by Anne Tenino
“It’s barely a scratch. I’ll put some topical on it.” And rub up on James’s skin in the process.
James’s skin was awesome. That tawny color, a little sweaty from the daytime heat and the running-for-their-lives thing. Smooth, but not soft. It had texture.
Matt tried to keep his fingers only to the necessary spots, but he might have strayed just a tiny bit. James held perfectly still. Frozen. Matt dropped his hand. Then he picked up the recoder again to keep his fingers busy with something other than touching all that nice skin.
James put his shirt back on, silently.
“AM I still infested?” It seemed like they’d been sitting in this charged silence a long time. The sun was kind of warm, and it was strangely peaceful, in spite of the danger.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, the trackers. Give me a minute to recalibrate the recoder…. Ha! Recalibrate the recoder,” Matt muttered to himself, fingers flying on the touch screen.
“You find yourself very amusing, don’t you?” Matt was funny, in a cute way. A cute, smartass way.
Matt’s fingers stilled a second, then resumed, moving more slowly and carefully. “Yep, I do. Gotta get your fun somewhere, don’t you?” He sounded more curious than anything, with maybe a bit of defensiveness.
“Yeah, I guess you aren’t getting it from me. I’m not exactly Mr. Playful.”
Now Matt looked up. Screening those blue eyes with his eyelashes again. Unintentionally, James thought. “You haven’t had a lot of reason to be playing, James.”
“Neither have you.”
Matt shrugged and looked back down at the recoder. “Until three days ago, I was hanging out at the beach in lovely Blue Oregon. Not walking around with a pink triangle on my chest. Besides, you’re still interesting.” He glanced quickly up and down again.
“You think I’m interesting?” Good lord, what was he? An adolescent girl? “Thanks.” James rolled his eyes at himself as soon as Matt looked down again.
Matt flashed a full-on grin. “You’re welcome,” was all he said, though. James watched his long fingers in silence. He wanted those fingers on his chest and tracing his abdominal muscles. He could almost feel one playing with the trail of hair below his navel. Unsealing his fly, running one finger lightly down his—
“So. You’re pretty much clean. Maybe fifteen minutes and we’re safe to move.”
James grunted. It was the most intelligent thing he could think of to say. Matt looked at him sharply.
“What?”
“That grunt. You snort all the time, but I’ve never heard you grunt.”
He grunted because Matt had pulled him out of fantasy sex. With Matt. “I didn’t grunt. Is this a conversation we need to have right now?”
Matt looked irked. “Fine. Guess we’ll make a plan for hauling ass outta here. North sounds like our only option.” Matt bent his head over the recoder. His fingers flew again, but this time James didn’t get caught up in the erotic possibilities.
He was far too busy thinking about how to get them the hell outta there as fast as possible. Just far enough to get them safe. Then he could hand over the reins of the rescue to Matt again. James didn’t want to step on his toes. He looked at Matt’s face, set in concentration, bent toward the recoder. The guy was good at this; he didn’t want to make Matt feel like James thought he wasn’t.
He’d screwed Matt over in high school because of his own personal issues. He didn’t want his encore to be getting Matt killed or imprisoned. And he might like to get back the friendship they’d been building seven years ago, while he was at it. That would have to be Matt’s call, though.
THEY’D “parked” the truck in a brushy gully. It wouldn’t be easily seen, even by air, but it could be tracked on the ground. Pavement was nonexistent out here. Then they’d found a running stream they could slosh west in. James’s tracking nanos were all dead by then. He’d been trying to suppress the signals with his brain waves, but he couldn’t do that and other things at the same time. Like walking. Or breathing. Lunch had been tasteless nutritional nuggets eaten as they went.
James was on point, now, where before he had been in the rear coming out of Emmett and up the river. Matt interpreted it as James’s instinctive need to place himself between a threat and his companion. Whoever the companion may be.
He’d seen it with his various family members hundreds of times. Hunting season was like a Special Forces clown show. When he saw his dad’s hydrogen utility coming up toward the hunting camp in Lost Valley, he always expected sixteen soldiers to fall out yelling deployment orders to one another. Then, of course, getting pissed off at one another and starting to beat one another into the ground. Anais was notoriously brutal. Once his cousin Conner had claimed, “She has no sense of honor,” while holding a cold pack against his neck. He learned all about honor after that comment.
It was the best argument out there for rigidly enforced chain of command and conduct codes.
“You hunt deer when you were growing up?” Matt asked James.
“Not much. Dad wouldn’t stock them. Never had spare pasture. And never had a bio-efficient breed of cattle anyway.”
“We did, every year. Still do. Dad and his sister have a parcel they stock with deer and wild turkey. ’S fun.”
“Lost Valley, yeah? Steve mentioned it.”
Well, that pretty much killed the conversation. Except Matt realized he felt like poking the sleeping lion. “You never knew Steve was gay, huh? Not surprising, since he was totally in the closet.”
James stopped so abruptly he almost fell over. Matt kept an eye on the rigid set of his shoulders.
“Yeah, lots of people were. Still are.” Then James started moving again.
What the hell did that mean? “I sure as hell wasn’t.”
James snorted. Duh. “Wasn’t talking about you.”
Matt wished James would look at him, so he could get a read on his expression. Although the snorting was nearly as illuminating as his face was. Or more. “Who were you talking about?” Like he didn’t know.
This time James did stop and turn around, giving him a look that was both wry and self-deprecating at once. “C’mon, Matt. I told you I’m gay.”
Well, yeah. “Why were you in the closet?”
“Pop.” James said shortly.
Matt decided maybe it was best to leave him alone for now. He went for the classic gambit—change the subject. “We looking for a place to stop, yet?” Just then, he felt a strange, bone-deep (if he’d still had one) vibration in his leg. “We’d better, I’m getting pinged.” The pinging stopped.
James stopped again and turned to look at him. “What’s the SOP for pinging at QESA?”
“Only in extreme circumstances.” It was highly unusual to be pinged.
“Shit,” James grumbled. He blew out an annoyed breath. “I saw some caves a kilometer back.”
How the hell…? Matt hadn’t seen shit, and he’d been looking.
They headed back the way they’d come. James took point. Matt smirked to himself. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the protective bastard had a crush on him. He just might let him do something about that.
James wasn’t precisely good-looking. He had a broad, sort of flat nose, which made his already broad face kinda, well, broad. He was on the short side of average, not any taller than Matt himself—couldn’t be more than 175 centimeters. But he was broad (there was that word again) in the shoulders and chest, where it did the most for Matt’s libido. And his quads and glutes made Matt salivate. Matt flashed back to the night before, watching James crouched at the campsite, going through the MRE pack, his camos pulling tight across his ass and thighs.
Suddenly, Matt’s leg thrummed again, constantly, but with varying intensity. What the hell is that? It seemed vaguely familiar, and Matt had a very bad feeling that when he remembered what it was it was going to be a very bad thing….
“Fuck! James, we might be about to have company.” Matt got out his pistol, though it was
next to useless against robotic aircraft.
“I didn’t sense anything.”
“SAIA,” Matt said shortly over his shoulder. Stealth AI Aircraft.
“You have a sensor for that?” James sounded incredulous.
“Not unless you count my leg.” SAIA was stealth except for one little thing. When it was in rotor-wing mode, it produced a percussive whump-whump-whump. It had been designed away, mostly, but delicate sensors could pick it up. Or hollow, titanium shell leg prostheses, apparently. Which was good, because the delicate sensors were too, well, delicate for Matt to carry one.
“We need a cave or something. It’s going to have infrared.”
“I know.” Did James think he was stupid? “Do you see a cave or something? That thing is nearby, James, if I’m picking it up.”
“We’ll head upstream to that overhang and get under the digi-camo.” James indicated a spot where the streambed ran under a small cliff and had undercut the bank. The clearance was less than 1.5 meters.
They couldn’t see or hear anything, but the possibility of meeting up with a heavily armed, highly maneuverable flying robot focused Matt’s instincts. High-stress situations always brought clarity. Everything was evaluated based on its potential to increase or decrease the likelihood of survival. It was like having wide-angle tunnel vision.
As they got within five meters of the overhang, Matt began to feel the strange percussive vibrations in his chest. Too close to easily escape. James had to be feeling it, too, by now.
James was almost there, already wrestling with his pack for the digi-camo when the SAIA bird came around the upstream bend in the gully. Matt’s leg started thrumming almost audibly, a sensor signaling he was being targeted. He barely had time to react to the alarm—only enough of a reaction to keep him from getting killed.
Neutral particle rounds hit his left shoulder and upper arm and knocked him off his feet. He landed on his ass in the water, half sitting up and staring straight at the bird. His leg sensor started scream-thrumming again. He looked into his attacker’s emotionless eyes. Except they weren’t eyes, just lifeless optical intake portals for the AI that was targeting him.
That’s when it occurred to Matt that getting killed by another human—or just anything sentient, please—was preferable to being executed by a machine. Maybe in his next life he’d hope for that. It looked like his next life might be coming up real soon.
Just before the bird took the killing shot, James knocked him into the stream and he tried to breathe water. Then the pain from his shoulder hitting rock made him scream out all that water, and some air he probably could have used. His vision went black and white, narrowing into a tunnel, then just a pinprick, then just went pop and disappeared, taking his consciousness with it.
Chapter 10
HIS shoulder was on fire, and thank God someone was putting it out. He could feel cool liquid spreading over his shoulder and arm. Was it gel? It moved so slowly. Water didn’t move that slowly; it must be gel. Why was his shoulder on fire in the first place? It must be fire. He could smell the smoke. Ugh. Who knew humans smelled like burning polymers? He’d heard they smelled like pork. Or maybe that was tasted like pork.
“You comin’ round, buddy?” asked a rough voice. Matt scrunched his eyes. Either trying to open them or keep them closed, he wasn’t sure which.
“Matt?” There was a hand on his face. It felt good. Rough and calloused and so warm. Damn, he was kinda cold. And wet. Because the guy attached to the hand put out the fire with water?
“Why was I on fire?”
The snort he got in response brought some details back. James. Matt’s eyes popped open.
“You weren’t on fire.”
“What’s all the smoke from?” He could see it now, dark gray and wispy, but no large column. It had a very chemical smell Matt couldn’t quite place. “What was burning?”
“The SAIA that got you.”
Oh. That thing. Matt shuddered a little. James moved his hand, gripping the back of Matt’s neck, his thumb resting on his jaw. “Fuck. Thought it was gonna kill me.”
“Nearly did, I think.” James’s voice sounded weird. “You were bleeding out pretty bad.”
Gah. “I wasn’t burning?”
“No. Took two particle bolts.”
“Pressure patches?”
“They’re on. ’S fine, Matt. Don’t sweat it.”
“Don’ feel anything.” Matt closed his eyes for a little rest. “Kinda woozy.”
“Matt, listen to me. I dosed your shoulder with a local numbing agent, and gave you some painkillers. Not enough to knock you out, not yet. You gotta stay with me a little longer.”
“Why?” he whined. James could deal with this. He was Psi-force. Could even pack him out. He was up to the job. Matt wasn’t right now. Soon, but he needed a half hour. Or four.
“We need to get to those caves and call in to QESA. They pinged you, remember?”
“They never ping me.”
“They did this time. Before the SAIA attacked, remember?”
“No. Sorta.”
For a second, James gripped him tighter. He said something under his breath that Matt didn’t catch. He thought he heard James call someone “babe,” though. Was he thinking about his lover? The one from POW camp? That pissed Matt off. Now he really wasn’t walking. Let the horny, lovesick bastard carry him.
“I’ll carry you,” James echoed his thoughts. Well, one of them. Suddenly there was a shoulder in his abdomen and then he was flying through the air.
“Gaaaahh.” He was gonna puke. Except his head settled a little, and his stomach caught up with his body. For a second he’d been sure James left it behind.
Matt cracked his eyes a little as James started to move. He was staring right down at James’s very fine ass. Such a hot ass.
James gave a choking snort. Or maybe he just choked. Matt puzzled it out. “Did I say that out loud?” James snorted again, but this time it sounded more snorty than chokey.
Must be a “yes.”
Matt drifted along on James’s shoulder, watching his arms flop and bounce around James’s flexing ass. There was a slow trickle of blood dripping down his left arm, onto his hand, and occasionally dropping off his thumb. Mostly it was hitting the ground, but occasionally the back of James’s camos would get hit.
“Think we’re leavin’ trail.”
“What?” James was huffing a little. Outta-shape bastard. Matt was barely 70 kilos.
“You’re outta shape, boy. Breathin’ hard.”
“I’m hauling your loopy ass around, that’s why. What did you mean about leaving a trail?”
“’M bleedin’.”
“Bad?” James sounded alarmed.
“Nope. Jus’ a little. Drippin’ on the groun’, sometimes.”
“Shit!” James stopped, and Matt could feel him shift his hold a little in order to put him down. His big hand was on Matt’s ass now, which was just as pleasant as having it on his neck, but in a totally different way.
“No!” Matt said when James started to bend. He stopped. “Can fix it.”
“How the hell are you going to fix it, Matt?”
“Somebody’s pissy today,” he sang out.
“Matt.” James sounded like he was talking through his teeth. “I’m putting you down so we can stop the bleeding.”
“No! No, ’s okay. Can do it.” Then Matt shoved his left hand into the back of James’s waistband. He could drip on James instead of the ground. “See?”
James was perfectly still for a few seconds. “Lovely,” he said, still sounding like his teeth were clenched. He started walking again.
Some people just didn’t know how to have any fun.
“James?” Matt asked after a few minutes.
James sighed. Loudly. “Yeah?”
“D’you know we’re goin’ upstream?”
“That’s the way to the caves.”
“Isn’ tha’ the way the bird came from?”
&
nbsp; “Calculated risk, Matt. Gotta do it.”
Matt thought a second. Or thirty. “Wha’s the calc’lation?”
Another, louder sigh. “I bet they sent a SAIA bird down each drainage radiating out from where we left the vehicle. We should have time to make it to the caves before we run into anything coming to check on the bird, after it doesn’t report in. And I don’t know what the hell’s downstream or cross country.”
“Oh. Huh.” Whatever he said.
“Why don’t you take a little rest, Matt?” Suddenly, James’s voice just sounded so much nicer. Like he really cared about Matt’s comfort. Matt blinked his eyes against sudden tears.
“Think I will,” he mumbled.
JAMES finished administering the drugs Matt’s Gramma Anais had ordered him to while she finished her instructions. Her calculation on the stimulant had been a little off, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.
“You need to run Matt’s vid program 326B.d. Make your way to the person and location indicated. They’ll give you help, and their communication lines are more secure than yours. Don’t check in again until you’re there or three days from now at 1930, whichever comes first. Now move out. And if you let anything further happen to Matt, I will make myself a purse from your scrotum.” Matt was beginning to stir, again, and James held the hookup so they could see.
“Yes, Colonel Viteaux. Understood, ma’am.” James snapped out a salute to the woman. She may be retired, but he was taking no chance of offending her. She scared the holy living shit out of him.
James only got one more look at Lieutenant Colonel Lance Kell-Viteaux, his mouth twisted in worry, before Colonel Viteaux cut the transmission.
He got the feeling Matt’s family didn’t like him very much.
They certainly weren’t happy with the current situation, and neither of them had entirely believed his account of how he’d destroyed the SAIA bird attacking them. He didn’t really blame them. He couldn’t quite figure it out himself.