Radiance Ch. 78

Glory looked impressed, "Wow didn't know you were such a vicious fucker Owl I mean after last night I could have sworn you were a gentleman, but I like the way you think, yeah the fucking corpses only gonna be left to rot anyhow so we might as well make use of them to send a message to the rest of the thieving cunts about what happens if they cross the Railroad," she said clenching her fist in determination.

"Oh and I've also had a thought about how to extract the hostages safely too," he said and that got her attention.

"Oh? Well don't leave a lady in suspense spill it pretty boy," she said shooting him a smile.

Ethan pointed to a place on the crude drawing of the compound, "See here? That looks like a drainage culvert to me, now I very much doubt those fuck sticks have the collective brain power to light up a loose bulb let alone fix a drainage system, so it should be as dry as a bone, I could use a plasma cutter to cut through the grate that feeds into the channels here and head in through the pipe right under their feet, if my estimations are correct it should bring me up here because my guess is this is a drainage and septic system, if you guys are creating holy hell at their front door they'll be looking the other way as I slip into the compound and look for the hostages, once I got them I can send them out through there and maybe even have time to slip a nasty surprise or two into their armoury, pretty much every raider camp I've ever hit of this size always has one, should make a pretty nice bang," Ethan said.

Now Glory was grinning all over her face, "Oh yeah I definitely like the way you think, you can tell you were SF Owl, if you keep this up I'm gonna have to recommend that you get made into my permanent partner because you seriously know your way to a girl's heart," she said squeezing his shoulder.

"What high explosives or a roll in the hay in an abandoned truck trailer on the open road?" he asked playfully and she roared with laughter.

"Fucking both duh," she said grinning.

As they walked on they continued to talk and plan but now Ethan was really starting to struggle with what was coming, not the operation but the inevitable betrayal he was going to have to perpetrate in order for his team's plan to work, he knew there was a very real likelihood that Glory, Mouse and who knows how many others might actually perish going up against Seven and his crew.

Seven's people might seem ragtag to the uninformed outsider but their results spoke for themselves, they were determined, prepared and professional in their work, the trail of devastation left in their wake spoke to all of that, plus that was before they even touched upon that power that Seven was supposed to possess, how exactly do you stop someone who can turn you into a soda can made of meat with a single thought?

The thought of that happening to either Glory or Mouse or any of them really weighed heavily on Eathn's heart and soul, the thought that these people might die for because they were trying to do something just and good but were led by a lie disturbed him and he didn't know why.

Hell people died every day around here for a hell of a lot less than that, he'd seen raiders kill people over a box of Sugar Bombs and this mission was a hell of a lot higher priority than that.

These people were supposed to be terrorists and not only that but Seven and Three belonged to Dr Chalmers so taking them out was of much greater importance than most because getting them back where they belonged and back on the side meant that they'd have the means to swing the power balance back in their favour in any region where they deployed them as they were already field tested and proven effective which meant as soon as they were under control they were ready to go.

But that's when it kinda hit him, not hard and fast like a slap but slow like a dawning realisation, these people were fighting for their freedom, just like the synths, just like the slaves they rescued, they weren't killing indiscriminately they were freeing people, helping them.

But he had his duty to carry out, he was a sworn and loyal soldier of the ESF and he had a job to do, a mission to carry out, nothing more, this wasn't personal it was just the job, but that didn't mean that it hurt him.

He glanced at Glory as she spoke about how happy she was that they finally got another good heavy to defend people and to help them and his mind flashed to the night before, seeing her as nothing more than a beautiful woman laid bare and willing, the thought of her hurt or worse filled his heart with sorrow, now he knew he didn't love her but that didn't mean that he couldn't care for her or about her, in only a single day she'd already made him feel more alive and dare he say it happy than he had in years.

So to allow something negative to happen to her like that was unthinkable to him, he was going to have to figure out a way to not only ensure that nothing bad happened to her or the Railroad's people if they hit Seven's crew but to also maintain his image in their eyes because he realised that that also meant a great deal to him, he couldn't bare the thought of his betrayal breaking her even more than she was already, she had suffered enough already, they all had.

When they rested up for the second night it seemed that Glory had plans for him again because straight after food she pounced on him going right for his clothing, it didn't take her long to get through them as Ethan didn't exactly try to fight her off.

As he let her take control and make love to him he couldn't help but wonder if he was now just doing this to ease his conscience over what might happen or because of the impending betrayal, if he was giving her this pleasure as a way to say a preemptive sorry for what was going to happen.

This thought cut him up inside even further because it soured such a beautiful act though thankfully Glory was so distracted by having her wicked way with him that she didn't notice his distraction or his guilt shining through the cracks in his facade.

As he watched this beautiful woman giving him her all and smiling down at him both joyfully and merrily as she rode him he just couldn't help but smile up at her, he could see all her hopes and dreams surrounding her like an aura, just like any human woman hell more so because unlike a human she wasn't born with a sense of entitlement to anything, for everything she'd got she'd had to fight and claw to achieve, even him.

It really hit him then just how much of a chance she'd taken not only in opening up to him the way she had but asking him to share her passions with her, it could have backfired on her so spectacularly as he had to wonder how many of the Railroad actually saw the synths as people in this respect, it was one thing to wish to see them free and equal to be able to not only make their own choices and to live a free life, but it was a total other to wish to share a bed with one because at the back of your mind there would always be this thought of the fact that you are actually sharing yourself with a non-human.

They might look the look, walk the walk, talk the talk but that didn't make them any more human than if you dressed up an Assaultron and gave it a human face, it was still a created being even if you gave it sentience, it was still artificial.

Glory looked, smelled, felt, hell even tasted exactly like a beautiful, healthy young woman but she was still synthetic inside, whether it be artificial muscle grown in a lab or real grown from a womb Ethan began to wonder if it really made a difference at all.

As he looked into her beautiful shining eyes he could clearly see her soul shining through, he could see her passion, feel her desire, it was all there clear as day just like it would be for any womb-grown woman, so if that was the case did it really make any difference how she came into this world?

Because right now she was in it and she was as alive and as sentient, as he was, no different, same wants, same thoughts, same feelings, same needs.

He watched her powerful muscles flex and bunch as she pistoned herself up and down on his cock and he watched his white flesh sinking into her ebony flesh over and over again, he saw his flesh glistening with her emanations and hers with her perspiration of the effort she was going to not just for herself but for him, he saw it in her eyes as clear as everything else, determination.

She wanted him to feel as good as he was making her feel, she wanted him to enjoy her as much as he enjoyed him, hell that alone was more than any other woman had ever given him, every woman he'd ever been with only ever seemed to care about what she wanted, her pleasure and that was it, half the time when she was done she simply stopped caring and the effort went from intense to pretty much fuck all.

But not her, not Glory.

She gave her all despite having already come to an incredibly powerful orgasm herself she kept going because she knew that he hadn't come and she was determined to give him the pleasure she felt he deserved for allowing her the rights to his body once more.

Once it did hit it was like a fucking bomb going off and that's when Ethan realised something, synths like Glory had something to prove, they didn't want to just be human, they wanted to be more than human, they wanted to show humans that not only were they worth the time and effort but that they are not just every bit as good for them as their own kind but better, it was like they were trying to prove themselves both worth and superior all in one and as Glory crashed down into his arms and clung to him, their sweat covered flesh sliding over one another, he realised that she was doing a fucking good job of doing just that.

The waters of Ethan's mind were so fucking muddy now, one one hand he had his duty, on the other he had this new blossoming dawn of what things could be and not only that, what they really should be if only people tried to make thing better on both sides.

No sooner had that thought whispered its way through his mind it simply clicked into place, Seven and his people were right.

The reports he'd read had said that Seven and his people were trying to usher in some kind of new age where humans and non-humans lived peacefully together, helped one another, and fought together against all threats.

As he lay here in the arms of this beautiful non-human woman who was now soundly asleep on his chest with a warm satisfied smile on her face he swiftly realized that their fight was the right one, it didn't seek to divide humanity or rob it of its power or even to grant power to one group or another, they simply fought to make things better for all, unlike him.

Again his heart turned to a stone wrapped in lead and he actually found himself having to fight off the tears that it threatened to bring, infinitely glad his subdermal only relayed his words and not his thoughts across the airwaves or right now the team would probably be bursting in here to take him and Glory out.

Suddenly a voice spoke up in his head and he very nearly screamed as it took him by surprise, "I know you can't exactly respond right now Fuller but we're just checking in to tell you we scoped out this camp you are heading to, be advised they have heavily fortifications and are very well dug in, we have ariel and satellite photography of the place and they have their hands on some serious firepower, your plan about going in through the drainage culvert checks out and it appears that their armoury is close to where they have the prisoners stashed, take this into account when you hit them tomorrow, we can't afford to lose you as I do not want to have to start this process from scratch, Fletcher out," she said.

Fuller sighed heavily, so that was as much as his team cared about him huh?

They worried only as long as he was able to carry out his orders and complete the mission, he was an asset and nothing more, well it wasn't like he hadn't known that, the Enclave had pretty much made that shit clear all the way through his training and subsequent service, power and control were their watchwords.

As he lay his head down and pressed his face into Glory's hair filling his lungs with her scent he began to wonder, would it be so bad to really be what he'd told Glory he was?