by Jake Bible
“What did you do to stir up the hornets?” Billy asked. “They're all buzzin' mad now.”
“They can't see us anymore,” Styles smiled, flicking a few more switches and securing himself into the pilot's seat. “Full stealth.”
Billy followed Styles's lead and strapped himself into the co-pilot's seat. “We going somewhere?”
“Gonna get a better view,” Styles said, not even flinching as the sound of gunfire erupted around them.
Billy's nerves weren't quite as strong and his shoulders jerked continuously with each ricochet off the BTT's hull. “I assume from your calm that this baby can handle a little gunfire.” Billy shrieked as a much louder concussion rocked the aircraft.
“She can handle anything they can throw at us,” Styles said. “Al may have his faults, but his design of this sweet girl has none. It'll take an almost direct hit from a one kiloton nuclear warhead.”
Billy's stomach lurched as they suddenly were airborne and screaming away from the palace grounds. “That's impossible!”
Styles laughed. “We're Americans, for fuck's sake! Nothing's impossible!”
***
“GONE?” The Empress roared. “How can it be gone?!?”
“The pilot activated the stealth protocol and escaped, Your Highness,” Zverev answered. “The men couldn't respond fast enough.”
“Well, I hope your response was fast!” Natalya yelled.
“It was, Empress,” Zverev nodded. “All have been executed.”
“As they should be!” The Empress whirled about and stared hard at her brother. “How do we find them?”
“Find them?” Alexander laughed. “We don't. That's the point, Nat. It's undetectable. And fast as hell. They're halfway out of Russia by now.”
The Empress rushed her brother and grabbed him by the throat. “You and I both know they aren't!” she hissed in his face, a face quickly turning purple.
“I'm still unsure why I'm here,” Gelts spoke up from the corner of the room. “If you’re going to kill the man I'm supposed to watch over then you might as well kill me.”
“I'd love to,” the Empress snarled, releasing her brother. “But, Mr. Zverev believes you have value alive.” Gelts's brow wrinkled and he looked towards Zverev, but the Russian wouldn't meet his gaze. “He believes that as long as your fate is tied to the prince's, you'll help keep him in line and make sure he doesn't try to make a dramatic and fatal exit on his own.”
“I'm suicide watch?” Gelts asked.
“Something like that. He stays alive and you stay alive,” the Empress responded, bored with the subject. She took a seat at the long, ornate conference table and watched her brother as he sat rubbing his throat across from her. “You can make another, I assume.”
“Of course,” Alexander responded hoarsely. “But why should I?” He quickly waved off his sister's immediate response. “And don't say ‘to keep Mel alive’ or to keep myself alive or even to keep Gelts alive.”
“I'm touched,” Gelts sneered.
“Shut up,” both the Tartarov siblings said in unison.
“Give me one reason to do what you want, Nat. Just one reason.”
“Because you have nothing else, brother,” Natalya smiled. “Your club has been burned to the ground. All of your business contacts have been told you have been selling their secrets to the LOM.” Natalya's grin widened. “And I had Sasha executed. So there's no one to take care of you, Alexander. Your life is over. All you have is me. And your design.”
The door to the conference room opened and a page stepped inside cautiously. “They have arrived, Your Majesty.”
“Excellent! Send them in,” the Empress said, getting to her feet.
Alexander puzzled at who could be so important to make his sister stand and puzzled even more as three men were shown into the room. Mr. Brown Eyes, Mr. Continental and Mr. Plain all approached the Empress, kissing her hand one by one and taking their seats as they were offered to them.
“So,” Mr. Plain said. “This is the genius that can bring viable aircraft back into the theatre?”
“Theatre?” the prince asked. “Are we doing show tunes now?”
“War, Alexander,” the Empress chided. “The LOM has naval forces at the ready. Ground troops already in place to deploy. All we need to assure complete success is an air force that can strike at will and bring them to their knees.”
The three men watched Alexander intently and a very rare feeling gripped him: fear. “Bring who to their knees, dear sister? You've already nuked the American bases. Who's left?”
“The Chinese, of course,” Mr. Plain spoke up. “The Middle East is in ruins from centuries of fighting, so they were simple to overtake. India and Pakistan are a Dead Zone, which we've had under quarantine since the Brimstone Wars and Japan put itself in complete isolation, so they are an issue we will deal with later, however, talks are looking promising and they should be on board soon. Africa, of course, is happy to provide the world with the food and raw materials we need and has zero interest in politics or world aggression. Decade after decade of clan clashes took the fight right out of them. That leaves the Chinese. They are all that stand between us and complete control of the Earth.”
“You forgot to mention North America,” Alexander laughed. “Don't you want that wasteland too? Or is a bunch of radioactive rock not worth your effort.” The room grew very silent and Alexander's interest was immediately piqued. “What's in North America?”
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Mr. Brown Eyes responded.
The prince examined the men closely, trying to figure out how they played in everything. “You aren't LOM or even LOMSD. Who are you?”
“Once again, Your Highness,” Mr Brown Eyes smiled. “Nothing to concern yourself with.”
“Like I said, brother, it's all to secure Russia's place. To make sure we are the one true superpower, not just one of the worthless LOM dogs fighting for scraps at the table,” Natalya said, her intense gaze suddenly maniacal. “We can have it all, Alexander! All the power, all the control! We don't have to share with any of those inbred throne monkeys! Or with the religions that forced us all into this mess in the first place! Mother Russia will have what she has wanted forever! Our Golden Age will be once again!”
“Jesus Christ,” Alexander whispered. “You want to bring back the Soviet state, don't you? The darkest moment in our history is what you consider our golden age? Have you lost your mind?”
“It will be different, Prince,” Mr. Continental grinned. “History has shown us what works and what doesn't. This time it will be a true Communist world, not a bastardized socialist bureaucracy that was an embarrassment to all!”
“You're all fucking bugshit nuts,” Alexander grimaced. “I don't want any part of this.”
“You don't have a choice!” the Empress roared.
“What about Australia?” Gelts spoke up suddenly. “Where do they fit into all this?”
“They are no concern at all,” Mr. Brown Eyes laughed. “Ever since they cut off ties to the world, in order to protect their own and their lands, they've barely been able to rub two sticks together to make fire. We'll let them continue to eat crocodile and play their didgeridoos. When it comes time to take what they have, we will easily walk in and crush them.”
“Huh,” Gelts laughed. “Guess you've never met an Aussie before.”
“Regardless of the state of boomerangland, I will still have nothing to do with this,” the prince said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. “Might as well shoot me and Gelts right now.”
“Hey!” Gelts shouted.
The Empress activated a holo in the middle of the table. The image of Heather Walton, naked and strapped to a BC operating table, appeared. “Let's try a little motivation then, shall we? We'll start with Ms. Walton and then move onto sweet Mel if need be.”
Chapter Seventeen
The struggle towards consciousness was difficult, but Heather knew she had to wake up.
She knew that if she wanted to see Melissa alive again, she would have to fight through the intense pain, fight through the blackness that pushed down on her and kept her mind from coming to the surface. She knew she would have to fight with everything she had in her.
“She's coming around, Doctor,” a voice echoed from far away.
“Excellent,” another voice responded. “We can record her reactions to pain stimulus and see if the nanotech has affected her nervous system as well.”
Heather heard all of this, but understood none of what was being said. All she could think about was that her body felt like it was on fire and her insides burned. She tried to move her arms, but found them unresponsive. She tried to kick out, but with the same lack of results.
“Ah, I see you are attempting one of your famed escapes,” the second voice said. “Do not bother, Ms. Walton, I have severed the tendons to your arms and your legs, just in case you came awake on us. Good thinking on my part, since the anesthetic should have kept you unconscious for hours longer. I also added a little something extra to dull those Ghost abilities of yours.”
Focusing every ounce of energy she had, Heather forced her eyes to open. She was instantly blinded by bright surgical lights. Trying to move her head about so she could asses her situation proved as useless as her attempts with her arms and legs. A man's face, half covered by a surgical mask, leaned into her line of vision, blocking the light for a moment.
“I have also severed the tendons to your neck,” the man said. “It's easier than trying to restrain you while we take a look at that new brain of yours.”
“New...?” Heather whispered, her throat a raspy, dry bed of glass.
“Oh, yes!” the man said excitedly. “We've taken chunk after chunk of it out to study and every time it grows back! It's quite remarkable!”
“Doctor,” the first voice interrupted, and Heather thought it might be a woman's voice, but she was still too groggy to truly know. “Doctor, her lower right leg has returned to full form. Shall I amputate again?”
“Please do, Ms. Solosky,” Doctor Stilig replied. “The more samples we have to work with the better.”
“What...are...you...doing to...me?” Heather struggled to say.
“Dissecting you for further study, of course,” the Doctor responded as the whir of a bone saw filled the room. “You are quite amazing. I am sure the person that developed this tech had no idea what would happen when it was introduced into the system of a Ghost. Microscopic robots inside a human genetically engineered to have complete physical control over metal! It's astounding!”
Heather felt herself jerk and buck and her vision was clouded by the red-black goo she began to cough up.
“Of course, the nanotech isn't made from BC,” Dr. Stilig said. “So, unfortunately there are some serious side effects. But, I doubt they will be fatal. At least not in the short term.”
The bone saw cut through her flesh and into her tibia. Heather tried not to scream against the pain, tried not to give the Doctor the sick satisfaction of proving that her nervous system was intact and working, but she could only hold out so long.
***
“Wake up,” Beth pleaded, shaking Melissa's still form. “Please Mel, please wake up.”
Melissa lay prone upon the concrete floor of the small cell they had been dumped into. There wasn't any light above and the room was only dimly lit by the hallway light filtering from under the cell door.
Beth shook Melissa again, with more force, but the girl didn't move. If it wasn't for her rhythmic breathing, Beth would have thought her dead.
“I've got to get us out of here,” she whispered, rising painfully to her feet.
Her mind felt fuzzy from whatever they had been drugged with and she wobbled a bit on unsteady legs. Slowly and methodically she ran her hands over the walls, the door, the floor, trying to figure out some way to escape, but realized she didn't even know what she was looking at. Who was she kidding? She wasn't a Ghost. She'd only just found out she was American. She slumped against the wall and tried not to cry. She knew she had something in her that could help; she proved it on the beach back in the Netherlands. Of course, none of that had been conscious, it had just happened.
“Please,” she whispered in the dark trying to coax that other part of her out. “Please. I need help.”
***
“Hear that, Brian?” the woman asked, slapping Brian across the face, bringing him out of his quiet daze. “Time to go to work.”
“How many fingers do I have left?” Brian asked.
“Does it matter?” the woman answered.
“To me, yes, it matters,” Brian responded, waiting for whatever pain the woman was going to inflict upon him. Instead he felt her straddle his lap, reaching down and unbuttoning his fly.
“Oh, Brian, I don't think you need fingers for what's next,” the woman sighed into his ear as she reached into his pants, grabbing his surprisingly responsive penis. “I think you have what we need right here.”
***
Beth felt strange. It was a feeling she knew before. A feeling she had when she visited...um, his name escaped her. Her stomach began to flutter and her skin flushed. She got to her feet and put her hands against the door, slowly slapping the surface to a primal rhythm.
“Hey,” she called out, her voice suddenly a half octave lower. Not a girl's voice, but a woman's voice. “Hey! Anyone out there? I need some help, please. I need help...bad.”
***
Brian's breathing quickened as the woman stroked him, up and down, up and down. “What are you doing?”
“Did you miss that class in school, Brian?” the woman mocked. “Do you want me stop? Is touching you in your bathing suit area making you uncomfortable?”
Brian wanted to say yes, but knew it would come out sounding insincere. “No, but I don't understand.”
“Your job isn't to understand, Brian,” the woman cooed as she yanked at his pants, pulling them down around his ankles. “You job is to help her.”
***
“Hello?” Beth said, her breathing deepening, her legs getting warm. She could feel herself getting wet, and while alarmed, she couldn't help but go with it. Her fingers traced the outline of the door. “If there is anyone out there, I think you’ve made a mistake. I'm not going to hurt anyone. I'm not going to try to escape.”
She slumped to the ground, her back against the door. “Please open up. I know you can see me. I'm harmless.” Her hands moved to her belly, feeling the muscles under her skin and she shivered at the sensation.
***
“Are you fucking watching this?” a guard said, elbowing the other guard on duty in the security holo room. “I think one of those girls is about to beat off.”
“Girls don't beat off,” the other guard answered, lazily glancing over at the holo. “They finger themselves.”
“Same thing,” the first guard said, his eyes glued to the image. “Either way, this is getting hot.”
The second guard laughed. “Go have some fun if you want. I'll lock you in so they can't go anywhere.”
“What if it's a trap?” the first guard asked.
The second guard laughed as he watched Beth's hands go between her crotch and her body jerked with pleasure. “Then it's a pretty good fucking trap!”
***
The woman's fingers traced up and down Brian's thighs, caressing his balls and moving across his penis as it throbbed. He shuddered again and again.
“Hold on now, stud,” the woman laughed. “Don't get too excited. We have work to do. Pace yourself.”
“I don't get this,” Brian sighed. “I don't get this at all.”
Wet lips kissed the head of his penis and he shook all over.
“You're about to get it,” the woman laughed. “You're about to get all of it.”
***
Beth heard the lock mechanism click and she reluctantly pushed herself away from the door, letting the guard squeeze through into the cell.
&n
bsp; “What the fuck are you doing in here?” the guard asked, his hands fingering the clasp to his uniform.
For a moment, Beth grew confused. What was she doing? Was she about to masturbate? Was she doing that to lure in the guard? There was sure to be at least one other guard watching. What was she trying to gain? All of this went through her mind as she got to her feet and slowly removed her panties, kicking them off towards the guard.
“I have no idea what I'm doing,” she said stepping to the man, putting her arms around him, her hands falling down his back and gripping his butt. “But, does it really matter? I'm game to whatever right now.”
The man quickly fumbled with his uniform, trying to get his pants open. “You know you can't get out of here, right? There's ten levels of security between you and the outside.”
Beth grabbed him hard and pulled him towards her. “Right now, there's nothing between us.” She kissed him deeply and he lifted her from the ground, her legs wrapping tightly around his waist.
***
“Jesus,” Brian whispered as the woman's lips and tongue moved up and down his penis, making it near impossible to breath. “Christ.”
The woman stopped and Brian couldn't tell where she was. The cool air dried the saliva from his cock, adding even more sensation.
Suddenly she gripped him, straddling his lap once again and before he knew it he was inside her as she ground down slowly.
“Help her, Brian,” she cooed. “Help her get over her blocks and do what she needs to do.”
***
Beth pulled her mouth away from the man, and still gripped about his waist, she reached down and felt his stiff cock. “Don't move,” she whispered as she put the man inside her and began to hammer away as if her life depended on it.
***
The woman ground and ground and soon Brian began to thrust, matching her rhythm. He knew he was getting close and struggled to hang on.
“Not yet, Brian. You aren't done yet.”
He felt her tighten about him, squeezing the base of his penis with her muscles, keeping him from going over the edge.