“Go on,” he whispered as Jenny pulled it out, a glistening strand dangling from the tip, mesmerizing. “I know you’ve been wanting to.”
Without a word, Jenny slid onto her knees, making sure to bring his trousers all the way down with her. She bit her lip as she grabbed hold of him and squeezed tightly hands unable to close. He moaned as she started to move them back and forth along his now slick shaft, her tongue like a match to kindling, striking a fire that surged from his groin all the way down to his feet and up to his head, riding high in the sky.
Weaving his fingers through her hair, Jesse wrapped those gossamer strands of brown up and over as he drew them into a fist. He used it to guide her lips up and down, watching her strain with his dark eyes in both sinful pain and pleasure.
“Take it,” he said forebodingly, stretching her lips as she went down, providing her with fleeting relief on the upstroke before forcing her down again. “More… yeah… all of it…”
The feeling was incredible; bursts of passion rolling in ever mounting waves of heat. The sensation grew with each tantalizing suck and lick, rising like steam from boiling water until it all neared the point of bubbling over.
Yanking her up while he could, still drooling from the end, they kissed again. Jesse turned so Jenny’s back was pointed toward the bedroll, and he guided her down to the canvas in one graceful swoop, their bodies folding atop each other until she was laying safely on the ground.
Jesse grabbed each of her thighs and spread those silken legs wide as she leaned her head against the pillow, arching as he loomed over her in admiration. Smiling, he positioned himself with the tip of his shaft teasing her, right up to the point he pushed inside.
It was tight, wet, and warm. She winced as he went deeper, then moaned as she struggled for the snaps that lined the sides of the roll. She clutched them tightly as Jesse filled her, spread her apart, and made her feel like she was on the top of the world.
Jesse had bottomed out, pulling back before grinding forward again with a low growl riding each thrust. He was being gentle yet his size was not, Jenny breathing in tiny puffs of air as she whimpered.
“Damn,” Jesse muttered as Jenny started to clamp around him, a wetness flowing that made his motion easier. Lifting her legs, dove in and ground himself rhythmically against her skin.
She cried in bliss; he felt so good all the way inside her. Forcing her eyes open she watched… and felt… as Jesse moved, now writhing in chaotic thrusts.
Jesse’s balls were tightening, an orgasm building inside him as their bodies splashed together like the salty sea upon the shore.
“Oh God… that’s it…” he bellowed as his body exploded, Jenny’s buckling beneath his.
They both sighed, and smiled, Jesse coming to rest beside Jenny. He didn’t want to move at first; perhaps he couldn’t with how drained he felt. Eventually propping himself up on an elbow, he looked over at her, panting and covered with faint drops of sweat. They glistened against her curves in what light was coming in from outside and within him, something stirred again.
“Do you think he heard us?” Jenny asked with a giggle.
“Who? Aftershock?
“Yes,” she replied with a tinge of embarrassment, stretching calmly. “At least we’re done.”
“What are you talking about?” Jesse said, a stern look in his eyes as he slid beneath her and urged her on top. “That was just the start… now the real ride begins.”
The two locked lips again, hands tangled in each other’s hair as their passion continued in darkness of the cave, the stars and moon shining brightly outside.
THE CAMP WAS quiet, the fire dying down to its last few remaining embers. Aero had relocated off to the edge of the overlook, sitting on a rock while looking out across the wide-open spaces. Even though he had seen maps and globes adorning Frost Enterprises, he found that the world was far larger and more impressive in person than he imagined. All he had ever seen until the day they soared over the walls of the city were the dreary walls of Diablo, the lavish luxury that saturated Frost’s home, or the stark cold of the laboratory. That was his entire world, and it was smaller than a single grain of sand in the vast desert below.
Speaking of sand, Aero’s leg joints were beginning to stick again – a hazard of being out in the wastes – so, grabbing hold of his right leg at the knee, he pushed it in then twisted counterclockwise. There was a gentle hiss and a pop, then the unit disconnected. Holding it up in the moonlight, shaking, fine grit worked loose and the motes glinted as they fell back to the ground like falling stars.
“Fascinating,” said Aftershock approaching from behind.
“Ah, hello there Mr. Aftershock. I thought that you would be sleeping, considering you were the one to suggest that to the rest.”
“You can just call me Aftershock, Aero and trust me, I definitely want to be asleep right now, but let’s just say Jesse and Jenny are making quiet a lot of noise.”
It took Aero a moment to register what he was talking about.
“Ah! Well, that is too bad. For you. Not them.”
Aftershock chuckled, a rare and full smile appearing in his beard.
“May I join you here for a little while?” he asked, noticing how Aero’s eyes were like sparkling sapphires in the light. “At least until they’re business is concluded.”
“Of course,” Aero replied with a grin as he continued to shake out his leg. “The pleasure would be mine.”
Aftershock crouched then plopped himself down on the dirt, watching the odd sight up close. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a rolled smoke and a single match, lighting the latter with a firm strike off his thumb nail.
Aero replaced his right leg, moving on to the left one, which came off with the same oddly satisfying pop.
“How often do you have to do that?”
“The cleaning?” Aero asked continuing once Aftershock nodded. “I could get them once a week in the laboratory, but being out here it has been a daily, sometimes twice, part of my routine.”
The raider took a substantial draw of his smoke, then held out a hand, beckoning with his fingers while asking, “May I?”
Aero pondered the request and didn’t see a problem, so after shaking his leg a couple more times as a courtesy, he placed the thing into Aftershock’s waiting palm.
Expecting it to be heavy, Aftershock lowered his hand marginally as it made contact, but the leg was surprisingly lightweight, around the same as one of his longer rifles.
“That is amazing,” he said, flipping it over and admiring it from all angles. “You really have to get right up close to tell it’s not real skin, though these dark channels give it away. What’re they for?”
“They serve multiple purposes, the top three being flexibility, thermodynamics, and separating the limb into easily replaceable panels.”
“As me how to make a rifle out of junk and I can have you one in half an hour… I have no idea how one even begins to make such a thing, but that doesn’t diminish its wonder.”
“Your words are very flattering, Aftershock,” Aero replied, taking possession of his leg again and sliding it back into place. “I can’t say I’m used to that.”
“Flattering maybe,” he said, “but no less true.”
“So, tell me, are there any other complements your otherwise gruff exterior has locked up inside?”
Aftershock jerked his head away.
What the hell are you doing Seth? That THING isn’t a person.
He ignored his thoughts, wanting to know more.
“You’re not a run-of-the-mill bot, are you?” Aftershock asked, trying his best not to make that observation sound offensive. “Ones I’ve seen over the years and long miles are made of entirely metal; often nothing more than fancy tools that hardly look approachable. You on the other hand look…”
“Different,” Aero replied. “Indeed, I am unique. While the other bots such as myself are made with generic faces, I was crafted in the image of a person th
at Frost once loved, designed for the sole purpose of delivering him pleasure.” Aero seemed to shudder as he spoke, the words cold and uninviting. “I suspect that he wished to relive the feelings of his past, long dimmed. Who wouldn’t? Yet, this path could never be more than a substitute; I am not the one he lost nor could I ever hope to be. It was a doomed the moment it was first conceived.”
“Aero, if Frost wanted to relive those happy times, why would he abuse you?”
“Because for some, no matter how happy things are for them or those they are with, control reigns supreme, manifesting in all sorts of chilling, and painful, ways. Both physically and emotionally as well, a toll is paid.”
“Hell, if I could afford something like you, I would take care of that thing like my life depended on it.”
Seth! You’re being no better than Jenny and her giddy infatuations with you! Do you remember what you told her?
“That it was an impossibility…” he answered himself in the faintest whisper.
“What was that, Aftershock?” Aero asked.
The same applies here, Aftershock’s thoughts reeled. It may look like a man, but it is nothing more than a machine! A MACHINE!
“Is he though?” Aftershock said under his breath before raising his voice. “Can you tell me more? The other models I’ve seen are run by steam, or clockwork mechanics. I haven’t seen you do a single refill or be wound since you arrived. Not… not that I have been watching you too intensely.”
“Of course,” he answered happily, pointing to his chest. “It’s in here, the reason those things are not needed. It’s an energy cell that powers me, another thing that does not exist anywhere but here.”
“So, this battery thing mentioned in Lobo’s report, the one Frost is trying to mass produce, is this same device?”
“Yes, though Jesse’s metals are being used as a more efficient and lightweight version,” Aero said. “Ultimately though, mass produced items are cheaper, aren’t they? Still making me the better edition.”
“Was that a joke?” Aftershock asked, agog.
“No, it was just the truth,” Aero answered with the gentlest of smiles, Aftershock returning the gesture with a couple awkward coughs.
This is beyond simple preplanned replies! he thought. There is one more thing I must know.
Aero had long finished with cleaning out the joints in his legs and had moved on during their discussion to his arms.
“One last question, Aero, if you would entertain an uneducated raider.”
“I would say inquisitive rather than uneducated,” Aero replied, spinning his arm around rapidly. There came more dust like a cloud of falling starlight. “In other words: feel free.”
“Do you have wants? Or even dreams?”
Aero admitted to having both, his wants focused on doing more with his life, beyond his allotted role as a sex-bot.
“I think I’ve taken a pretty good leap along that path, getting Mr. Winthrope and Miss Boone out of harm’s way. As far as dreams, I dream of the day humanity can put aside its petty differences in mutual support of each other. Sad to say bots are better at it than their own creators.”
Aftershock is taken aback.
“Forgive me, but that is the same thing I feel daily. For myself, I would give anything to be a better part of society, but it’s impossible since I wasn’t born into it and this life as a raider would follow me to the grave.”
“Perhaps one day the world can change.”
“I don’t think I’ll have as long to wait for it as you do, Aero, but hopefully it’ll come sooner rather than later. From what I hear about Jesse, he’s making a great effort to that end.”
“Agreed, which is partly why I am so willing to help him.”
“As am I,” Aftershock replied before thinking, Change begins at home, doesn’t it?
Then, he yawned, unable to hold it in any longer.
“It seems that fatigue is catching up to you,” Aero observed. “You really should try to get some sleep, as we have much to discuss in the morning, then to do in the coming days. Good things are on the horizon and the night is warm. Sleep out here if need be, under the watchful eyes of the stars… and me.”
IT WAS A peaceful morning, as most mornings were up at the northern fringe of Diablo’s city limits. The sun smoldered between tufts of rolling cloud while a stiff breeze from the west shuffled groups of tumbleweeds across the arid ground.
Two Rangers were amid the rusted carcasses of old storerooms and a downed alarm bell tower, both clad in chaps and off-white shirts as they sat on roughened building blocks. Cushioned with makeshift padding made from their folded-up duster coats, one of them – a slack shouldered young man with a squirrelly mustache – was shoveling baked beans straight out of the can into his mouth. The other, older and a bit more refined, dug around for a match in his vest pocket so he could light his pipe.
“Another borin’ day watchin’ the fringe,” said the young ranger as he looked from building to rusted building with nothing but dirt and a few scrubby plants peppered in between.
“Quit your bellyaching Kevin,” the older ranger barked as he finally lit his pipe. It was filled with cheap tobacco that made plumes of foul-smelling greenish smoke. “Otherwise you’ll jinx us and that’s the last goddamn thing I need to happen. I’d rather be out here than toiling those scummy streets along the edge.”
Kevin kicked out a leg, using it to drag his boot through the soil in an arch.
“This here is about as excitin’ as it gets. I dunno, you might like sittin’ around all day smokin’ that shit, Hank,” Kevin sneered as he loosened the frayed bandana around his neck, “but I need more excitement in my life. Keeps the blood flowin’… vitalizin’ me for the ladies. Otherwise, I’d just turn into somethin’ like you.”
Hank chuckled as he puffed more sickly smoke, shaking his head slowly within the vapor.
“I have a hard time seeing you with any lady other than maybe one on a lumograph, son. As far as work goes, use your brain for a second, idiot! Out here, you earn more Gear for less work. Sure, it’s fucking boring as bo balls, but when I can pocket three times what those edge-scrapers do, without having to deal with anyone, who’s the dumb one now?”
“Whatever, Hank,” said Kevin spitefully, “guess you’re just too old to understand, your only company bein’ one of those first-generation Vixens.”
“If you say so, boy. Even a bot’s more action than a picture,” Hank replied, catching a glimpse of a what looked like a sandstorm coming in on the horizon. His forehead crinkled and for a second he looked much older. He stood. “Strange, the wind isn’t coming out of the north. Be useful and fetch me a spyglass!”
Kevin saw the same thing and shot off toward their sleipnir. They were hitched nearby on a couple of rough-and-ready posts. Digging through their saddlebags, he snatched a brass, leather sheathed spyglass and darted back to Hank, who snatched it off Kevin well before he come to a stumbling halt.
Lifting it, Hank looked through and his normally stoic expression was gone, pale with distress.
“What is it?” Kevin asked as the distant cloud grew larger and closer. There was a low rumble and the ground seemed to be vibrating.
“Look for yourself,” Hank croaked as he tossed him the spyglass. “You’re about to get your wish… you fucking idiot!”
Without another word, Hank hastened toward his mount, having to ride back to the city and raise the alarm there. The fringe tower had been damaged in the last genuine sandstorm, but with Frost in charge it was too chaotic to get anything officially repaired.
“Goddamn city’s going to shit! Giddyap!” Hank yelled and his steed tore away to the south, leaving Kevin trembling for fear of what he might see.
Raising the spyglass as the rumbling started to become a roar, Kevin eased it into focus. He gasped immediately, mustache a quiver. Dropping the thing, it shattered on the ground, and took off running at full speed for his steed. Leaping on its back, Kevin landed with such f
orce that the creature reared, screaming.
“Whoa!” Kevin shouted but it didn’t work to calm the beast, the sleipnir bolting toward the city while Kevin plummeted to the hard dirt flat on his back.
Groaning as he tried to move, a pain in his lower back kept him in position. He dropped his head where he laid, and looked out (albeit upside down) and waited.
For charging toward him with great speed was an army of no less than two hundred raiders, riding a herd of sleipnir and enormous wolves that kicked up a dust storm worthy of legend in their wake. Making for the northern gate of Diablo, they were led by a man known to some as Wyatt Jameson, but known to more as Lobo. A fire in his eyes to ensure his part of the went off without a hitch.
“WHAT THE HELL is happening at the north end of the city?” Frost roared at his subordinates, all of whom were running around in a manner that contradicted their chic sensibilities.
Top hats were toppling, ascots fluttering, and sweat was staining flamboyant fabrics that were supposedly stain free; all while panicked wheezing and shrieks of worry filled the room. Frost and his associates had gathered in Grand Hall, where he had been visiting for ‘discussions’ with then Vice-Mayor Bernard Webber, a man whose services would no longer be required as a replacement for the deceased Randolph.
“Well?!” shouted Frost, fuming that he was being ignored. In the chaotic shuffle, his leather-bound fists creaked, ready to strike at the puffy, red faces around him. “I’m waiting for an answer!”
“Raiders, Milord!” came a reply at last. “Approaching Frontera’s gates!”
It was from a nervous man who was stooped low over a radio, cupping a speaker over his ears. Its curly wire was wrapped around his short finger, moving apprehensively.
Frost waited for more information, but apparently, that was all the man could make out for the time being, his eyes squinting hard as he tried to focus over the ceaseless noise.
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