Gene Drifters: The Clone Soldier Chronicles-Book III (10 page)

But, maybe he could negotiate a stock buy with Dorian. Chad
had met a guy who dealt in unlisted stocks, trading them for legits; he was an
Israeli, Chad thought. Frankly he didn’t care that much about the pirates or
their stocks. He just wanted an audience with Dorian, to ask for a truce
between the rebels and the clones. But after his brief mind read of Gimlet, he wasn’t
so sure Dorian would want to interfere with his wife’s crusade against the
clone soldiers. And Chad didn’t exactly relish the possibility of coming in
contact with Gimlet’s notorious, evil mother.

At present, he was unsure of what to do.

While Chad ruminated on his options, Gimlet finished her
pancakes glopped in coconut syrup. She had to admit he was a great cook; the
pancakes were light and fluffy, almost as good as the ones Eldridge made.
Speaking of which, she hoped Roxanne or Eldridge had been alerted to her
gone
missing
status. Surely they would send out an alert to the tunnel security,
or even the WME.

No, Roxanne and Eldridge usually wanted nothing to do with
the WME. Plus, if her kidnappers had done nothing off limits for tunnel haul
regulations, the Inc. would be loath to investigate. They allowed the #3ers
some leeway, as long as hauls went untouched. And, grabbing up a university
student from one of the party tunnels happened every now and then. They usually
showed up at one of the pleasure house auctions within the week. If some high-up
guy logged a missing kid complaint, the potential slave was found and returned
to his or her family, used but unharmed.

Someone was unlocking the outer door. Gimlet knew it was not
Chad Yac. He had a different smell. This guy smelled of fried fish and essence
of
Green Weenie Cocktail
. The next door unlocked, but the guard was
careful to lock both after him. Of course the problem, or rather the gift was
that he had that key around his neck. Gimlet pretended to be asleep.

“Well, look what we have here. You’re a beauty, sugar buns.
Bet you’d go for full deal at the pleasure auctions. Maybe that’s what Chad has
in mind for you. You’d fetch maybe ten million in chits in Hong Kong. Some
upper CEO’s gonna love that cute little body. Let me just take a closer look
under that t-shirt. I won’t touch, just look.”

Weasel-face stepped closer, stretching out an arm to raise
Gimlet’s t-shirt. It only took five seconds. It was that round the hand grab
maneuver her rebel trainer had taught her during her training at Donner Pass. You
found the pressure point at mid wrist. They all took the course at the rebel training
center; how to escape, if caught. They even showed you how to look especially
appealing to some dirty, smelly weasel-faced guard who’d been drinking Green
Weenies.

She grabbed his hand and broke it at the wrist, with a quick
back-snap, wrapped one shackled leg around his waist, and brought him close
enough to bite a hole in his right cheek. This drew him closer in, with her
teeth clenched around his facial tissues, so she could use her other hand to
grab at the chain and get an angle on the key, or rather the keys. There were two.
The dumb ass had also brought in the shackle keys, probably thinking he’d lock
her into a spread eagle and have a fast action dong-bong.

Gimlet drew him in closer with her teeth firmly planted into
his cheek, used her other hand to clamp his neck, and held him in her arms
until he passed out. By the time he came to, covered in cheek meat and his own
blood, he was shackled and locked in the cell, with one of his socks stuffed in
his mouth, and Gimlet was dancing on her bare toes down the concrete hallway.

She turned a corner and ducked into a door when she heard some
men coming in her direction. Turning around she discovered she was standing
directly in front of Chad, who was seated at his desk going over some vid data,
and drinking a cup of Kona.

“What, did you want another cup of coffee?” Chad pressed a
button under the desk and the door locked behind her.

Gimlet dove for his throat, using a standard knife hand punch.
But Chad was faster, and stronger. She noted he had the kind of body that would
kill an unprotected quarterback. He twisted sideways, grabbed her wrist,
twisted it back to come around behind her, and wrapped an arm around her neck,
and a leg around her right leg. If she tried to get away he would deck her.

(Just a note for my readers, at this point: While I do
exchange bodily fluids with my rig-ryder pilot Roxanne, occasionally in a
canine-to-human show of friendly affection, I wanted to be sure that the
following section of my story was told from a human’s point of view. We canines
do not share the human fascination with foreplay. Thus, this portion has been
included verbatim as dictated by Gimlet, with only a change of tense and
obviously some shortening in length. I do not want to take credit for something
not written by myself, as I have a fetish for copyright accuracy.)

[Gimlet and Chad were at an impasse. If she let go of him,
he would drop her to the floor, and if he let go of her, she would probably
twist around and seriously jeopardize his future reproductive capacity.

Chad turned his head toward Gimlet’s face for a second,
and before he knew what had possessed him, he kissed her, full on the lips,
pushing his tongue deep into her mouth. He just could not seem to stop himself.
Gimlet was so stunned, that for a second, she thought of this as her moment for
action. But then, she sort of just felt some warmth down there, and didn’t pull
away…for longer than was normal…for a prisoner…who was supposed to be trying to
get away…and should not be thinking what she was thinking…when she was with
someone who could read minds.

When they stopped for only a second, they both just
looked at each other, totally surprised. She nudged his left leg behind his
knee, causing him to sit back on the desk, and then wrapped her long, muscular legs
and bare feet around his midsection. Chad held her under that grey soccer club
t-shirt, cupping her entire backside in one hand, rocking her gently back and
forth, stamping out any space between their two bodies, noticing she had
nothing on under that shirt.

He had big hands and fine long fingers that could reach
all the way from her cradled backside, between her legs, to her now very wet and
hot front side. And he used those fingers, exploring every opening deeply, as
he continued to move her back and forth across his massive hard on.

Gimlet held on to his neck with one hand and reached for
his pants with the other. He was wearing those old army fatigues, the kind
she’d grown up wearing as a rebel. She knew where all the buttons and snaps
were, could undo them in her sleep. Chad raised himself up just a little, to
help her lower his pants, and lifted Gimlet onto him, sliding slowly into a
wondrous warm wet heaven.

They’d already decided that the place was far too warm
for t-shirts. Theirs were on the floor. He kept one hand cupped on her backside
and another for her neck, face, whatever he could find. They slowly rocked, he
back and forth, and she, up and down.

The room was silent except for the synchronized clicking
of an old clock on the desk, and the buzz of the air channel, blowing oxygen
across their tight, sweaty, close bodies. They could hear the guards walking
by, but no one would dare disturb the boss. His thrusting motion grew more intense,
as he pushed deeper into her. THEN QUITE SOME TIME LATER, THEY BOTH LET OUT
FAINT MOANS.
]

                                                                                       
8

ROXANNE LET OUT A LOW, FAINT MOAN. She was watching Joster
through the portal; the rig was still on auto, and Joster was gay. That was
good, because that moan would have given a straight guy a boner. Roxanne and
Rose knew it was why he’d been sent as the messenger. He’d get the story right
without going all nuts for Roxanne.

“Oh no, I can’t believe it. Leo Songtain’s going to pay for
this so bad.” Roxanne was livid. Joster could not tell which eye looked
angrier, the jade green one, or the turquoise eye. He thought it made her look
strange.

“Roxanne, you’ll need to belay that thought for now. The
auto light just turned red.” Rose pointed to the panel with her paw, letting
Roxanne know that her regulation five minute auto-pilot pee break was about to
reach max time. If she did not switch to human drive, the Inc. would get all
hairy and think she’d passed out or had fallen asleep on the job.

If they had to send a drone to check things out, she’d be in
serious financial trouble. She’d already cost Eldridge for the rig and track
clean-up, and could not afford any more chit docks. Roxanne reached over and
plugged the auto to the off position. A robot com voice told her politely that
she was welcomed back to the control panel, and that her next union contractual
benefits pee break would be in three hours.

“I’m not sure it’s Leo who grabbed her, Roxanne. We’ve been watching
her
Leo-tail
for the past week. That white guy is gone, but his tracer
says he’s in the back of a rig heading to Hong Kong. I know that sounds like
he’s got Gimlet in tow. But her tag beeped the opposite direction; that is,
until it tracked to off in the underwater tunnel.” Joster spoke quickly.

He had to exit the rig at the next upcoming port, and head
back to Tokyo before the tunnel security drones noticed his presence. He’d
illegally entered the tunnel and the detection drones passed overhead every
fifteen minutes. If they caught him, he’d be flash-frozen in a security prison,
probably for two years. That’s the max for a first time tunnel offense.

“You tagged Gimlet? Why did you do that? She’ll be livid
when she finds out. You know she won’t even allow her parents to tag her. Where
did she enter the tunnel?”

Roxanne watched the rig controls as she peppered Joster with
questions. She was going over her meager options. Unfortunately, having just left
#4, she was hauling westbound, and she was about to enter the bubble-stop #5
zone, the one just before Tokyo. She would have stopped at the next
bubble-stop, but absolutely no one ever stopped over at #5. It had that weird
thing going on. But that’s another story. On the return trip eastbound, she was
not scheduled to stop at #4 either. In fact, eastbound, she’d be on the tracks
until #2 came up, midway between Hawaii and San-Fran-Bubble-stop #1.

“I suppose contacting Dina or Dorian is out of the question,
given their likelihood of an overkill response.” This time Rose was speaking.
Of course Joster had no idea what she’d said so Roxanne had to translate before
Joster could answer.

“She disappeared near the Tokyo tram entry port, at the
Mitzukoshi exit. And contacting Dina or Dorian is definitely out of the
question, Rose. We’d have WWIII on our hands. Besides, what if she just decided
to hook up with someone for the weekend? I mean, Gimlet’s not celibate you
know. And to answer the other question, we all agree to be tagged for entry
into the party tunnels. It started to be a university requirement when that
rich guy’s daughter got grabbed and showed up in Hong Kong, drugged and labeled
for a sell as a pleasure slave.”

Joster was immediately sorry he’d added the part about
Gimlet and celibacy. Both Roxanne and Rose looked at him like he’d told them
Gimlet had toxic waste syndrome. He had to remember that Gimlet was Roxanne’s little
sister, well sort of. He knew Gimlet had been adopted into the Smoot family,
but did not know much else about her early childhood, growing up in the back
cab of an up-top ground rig.

Joster did wonder sometimes about Roxanne though. She was
never seen with a man, or woman for that matter. He knew that Tokyo had a loose
way of handling sex, but surely even underwater rig-ryders like Roxanne had
their off time fun too. But he had not even heard rumors, unless you counted
the crazy jokes about Leo Songtain’s obsession with her. No, he’d never heard
anything of the romantic sort about Roxanne, despite her huge entourage of
slobbering wishful male admirers.

“I’ll send a com to Dad. Maybe he can check things out on
the rig-ryder gossip circuit. He hears a lot in his bar. Maybe someone saw something,
or heard something. But if she doesn’t turn up in 24 clicks, I’ll have to
inform Dina and Dorian despite the possibility of overkill. Rose, watch the
panels while I contact Dad. Joster, your exit is approaching. I can’t stop. Is
your bike still sucked to the back fender?” Roxanne opened her rig-ryder official
Inc. bot-com to Eldridge and told him what had happened. Unfortunately he
hadn’t heard a thing about Gimlet. But he agreed not to tell Dorian or Dina for
the time being.

Joster got up and re-oozed himself back into his jacket and
safety suit. “Yeah, I gotta go. I’ll contact you when you reach #2, with good
or bad news.”

He climbed back into the rear cab and scaled the ladder to
the porthole, scurried out the small opening, which sealed shut behind him, and
crawled over the top of the rig; it was no small accomplishment at 300 miles
per hour. His bike was still suctioned to the rig’s butt fender, so he climbed
on, accelerated to matched speed, then detached his bike and rode off towards
the exit portal of bubble-stop #5. It was his least favorite place on the
planet, but he was only just going to make the U-turn and head back to Tokyo,
taking the side bike tracks. He’d be back in time for the night’s tunnel party.

“I told Dad what was going on. He hasn’t heard anything, but
he’s going to ask around and get back to me. I guess that’s all we can do for
now.” Roxanne turned her attention back to the control panels, because after
their download and return trip, they’d be back in the #3ers zone, possibly
fighting off some pirates again.

After about ten minutes of silence, Rose finally had to say
it.