“But it hurts,” Quiggs groaned.
“Close your eyes and think of Rosamunde.”
“I’m so horny I could make a baby with her.” Quiggs pushed his hips back. Who cared if Beau watched? Beau could join them. Instead of helping by lifting his arms for Max to peel the sodden nightshirt over his head, Quiggs reached behind, giggling madly as he tried to catch Max’s cock and guide it in.
Max swore when Quiggs’s fingers brushed his shaft. “Stop goading me. Think of a grandmother riding you.”
“That’s disgusting. Ah… wait… oh yeah… helping.” Quiggs lifted his face to the cold spray. Shivering, he sluiced water over himself to ease the fever. He lifted his arms for Max to pull the nightshirt over his head. Though he scrubbed, the oily perfume stuck to his skin like a shiny coat of lacquer.
He checked out Beau, shuddering from a second orgasm. The water rolled off Beau’s wide shoulders without dissolving the oil. There were no fixtures to regulate the temperature and no soap in the pumps. “We’re losing the battle. We need soap to break down the oil and steam to draw the stuff out of our pores.”
Seconds after he spoke, hot water sprayed his back, and Quiggs shrieked loud enough to convince the females Beau had thrust to the hilt. The soap pumps began spitting bubbles. He cupped a hand under one, and a thin gel smelling like mint filled his palm. He lathered up, and the lacquer melted away. The steam sweated out the rest. The mint chased the perfume from his nostrils and restored his sanity. Had he giggled earlier like a fem in a pleasure house?
He was so embarrassed.
Max slapped a handful of soap on his own chest and scrubbed. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. I said we needed soap and steam. There must be sensors set to obey a verbal command.”
“Not that I’m complaining, but how’d the sensors understand you if you speak a different language than their inventors?”
Quiggs’s voice cracked with excitement. “Our ancestors used smart machinery. The tomes spoke of living technology. Think of the lighting and plumbing sensors in the port cities. Think of the canal’s current. Those represent a tiny fraction of what our ancestors developed.”
“The sensors never responded to my needs when I showered,” Max countered.
“Maybe the ferals crowding the room to watch you messed up the sensors.”
Beau rinsed soap off his spent cock. “The ancestors are watching us, my Quiggs. I have seen the blue bugs. One bit my ear, and I chased them off you many times while you slept.” He presented his back and wriggled for Quiggs to soap where he couldn’t reach.
Quiggs absently lathered Beau from nape to waist. “I thought I was seeing things.”
“I didn’t want to say anything, but I saw them too.” Max drew Quiggs to his side when Beau moaned and spread his butt cheeks for a thorough lathering. He pinched Beau’s hopeful ass. “Oops. Another one bit you.”
Beau hissed and whirled, both hands covering his ass. He bumped chests with Max. “My Quiggs promised to wash me all over.”
Quiggs rolled his soaked nightshirt and slapped them both atop the head, stinging their sensory hairs to get their attention. “I think the bug bites weren’t bug bites. I think we’ve been tested to see if we’re human. I’m full-blooded, so the verbal sensors respond to my vocal inflections in conjunction to what visual sensors tell them I need.”
Though Max and Beau nodded, Quiggs could tell his words bounced off them like water off oil-slicked skin.
They washed their hair and briskly inspected each other for oily residue in their creases, then stepped out of the shower and stamped their feet to shake off the water.
“Try asking the ancestors for towels,” Max joked.
His voice serious, Beau added, “Yes, my Quiggs. Ask the ancestors for towels. They listen to you.”
“Our ancestors are dead. Their technology lives on,” Quiggs replied.
Beau waved to invisible eyes in the ceiling. “No. They watch us. Ask them for towels.”
Knowing Beau wouldn’t stop pestering him, Quiggs rapped his knuckles against a stretch of bare wall between the sinks and the showers. “Hello in there. We need to dry off.” He looked over his shoulder at Beau. “There, I asked. Happy now?”
Quiggs yelped as a wall vent opened and blasted hot air. He’d read about drying vents in the tomes. How utterly fantastic! Two more vents opened for Beau and Max, adjusting for height.
“I told you someone watches us.” Beau hopped foot to foot, head bent as he fluffed his white-blond hair. A week without a trim, and his thick hair grazed his ears.
Quiggs peered at Beau. The blue bugs dived at him again, there and gone in a wink without the tawny hairs reacting. “Beau, did you sense anything just then?”
“No. Why?”
“I saw the blue bugs again.”
Beau shook water out of each ear. “They are friendly bugs. Ask the watchers to have them show us a way out.”
Once Quiggs was dry, the vent receded into the wall without a trace. “Did you see that? I didn’t tell anyone I was done. Those sensors can’t communicate with me. They’re simply anticipating or reading logical needs pertaining to this room.”
“Please, my Quiggs, ask the watchers to show us a way out.”
Max lifted his arms to dry his pits. “Worth a try.”
Quiggs let out a heavy sigh. He rapped his knuckles where his vent had disappeared and spoke slowly. “Um… it’s me again. I know you’re only sensors, but can you show us another way out besides the broken stairs?”
“Tell them we need weapons.” Now Max sounded serious.
“Ask them for big weapons,” Beau begged.
Quiggs played along. “We need big bad weapons. Because if we don’t kill every fucking feral in here, they will cross the canal and eat your descendants, and the new world you so carefully built will collapse.” He lifted his brows when nothing beeped, dived, or bit his ass. “See? Just sensors.”
Beau spoke into his vent, “Please save my Quiggs. On my honor, I will do anything if you help us.”
“We’re wasting time.” Max opened a janitorial closet near the entrance. He tossed out four herder’s backpacks and two old-fashioned mops and pails. “The ferals watched me put the packs inside the closet, but they don’t understand the concept of unlocking a door’s lever.”
The backpacks belonged to the herders abducted during the second raid. Max must have searched through the grisly remains after the ferals had fed. At his choked sob, Max said, “Don’t think about their fate. I have a plan, my baby cadet. Beau and I discussed it while you were unconscious.” Max went into commander mode. “Private Beau, you will follow the exact orders I gave you.”
The two men exchanged a long look that excluded Quiggs. Beau swallowed back a whimper, then pressed his fist over his heart and bowed deeply. “On my honor, I will obey.”
“Then let’s do this.” Max emptied the backpacks on the floor.
Herders carried leashes, collars, vinegar spray, goggles, and spare uniforms, along with canteens, knives, vine-cutters, and rations. Beau immediately set to work constructing a shoulder harness out of the leashes. Quiggs gave a soft laugh. He and Beau had hoisted active cadets up the wall and through the windows of the barracks after curfew this way.
While Beau worked on the harness, Max shaved the mops into spears. Quiggs cleaned the nozzle of a canister of vinegar spray used to sting the eyes of charging grazers. Catching Max’s smile, he said, “The simplest measures are often the most effective.”
Quiggs found an oversized red tunic and knee-high brown shorts. No boots, but he wore a double pair of thick brown socks. Rather than squeeze their shoulders and thighs inside the tight uniforms, Beau and Max put on their tattered tees and torn pants. They needed their movements fluid and their feet left bare for speed and killing kicks. Beau had toe claws. Max’s toes were well padded, meant to house claws that never transitioned.
“The simplest measures,” Quiggs repeated as he pumped soap ge
l into a bucket of water. “I’ll splash it on the steps. It’ll gain us extra seconds when the ferals dash up the stairs and skid into each other.”
They had three canteens and one pouch of field rations to divide among the three of them. The canal was less than a day away, providing they traveled a straight line westward and didn’t overshoot the leg of the canal and end up wandering the deep outland on the other side.
Or end up in the bellies of an angry band of rejected females tracking them.
To protect their throats, Beau and Max buckled belts around their necks. Beau fitted his makeshift shoulder harness around Quiggs, attached a long leash, and looped the end around his wrist. Quiggs slid the crammed backpack on, and Beau tested the leash by lifting him off the floor using one hand and swinging him like a sack of feathers.
Beau set him on his feet, hugging him when he weaved. “Do not be afraid, my Quiggs. It is a good plan. They will not catch us.”
“Will someone please tell me what the plan is?” Quiggs didn’t like how quickly Beau released him and averted his eyes.
Max’s hands, steady, competent, tightened the straps of the backpack. “We leave the bathroom with Beau carrying you over his shoulder pretending you’re dead. The females store their food behind the stairs. They will think Beau and I are under the influence of the breeding heat, and we are showing allegiance to the band by discarding you atop the refuse. They won’t suspect an escape until the moment I kill the female guarding the stairs. We’ll race up the steps, the three of us reaching the first gap with Beau carrying you and with me carrying your soap bucket—which is a clever idea, by the way. I’ll splash soap down the steps when we reach the first gap. The females will be climbing the stairs then, closing in. After Beau leaps over the gap, he’ll pull you up by the leash. Be ready. Keep your arms and legs tight. I’ll leap right behind you and hold the females back long enough to give you and Beau time to cross the second gap and escape outside.”
“There’s a good chance we’ll make it out, right?” Quiggs didn’t like the way Beau averted his eyes. “Right?”
“We can’t close the hatch behind us,” Max said. “Whatever exploded it left a mangled hole for one person at a time to squeeze through. It’ll slow you and Beau, but it will also slow the females coming through. They’ll be vulnerable when they duck their heads to twist through one at a time. Beau will slash each female before she’s in position to claw him.”
Quiggs gripped Max’s wrists. He hadn’t known about the hatch. He thought they would dash out together and slam it shut. “If you’re last, they’ll catch you before… before…”
“Beau needs extra seconds to get you past the second gap and outside. And there’s always the chance with my dirty fighting skills and your soapy steps, I’ll make it out.”
Beau growled, “I will get my Quiggs outside and slash every female coming through the hatch. Their bodies will pile up as they fall back inside, blocking the opening. The other females will stop to collect their dead and wounded sisters. When they do, we will run into the vines and use the sun to travel toward Port Memphis. The females will wait until they are certain we are gone from the hatch. They will be too late to pick up our trail in the vines, so they will return to the site of the raids and wait to intercept us.”
“But what about Max?”
Beau’s eyes glistened. “My Quiggs, I am not afraid to trade places with Max and die a soldier’s death to save you. But I am stronger, faster, my claws longer.”
Quiggs squared his shoulders, difficult with the weight of the pack. “Too many ifs in this plan, beginning with us getting five steps toward the stairs before the entire band chases us. We need a distraction. I’ll hobble out sobbing in agony. It ought to amuse the females while you and Max bound up the stairs.”
Max shook his head. “The Triangle needs your explosives to kill these advanced ferals before they cross the canal.”
“The Triangle needs its commander,” Quiggs argued. “My way gets you and Beau out for sure. Your way could get us all killed.” He released Max’s wrists and turned to Beau. “Tell your commander I’m right.”
“My Quiggs, he has killed more ferals in hand-to-hand combat than anyone. He will fight them off long enough for you and me to get outside. We obey his orders.”
His gray eyes hard, his voice firm, Max cupped Quiggs’s face. “It’s my duty to defend the Triangle. That means saving you at all costs.”
Quiggs slapped Max’s hands away and shouted in his face. “Without a distraction to get near the stairs, we all die!”
A siren split the air, the rhythm soft, loud, soft, loud. Red lights flashed. White smoke poured from vents in the floor.
Max’s hairs twitched wildly. His claws displayed.
Beau’s tawny hairs frizzed from the painful sensory feed. Above the din, he shouted, “Why are the watchers angry?”
Quiggs’s fist pumped the air. “It’s our distraction! Run for the stairs while the females are scared shitless.”
Beau slung Quiggs over his shoulder. Max carried the spears and bucket. They rushed out but stopped short. Their exit was blocked. Beau set Quiggs down. Through the flashing red lights, Quiggs saw the females perched high on the stairs, yowling their distress with their arms wrapped around their heads.
White smoke spread across the floor, steadily rising. Beau touched a plume curling around his ankles. “It is cold.”
“Is it safe to breathe?” Max lifted the neck of his tee to cover his mouth and nose.
Quiggs squatted and sniffed. He rubbed his forehead from the brain freeze hitting him. “It’s a chemical vapor absorbing the slick of the breeding heat. My skin feels calm.” He shielded his eyes against the red glare. “I don’t see any way out but the stairs. If the watchers set up this distraction, you’d think they’d show us another way out.” The metal wall appeared solid and impassive as ever. The fog thickened as it rose above his ankles, like wading in icy water.
Across the room, close to the metal wall, a doorway appeared, framed by glowing blue dots and wide enough for six men. It had to be a lift! Quiggs whooped and pointed.
“Wait!” Max’s warning was too late. Beau picked Quiggs up and sprinted toward the lift.
Quiggs’s excitement had drawn attention. Before he reached the lift, two females darted inside it, their claws fully displayed. They kicked at the walls and pulled at the hand rails. Beau’s courting females surrounded them, pushing them away from the lift. Beau eased Quiggs down and freed the leash looped around his wrist. The oldest grandmother stepped through the circle. She slapped Quiggs’s backpack, knocking him to his knees. She’d had enough of Quiggs stealing the attention of the breeding males.
“I’m all right,” he cried out before Beau jumped to his defense. Once the men showed aggression, there was no turning back. The females would rip them apart. “If that room’s a lift, there should be a control panel. Don’t upset them until I find it.”
Quiggs crawled toward the lift, his head above the cold vapor. He glanced back to see how Max and Beau were faring. Beau’s admirers snuffled the strange scent of soap on his washed body. Beau chuffed, drawing them into a tighter circle around him to execute his best killing skill—a tactical sweep and slice.
Yeah, you go, Beau. Kill the fuckers.
Max squatted in submission, letting the vapor hide his hands on the spears. Inside the lift, blue bugs swarmed the two females. They ran out, slapping at their skin, their slanted eyes frantic. The alarm’s volume escalated. Beau’s females clapped their hands over their ears, shivering as the vapor reached their knees.
Quiggs used the added distraction to dart inside what he hoped was a lift. Panel… panel… where is the panel? The walls were smooth non-metal sheets with handrails. He couldn’t see the floor through the vapor swirling in, but it felt like a sturdy platform to carry cargo. “Guys, there’s no control panel. You’re trapped if you come in here.”
The two females chased out by the bugs conquered their fear and
cornered him inside, toe claws drumming on the floor. As if blaming him for threatening their den with the piercing alarm, the strange lights, and the smoke, they chittered nervously to each other. The cold pimpled their tawny skin. Heads tilted, they sniffed, reminding him of Beau sensing deception. The chittering stopped. Their green eyes narrowed to slits.
Fear clogged his throat like sour honey. He pulled the vinegar spray out of his pocket and shot a burst into their faces. They yowled and somersaulted backward. Quiggs huddled in a corner clutching the canister and listened for fighting. The silence was as cold as the vapor. The females still wanted worthy studs.
“Did you find the control panel?” Max’s voice sounded calm, unthreatening.
“Nothing!”
“Trust the watchers to close the door when we’re all inside,” Beau called out.
“Works for me,” Max answered. “Beau, on the count of three, strike, then run.”
On one, the lift vibrated on its own, powering up after centuries of disuse. Quiggs gripped the handrail for balance, searching for a clue to what activated the machine.
Furious yowls broke into wet gurgles.
Max dived into the lift, both spears wet with blood.
Beau executed his deadly spin. Blood sprayed, intestines spilled.
Females running to avenge their sisters collided into one another, skidding across hidden patches of soapy floor.
Heh. Simple measures.
One female wearing the blood of a fallen sister charged the lift. Max speared her before she eviscerated him. He freed the spear and thrust at another.
Beau dispatched a female in his path, then bounded for the lift. The glass door swooshed closed in his face. He stared confused as the lift rose with a gentle hum, leaving him behind.
Quiggs pounded the door. “Stop! Beau’s not a feral! He’s one of us!”
He pressed his face to the door, watching the females swarm Beau. They killed instantly, or they tortured slowly. They raised Beau high and stretched him out by his arms and legs, nearing the tearing point from his sockets. The oldest grandmother ripped off Beau’s tee. They would take turns slicing off flesh, savoring the blood and pain as they ate him alive.
Ingenious Page 26