by Logan Jacobs
I caught the gaze of the leader, and we sized each other up for a long beat, then she nodded at me.
I nodded back.
“When everyone is ready, there are rooms for all of us upstairs,” Artemis said and pulled me from my staring contest. “I think we should all head up and get some rest. I put a bottle of Blue Betty in everyone's rooms.
“Artemis, you are a doll,” Aurora drawled and kissed her on the cheek.
“I concur,” Nova added. Tempest gave Artie a thumbs up. PoLarr popped the last of her burger in her mouth and smiled with cheese dripping from the corner of her mouth like some teenager in a growth spurt.
“I’m going to get another beer and then call it a night,” I said, stood, and walked over to the bar.
“Another Guinness?” The Telecultis asked. I nodded, and a moment later a fresh pint of appeared in front of me, the condensation on the side of the glass was cool and moist. A long, slow drink later, I’d emptied almost half the glass. When I set it down, I noticed the leader of the other alliance standing next to me.
“I’m Roku,” she said. Her voice fluttered like the flapping wings of a bird. It was odd but not unpleasant.
“You’re a TV?” I asked, not able to help myself.
“I do not know what that is,” she replied, confused.
“Sorry, I’m tired and a little buzzed, Marc Havak,” I said and held out my hand. I smiled bigger than I felt on the inside. My Spidey-sense tingled at the back of my brain, but I didn’t want her to know that. “Good to meet you, Roku. Looks like you had a bit of a rough day.”
“Huh, you could say that,” she scoffed. “We’re the team in the tricked out dune buggy. In hindsight, while fast and agile, we had to use everything we had not to get blown to smithereens.”
“I can see that,” I agreed. “Smart choice if you can team up with someone who can provide some bigger muscle.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” the bird-lady nodded and scratched at her helmet hair of feathers. “Would you want to form a little truce? We can run interference a little ahead of you and keep an eye out for danger and if we find any, you guys can provide some brawn. Sound good?”
“I’ll have to check with my team,” I said, careful to keep equal amounts of skepticism and eagerness in my voice. “But I think it sounds like a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Go slow in the morning, and we’ll catch up as soon as we can,” Roku nodded. “Of course, once we get closer to the finish line it will be every team for themselves.”
“Of course,” I mimicked. “See you tomorrow.”
I turned and walked back to our table.
“What was that all about?” PoLarr asked.
“Please tell me you weren’t hitting on her, Havak,” Tempest chided.
“No, worse,” I added. “We just joined forces.”
“You did what?” Nova scoffed.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured the team. “I don’t trust them any farther than I could throw the lot of them. Keep an eye on them tomorrow. We’ll be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”
“Pain don’t hurt,” PoLarr said and smiled.
“Don’t bother, sugar,” Aurora said to Tempest who was about to question what the hell was going on.
“See you guys at first light,” I said, drained my glass and turned to walk upstairs. “Where’d Artemis go?”
“Bathroom?” Nova shrugged.
“Ah, she does have the bladder of a chipmunk, let her know I headed up to the room,” I threw over my shoulder as I started to climb the stairs. I was a little disappointed, since I was hoping to get maybe some alone time with the adorably sexy AI in human form.
My disappointment turned to shocked surprise when I opened the door of my room and found her submerged to the waist in a giant copper bathtub big enough for four and completely naked. Her fabulous breasts glistened with soap as she patted the top of the water that was covered in foamy bubbles.
“Why don’t you come and let me scrub the road from your shoulders?” she purred.
“Well, when you put it that way,” I responded and walked over to the tub. Buckles clanked and zippers zipped as I quickly undressed and then eased myself slowly into the hot water of the tub with my back to Artemis.
She had a large, soft sponge in her hands and began to wash my back gently. The bubbles smelled of vanilla and eucalyptus and the water slowly eroded the stress that had built a home in my muscles.
Artemis pressed herself into my back as her arms wrapped around my torso and scrubbed my chest. Her nipples were hard nubs in my back, and I felt my cock begin to grow hard under the bubbly surface of the water. Her lips began to kiss my neck and nibbled my ear while she washed every part of me.
I turned to kiss her, my desire welling like hot steam. She tasted of cherry Chapstick with a faint hint of liquor that just turned me on even more.
Artemis stood, and I watched in amazement as the water and soap dripped from her body. She took my hand and led me to the large, four poster bed. Rich, purple light poured through the open window as the blazing red desert sun set on the horizon.
“Let me drive,” Artie whispered and pushed me down on the bed. Goosebumps stippled her skin from the cool breeze of the air conditioner. Her nipples tightened and grew harder as she straddled me, and her thighs were slippery from the soap.
Then she reached between her legs, gripped my manhood, and slid me into the tight, wet velvet vice of her pussy. Moans escaped both our lips as she began to grind into me.
I reached up and cupped both her breasts. She gasped as I pinched her nipples and rolled them between my thumbs and forefingers.
Artie leaned over and held my hands over my head as her hips rose and fell. It was agonized pleasure as she lifted herself until the tip of my cock tickled the outer lips of her cunt before she rocked back, and I plunged deep inside of her. She arched her back and quickened her pace, riding me like her life depended on it.
“I want you to come deep inside me, Marc,” she panted and bucked faster and faster. Normally I could hold off longer, but her ferver had brought me to the brink of climax, and I couldn’t resist. My hands reached around and grabbed her ass to guide her up and down faster and faster.
Artemis tossed her head back in utter ecstasy as my climax burst forth, and I felt my cock jump and quiver inside her which brought about her own earth shattering orgasm.
We rode wave after wave of nerve tingling, mind numbing pleasure for what seemed like an eternity before she collapsed on top of me and buried her face in my neck. Then the cool conditioned air blew across our bodies and made us both shiver.
“I like when you drive,” I said sleepily and pulled the bed’s covers over us.
“All night long, baby,” she whispered and nuzzled into my neck. I was going to add a very witty and sexy retort, but found I was halfway to dreamland as the sun set outside our window.
Chapter Ten
Sunrises over deserts were always spectacular, but this one was like watching the birth of the universe at the dawn of time. The red sun and purple atmosphere combined to create streaks of brilliant blue and deep orange that slashed the sky to birth the new day in a blazing brightness. On the distant horizon heavy storm clouds hung close to the ground, dark sentinels of an impending deluge. The day bloomed in firecracker flashes of lightning miles away that were steadily approaching in an electric march of inevitability.
The Behemoth, the name I’d dubbed our tractor trailer, rolled across the desert like a lone rider trying to escape from a past it could not hope to outrun. The predawn had been bittersweet. I wasn’t used to seeing Artemis once a match started and being able to spend the night with her had been both a blessing and a curse. The comfort of her warm embrace had dulled the scalpel edges of the Crucible of Carnage and reminded me of all that I had to fight for. Saying goodbye to her before we all boarded the Behemoth was like cutting off a limb.
I watched in the side-view mirror as her waving silhoue
tte faded into the dawn shadows. A small part of me stayed behind with her. The rest of me had a job to do, and I shifted the truck into a higher gear to conserve fuel.
I’d kept the truck at an Interstate approved fifty-five miles per hour as I’d promised Roku. The reduced speed was serving two-fold purposes, however. Before we’d left, Artemis had told us that this leg was going to be much longer and that we’d have to conserve supplies because there was no way to make the next checkpoint with what we were able to carry with us. We’d have to find a way to beg, borrow, or steal what we could out here in the wastes.
The storm clouds grew slowly as did the morning. My crew and I were strangely quiet. The exuberance of the night before had morphed into a quiet contemplative expectation of what was to come. Like we were holding our breaths. Waiting to see what more lay ahead of us besides empty desert, that we all knew wasn’t empty.
Eventually, I saw a dark spec in the mirror that grew larger and larger until the now familiar shape of the tricked out dune buggy came into view and then pulled up alongside of us. I tossed a wave out to the other alliance. Roku stuck her fist out of her own window and gave me a salute before she gunned the dune buggy and shot forward until she settled in about fifty yards ahead of us.
“Let’s see how this goes,” I said into the comm-link. “Everyone stay frosty. I still don’t trust them.”
The morning doldrums stretched out into a boring afternoon as we rolled on and on across the dusty desert. Occasionally there were outcroppings of dry, choked brush or rolling sand dunes on either side of what I assumed had once been a road. The storm off to our right advanced at a snail’s pace like some shadow of a bad omen. I kept expecting it to gain steam and wash over us, but it never did. It just stayed on our periphery, occasionally sending strong bursts of wind over the road, but that was all.
Shortly after noon we broke to refuel from our gas reserves and eat a light lunch.
The conversation between crews was as sparse as the desert scrub, and we were soon back on the open road without even learning the names of the rest of Roku’s team. Which was fine by all of us.
“They were a chatty group,” Tempest said next to me. She and Aurora had switched positions for a while. As had PoLarr and Nova.
“Yeah, a regular coffee klatch,” PoLarr yawned from the back seat.
“They’re biding their time,” I remarked. “Gauging us. Probing for a weakness.”
“Good thing we were doing that too then, huh?” PoLarr chirped from behind me.
“Yuppers,” I snorted. “My bet is that they will make their move tonight when they think we’re asleep. They’ll want our fuel and ammo.”
“Folks in hell want ice water, doesn't mean they will get it,” Tempest scoffed.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “Aurora, after everyone sacks out tonight, or in our case, pretends to, I want you to veil up and use that new stealth mod to make sure our travel buddies don’t try to slit our throats.”
“Oh, goody, I love midnight snacks,” she chuckled over the comm.
“Only if they double cross us,” I reminded her.
“Party pooper,” she pouted.
Towards nightfall, the road got progressively sandier and sandier until it was like driving through a beach. Sand dunes were tan mounds like the curves of a woman on her side and as the sun finally disappeared, I decided that we should call it a day and make camp.
The sky had still not opened up in a downpour, but the thunderheads had built and built until they blotted out most of the horizon. Forks of lightning lit up the sky in the distance like strobes at a celestial nightclub.
Roku and her crew scouted a little valley in the sand dunes that nestled against the solid rock of a small crested butte. I parked the truck behind it, angling it so that I could hit the gas and be gone in a flash if need be. The dune buggy filled in the L shape created by the trailer, and we gathered inside the circled wagon train so as to speak. Incandescent glow-sticks cast our group in a strange, alien green light as we busted into our dried rations. Thermo tabs heated prepackaged meals in a bag which weren’t half bad. They weren’t half good either, but they filled the void in our stomachs.
“Pretty uneventful day, huh?” Roku asked in her ruffled feather voice as we finished up our meager meal. The questioned was forced and overly nice.
“Yup,” I muttered. For some reason the tension in the group had risen as the night had gone and the storm seemed like it was finally going to advance on us like a thief in the night. As if it had been biding its time all day until the sun fell so that it could march over us while no one could see its face.
“I’m exhausted, sugars,” Aurora said and made a big deal out of stretching, her back arched and arms over her head like a cat in the sun.
“Night, Aurora,” I said as nonchalantly as I could muster. It was all I could do not to gawk at her like the rest of Roku’s crew, but I wanted to project a sense of inattentiveness.
“I guess we should sack out too, huh?” Roku asked a little too eagerly. Her verbal “huh” on the end of her sentences was a dead giveaway that she was nervous and desperate for us to affirm her statements. It was a way to gain trust. Tempest had pointed it out to me after lunch.
“Yeah, probably a good idea,” I said and stretched my back. “That storm looks like it could hit at any time. Should sleep some while we can. Start out at first light.”
I tossed them a little wave and then climbed up into the cab of the truck. The back seat and extended back of the cab could be modified into five stacked bunks. It was cramped, like the belly of a pirate ship in times of yore, but all of us could fit into the bunks. There was a little more room on this dark and stormy night because Aurora’s voluptuousness wasn’t filling an hourglass shape in the cab of the truck. When I closed the door of the truck, I held my finger up to my lips at my other alliance mates. We made a good pantomime of climbing into the bunks and pretending to fall asleep quickly.
In the dimly lit dark interior of the cramped cab I kept one eye barely open and trained on the trucks window. Minutes ticked by, and I had just started to think that maybe my gut had been wrong about Roku and her group when Blowfish’s face appeared, framed in the window and backlit by the flashes of lightning from the storm. Through slitted eyelids I watched as Blowfish carefully scanned the inside of the cab. My breathing remained steady and deep, and I even affected a small little snore. He stayed in the window, watching, for several minutes and then, apparently satisfied we were well in the grip of the Sandman, he turned and disappeared back into the night.
I forced myself to count to a hundred just to make sure he was really gone before I slid from the bunk. I tapped Nova, PoLarr, and Tempest on each of their arms gently. They were just as awake as I was. The wind outside had grown to gale proportions and thunder clapped every minute, some close, some far away, but all of it loud enough to mask what we were going to do next.
Gently, ever so gently, I reached up and pulled my Eradicator carbine from its rack and slung it over my shoulder, before I lifted a tiny handle recessed in the floor of the truck. With a twist of my wrist I turned the handle clockwise and there was a tiny click and a foot and a half square of the floor slid back like the battery compartment on the back of a remote control. Once the section of the floor was completely recessed back, I lowered myself into the hole which was actually a tiny crawl space that led the short way to the very back of the tractor car of the truck and let out at the junction between the tractor and the trailer. There was another hatch there, and I slid it back out of the way as quietly as I had the other, although I didn’t think it was necessary at this point because the wind was howling like a drunk Irish banshee. Behind me I felt the comfortable, adrenaline charged presences of my alliance mates. As always, they were ready to follow me into the fray without question. The thought made me smile in the darkness for a brief second. It felt good to know that there were three bad-ass bitches who had my back, and that I had theirs, no matter what.
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nbsp; As quietly as we could manage, which was pretty goddamn quietly, we snuck out into the blustery night. I dropped to the sandy ground and crouched by the mechanical coupling that connected the trailer to the truck. Once the rest of my team was out, we gathered in the space between the truck and the rocky face of the small crested butte where I had parked the truck. The Occuhancers surgically melded to my baby blues did their job and adjusted my vision so that we were no longer covered in the complete inky blackness of a moonless night. It wasn’t Navy SEAL night vision, but it was better than nothing. I motioned with the edge of my hand toward the back of the trailer and, in a low shuffle, we moved down the side of the truck until we had reached the end. I peered around the side of the truck, hugging the side to make as small a profile as I possibly could, and saw Roku and her gang.
They had pushed the dune buggy right up next to the truck and had figured out how to remove the thick hose and nozzle that connected to our reserve fuel stores. The nozzle was plugged into the gas port of the dune buggy, and Roswell turned the crank that pumped our gas into their vehicle.
Lightning flashed across the night, and it was so close that I could smell the sharp scent of ozone. Still there was no rain though. When those clouds overhead let go, it was going to be a downpour of biblical proportions. I didn’t want to wait around for that so as the afterburn of the lightning faded from my vision I pulled my Equalizer from its sling, held it low at my hip, and stepped out from behind the trailer.
“You want me to check the oil while we’re here?” I asked loudly enough to be heard.
Roku and her team froze in the darkness. Straight busted.
Tempest, PoLarr, and Nova fanned out behind me and edged around the side of the dune buggy, still keeping a good distance from the double crossing alliance. Rowell stopped turning the pump crank and just stood there. Roku was next to the gas tank of the dune buggy. Furr-ball sat in the driver's seat, his head craned back at an uncomfortable angle to keep an eye on the action. I didn’t see Blowfish.