The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) (28 page)

Winnie spoke softly across the panel. “They found out about us passing information to the Crossers. I am not going back up there. We would not have a chance.”

“Nor I, let’s get some slack to unsnap from the harness. That should make it look like we are trying to get out from behind this panel.” Now they were on the same page.

The Queen’s impatient voice made its demand one more time.

“Okay, okay. Give us some slack so we can get away from the panel.”

They pulled slack down, faked unfastening their safety lines and began to work their way out from behind the panel. Each disconnected the main line to the roof then tied a hitch knot in the line around the heavy bracket holding the solar collector in place. Now there was just enough slack to imitate their full weight should those Troopers decide to pull early. Completely free of the line, each gave their normal three tugs signaling they were ready.

In seconds they would have the window broken, disappearing in less time than that.

Their lines jerked, cinching the loose hitch tight like they were dangling on the end.

“Get ready to pull your hitch loose,” Winnie warned her husband

When it appeared their weight was dangling the line went slack. They pulled their hitches loose. In slow motion, the line uncoiled down and the hand wenches followed banging into the solar panels on a fast trip to the rubble below.

From above, laughter echoed into the night.

* * *

Builders Number 5 Building

Non-Existent Lower Level

Chloe’s Quarters

It was dark now and they were here.

All day, Chloe had waited patiently for business in the holding pens outside the Council Chambers. She had not had one customer. Lately, no one sought her services, where once she was in high demand. She was too old for the business now, unless she wanted to sell herself in the cellars. There came a time when a professionals pride was all that remained. Now was that time—no cellar. Instead she was back in her quarters.

She rose and opened the door to their knock.

“Director,” she greeted the woman named Sala dressed in the flowing white robes of a Wicca Leader.

“Young sir,” was her greeting for the small young man in khakis whose mere presence put her at peace. They had never introduced themselves, as many times as they had met with her. But they were known to everyone fighting for their lives against the Wicca, his name is David Proctor. The fledgling Blue Army was his creation.

Today, she would help them—the Others—take down the Wicca.

“Chloe, I came personally to ask you to join your peers in a safe place. You have done enough for our cause.” The woman gathered Chloe into a comfortable embrace.

“There is no reason for you to sacrifice yourself. In a few weeks, perhaps even days, the Wicca will no longer control our lives. We can arrange another way to enable our fighters to escape from this building.”

Leader Sala held Chloe at arm’s length again. “Reconsider please.”

“Thank you, but no. I trained a young boy, and he has given thousands like me a little hope for a better life. Hope is better than slaving for a government whose only goal is, ‘tomorrow the same as today’.” Chloe did not tell them she was tired of hiding, tired of memories, tired of being old and used up. She wanted a fight, and the small thing they needed would be just that.

Tell her, she needs to know the rest.

“There is more,” Chloe hesitated because the true reason sounded indulgent. “No one will remember a whore. They will remember a hero of the revolution.”

Sala drew her in once again before she spoke. “Thank you, I will see to that,” she said. “David will take you from here.”

The man in his neat khaki clothes held his hand out for her as he opened the door and led her into the hallway.

As they made the way down to the hidden rooms that did not exist, Chloe thought of Kimraig Llu and their short time together, thoughts of the shy young boy. The Wicca had paid her to introduce him to pleasure. In return, he had given her a chance for a new life. She had taken that chance and ran with it, every minute worth the ride. He called her his beautiful creature.

* * *

This beautiful creature, not much taller than him, she was holding his hand and tugging him down to Number 4 Building’s Lower Level. Her place, she said, where they could be alone. He had let the fire and forbidden moisture of her small hand lead him wherever she pleased. Why would they want to be alone? He did not want to be alone with her, deformed as he was, deformed by that awful bulge below his belt, all of it tied to the moist heat of her hand.

Young Kimraig tried, lamely, to pull away. That half attempt sent her into a fit of terror he could not understand.

“No, no you cannot leave. Your training is my responsibility. Please, I will explain. We must close the door before someone sees.”

Chloe had stalked him for one full month, her new assignment. She never made mistakes; this very young male’s name was Kimraig Llu, legend of the short Hoarder Riots. The only male who retained a family name, even if it were only in hero tales spun in darkened hallways in Lower Levels. Every wet nurse told their own tale of a shadow running stairwells in the dark—daring anyone and everyone to stop him.

Heat got the better of him. If she ever told of this night, he would lie. He did not know what the lie would be, but he would lie. It was the heat making him enter that room. This heat had wrapped him so tightly; the sight of his travel bags, and rolled sleeping mat, and all three sets of armor, did not register. Nor did their presence suggest she expected him to stay for an extended period. His future was there, biting at his neck, willing him to reconsider.

If I continue with this woman, the Wicca will ban me from the Mating Ritual.

They threatened all the boys with that curse. Only Kimraig refused to practice that hot wet game with the troopers-in-training who were willing. Queens-in-training were supposed to be off limits, but that did not stop them either. No one ever caught them in the game or confiscated the protection each had purchased in the banned medical shops.

He thought of pulling away—impossible. Heat had him trapped on the couch, his shoulders digging into the soft cushions, her weight straddling his hips...kissing his neck, then sucking, the center of her brushing ever so lightly over his deformity. That hated spot, yet it controlled him now—warm, wet, wanton pain, holding his breath. It was true, he was dying fully clothed, no, no, no...ahhh.

“You remain fully clothed; I have not even reached the good part. Tell me that was not your first time,” Chloe demanded, in her young girl voice.

“Yes,” he answered. “It was my first time except at night sometimes, part of a dream.”

“How did you escape the pain from no relief?”

“I run up and down stairs in the dark, with only memory for guide. The roof is cold especially when it rains”

“But you have thirteen years of age, in three months you will be fourteen and going to the Mating Ritual. You could have fun with any number of those young trollops you train with.” She did not lose contact or alter her movement against any part of Kimraig’s body, only withdrawing to straightened arms the better to see him.

“No Mating Ritual now, not after I have done this with you.” He had lost control and punishment would follow. Maybe she had the wrong male—he hoped—maybe she was scared enough not to expose him. He knew that would not work. He must confess if asked. Then the other part of him,
there must be more.

“I am not thirteen about to be fourteen. Three months’ time will be my thirteenth summer. The day of my birth is a full two months past that.”

“All this belongs to a twelve year old?” she said rocking heavily, her pelvis jammed to his dampened casual trousers and its secret, still rock hard, that the trousers could not hide.

“My deformity shames me even now.”

“You actually believe that crap the Wicca uses to control their children! Ha, deformity my flowery butt. They tell each female and male this same lie. ‘You will be an outlaw if you mate those awful things between your legs.’ The truth is they do not care. They want—no, they need a record of which male could produce the most babies. The protection they let you youngsters buy is a way to provide samples of your body fluids. More exactly, they keep a record of which male has the strongest sperm. That is why women like me are always so busy with the government and not you young ones.”

“What do you mean, a woman like you?” How was she different, he wondered?

She had not heard, or she was too busy to answer. Chloe began undressing him, tugging him this way and that until she had his tunic free. She stopped only to tear her own thin blouse away sending it crumpled to the floor. This frenzy was not part of her normal routine. Some part of herself—desire long lost—had taken over.

Why bother to undo the press-close fasteners at his hips or down the inside of each leg of his trousers. She ripped them down and off, mating them with her blouse on the floor.

Oh, he is big.

“No,” he reached to stop her from seeing him, too late. Her teeth, tongue, lips and throat found him.

“No,” he shouted again trying to push her away.

A hard slap across his face as a heated palm and clamping fingers gripped in threat, just below his deformity, locking him in place.

“This is my reward. You will not take it from me.”

Unbidden, he pushed back at the boiling wetness that found him again. A flurry of shifting body and teeth gnashing at his shoulder; arms pinned above his head, nipples forced into his mouth, conscious life ending a lifetime later with her scream—another scream, and one by him.

Awareness came back, her stiff arms still holding his. She made him the object of her cold stare, as her body continued to move slowly on him with no particular frenzy. His arms failed to respond, numb, trapped against couch arm and back.

“Do you always stay aroused like this?” She squeezed his center tight as a glove, with muscles requiring her whole body to manage. “I sense you do not know.”

“My arms,” he groaned.

He was totally under her control. She released the one arm trapped against the couch, bringing it down to her naked hip. Holding it tight to the bone until his grip returned and it began to match the rhythm of her gentle rock. Weight supported now, with her free hand on the armrest. She brought his second hand down to her other hip and jammed it hard against her.

“That was the only time you will ever let a woman control you. You must give them the illusion only,” she growled as her feral green eyes ordered him from high above. “I will teach you while your hands control our pace. Do not expel until I say.”

Her demand registered, as Kimraig clamped her on him with arms still partially dead from their ordeal. He understood this. She was a skill to master. His body is the weapon, was the weapon. Moist heat will be its only target. Control of the woman above him the objective. He learned.

Shortly, Chloe’s arms stiffened. Her neck arched back at an impossible angle, a squeal cut to a gurgle by the pressure. Her eyes where open seeing nothing—no need to fake with this boy. Not the first time her peak had been intense. Yet none could compare with this. A spot inside, tickled before but never brutalized until this moment.

She knew she had found the perfect tool to extract revenge against those thirteen females who called themselves The Wicca. They had forced her into this life and now she would have her revenge. They were responsible for the removal of her female organs so she would never experience the birth of her own child. She was only a tool to them and now she would direct all her hate against them. They wanted this Hunter for a project she could not guess. He would kill because it was right...for her.

“I would ask if it is always like this for you. I sense that is not the case.” Kimraig held her tight to him, no expression whatsoever on his russet tinted face as he mimicked her words from moments before. Watching as she came back to the present. Green eyes calm for once.

This will cost me my life, and possibly everyone around me, if anyone even guesses what I am doing. I must do this; create a monster to exterminate the future Wicca leaders. You, my future Hunter will be that monster.

She relaxed now, allowing herself a genuine smile. She was still incapable of words, but they would come.

“What do you mean, woman like you,” Kimraig repeated.

“Prostitutes!”

“I did not pay,” he questioned.

“The Wicca paid.” And the Others paid, with the nebulas coin of freedom.

“I am your instructor,” she managed to croak. “I teach young girls and old ladies how to gain pleasure from their bodies. I have not trained a male in years. The Wicca refuses to waste good talent on males.”
Except you, they have no sample of your sperm.

“Oh.”

She dropped down suddenly and bit his ear hard, then hissed softly. “No questions, we will be watched and everything recorded, starting now.” She eased away, punched a button amid a series of buttons on the table, and spoke. “I have three months to teach you exactly which part of a woman’s body needs what attention. You will learn or...” she left the threat unfinished. He would know what she meant.