Honor Among Thieves

Mellie lowered her binoculars and wiped the sweat from her brow. Sunlight perched on her muscular shoulders, striped by the shadow of the rust-red cliff faces in what used to be Kanab, Utah. The sign still swung from a single chain on the outskirts of town, twirling in the dry breeze. She lifted the binoculars again to peer down at the man she was being paid to capture.

The bounty vid from Hojo Corp hadn't done the contract justice. Sam Quicktongue was breathtaking. His long black hair swirled around his heavy features as he flip-kicked a broken sticker-studded skateboard in the deserted skatepark. Naked from the waist up, his coppery skin glowed under the blistering blue sky. His arms and shoulders flexed in a tensile stretch as he balanced himself on the bowing board. Glints of silver caught the golden afternoon light from his pierced nipples.

Mellie stepped down from her perch and handed her binoculars to her personal security, Griff. She had paid his bounty at a discount after she captured him at a smoky post-war bar assembling his projectile rifle blindfolded for cups of potato liquor. She had talked her way in, even letting the bouncer stroke the side of her neck with his knuckle as she whispered that she could make him a bit richer. His rough iron-gray stubble scraped her cheek. She could see his erection pressing against the thin fabric of his patched slacks as she pressed a credit chip into his palm. He smelled like gasoline and pre-war cherry cough drops.

Women in public spaces were rare now. So when she strolled into the bar, flashing her chipped grin at the laborers and dragging her fingers across their thin backs, their eyes followed her in hunger, in grief for what they had lost. Their cheap e-cigarettes trembled suspended between their fingers as they watched her in silence, the devices' flashing red lights like animal eyes in the woods. Her boots stuck to the booze-soaked concrete floor as she approached the blindfolded Griff hunched over the scattered pieces of his rifle. His massive shoulders and back rippled with muscle under the thin, tattered USMC t-shirt. His cropped blond hair gleamed like shorn wheat under the hot orange lights. She touched his shoulder and crooned into his ear, just brushing her lips against the stiff coil of pink cartilage. He flinched and Mellie pressed the thumb-sized Disabler into the side of his neck. The trademarked electronic melody chirped, alerting the room of the authenticity of the dangerous device.

"You have just two choices here. Just two, so listen to me carefully," Mellie said.

The big mercenary kept his hands flat on the table and nodded.

"As you know, under the Labor Protectorate Act of 2036, unregistered labor is unlawful. You are being detained by Mellie Proust, employee number 39529 of the Hojo Corporation. Your bounty has accrued interest at a rate of twenty-nine percent, which brings the total to..."

Mellie kept the Disabler pressed against the side of his neck as she drew out her phone and scrolled through the bounty app.

"$79,769," she said. "I am required to ask you if you have the bounty in hand and if you would like to pay it, as well as the administrative fees associated with renewing your licensure with Hojo Corporation."

"If I did, would I be sitting around in a shithole like this?"

"Please answer yes or no."

"No," he said.

Mellie uploaded the verbal response to the app and closed it. The other patrons stared down into their drinks, ignoring them. Once Hojo Corp arrived, it was fruitless to resist.

"Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about your choices. May I sit?"

She stepped from behind him without waiting for an answer and plopped down in the chair across from him. Her hand swept across peeling plastic tabletop and sent the disassembled rifle pieces clattering to the floor. The room expanded with silence, punctuated only by a dry hacking cough. Mellie turned to the room.

"I wonder who else has a bounty in here," she said, glaring at the men. "Maybe I could get a little bonus contract."

They all turned back to their illegal bootlegged liquor and resumed talking. The bartender turned the crank on the little hand-powered radio and the room filled with the strange sounds of Hojo Corp's ElectroRadar pop station. Mellie turned back to Griff who peered at her under furrowed pale golden brows.

"Ok, here's the deal. I am looking for new security personnel. You have the experience and the aesthetics I'm looking for. I can pay your bounty in full as well as the associated costs if you come and work for me."

His light gray eyes searched her, plying her intention.

"What would I be doing?"

"Oh this and that, but mostly security and recon, as well as serving my other needs."

"Needs?" He asked.

His voice had a churlish but serene quality to it. His accent rang with the twang of Southern states before they were annexed. Mellie imagined herself balanced on his lap, sliding her tongue into his mouth, his biceps folding around her.

"I want you to fuck me sometimes."

He cracked a wide, white grin.

"So, you want to pay off my bounty in exchange for fucking you and helping you catch other suckers like me? Fuckin' a. What's the catch?"

"I get to choose your release date, based on your performance."

"Shit yeah. Where do I sign?" He sat up in his chair and let his eyes drift down her throat to her small breasts.

"I'm going to need a working interview before we enter into any contractual obligation," she said, taking a sip of his drink. "Of course, I will pay a small portion of your bounty now in exchange for your...labor."

"This one's on me, baby," he said.

She reached over to pat his arm and gazed at him in pity, the soft underside of her arm sticking to the table.

"Never ever offer anything for free. Not in this world."

He leaned across the table and slid his hand behind her head, drawing her to his warm mouth. Mellie clutched her Disabler in her palm and rubbed the slick button with her thumb as he slipped his hand under her loose, open-necked tunic. His fingertips traced around her nipple, thumbing the stiffening flesh as he sucked at her earlobe.

She could feel the eyes of the bar on them. Men sat with their eyes cut sideways, their own desire welling in their bellies and hardening their cocks under their patched slacks and fraying jeans. Some of the men were too young to remember when women were abundant and integrated into their society and clutched at one another, giggling and staring as her tunic rode up revealing the smooth olive skin of her lower back. Their stares excited her, flushing and filling her with a warm languor. She stood up and moved to the other side of the table and lightly pushed Griff back into his seat as she lowered herself onto his lap.

Bathed in their gazes, Mellie squirmed in Griff's lap. To tease. To incite. His breathing quickened as she slipped her hand past his waistband to stroke his thick, hard cock under the fabric. A droplet of fluid smeared across her palm as she stroked, smiling over his shoulder at the bartender, who lowered his gaze and wiped at the faded pink plastic cups furiously.

"This party is going to be over real soon If you keep that up," he whispered huskily.

"You better not finish if you want this deal. This is a working interview," she said, finding his zipper and tugging it down.

She pulled his erection free, cloaking it under the folds of her dusty canvas duster. His fingers shuffled down the front of her loose wrap trousers to press against her engorged clitoris. Her body responded before she could remind him that she was in charge and she arched backwards against his firm chest. He slipped two fingers inside of her and stroked upward, thumbing her clitoris until she flooded his fingers with her wetness.

Griff hadn't even seen a woman since The Extraction and this tough petite creature that held him in her small hand as her dark hair curled in commas around her pinkening face appeared to be too much. She could feel the pulsing drip of his desire and felt for the tie at the crotch of her billowy trousers. As she untied it, she nudged backward on his lap until she felt the length of his bare cock pressing against her slit.

"I want you inside of me," she murmured above the low drone of muted conversations around them.

He reached under her and pushed her cotton panties to the side, driving his throbbing cock up into her under the protective tent of her long garment. She enveloped him, feeling the fullness of his penetration. He smelled like woodsmoke and leather and warm skin. His stubble rasped against her ear as he rocked under her, gripping her hips and kissing the back of her neck.

Eyes landed on them, intensifying her arousal, impelling her orgasm in front of this room of men. She reached down between her legs and stroked herself to a blinding finish, squeezing his cock as the orange solar lights spun above her. She soaked the front of his slacks as he bit the side of her neck, his own orgasm jetting warm and urgent into her. She let her head loll backward to rest against his shoulder for a moment, letting her jagged breath slow, before easing herself off of his lap and nudging The Disabler against his neck as he tucked himself back into his pants.

"Damn. I did that bad huh?" he asked, grinning up at her.

A smile played at the corner of her lips.

"You have passed your working interview." She pulled out her phone. "Please place your thumb here and here to sign the transference of debt to labor agreement."

He leaned against her hip as he pressed his thumb against the screen.

"Take me outta here, baby."

"Don't call me 'baby.'"

"Alright, take me outta here, doll."

"Griff, I could kill you right here," she said, exasperated.

"Aw, after our special moment?"

Mellie rolled her eyes.

"Finish your drink and get in the truck."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

He downed the rest of his liquor and stood up. A smattering of applause echoed around the bar before Mellie glared the men down, her hand resting on the Disabler.

***

Mellie took back the binoculars from Griff. He propped his elbow on her shoulder as he looked through the binoculars at the new bounty. He had thinned out and his skin had turned a dusky gold since he signed that contract in the bar all those months ago. His blond hair had grown past his shoulders and hung in loose sun-bleached waves. He was more refined. More dangerous.

"Well boss, how should we take him? Should I radio Skip?"

The sunlight played on his golden lashes and brows as he grinned crookedly at her.

***

Skip was another bounty she hired into her fold. She bought him at a high cost, as his bounty was tied to direct crimes against the corporation rather than nonpayment or failure to register. He, like the wiry Silvertongue, was a Tech Terrorist. His specialty was remote-controlled initiators for explosives and Grand Theft Data in the amount exceeding 1.8 million dollars of lost value. A crime that could land him a laser eye removal.

He was the first contract she took with Griff and secretly she was impressed with the insouciant former Marine's first performance. When the chips were down, Griff was professional, alert, dangerous. He was as tight as a bowstring, his belly flat on the packed earth as they scoped the bunker where Skip lived with a small commune that went out into the Denver Wastes every day to gather car parts, scrap metal, electronics, and building materials from the ruins that sprawled under the thin harsh sunlight.

Skip was the opposite of Griff in every way. Dark and serious, his hazel eyes were set intense and flashing against the warm luster of his coffee-black skin. His dreads fell down his back as he stood in front of the array of solar panels, fiddling with a control box with long deft fingers. He was alone in the encampment. The others had gone in search of water, wheeling old trash bins down the rocky little path.

Griff nudged her with his elbow from their vantage point atop the bones of a rust-flaked yellow school school bus. Her heart thudded like a rabbit in the grass.

"Take him," she whispered. "I'll drive him toward you, then you take him. "

Mellie pulled her hood up over her head and scooted down the side of the bus into the goatweed. The burrs rasped against her bare calves as she edged toward him. She imagined herself as tempting and dangerous as poisonous berry, shining bright red against the greyness of winter. A temptation to the hungry.

She pulled her duster open more and scooped a handful of dust from beneath her feet and smudged her face and bare chest with it. She conjured memories of her brother, of faithful dogs, of the world before the fall so that the tears would come to streak the dust under her large, wet eyes to make her seem harmless and small before him. In hunting men, baiting the trap was the most important part. She pressed down the sobs as she stumbled onto the thin winding path toward Skip's bunching back as he prodded at the control box with a homemade tool made of wire and the plastic tube of a Bic pen. Too sad drove them away. Look vulnerable, not helpless. Vulnerable held the whiff of sex. Helpless did not.

As she approached, the dry grass crackled under her step and he spun around, his hand on a hacked Disabler at his hip.

"Who are you?" He asked in a rich baritone.

"Please, I'm thirsty," she said, feigning weakness.

He shifted from one torn converse sneaker to another, his shoulders bunching into a gleaming mass of muscle.

"We don't have any water right now."

"Please, I'm willing to trade anything."

She lightly tugged at her open robe to reveal her fine, high breasts just for a moment. It was the signal for Griff to move in more closely. His eyes roamed over her and his hand drifted from the hacked Disabler at his side.

"I haven't seen a woman in years," he said.

Mellie clutched her jacket and roused all of her acting ability to the pinnacle as she pretended to collapse into the dust with a pitiful cry. He rushed to her and slid his arms under her back and knees to lift her, his eyes soft with concern. Softhearted. The types with principles almost always were.

The smell of engine oil and homemade soap clung to his skin as he raised her like a princess to his chest. His breath warm on her scalp, he cradled her against his trunk and crunched his way up the gravel path toward the bunker. She gripped the Disabler in her hand and whipped it up the side of his neck, clinging to his wrist in case he decided to drop her. He stiffened at the touch of the prongs on the side of his neck.

"Shit," he said, his body tense against hers.

She rattled off her employee number and the charges as he stood frozen. Technoterrorism in the ninth degree. Crimes against the good of humanity. Destruction of corporate property. Manslaughter.

"Retrieve your weapon from the holster and drop it on the ground."

He nodded along as he held her in his arms in a strange pieta. She stroked his arm with her fore finger and made her voice gentle.

"But you have a choice here. Hojo Corp has given me the latitude to hire you on, rather than put you to work in the warehouses."

He released her legs and she slid to standing on front of him.

"And what if I refuse to go at all?" His hand drifted to the hacked Disabler at his side.

His muscles tensed as Mellie pressed the Disabler harder against his neck, creasing the skin under his jaw.

"That would be unwise. You see, I have an insurance policy."

Suddenly, Griff's thick arm slung around Skip's shoulders and drew him to a seated position on the ground as he flailed his arms in a wide arc. Griff disarmed him and tucked the weapon in the back of his pants.

"Ok, ok. I know when I've been beat. What's the job?!"

"Let him go, Griff," Mellie said, looking amused at the two men scrabbling in the dust.

"Hojo Corp has given me permission to assemble a personnel retention team and we need a tech and mechanics guy. I also retain the right for any and all stud services."

Mellie sat down on a cracked cinder block and sipped from her Waste-not Filtration tube. Skip and Griff sat at her feet panting from the exertion and beaming sun. She offered Skip the end of the transparent tube. He took it and drew on it, huffing between swallows.

"Stud services?"

Griff winked at him and spat in the dust.

"It's just what it sounds like." Griff said, flicking his pink tongue between two dirty fingers.

Mellie rolled her eyes and pushed his hand down. Her dark eyes sparkled almost playfully under the cool veneer.

"Like Griff will tell you, I do require a working interview to determine your suitability to these roles."

"I'm sure Hojo has already told you that I am the very best in mechanical alterations and initiator technology," he said.

Mellie reached over and slid her hand down the back of his tattered navy jumpsuit. He caught his breath as his body responded to her touch.

"Not that kind of interview," she said, her voice husky with desire.

He was finer than Griff, sharper and more attentive. His body was as lean as a willow switch and moved with the grace of a hawk careening on downdraft. His white teeth set straight against the rich mahogany of his skin. She wanted him. She wanted them both.

"I see," he said and edged closer to her, before placing his graceful hand on her inner thigh. "The others will be gone for water all day."

He was eager. Excited. He gripped her knee and hauled himself up, offering her his hand. She took it, its warm dry texture gliding over her own rough hands. He pulled her to her feet and pulled her close, the intimacy astounding her.

His mouth met hers like he knew her from before all this, when they were all nestled in their climate-controlled houses, slung over soft couches and draped in cheap fabric. Back when she waited for the next call in her white and gray animal control truck sucking on an e-cigarette and eating packaged Fritos as she scrolled through the endless contorted half-dressed bodies in search of love, or something akin to it, on her little screen. Loops and swirls of vapor pouring from her windows.

He held her like they had met in a bar, under the pale pink glow of neon and he had bought her a beer, cold and rolling with perspiration over the jewel-green bottle. Like they had swayed together on a sticky dance floor, their arms entwined as they pushed against one another, their sweat mingling in a warm sheen over their bodies. His tongue gliding over hers. His taut belly pressing against hers. His erection, thick and roused, pushing into her hip.

She was swept away.

Griff looked on jealously and picked up a chipped saucer with tiny print blue flowers printed in the center and smashed it against a glittering granite boulder on the side of the gravel path. The sound of the breaking porcelain startled Skip and he drew back from their kiss.

"What the hell?" Skip looked over at Griff.

"He's fine," Mellie said, drawing Skip's jaw back to hers.

"I am not fine," Griff muttered under his breath.

The big man sat down on the ground eyeing her petulantly as he fiddled with a long strand of grass.

Mellie released Skip and went to sit beside Griff, stroking his long silky hair. He leaned against her, silent. His powerful arms and legs streaked with dust.

"I thought I was your number one," he sulked.

"Skip can you give us a minute?"

Skip shrugged and strode off toward the skeletal remains of a rust-eaten ice cream truck. Mellie watched his languid form as he slipped around the corner.

"Griff, you are very important, but so is Skip."

"Why can't it just be me?"

"Because we are a team now and teams share resources. Besides no one said you couldn't play too, later. This is an interview. I have to see his attachments. I have to see his weaknesses and loyalties," she explained.