? I mean, didn't it feel... weird? Watching us and all that?"

She shook her head, smiling.

"No, dear man. It didn't. I may love you, but I don't own you. And you don't own me, either. You must remember that. We can love each other but still share pleasure with the right people." She tickled his chest with her fingertips and sighed softly. "I will give you your freedom, Roy, but I need to know that you can give me mine, too. I know things were different four centuries ago. But you must keep in mind that that was almost exclusively the result of the primitive contraception and the limited medical sciences of that time. Pills to deliberately disrupt hormone balances, rubber sheaths, implants... All very unpleasant and very cumbersome and not effective enough, so viral infections and unwanted pregnancies were far too common. And before that, every time people had sex they risked pregnancy or infection. So the taboos and the social restrictions of the time were quite understandable." She paused to kiss him. "But that's all a thing of the past, and I've seen you take to our ways like a fish to water. So I think you've pretty much shrugged off jealousy and possessiveness along with the rest of it."

"Well..." He thought for a moment. "I suppose so, yes."

"Good. Then let me tell you something, my love. Vard and I watched the two of you for quite while, back there. It made me pretty hot. And... Well, Vard was there, with me. And he's a friend. So we did the logical thing. While I was watching you and Chia, he took me, from behind. I was so wet. I came four times. How I managed to keep quiet I will never know. Fortunately you and Chia made enough sweet noise to cover up what we were doing." She chuckled softly. "Think, my love. Didn't you wonder why I went for a dip in that icy cold pool just before the two of you were done? I didn't want you to see me with his cum running out of me, that's why." She smiled. "And let me tell you, there was a lot of it." Then her expression became serious. "Now tell me, Roy, how do you feel about that?"

Roy pursed his lips, thinking of what she'd said. And somewhat to his surprise he realized that he didn't feel jealous. His old self would have been hurt and angry, very much so. But the man he had become, right here, right now...

"I feel alright with it," he said softly. "It's... mostly a matter of getting used to it, I think. But I'm not hurt or anything, no."

Her sigh was a mix of relief and comfort. "Well, at least I was a little sore. Vard is larger than is comfortable for me. But at the time I didn't care. I just needed a hard cock inside me right then, so I told him to stick his where it would do me the most good. I think he'd have preferred to fuck me in the ass, though."

Roy chuckled. "I suspect Chia will want him to," he said.

Tami nodded. "Yes, I'm sure she will. She loves it. Just like Kyo. But then, they're equipped for it." She snuggled against him. "Roy, how do you feel about nanotech mods?"

"Well... I've been thinking about it."

"I know you have. And so have I. I was thinking about it when I first met you. And... Maybe now is a good time." She sighed. "I'm still not entirely sure about it. Right now I know that whatever I feel is... me. But on the other hand, a few basic mods... As long as I don't go overboard with it, I'll still be me."

He nodded. "That's pretty much how I feel about it. I don't need to be a superman. But the sex I had with stimulants was pretty awesome, and if nanotech can do that for us... Why not?"

"I've tried some stims, too, a few times. The orgasms were incredibly intense, and my clit was so hard it tingled for days. And my nipples..." She squirmed against him. "But I could see myself become too dependent on the stims, so after a few times I quit with that. Nanotech is much more controllable. You can regulate it quite well, so..."

"Chia told me she had just a few basic mods installed," Roy said. "Maybe that's a good place to start?"

"Probably, yes. Reesh will know."

"So let's ask her. Tomorrow, maybe."

"Well..." She looked worried. "That will also depend on what we're going to do about whoever tried to kill you. Roy, I think we'll have to go down there. Dirtside. And I'm coming with you."

"Go down to Earth? Tami..."

"Yes, I know. Jaru was right. We have very little to work with. There's very little in the way of security personnel here in the hab. We have no weapons. There's nobody that we know of who has even had basic training for something like that. Except you, I guess."

He nodded. "I've been through my standard military training. But I never saw action, so I've got zero combat experience."

"Still you're the best we have, Roy. And that makes me scared. Scared for you."

He sighed. "Believe me, I feel much the same way. Just you and me against the world? I don't know, Tami. But as far as I can see, nobody else can really be spared. The hab is pretty much running on a skeleton crew, isn't it?"

"Yes. But we've got to come up with something. Love, anything is better than to sit here and wait for the next attempt on your life." She looked up at him, fear in her eyes. "The next time they might succeed."

"Whoever 'they' are."

"We won't know until we do something." She shivered in his arms. "Roy, I'm scared. The thought of going down there and finding your killer scares me shitless. But not doing it scares me even more."

There was little he could say to that. He held her until he felt her relax and her breathing slowed and became regular, but it was a long time before he fell asleep himself.

* * *

The room was dark when an incredibly wonderful feeling woke him. For a moment it was as if he was dreaming, but then he realized that the feeling of Tami's soft, warm, wet mouth around his hard cock was real.

He slowly opened his eyes to the sight of her head slowly bobbing up and down, his hot, throbbing shaft in her hands. Slowly, lovingly, she ran her tongue across the head of his cock and let her wet lips slide down around the crown. With her hand she gently pulled down the skin of his shaft, her fingers caressing his balls. Sensing that he was awake, she looked up at him, a smile in her eyes.

"Tami..."

"Hmm."

She continued to make love to him with her mouth and fingers. He felt his pleasure rise, a delicious sensation infusing his groin. He gasped, and his breath came faster. Tami, sensing the closeness of his orgasm, backed off a little. She let the head of his cock slip out of her mouth and slowly licked the sensitive underside with the tip of her tongue, her fingers barely touching his hard shaft. When his breathing slowed and she felt him relax, she slid her lips back down around his head again and resumed her hot, wet, velvety-slick caresses. Once again the pleasure flowed through him, like an electric current running from the head of his cock to where his fingertips did amazing thing to his balls. The pleasure rose, rose... And then she backed off again, until he started to come down once more from that wonderful brink. She teased him, toyed with him... She took him to the verge of orgasm, pulled him back, then urged him on again... Back and forth, back and forth...

Finally he began to moan softly as the urge to cum became a raw, physical need. She sensed it, and her caresses became more insistent, more intense, as she deliberately pushed him toward the edge, and he knew that this time she was going to let him cum. She sucked his swollen head, her lips wet and tight around the crown, her tongue running across the slit, then pressing against the sensitive underside. Her fingers clasped his rock-hard shaft, began to pump up and down, slowly but insistently, her fingertips tracing intricate patterns across his balls...

His pleasure surged, unstoppable as her fingers, lips and tongue pushed him on and on, until it soared past the point where either of them could still control it. As he finally reached that white-hot peak of ecstasy, the eruption was so powerful that he felt the head of his cock explode inside her mouth, big, bright fireworks bursting out of it from all sides. His legs tensed up, his back arched, and he screamed with the power of his release as she continued to suck, suck, prolonging the intense pleasure to a point where his whole universe became defined by it. His cock pulsed, and he shot the first thick spurt of cum into the back of her mouth, another one, and another... She sucked, swallowed, swallowed again, her fingers pumping his shaft, her lips around the head of his cock urging him onward.

Finally, after what seemed a long time, when she had literally milked him dry, he slumped as she let his rapidly softening cock slip out of her mouth. His body felt like jelly. She swallowed, then licked her lips and smiled.

"Hmm...." she said softly. "That was a good one..."

He could only look at her, unable to speak or move for the moment, as his breath began to slow.

"Ssshh..." she whispered, seeing how completely, how utterly, she had used him up. "Sleep now, lover. Sleep... You can return the favor tomorrow."

He did. And the next morning, he did.

* * *

"The only thing that I can think of," Kyo said as they were sitting in the hab's star-domed garden, "is to go down in a regular dropship and see what we can organize dirtside. They have security personnel and all that, so maybe we can persuade them to help us."

Jaru looked thoughtful. "There's one place where we can start," he said. "I've been scanning all monitor logs of the last few months, and there have been quite a few transmissions going back and forth using the same relay tags as the ones we've been dealing with. The scary thing is that there seems to be some correlation between these transmissions on the one hand, and dirtside radical activists making a lot of noise on the other."

"Do you think there's a connection?" Tami asked.

Jaru shrugged. "Hard to say for sure, but it sure looks like it."

"You mentioned extremists before," Roy said. "I think I'd like to know a little more about that."

"Well," Jaru said, looking glum, "that's a long story, but let me see if I can shrink it down it a little." He thought for a moment. "In the years following Nuke Day there was very little left in terms of government. People went to ground in whatever way they could. Small communities formed, mostly based on available resources and skills. What emerged was something halfway between a functional anarchy and a technocracy."

Roy raised his eyebrows. "A functional anarchy?"

Jaru nodded. "As far as it went, yes. Anarchies are rarely stable, but this one worked reasonably well at the time. But then the circumstances were unusual, of course. There was no central government. There was very little communication, and no law enforcement at all. So there was a fair amount of brutality going on, of course. Fights, looting, lynchings, all the usual. But eventually most communities settled down and began to govern and regulate themselves. And people tended to end up being put in charge of whatever they knew most about. There was simply no room left for ego or politics. So doctors ended up being in charge of health care, farmers governed agriculture, that sort of thing. So essentially it became a technocracy, or a meritocracy, call it what you want."

"Okay, so that worked for a while," Roy said. "And then?"

"Eventually better lines of communication were established, and smaller communities began to pool their resources. Larger shelters were gradually built, and more formal forms of government emerged again. Today most of what passes for government comes from C4, but it's more supportive than strict governance."

"C4?" Roy asked.

"Central Control and Coordination Center. Central for short. Or C4. Most of the time the easiest way to get things done is to go through Central, because they usually know what's what, where it is and who's in charge of it. But there's still a lot of autonomy, and the various shelters are essentially self-governed."

"Much like the city-states of old..." Roy mused.

"I don't know much about that," Jaru said. "Is it relevant?"

Roy shook his head. "Probably not," he said. "I think I'm beginning to see the problem, though. Communities who had pretty much governed themselves suddenly found themselves facing a form of central control again."

"Not quite," Jaru said. "It's more like they were offered the option and they saw the advantages, but most people weren't all that sure they were ready to give up their autonomy. For many years there was a lot of discussion..."

"And the discussions got out of hand more often than not," Roy finished.

Jaru nodded. "Yes. To make matters even more complicated, this came at a time when many people were wondering what humanity as a whole should do. By then several options had become available. The bulk of the population could have moved to the habs, for example, but most people preferred to stay dirtside and make a stand there. Some decided we should repopulate Earth as quickly as possible, while others feel we should limit our birth rates until we've got more habitable territory. And with four centuries of hardship right behind us, there are plenty of groups and individuals who won't hesitate to use force to make their points."

"I see..." Roy said slowly. 'So... How bad is this? Are we talking about mass protests here? Subversive meetings? Terrorism?"

Jaru thought for a moment. "Protests, sure. Occasional mass protests are not unheard of, but they aren't exactly common, either. But extremist groups do exist, and there have been several cases of sabotage and a few fatalities here and there." He sighed. "Like that's what we need right now. Stupid idiots."

"You said something about these odd data transmissions and radical activism being related," Kyo said. "What exactly are we talking about here?"

Jaru nodded. "From what my filtering programs came up with, I'm pretty sure that there is a definite correlation between data transmissions carrying the relay tag we've seen, and all sorts of unrest being organized by extremist groups. Pretty much all shelters seem to have had these data transfers going through them, but the ones that are currently experiencing the most uproar have had a lot more of them than the ones that are still quiet."

"So what are you saying?" Roy asked.

"I'm saying that we should be able to make this work for us," Jaru said. "We'll need help once we get dirtside. We'll need weapons, transport and ideally some manpower. If we can explain to them that we're looking at the common cause for all our various problems here, they should be far more willing to offer us assistance."

"You think so?"

"Yes." Jaru looked grim. "Don't forget one thing, Roy: we've got one piece of data that nobody else has. Whoever is behind this is somehow connected with military operations of four centuries ago, and is most likely directly linked to your past."

Roy sighed. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

Jaru shook his head. "Neither would I, in your place. But there it is."

"It makes sense," Kyo agreed. "So what's the plan?"

"Ideally," Jaru said, "we would have to go straight to the southernmost shelter, and from there to the Antarctic."

Kyo nodded. She tapped out a sequence on a small datapad, and a map appeared on its display screen. While the outlines of the continents were familiar to Roy, the colors were not: land was represented in brown, and the oceans were gray. He didn't find it very encouraging. The continents were dotted with small red circles, mostly along the coasts and concentrated around the eastern seaboard of what had once been North America.

"Shelter... one thirty three. Your old home, Kyo," Jaru said, peering at the map. He pointed at one of the red circles, which appeared to be located in the tip of South America. Argentina? Geography had never been Roy's strong point.

"So when is the next drop for one thirty three due?" Tami asked.

"Only in three weeks," Kyo said, peering at her panel.

Tami sighed. "That's too long."

She had been very quiet so far, Roy thought, and the look on her face was pensive and worried.

"Nothing we can do about it," Kyo said. "All other drops are scheduled for the north. We only roll over to that side of the continent in three weeks. In fact, one thirty three is the first drop on the new schedule."

"So what are we going to do until then?" Tami burst out. "Wait for whoever it is to try and kill Roy again?"

"If that's our only option, then yes," Roy said calmly. "We'll all watch our backs and wait until we can act. Unless there is a way to override or change the schedule?"

Jaru slowly shook his head. "No. Scheduling is all done at Central. And there's no way we can get in there."

"Then three weeks it is," Roy said. "I don't like it any better than you do, Tami, but I don't see how we can change it."

Tami sighed. "I know. It's just that..."

Roy put his arms around her and held her close.

"Don't worry, Tami. We'll be fine."

"You don't know that," she whispered.

"We'll just have to make it work," Kyo said. "And in any case, I'll be going with you when the time comes."

Roy looked at her, his eyebrows raised.

"Of course I am," Kyo said. "It can't just be the two of you, Roy. You're not familiar with anything down there, and we can't leave it all up to Tami. No offense, Tams, but you're far too gentle to twist somebody's arm, and that's just what it may come down to. Up here we have very few people who can be spared, but with Jaru pulling double shifts in Engineering I can be freed up for a few days. Plus, I know one thirty three. I grew up there. I even know the commander there. So it's going to be me."

Tami looked at her. "Thanks, Ki," she said. She sounded relieved. "Are you sure about this?"