One in Ten Ch. 10

I was garnering attention, which I had learned to ignore long ago. I trusted enough of the women in the cavernous room so that I wasn't too intimidated by the looks I was getting.

"Take off your shirt," Jethro called out.

"Huh?" I was almost propelled off the treadmill.

"Give the girls some eye-candy," he snorted.

"We don't treat Israel that way," Aniqua spoke up. Angel was biting her tongue. There was a stalemate going on, then Kuiko jumped off her seat and fell on her knees.

"Show us the sexy," she pleaded to me with her playful expression lighting up her face.

Kuiko implored me with her hands held up in supplication. She was so freaking adorable. Suddenly Samantha fell on her knees beside Kuiko, quickly followed by Aniqua and Venus. Roni added to the mix somewhat reluctantly.

"Please, please, please," they chorused.

Aren't there something like twenty porn channels out there plus hundreds of websites?

"You don't need to tell women what to do," Jethro laughed. "Just have what they want."

I didn't want to have what women wanted! That was my nightmare three times over. My female companions were - fuck - they were playing with me. Damn it.

I languidly peeled my shirt off, hopefully maximizing my sex appeal. Had I understood sex appeal more, I might have done a better job. By the wide eyes staring at me, I mistakenly did something right. Trauma warred with the desire to heal - to be cleansed somehow.

"Kuiko, this is all you fault and you must be punished," I glared intense menace her way.

Kuiko looked enraptured with ecstasy. She began tearing off her clothes much to the shock/amazement of the other occupants. After she wiggled her shorts off all she had on was this pink thong with a strategically placed heart as its centerpiece. Kuiko popped up and started running around the room, arms out like an airplane.

"I've been bad and I'm going to get punished," she squealed repeatedly as she circuited the room.

Jethro's stare caught my gaze and his look was indecipherable.

"Worse case of negative reinforcement I've ever seen," he laughed. I lowered my head in defeat and returned to my exercises. It was better that way. The machines had safety features where my life had none.

I was ten minutes from completing my routine when something beeped on Jethro's TV. The old man flipped open one of the arms on his recliner and pulled out a sawed-off pump action shotgun.

"We've got company and I ain't expecting anyone else," he rumbled as he stood.

Angel also rose to her feet, taking in the male with a weapon.

"How many ways in?" Angel barked.

"Too many," Jethro calmly replied. "This place is made for egress, not to be a fortress."

"We'll talk about your firearms later," Angel grumbled.

"We can talk about how little I care later, but right now Cop, go to the side entrance where you came in," Jethro directed. "I'll take the front door."

"What so the rest of us do?" half the voices called out. Not me though.

"I'm a paramedic, but most of my gear is still in the van," Roni added. "Do you have a medical kit?"

"Paisley, show her where we keep the medical supplies," Jethro directed. He was already heading out, swiftly followed by Angel. I went after those two.

"What are you doing?" Angel snapped at me.

"Being a man?" I shrugged. Jethro chuckled.

"Here ya go," he handed me his revolver. "Ever used one?"

"I was taught by an expert," I pledged. As far as I knew, Flame was an expert. Surprisingly, Angel kept her mouth shut though she looked exasperated with both Jethro and me. She had barely separated from us when there was banging on the door.

Whomever had driven up must have been driving recklessly fast.

"Israel, open up!" yelled the voice from outside. Jethro was looking at a screen I couldn't see. I didn't need to see who it was because I knew the voice. I ran to the door. It wouldn't open.

"It is a friend," I shouted over my shoulder to Jethro.

"Who is your friend's banged-up buddy?" Jethro inquired laconically.

"Short, or tall?" I requested.

"Tall," he filled me in.

"That would be Silent. The maniac about to blow her way in here if you don't open the door is Flame," I explained.

The door clicked, I turned the knob and opened it and Flame came tumbling in with a semi-conscious Silent.

"Roni!" I yelled. I stepped up and hugged Flame. I almost wept.

"I knew you couldn't die," I murmured.

"Of course not," Flame snorted in amusement. "I haven't killed you yet." Someone cleared their throat. "Nice welcome wagon - an old fossil and a pissed off fuck machine." I had to fix my mind on the second reference. Flame had seen Angel's sex tape.

"This is Jethro McFarlane - it's his home. The woman with the pistol is Detective Angel Kristi - my lover and friend," I started introductions.

"Jethro and Angel, this is Flame aka Brigit and Silent aka Davia. They are part of the Keverich organization," I finished.

"I've heard of them," Jethro mulled things over. "I'm kind of curious why I'm not already shooting them."

"Me too," Angel added. No one moved, or spoke, for a few seconds.

"Israel, I think they want you to move so the bullets can start flying," Flame snickered.

"I'm actually aware of that," I kept hugging her. Silent moaned. Roni finally arrived.

"Can I take care of the wounded woman?" she addressed the room.

Flame muscled free of my embrace, dragged/carried Silent to the living room sofa and plopped her down. There was a pregnant pause as Roni maneuvered around the furniture with a first aid kit and knelt down next to the wounded bodyguard.

"So, what happened?" I finally asked. "Where is Magdalena?"

"Dead or in custody," Flame shrugged. "When I last saw her, she was wounded in the left shoulder and down on the ground. About that time I discovered that while my Baby will fracture the glass armor on an attack helicopter's canopy, it won't penetrate, so I ran."

"Are you okay?" I worried. Flame patted my cheek.

"That's what I like about you," she smiled flippantly. "You care. I don't know why, but you care."

"What exactly happened to Little M?" Angel advanced.

"Looked like Army types and SWAT stormed one of our safe-houses," Flame sighed. "It was in a high-rise and they came at us from all angles."

"That's bad," Angel muttered.

"Amen to that," Jethro confirmed.

"Huh?" I looked back to the two people who seemed to know what was going on.

"Back at the rail station," Capri came stepping up beside Jethro, "when the soldiers came for you this morning, Israel. That was illegal because there was no State of Emergency or Martial Law."

"Now the Army really is in charge and can round up anyone they wish," she continued. "The curiosity is why they haven't declared their intentions and a curfew."

"Isobel Diaz pointed those bitches our way," Flame related. "That's for certain."

"That's nice," Jethro stared. "How did you know to come here?"

"After Davia and I fought free, we had nowhere to go. All the gang's operations had cops all over them. I figured the Outfit was done for and we needed out. The only person I was sure had an exit plan was Israel, so I went looking for him. I knew his normal haunts would be crawling with surveillance then I remembered his buddy, Kuiko," Flame informed us.

"I went to Kuiko's workplace, talked to her boss and she told me about this place. Here I am," she grinned.

"You killed Amy (Kuiko's and Aniqua's boss), didn't you?" Jethro glared.

"She's in Hell alright," Flame snickered. "Plastered her brains all over the back wall, destroyed her personal and business computers then set the building on fire. I like being thorough."

"You appear to take pride in being a remorseless psychopath," Capri noted.

"Flame is my friend and she's a fighter," I argued. "We'll need her with us on the road we will be taking."

"Flame is it?" Jethro asked. Flame snorted. "You can stay as long as you know who is in charge."

"I suck at taking orders," Flame responded.

"That's not my problem anymore," Jethro grinned maliciously. "Israel, it is up to you to keep that pussy in line." What the fuck? How did that come about? Flame punched me in the arm.

"Are you going to tame this kitty?" she laughed.

I looked around for a lifeline. Kuiko had put her shirt on, but was otherwise only in her thong.

"Kuiko, could you show Flame to the kitchen and help her get some food and drink," I requested. "She's most likely not eaten all day."

"Sure thing," she beamed. Kuiko wiggled through the group of women by that portal.

"Come on," she beckoned Flame. Flame smirked at me then walked over to Kuiko. Kuiko linked arms with Flame. I feared a beating was in the offing. "Thank you for looking after Israel last night," Kuiko smiled. "We appreciate it."

"You do realize I put a gun to his head and nearly killed him, right?" Flame mused.

"Of course," Kuiko giggled, "but you didn't. It is because you two are friends."

"He fucks you a whole bunch, I can tell," Flame teased her.

"Yes," Kuiko bubbled. "Every time he has sex with another woman, I get a non-stop hour of sex with him too. He's going to torture my nipples later on, if you want to watch."

"Tons of fun," Flame chuckled. "I can't wait. Nipple torture - how does that work?" was the last thing I heard as they went out of hearing range. Events took on a life of their own after that. Roni sent Angel to their van for medical supplies. Paisley was a junior Biology student, so she volunteered to assist Roni. Aniqua and Samantha hung around so that the four of them could easily move Silent to the floor when the time came.

Roni was still working away while the rest of us were in the man-cave once more. Flame seemed happy taking long pulls on the Wild Cherry and smacking her lips. I wasn't surprised she wasn't worrying about Silent. Her wounded comrade was a reliable pair of guns guarding her back and nothing more. Emotional bonds were contrary to her psychopathic nature.

Jethro had been sitting on his 'throne' for fifteen minutes, deep in thought.

"I guess it is about time we got those guns," he announced as he stood up. His words captured everyone's attention yet he didn't appear to care. He started walking from the room and the rest of us followed along. The need for guns had brought us here in the first place.

His path led us into his walk-in pantry. One wall of shelves rolled out and to the sides on seamless wheels. Beneath that spot was a steel door, a tad over one meter wide and three meters long. It must have been spring-loaded because once Jethro yanked on the hole that only one finger could fit into, the portal swung open and back.

Stairs led down into darkness. Jethro turned around and followed them out of sight for several seconds. Then a light came on. The drop looked to be around four meters. Angel went next. A strange level of respect allowed me to go third. Flame was at my back then Kuiko, Venus and Lavender.

The floor was grey-painted concrete. The room stretched out five meters in each direction. 80% of the room was covered with stacked crates with a variety of markings on them, a few even in English. Angel was incredibly tense. I didn't know why, but I had a feel for her moods. The other 20% of the room was an immaculate workbench.

Considering Jethro's aversion to cleanliness, this was definitely something noteworthy.

"What is all this stuff?" Venus asked.

"Weapons," Angel preempted the old guy.

"This is an awful lot of weapons," Lavender muttered. No one wanted to say it, so I did.

"Jethro, you were in the MRA, weren't you?" I tossed out there. I'd told the nation that the MRA was dead and here I was looking at a small armory of illegal weaponry. Jethro had been walking over to the work area. He turned and looked us over.

"I'm going to do something I don't normally do," Jethro met each of our gazes.

"I'm going to explain myself. Let's pull some assault rifles out of those crates, make sure they in top shape then go upstairs 'cause I am only going to do this once," he stated.

"These people don't know how to use firearms," Angel cautioned angrily.

"They'll never learn if they don't have one and we are approaching the point where we'll need everyone to be a shooter," he countered. "Let's get to it."

And that's what we did. These weapons had been top rate stuff at the start of the 21st century. Now, they weren't quite antiques - only old. The basics of using some sort of explosive substance to propel an object at your target remained the same. In the case of firearms, it was remarkably the same, or so Angel said.

Kuiko went straight for the Russian-made Surface-to-Air missile - because she thought that the Cyrillic writing looked pretty. It was one of the few exotic devices. Most were clearly Federation military, or Police issue, undoubtedly stolen from some armory at some point early in Jethro's terrorist career.

I was irate that Kuiko looked so cute with a bandolier of ammo packs and an automatic shotgun. Angel insisted that only she and Jethro took loaded firearms upstairs. We could carry the gun and the ammo as long as the ammo wasn't in the gun. Venus argued that this defeated the purpose of having the weapon.

Angel countered that if she couldn't load it quickly, she probably shouldn't have it in the first place. I caught Flame bagging up a few boxes of ammunition, but Jethro didn't seem to care so I let it slide. It fell to Flame and me to lug extra rifles and cartridge belts up to the rest of the group, being the strongest - Angel was keeping an eye on Jethro and he was keeping an eye on her.

Fifteen minutes later, we had gathered back in the spacious dwelling space of our host. Jethro, on his throne, finished off a glass of Wild Cherry and began his tale:

"I was seventeen and in high school when the Gender Plague first broke out. I was quarantined for a month before the Supreme Court decided it was illegal and set us men free.

I took the opportunity to enlist in the Navy - the US Navy - because of the man shortage when I was released. Went through Basic, the Specialist School - I was a Damage Control Technician which meant I was a fireman - then a second outbreak happened. I was quarantined for three months this time.

I got out and was assigned to the destroyer Michael A. Mansoor. During the Relief of Athens, we all damn near died. Of the eighteen men and women in Damage Control, only me and one other rating survived. My officer, an ensign, stayed behind to make sure the forward ammunition storage was secure. Our CPO had us seal the ensign in. We saved the ship long enough for the crew to be pulled off.

The Mansoor exploded. We were never able to locate her body. She was some ROTC kid who was only with us four months. I never knew her first name until the ceremony after it was all over. She may have been the bravest human being I've ever known. After that, I served aboard the Little Rock working ant-piracy in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Since I took part in some land action during that tour, the Navy - I hate using the term Federation - reassigned me to Shore Patrol duty. I took police training and everything. I did another tour aboard the Little Rock the following year then they dragged me off when Congress decided that men couldn't be given combat assignments.

Seven months later, they discharged me and thousands of other men as part of a down-sizing program. Unfortunately, the same act of Congress that exited me from the Navy also forbid me joining the fire, or police departments. A buddy of mine was able to find me work in a machine shop where I learned the craft of welding.

After that, I was a good boy. I dated, joined a motorcycle club and built up a nice life. When the Gender Inequality Act was passed I was more annoyed than angry. All that changed when I was twenty-nine. See, I had some male friends who joined up with a group called Male Awakening. They were a group devoted to the repeal of the GIA through political means.

Things including publically supporting male-friendly candidates and working against GIA-supporters though boycotts and the like. I was rolled up in an FBI sting and those ladies informed me that they'd make those charges go away if I agreed to go inside and spy on Male Awakening. They knew I was friends with those guys. I told them to fuck off, fought the charges and beat their trumped up bullshit.

By the time I cleared up my legal troubles, they took the MA down anyway. It seems their Treasurer took off with their funds after leaving some financial irregularities. That was a total load of crap because they never caught that guy, but they did manage to put away most of the group's leadership.

A few months later, I ran across one of my buddies who had asked me to join Male Awakening. He'd heard about my troubles and over a few beers, he hinted that the fight wasn't over. This time I bought in. This incarnation didn't have a name. We weren't public. We dug up dirt on corrupt female officials by any means necessary.

We destroyed the careers of the worst oppressors of men. Violence wasn't our aim yet we armed ourselves for what we knew would be a harsh crackdown. We operated in small cells, but I knew we had lawyers, judges and even a few Congresswomen on our side. Since we had bracelets by that time, we used women to communicate between cells.

Our cell received word of the major Federation sweep a day before it happened. We were able to move most of our material stashes to new locations before they fell on us. The Writs of Exclusion were abominations. No one ratted me out. For weeks I sweated bullets every time I saw a cop car, a mysterious unmarked car, or heard a siren.

After a few months, I began searching for other survivors. We came together in secrecy, united in our fury. The Federation had broken every law and covenant so we agreed that waging a guerilla war was our only option. A week later I bagged my first cop. Put a bullet under her left eye at 80 meters. She was dead before she hit the ground and it felt good.

They - the Federation - had murdered my country and now they were paying. Three days later, I waited for a Federation agent to walk out on her porch to see her little girl off to school. I walked up, told the little girl her mother was a whore and put nine slugs into that whore's body and I felt just fine about that too."

"No," squeaked Kuiko.

"That is the way it was," Jethro gave Kuiko a paternal look. "Those women came at me with every dirty trick they could come up with to take away my freedom and I put them in the grave for it."

"You murdered people," Angel growled.

"Fuck you, Cop. The Gender Inequality Act was passed by women to enslave men. No man ever voted on it," Jethro snarled. "Men tried to use the system so you cheated. Boohoo that your bosses didn't figure out our only option left was violent resistance."

"I killed seventeen government officials and my only regret is I didn't kill more. Not one was a fair fight. Kuiko, I killed that bitch in front of her daughter because I wanted her buddies to come around and see the anguish on that little girl's face. I wanted them to worry about their own daughters. I wanted them to know they were at war."

"You are a murdering scumbag," Roni snapped.

"I disagree," Flame shook her head. "You are morons if you think he should have called out every freaking target and said 'hey, I know you have all the back-up in the world and I'm alone so I'm giving you ample warning that I'm going to try and kill you'."

"You are a psycho," Aniqua pointed out. "It figures you would agree with him."

"He didn't have a choice," Samantha intervened. Her speaking so decisively was almost as stunning as her words themselves. "Having a gun might not have saved Israel against the Aurora Slasher, but it might have discouraged those sorority students."