Nuclear Rising

by Christian Smith

  Abruptly she stops, pulls away, and looks into my eyes with a fierce stare like a wild animal, and before another second passes, I feel her hands reach up against mine, pulling them down to my side as her fingers intertwine with mine like twisting tree roots.

  No inhaling or exhaling allowed.

  She forces her lips against mine as I try to draw a breath, which elicits a gasp from my mouth. Her tongue lashes out into my mouth, rubbing against tongue and palate like she can’t place it deep enough as her lips suck against mine.

  With hands wrapping around my wrists so tightly it almost hurts, every nerve ending in my body is popping like fireworks. Even though I’m not sure if I want it, my body definitely craves to have her.

  Her chest brushes mine, immediately sending shots of excitement through my body while she continues to push herself against me, forcing my hands against the couch cushion. My upper body can’t hold back anymore and I drop my weight into the cushions while her legs straddle my torso, her lips brushing against my neck, her chest rising and falling against mine as I try not to be too aroused.

  My mind feels fuzzy as reason seems to give way to desire.

  I feel my own hands take control, my fingers trailing up her sides, feeling the tightness of her muscles underneath her white eyelet dress that is now riding up to her thighs. My throat feels tight as my hands wrap themselves around her back, pushing her lips deep into my own, my own tongue now pulsating in her mouth as our lips intertwine.

  A gentle bite to my lower lip and heavy breaths respire as she sits up, her long outstretched right arm tugging at the loop of fabric that sits around her shoulder, making it fall to the side as she brings her lily-tattooed left arm out of the dress, a wicked smile curling along her full lips as her eyes glow a fierce azure fire. Her skin is milky white, my fingertips brushing the area of her collarbone exposed, which is tight, but smooth like a polished stone. I feel my hand rest against her breast feeling the steady beat of her own heart through the thin fabric between us.

  With heart pounding like a hammer, I wait with bated breath as she brings her other fingers up to the remnant of fabric holding her dress up, separating us from what lied beyond.

  Just then, a furious knock raps on the door, shouting coming from outside – one of the guards calling her name.

  Celeste stops, rolling her eyes, letting out a deep sigh as she puts the loop of dress fabric back around her shoulder.

  “Almost,” she says, sounding as if she’s pouting.

  I look up at her with disbelief. We can’t stop now!

  “Don’t go Celeste! You can’t tell me you don’t want it too.”

  She pushes herself up off me, leaving my whole body aching with desire and smelling of lilac. A dry smile shows as her countenance switches to her Queenly side.

  “I’m sorry Quinn. I had really wanted to get further than we did, but I suppose there just isn’t enough time.”

  “What do you mean Celeste? We have time – you’re their Queen! You make all the rules – you decide when it’s time for everything. Forget them! Let’s finish it now!”

  She laughs, though it sounds hollow, stepping over to the door as she does so.

  “I’m sorry Quinn – I wanted to give you one last good memory before-“

  Sitting up from the couch, I stare fiercely toward her, reaching out to her hand and drawing a gasp from her.

  “Before what, Celeste?”

  “Before your memory’s gone.”

  Dropping her hand, I yell, “What!? What are you talking about?”

  Her hand reaches around the door knob, pulling open the door to one of the guards that had been keeping watch, motioning for them to wait outside.

  “It has been decided you are to be reassigned, as are all the others with you, and you will become a productive member of our society. It’s either that, or the others will begin to question me, and my kingdom is already hanging by a thread anyway.”

  Passion turns to rage as I stare at her incredulously. “Are you kidding me right now? Do you hear yourself? You’re going to wipe away the only thing you have left from our lives before! Did that even mean anything to you just now, or was it just another show, like everything else you’ve done here?!”

  She turns, her breath close to my ear as she whispers three words, clear as day. “I am sorry.”

  I feel her hand wrap itself around mine, placing a piece of paper within, as she turns to go out the door.

  A large black-haired guard appears at the door throwing it wide open, making it topple the coat rack to the floor.

  Celeste eyes the guard with irritation in her voice. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  The guard, panting between words, says, “Your Holiness – the fusion battery – I was sent to tell you it’s been taken!”

  “What? You’re serious? How?” She turns, giving me a scathing look, which I can only return with a bewildered look in reply.

  “I was only told to fetch you, your Highness. The guards are assembling in the Green Hall now. Please, if you’ll come with me.”

  A quick nod, she motions in the other guard, a slender, greasy blond-haired man who walks right up to me, dangling some glowing handcuffs like I’d had before.

  “Wait! You’re still going to do this Celeste. Really?”

  She turns, her eyes raging as she replies, “You will address me as Queen Celestia – that is my name. And yes – you are to be taken and reassigned immediately. Now more than ever.”

  “You’re crazy,” I say crunching the paper in my fist. “Absolutely crazy.”

  She snorts as the guard throws the handcuffs around my wrists, warm heat tightening all around them so my arms suddenly go limp with paralysis, my fists locked up in a tight, unyielding ball.

  “Let’s go prisoner,” the guard says, wrapping a large fist around my bicep. Though I try to steal it away, there’s no moving my arm as much as I want it to. He speaks again, this time throwing me toward the open door. “I can easily take out your legs too, so let’s not get to that shall we? Just march.”

  With legs heavy as lead and heart racing like an engine, I trudge out into the cobblestone street, where a gathering of people stand in the street shouting, holding signs raised over the crowd, with things like “Down with the Queen,” or “Off with their Heads!”

  The guard quietly guides me around the back of the crowd, keeping his head ducked low as he drags me along. I can’t help but worry for Celeste – apparently it wasn’t all glamour being the Queen. But I’m mad and pouty at the moment so I try not to give into empathy.

  We’re about to turn down a street called “Meadow Lane,” when we suddenly stop as the guard looks up into the sky, a red flare shooting off in the distance, until another and another come closer in a line toward us. One of the angry crowd members suddenly lets a blinding red light shoot off into the sky, and the guard clenches his fingers around my arm, dragging me along as if something bad is about to happen.

  We turn left, where a row of empty shops sit unattended. Then right, down “Cottage Ave,” which is aptly named for all the storybook stone houses lining the perfectly paved walkway.

  Looking back, I can see people running in all directions, chaos and shouting in all directions around us as sounds of revolt ring up like a wild din. People dressed in ordinary farm clothes are rushing to the guards on patrol, slamming into them until they’re overrun and dragged down.

  “What’s going on?” I ask the guard, who only turns and nervously eyes me. We turn another corner and-

  “Why hello there friend,” says a farmer dressed in black with a jagged pitch fork resting in his hands. “This definitely isn’t the place to be for a royal guard.”

  We turn, again confronting another angry mob of people just licking their chops with malice. Backing ourselves against a looming stone wall, the guard throws me to the ground and pulling out his laser rifle, begins firing blue shots wildly into the crowd.

  A roar issues out as a woman drops to
the ground shaking, stunned, but not dead.

  The crowd rushes in, arresting the rifle from the guard’s hands.

  A second later I see his body crumple to the ground as blue light shoots into his head.

  I drop to the ground, crawling through the feet of the furious mob, my belly getting scratched up by the stony floor. At least forty people or so shout curses at the guard, lifting him high up against the wall, pummeling him with fists until he’s bruised and bloodied. As they beat him, I suddenly feel the cuffs release around my wrists, and picking myself up off the ground, bolt toward a mossy archway opposite the crowd.

  Within seconds, another patrol of guards arrive, firing blue stun shots into the crowd of people, dropping them as they rush like mad dogs toward the guards.

  “I need to get out of this place,” I say, thinking that just an hour ago, I was about to finally have sex for the first time in five years – it’s definitely never ended this badly for me.

  I begin turning down a wide path, leading along some farms when I hear a familiar voice call out.

  “Hey, stop!”

  Turning, I see Vonn rushing toward me holding my nail bat in one hand and a Terra pistol in the other. He throws the bat toward me, which I catch midair.

  “Vonn? Man am I glad to see you! We need to find the others and get out of here. Did you get the battery then? They said it was stolen.”

  Vonn looks at me, confusion showing in his eyes as he shakes his head. “Rose and Sledge were taken somewhere yesterday. It’s just us now.”

  “And Bree,” I say, unfurling the piece of paper crumpled in my hand.

  Scrawled in hasty cursive, I see Celeste’s handwriting with four simple words.

  “Save me from myself.”

  A quick movement in the corner of my eye and I see Vonn fire his pistol at a man who’s now convulsing on the ground.

  Vonn says between gritted teeth and tight jaw, “So what are we doing? Let’s get going Quinn.”

  I take another glance at the paper, at an apparent crossroads.

  Do I save Bree?

  Do I save Celeste?

  CHAPTER 22

  Easy Bree-zy

  “We’re getting Bree,” I say, crumpling the slip of paper, which makes Vonn’s eyes light up due to his not-so-hidden feelings for her. “First we grab my bag, then we head to where she’s imprisoned. I know how to get there even if I were blindfolded now.”

  “Works for me,” Vonn says, nonchalant, though I can tell he’s elated.

  “How did you get away anyway?” I ask as we pass under a large stone archway leading to the outer edge of the city.

  He looks back and smiles a thin line with his lips. “I’m pretty sure it had something to do with your friend Sledge. When they were getting taken away the day before I escaped, I saw him slip something to the guard and point right toward me. Next day, one of the guards walked up, put his hand on the edge of the cell, and he just let me walk out. Didn’t say a word, just pointed to the exit.”

  “Hmmm,” I reply, thinking about Sledge. It seemed like he had saved all of us at some point. “I hope they made it out then.”

  “I’m sure they did,” Vonn replies quietly.

  We run along the border of the city, crowds of angry farmers attacking guards trying to dispel the crowds. One guard tries to throw a grenade that sprays a sticky substance all over the men, only to have three jump him from the roof above, smearing him into the sticky green substance. Another guard tries to use an electric-charged baton, only to have an entire group of ten hardened women take turns shocking him in particular places that only men have.

  Finally we arrive back at the house, where I hastily run in, leaving Vonn to guard outside the door. Reaching for the bag, now sitting in a slump near the stairs, I stop as I hear the creak of a floorboard.

  My hands tighten around the handle of the nail-laden bat I’m holding.

  A breath behind me.

  I turn swinging the bat sideways without taking a second glance, a loud groan sounding out from whoever it just crashed into.

  Standing in a fine Italian-tailored pinstripe suit is Bastion, the male model advisor for Celeste. A perfectly manicured dark beard, high cheek bones, and slick-backed hair reminds me of the cologne models from magazines before N-Day. Only now that I just hit into his left arm with a bunch of nails, his sleeve is ragged – no blood, yet – but it did a number.

  “You,” Bastion says, his dark eyes becoming even darker in his deep set sockets. “I do not know what the Queen sees in you, but I think you are nothing but trash. You and all the others.”

  “Me, trash? I’m not the one hiding in a mansion while a revolution is going on. You on the other hand…”

  “I’m here on strict orders.”

  “From yourself?”

  Bastion reaches into a pocket, pulling out a small pistol glowing bright red, which I’m guessing doesn’t mean it’ll stun me if it hits me.

  “The Queen’s orders. I was also told to defend myself if anybody attacks, and now that you have done so, I am authorized to kill you.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say, swinging the bat as I duck down, bright red light narrowly dodging past my left shoulder, leaving a stinging burn just at the top of it. My bat hits into his knees, making them buckle as he stumbles to the floor, though he shows little reaction of pain on his face.

  A model through and through.

  He takes another shot, this time hitting my side, where immediately an intense burning like a hot iron erupts all over.

  I clutch it with my free hand, grunting as the pain spreads.

  But before he can get another shot on me, I bring up the bat, smashing it into the side of his perfectly symmetrical face, a horrible crunch sounding out as the bat sticks in the side of his cheek.

  He smiles eerily at me, bringing the gun up, unphased.

  My eyes widen in shock.

  From underneath where the bat hit, I can see what appears to be circuits sparking with electricity, green electrical boards with soldered connections and copper wire strands splaying out.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me – You’re a frickin’ robot.”

  I cringe as his fingers bring the gun up.

  Suddenly a gunshot rings out from behind me as a bullet hole appears in the center of Bastion’s head.

  His eyes flutter and look in all directions as another three bullets ring out, making the robotic man fall to the ground, still twitching his fingers as if he’s ready to pull a trigger.

  Glancing behind me, I see Vonn with an actual hand gun still raised, his face stoic.

  “Man am I glad to see you Vonn,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “Lucky for us I had a pistol in my bag. I don’t think the crappy laser pistols Terra has would get through this guy’s outer shell.”

  “A frickin’ robot,” I say again. Celeste wasn’t kidding about him not being her type.

  “You okay?” Vonn asks as a slight bit of blood trickles out the rips in my shirt.

  “I’m good, let’s just get going,” I say, almost forgetting about getting shot at because of the half-crushed robot face staring at me.

  I bend down to retrieve my bag which has now spilled all over the front walkway and stop.

  Sitting on the floor in front of me is a glowing glass case containing a slowly emanating purple metallic rod shaped like a-

  “Is that what I think it is?” I say, looking at Vonn, astounded.

  “I thought you didn’t steal it.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then, why is the fusion battery sitting on the floor right by your things?”

  “Maybe it was the android over there? I don’t know,” I say incredulously, picking up the cool glass container and gently dropping it in my backpack. “I’m pretty sure this is going to make one of my fingers fall off though by the end of the day.”

  Vonn rolls his eyes, and gathering the rest of my things, including my bat which takes both Vonn and I to retrieve i
t, we step out into the fading daylight of late afternoon.

  “I still can’t believe the guy was a robot,” I mutter as Vonn hands me the spare Terra pistol. “I mean, I just thought he was gay when Celeste said he wasn’t her type.”

  With a heavy sigh, Vonn replies, “Let’s just go get Bree please. We have the battery – now let’s get out of here before someone discovers we have it.”

  “What about Rose and Sledge?”

  “I’m afraid they’re on their own now.”

  We pass a shoe cobbler’s store named “Christian Shoe Baton,” a smattering of fine brown Oxford’s and black tuxedo shoes lining the front window display with puffy cotton clouds and raised platforms for the shoes.

  “We just need to go three more blocks, then hang a left, and straight another two blocks. I remember passing this store when they took me to Dr. Decker’s creepy torture chamber. Two old guys were arguing over whether argyle or polka dots looked better with their leather loafers.”

  “This place is ridiculous,” Vonn mutters under his breath, making me smirk in reply.

  Down we walk, three blocks, then left, and another two blocks straight, until we come to an enormous rectangular building covered in black glass window panes.

  Glancing side to side, the dominating building reeks of intimidation, contrasting with the charming, stony cottages that line the cobblestone streets of Terra, the “Black Purgatory,” as the sign in front says, looms across the sky, warning anyone that if they step out of line, there will be blind and swift justice to rich and poor alike. Massive generators lend immense amounts of power to the cameras, electric fences and turrets that line the wall surrounding the dark building. Guards would typically line the walls and man the turrets, more so as a show of power to anyone thinking of committing a crime than anything. The place was a veritable fortress, made to keep anyone out, and any so-called criminal locked in.