by Chogan Swan
“They can’t take away music,” he said, putting his hand over her heart. “That’s in here.”
He let go to move to the stairs. As he put a foot on the first tread, he sang out around his mouthful of waffle. “Still like that old-time Rock and ROLL, YEAAAHH!”
Kest was heartsick about the piano himself, but sometimes you did what you had to. People needed cheering up when life delivered a kick in the ass. And this was a size 16 to the bullseye. He turned the corner at the landing and sang. “YES, WE HAVE NO PIANAS. Everybody now! WE HAVE NO PIANAS TODAY! WE HAVE AN OLD FASHIONED TO-MAH-TO. A LONG ISLAND PO-TAH-TO. BUT, YES, WE HAVE NO PIANAS. WE HAVE NO PIANAS TOOOOODAAAAY!” *
He stuck his head over the bannister. “If you don’t join in I won’t stop singing it.”
“YES, WE HAVE NO PIANOS...” they chorused as they all marched up the stairs to war.
As Kest reached the door to the security room, he heard Ayleana whisper. “Do you think that will be the song to rally the world to finally fight for freedom?”
“God, I hope not,” said Amber.
*(Sung to the tune of Yes, We Have No Bananas)
Chapter 30 — DOA
Colonel Bezant and his personal guard crouched behind the parked cars on the side street intersecting South Battery, waiting for the squad leader to come back from the brick mansion. They’d been in there fifteen minutes when the squad leader stuck his head out the door and waved the all clear. Bezant strode to the door and stepped inside, away from possible sniper fire. “Sitrep, squad leader?” he said before he’d begun to look.
Damn!
Six bodies stretched on the floor while the team’s medic moved from one to the next.
“Out cold, sir,” said the squad leader. “The room had penetrating pellets in air guns that shot at us when we came in.” He pointed to gaping holes in the ceiling where automatic weapons fire had obliterated the emplacements. “If a pellet hit bare skin or got through fabric, they went down. We lost five more upstairs as we worked our way through the house. The team is bringing the wounded down now. No one was in the house. Vehicles are gone from the garage and all remaining tech in the house was fried when a small EMP device lit up inside the house when we entered. It fried our tech too, even the hardened stuff except for a couple things that were in an F bag.”
“How did you disable all those emplacements so fast, squad leader?”
“They ran out of ammo, sir.”
Bezant frowned. The still conscious squad members had now pulled ten more limp forms into the dining area. “We don’t have enough boots on the ground left to Evac all these, fuck-ups.” he said. “We’ll have to send a truck for them tomorrow.”
“Rear echelon mother-fucker,” someone snarled behind him.
Bezant turned, reaching for his service pistol. It was then the compressed air tank on a mechanical timer released the coma toxin throughout the house. Ayleana and Amber had estimated the time it would take to draw in the commanding officer from the watch post, and proof was in the pudding.
Bezant fell on his face, sprawled across one of the men he’d been about to abandon.
What with the new reality, a follow-up patrol didn’t check on them until thirty-six hours later. By then, a new-formed gang had acquired the advanced firepower and tactical body armor stripped from the squad.
The checkup patrol’s medic—though he had passed his med training—was nowhere near the top of his class. After checking the bodies strewn around the house, he pronounced them all dead.
And so they were.
Chapter 31 — Road Trip
Kest kept the front tire of the motorcycle a steady three feet from the bumper of the truck as they eased off the Savannah Highway onto a side street. This street would take them north then west on Highway 61. Kest couldn’t help hearing Bob Dylan’s voice in his head singing about the things that happened on some other highway of the same name.
Four of the security detail from the mansion had family south of Charleston while the other three had family to the northwest. Amber proposed they form a convoy until they crossed one of the bridges to the south or west until they got out of town.
The security team drove the two armored vehicles—now with the ‘AMBULANCE’ letters painted over and the rooftop machine guns deployed. The EXBULANCES led the way. Amber followed Kest on the second motorcycle with Ayleana riding shotgun behind her. Shotgun, in this case, meant she was the one holding the 12-gauge loaded with double-ought buckshot while Amber drove the bike. Ayleana’s tail wrapped around the luggage rack of the big custom enduro. The bikes were identical to the ones Kest had first coveted in HumanaH’s ‘bat cave’. All the vehicles were hardened by design against EMP and carried spare parts for exposed electrical elements in case of another pulse.
So far, they hadn’t run into as much trouble as Kest had feared. They’d taken the Spring Street Bridge across the Ashley River. Ayleana had to jump off the bike a few times to help the team in the trucks move cars out of the way. They only had to plow through one flimsy barricade—with the punctuation of a few rounds from a light machine gun to scatter the crowd who’d built it. Kest did not understand what they were hoping to accomplish with the roadblock. Whatever it was, they were going about it the wrong way. They should have been pushing the cars into a pile. The barricade might have stopped a compact car whose owner was afraid of scratching the paint—not something likely to be on the road now.
Outlaws would get smarter soon—or die—he supposed. Perhaps they’d just been people from the other side of the bridge trying to protect themselves from the city, fear being the great motivator of stupidity.
Amber had told him Checkpoint 32 was a hardened hideout in a National Forest near Muscle Shoals, Alabama. They weren’t expecting to make it all the way there today, but they would go as far as they could. When the trucks broke off to go their separate ways, Amber accelerated, and Kest followed, weaving through abandoned cars and people trying to wave them down. Kest lost track of the number of people Ayleana needed to threaten with the 12-gauge. People were too disorganized to be much of a threat, but Kest was glad of their ballistic armor, even before the first time someone shot at them. Ayleana shot the man, unwilling to give him another opportunity.
What would cause someone to try something so insane?
Kest stopped thinking about it. Everyone had their own private misery today. What he needed to concentrate on was staying on the bike.
The bikes had extra-large gas tanks, giving them a range of 600KM under ideal conditions. But Amber stopped at the 400KM mark at a lone, black Infiniti on an open stretch fifty miles from Atlanta. While Amber pried the panel away from the gas tank access, Ayleana slid off the bike, racked the shotgun and pulled the bullpup strapped on her back to her shoulder. She hurried to the trunk where the keys were hanging and unlocked it. Kest pulled his own bullpup from his back and snapped the kickstand down with a kick.
Ayleana flipped the trunk door up hard.
“Oh pea!” said Amber.
At first, Kest thought the man in the trunk was dead, but Ayleana wrapped her tail around the trailer hitch for leverage and lifted him out. Then, she set him in the shade of the car. It was a cool day for early June, somewhere in the eighties, but the black car had been soaking up heat all day. The man looked like he'd been in the trunk since sometime close to the EMP burst. His skin was red and dry.
Ayleana put her hydration pack tube in her mouth and took a long pull then pried open his mouth and trickled the water into his throat. When he didn't swallow, she put her mouth over his. Kest saw his throat move as her rolled tongue forced into it and her mouth pressure pushed the water down. Ayleana repeated the sloshing wet kisses several times then unsnapped his shirt and sprayed water on his chest from the tube.
“Kest, keep a lookout,” she said. “Whoever did this might still be around and watching.”
Kest shook himself and returned his attention to the surroundings while Amber returned to pumping gas into th
e collapsible gas tank until the gravity took over the siphoning.
~~~{}~~~
Ayleana shook her head, her patient was dehydrated and over-heated. If she hadn’t come along, he’d have been dead in a few more minutes. “There’s a creek a hundred meters that way,” she said, lifting his body. “Amber, when the tanks are full, stay and guard the bikes. Kest, you’re with me. Keep both Amber and me in sight when I get him to the water.”
The man’s body flopped, and she took a moment to get a better grip before setting off toward the running water at a trot. The sound of Kest’s footsteps reminded her of other obligations, but she knew this was the right thing to do.
When she reached the creek, she lowered the man’s body into a waist-deep pool, hanging on to him as his eyes flew open and he gasped and stiffened.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you, you will be fine,” she said. “Just relax, we have to lower your core temperature. You’ve had a heat stroke, but you will be fine.” Best not mention that he had a concussion too. Someone had whacked him hard on the back of the head.
“My name is Ayleana. I have medical training. I know what I’m doing. Understand?” The man blinked his eyes. “Try to relax,” she said and lowered his body to the creek bed with her right arm while keeping his head cradled in her left. “I’m going to hand you my water tube so you can have a drink. Do you know how to drink from a bite tip nozzle?”
He blinked again, giving a faint nod.
With her right hand, she passed the nozzle to his lips and held it for him, squeezing it with her fingers to release the water. He sucked and swallowed, weak but steady.
“Kest,” she called. “Tell Amber to bring the bikes. We'll camp here tonight. He'll make it.”
Chapter 32 — Rescue
Ayleana let Kest take her backpack to hang it for drying while she kept a hold on her patient. The man had processed a lot of water and was working through the second of Tiana’s sports drinks. Into the first, Ayleana had mixed salt and compounds to help him sleep and speed his recovery. He’d released urine into the creek after her repeated insistence that he try. Ayleana found she could hold him in her lap with the drink in her left hand while her right hand worked on the head wound. She injected it with anti-inflammation compounds before doing direct repairs to the exterior wound. Later, she'd need to go inside to get to the concussion before he'd be able to travel, but another hour of fluids and bathing would have him stabilized.
Ayleana wondered if he'd agree to the treatments she propose. It meant she’d have to reveal that she wasn’t human, but Tiana had taught her a compound that made humans forget. That might be useful. “I’m removing your clothes so they can dry,” she told him and pulled his knee up so she could untie his shoes, a sensible pair of Doc Martens. When she got to his jeans, she let his body float off her lap and worked them off, first with her fingers, then with her tail at the end. The shirt, already unsnapped, came off with no trouble.
“Amber, could you toss me that cake of Dr. Bronner’s soap?” she said. “Also, I felt a wallet in those pants, when you open that up to dry, could you check for his ID so we know what his name is?”
“Gotcha,” said Amber, stepping on some stones in the water so she could hand Ayleana the soap instead of throwing it. “You know, I could do the washing if you need a break,” she said with a grin.
“And you'd monitor his vital signs how?” Ayleana arched an eyebrow.
Amber just smirked and went back to setting up camp.
“I saw a tent in the trunk of that car, could one of you get that and set it up? I’ll have to watch him, and the treatments will keep you two awake.”
“On it,” Amber said, winking. “I wondered if you two would get your own room.”
Ayleana stuck her tongue out at Amber, opened the paper wrapper and slid the soap out with one hand. With one nearby rock for a table and another for a paperweight, she saved the wrapper.
First, she soaped his hair. It was long and fine, and she needed to remove the leather tie that pulled it back into a ponytail. His color was better now. He looked to be in his thirties. His face was a light olive tan with a long nose and high cheekbones. The soap scraped over his three-day beard. Ayleana put the soap on the rock as she rinsed his face and neck. When she finished that, she raised his body out of the water and lathered him from his shoulders to his knees. He muttered something in his sleep as she ran her hand over his body to get the soap off. His muscles were well-toned and strong. By the blood flow to his sex as she rinsed him, she could tell his recovery was moving fast. With her hand, she measured it and determined it would reach where it needed to go. Relief made her shoulders relax. Now, she didn't need to use Kest to pass the threshold. If—
“Nice one,” Amber said. “You sure can pick the dude in distress, Aylie.”
“Did you find out what his name was?”
Amber bent to get the pants off the rocks and fished the wallet out of the pocket. “Andrew Llwyd Rowling,” she announced.
Andy? Drew? Ender?
Amber laid out the wallet and wrung out the jeans before hanging them on a tree branch. “Ooooh! I love these snap-open shirts,” she crowed then rinsed it before squeezing out the water and tossing it over a branch.
Ayleana checked Andrew’s core temperature. Since it was normal now, she lifted him out of the water, letting it drip back into the stream. A breeze filtered through the woods and his skin responded by tightening to form bumps. A mosquito tried landing on his shoulder, but she flicked it into oblivion with a snap of her tail. Then, she made a dosage of oral bug repellent and dripped it from her mouth to his.
Amber had set up the tent from the car. When Ayleana ducked through the flap, an air mattress and cloth mat were ready inside. Ayleana lowered him on top of the mats and propped his head so it wouldn’t put pressure on the impact point of his head wound. The tent was set to catch the breeze, and the temperature was dipping as the sun sunk below the trees. Ayleana peeled off her wet clothes, squeezed out the creek water and hung them to dry. She strapped her weapons harness around her waist and shoulders, looked downwind for Kest and spotted him in a tree about forty meters away. Kest held a monocular, and was scanning the low-lying area to the north then turned to look both directions up and down the highway to the south.
“Did you set out alarm trip wires yet?” she said to Amber.
“Does the pope live in the woods?”
“I’m not sure, but I doubt it.”
“Is a bear catholic?”
“Decidedly, no.”
“Then I didn’t set out trip wires while Kest is still playing pirate ship lookout. Can you get him back here?”
“Do I have text service?”
“Can’t you use your awesome mind powers like Tiana does?”
“Perhaps you mean Jonah’s awesome mind powers. Maybe that’s a human thing. Why don’t you try?”
“Believe me, I have.”
“Well then,” Tiana picked up a small rock and whipped it at the base of the tree where Kest was perched.
When Kest looked toward the campsite, she waved for him to come back.
“You coulda gone pro with that arm,” Amber said.
“Locker-room shyness.”
“Oh, Right.”
Chapter 33 — Medical Training
Kest hopped down from the lowest branch of his lookout tree and trotted back to where they were camped.
“Did you see anything interesting?” said Amber.
“Two fires to the north, not big. Dark haze to the west might be fires in Atlanta. Four people walking on the road, headed this way about five minutes away. Oh, and a fire ant hill about two inches from your boot.”
“I’m testing Aylie’s insect repellant.”
Kest grinned. “I guess it’s working so far.”
“My turn,” Ayleana said, walking to Amber and motioning Kest to come closer. “Last night I told you about what I needed to do now that my body has reached threshold. So here is the rest...�
�� She pulled Kest close and held on to him. She seemed uncertain, scared. “You already know many of the symbiotic functions my branch sisters do involve parts of the body that human’s associate with sex. Well, the guy we pulled out of the trunk with heat stroke needs that level of attention to repair the damage to his brain.”
She ran her hand down Kest’s arm, making it tingle. “In normal circumstances, we don’t experience sexual pleasure or arousal just from using those parts of our bodies. But, for my body to develop, I need to go a few steps further. I need to reach orgasm and it must be through coitus. Self-stimulation won’t be enough. Kest, I would have asked you to help me with that, but I don’t know if I will feel any more sexually drawn to you afterwards. I’m afraid it would confuse both of us. My people don’t attach a relationship status to the first sex partner the way we do for later pairings. It’s an arrangement of convenience, but as Tiana pointed out. That may be one thing that’s true where we are from, but not here. If you were my first—I might be drawn to never consider you as a possible partner, while you might develop feelings for me that would run counter to that.”
Kest’s head whirled trying to wrap itself around all those words and separate the information from the emotions the words were kicking into gear.
“Hmm,” Amber said, scratching her chin. “So, since we need at least two to stand watch, what you’re saying is you’re the only one getting laid tonight.” She tapped her toe and glanced at the sky in thought. “And you have a doctor’s note.” She grinned. “Just when I thought I’d heard them all too.” She winked at Kest. “Come on, kid, I’ll show ya how to set alarm trip lines. It’ll be fun.” She grabbed him by the shoulder. “Mind you, it may not be as much fun as she’s having, but I’m sure a handsome lad such as yourself will recover, eventually.”