ElyriasEcstasy

by Amber Jayne

  The barely conscious man on the ground wheezed as if offering an opinion. Already Urna could hear footfalls in the short distance, heading this way. As instructive as it might have been fighting several troopers at once, this wasn’t the time. “Let me make this easier,” he said to the woman.

  A swift punch to the nose dropped the second guard, a follow-up kick sending her gun skittering irretrievably across the concrete yard. Urna tossed the weapon he had claimed earlier over the fence before launching himself at it.

  His fingers curled around the cold metal rings. His feet barely touched the fence as he used the strength of his arms to pull himself quickly up. When he reached the top, he hoisted himself up into a standing position. Easily and perfectly balanced on the thin rail, he allowed his head a half-turn back in the direction of the compound. Another indulgence.

  His whole life had been spent here. What he could remember of it. A life closely monitored at all times, except for those spent under-Ship with his dear Shadowflash.

  Weapons did everything exciting in the dark. Run, fight, kill, fuck—and they did it alone, save for the company of one other man. (Except, sometimes, in the fucking case, he supposed, when it might be with a woman.) So why didn’t those Weapons simply vanish, desert, quit their duties? It was something he had often wondered about, one of those disturbing thoughts that had perhaps translated itself into a tangled scrawl on the walls of his room. The Guard never left the Safe. Only authorized daredevil salvage teams or crazy civilians like Arvra’s brother ever ventured into the Unsafe.

  The only other beings to truly walk in the perpetual twilight beneath the Black Ship as though they owned it were the Passengers. So why did the Weapons return to this compound, this dreary place, night after night? Why subject themselves to the rigors, to the probes of the doctors, to this awful regimentation?

  Urna knew why he’d stayed, and he guessed it was the same for the other, lesser Weapons. There was no life for them outside of this. This was what they had been built for. The eternal struggle against the Passengers of the Black Ship—and it would be eternal, for the Ship had never shown any signs of moving. For whole generations of people it had been a fixture. A permanent adherence. Elyria’s unremitting blight.

  Without the struggle against the Passengers, the two-man teams were nothing. Nobodies. He and Rune would be little more than oddly matched males without the fight. Just an unused Weapon and his accessory. His sightless-sight.

  And that was why Rune would never have accompanied him on this fool’s mission, why Urna couldn’t explain the picture of the two parents and their son and what it meant to him. Rune didn’t understand. Rune didn’t question. Rune didn’t doubt. Or at least he’d never given any sign of doing so. Urna intended to discover some tangible truth about himself. No one, he knew, would voluntarily tell him anything, even if they held the knowledge. He was a tool for the Lux and the Lux wanted him just the way he was. Operational, efficient, lethal.

  The truth Urna sought was probably impossible. Or if it was real, it was likely out of reach.

  So what? Fuck it. He’d find it anyway. And he’d do it alone. All these thoughts zipped through his brain in a heartbeat. A camera drone rose up above the level of the fence, staring at Urna with its single green eye. He smiled sweetly at it before he dropped off the far side.

  Alone, he reiterated mentally as he landed. Alone meant, more than anything else, without Rune. Not that Urna wanted Rune’s company. Or needed his help. And if he had needed that aid he would have been out of luck. Nothing he could have done would’ve brought Rune along, he knew. He could have pleaded. He could have wept. It wouldn’t have mattered. Rune was like the others. Full of the Lux.

  Full of poison.

  The last thought came unbidden. Whatever it meant, he knew that Rune was irrevocably broken. The only semblance of a personality he had came from Urna, surely. Borrowed emotional energy. Reactions to him more than any original character. And if Urna had ever caught a glimpse of…something…in Rune’s eyes that resembled genuine affection, it was surely precoital excitement, nothing more. Urna felt unexpected bitterness tighten his throat. What a creature for him to waste his love on.

  Too bad for him. Too bad for them both.

  Behind Urna the alarms started. But he had snatched up his gun and was already fleeing the scene, running as only a Weapon could.

  Chapter Four

  Even in the stony nowhere of the dankish Guard holding cell Virge Temple could hear the alarms going crazy. Her two Interrogators—highly ranked according to the multiple silver bands encircling their upper left arms, both men humorless and cold-blooded—tried to ignore the klaxons. They’d been at Virge for quite some while and she could feel her mental defenses starting to turn to mush. They used simple repetition, asking the same questions again and again with the most minor variations in wording. It was maddening.

  The alarms were, frankly, a welcome distraction for her. She sat up straighter in her chair before the tiny metal desk. No confession had yet been produced for her to sign and she hadn’t yet given away anything that would incriminate either her or Bongo, the self-professed magic-using rebel who’d concocted those silly anti-Lux leaflets using paper she’d given him. Even now, this far into her ordeal, Virge couldn’t entirely regret what she had done. Fuck the Lux. And fuck Aphael Chav for lording his wealth and power over everyone and everything.

  “You hear that?” she asked. She turned her head as though she could spot the source of the blaring alarms through the gray walls of the cell. She still felt a mild pleasant wooziness from the alcohol Nick Daphral, the Junior Interrogator, had brought her earlier. That quick, hard sexual escapade with him was something else she didn’t regret. “Sounds like,” she murmured drolly, still looking around, “there might be some trouble ‘round here.”

  “That’s none of your concern,” one of the two interchangeable Interrogators said a little sharply. The pair exchanged worried glances that weren’t as sly as they meant them to be.

  Virge permitted herself the ghost of a smile. Anything to disrupt this session. She knew the tactic—keep at her and at her without break until her whole world became this cell. But if things got interrupted it would be like hitting the reset button. These two Guard Interrogators, professionals or not, wouldn’t be eager to start from scratch with her.

  They tried their questions again, but their rhythm was off. Before, they’d gone after her in perfect tandem, trading off the inquiries, making endless notes on the pads of paper they’d brought with them. Now they started tripping each other up as the commotion of the alarms persisted, along with a general rumbling, as of many footfalls, in the corridor beyond this room. Virge slowed down her replies to make matters worse. Instead of responding quickly so as to kill off the questions once and for all, she now contemplated each query with a deliberate—and mocking—solemnity.

  After a few minutes it was plain by the Interrogators’ manner that they’d lost control of the session. One muttered an aside to the other. That one answered with a muted snarl.

  Good, Virge thought with a growing glow of triumph. Let them turn on each other.

  Finally, without another word to her, they stood and exited the little room. Virge, now starting to seriously wonder what the alarms indicated, was strangely pleased when, a moment later, Nick Daphral reappeared.

  He crossed toward her, something approximating a mischievous smile on his face, and set on the desk the half-empty bottle she’d drunk from earlier. Immediately she snatched it up and took a long swallow. Take what you can when you can.

  She regarded the low-level Interrogator. His demeanor was different. He seemed looser, more relaxed. He was looking at her almost goofily, like a semi-smitten adolescent. Had she changed him out of all recognition just by sharing her body with him? Apparently so.

  The alcohol burned in her throat, warmed her gut. Maybe she liked her booze a bit too much, but so what? It didn’t affect her work at the laboratory.

&
nbsp; “Is it okay?” Nick asked solicitously.

  No Guard had ever asked her such a question in quite that tone of voice. Hiding her surprise, she said, “It was fine before. It’s fine now.”

  He seemed to wince a little at her harsh tone, which dismayed her all the more. Equally surprising to her was that she felt a tiny twinge of guilt for being curt with him. But she had to press this unexpected advantage. “What’s going on out there?” she asked.

  The alarms were still clanging away in the distance. The grounds of the Citadel were very large. In addition to the Lux’s grand edifice and outbuildings, there were these Guard facilities, as well as the military’s complex.

  “I don’t—” Nick hesitated. Some of the puppyishness died on his features. Whatever feelings he might suddenly have for her, he was still a member of the Guard. “I’m not sure.”

  Virge downed another swallow. The small bottle was rapidly emptying. She thought about reaching into his pants, grabbing hold of his cock and squeezing until he answered, but that might well lead to further fucking, and she had no idea when the Senior Interrogators were coming back.

  Instead she tried a softly pouty expression, feeling vaguely idiotic putting on the coquettish pretense. “Fine, don’t tell me,” she said.

  “Okay, okay.” He lifted a hand as if to pat her reassuringly then dropped it without touching her. He really didn’t have much confidence for someone aspiring to be a ruthless Interrogator. He went on, “There’s been an escape.”

  “Escape?” Virge blinked. She’d never heard of anybody getting away from Guard detention before. That was good news. Bongo and his gang would be glad to hear about it. “You lost a prisoner?” She tried not to make it a jibe but it sounded like one anyway.

  Nick stiffened noticeably. “Not an escape from our compound,” he said icily. “From the soldiers’ complex. From the Shadowflash/Weapon wing.” Then, the information he’d heard apparently so juicy it overcame his incense of an instant ago, he added eagerly, “I heard it was Urna who went over the fence. Urna. Can you believe that?”

  Virge Temple, draining the bottle, found herself having a hard time believing that the most famous Weapon in the world had just staged an escape. If it was true, though, some shit was surely about to fly.

  * * * * *

  The woman they had sent Rune was hippy, with large, full breasts and a fantastic ass. He was currently getting a nice view of it bucking up against him as the two of them lay on their sides, back to belly. His hands gripped her hips, cushioned by a healthy layer of soft flesh. He pulled her back onto him, hard.

  “Ah,” she moaned. “Do it like that.”

  “Shut up.” He didn’t like it when they talked and so they usually didn’t. This one was named Lavinia, and she was known to slip up now and then. Maybe that was why she was, contrarily, one of his favorites. She’d been sent to him often enough that he knew he had never impregnated her, which was ostensibly the point of this exercise. He didn’t know if either he or Urna had ever managed to father a child. Presumably an offspring would have the same amazing abilities the two of them possessed. The other members of the Weapon/Shadowflash division could only wanly duplicate these talents through training and chemical enhancements.

  Still, he or Urna must have succeeded in seeding one of these women at some point, he figured, or else their superiors wouldn’t keep sending them like this. Certainly none of the other Shadowflashes in this wing of the military complex had the privilege of such company.

  Lavinia. He even liked her name, liked the way it sounded in his mouth whenever he bothered to say it out loud. The soft, round curve of her ass beneath his hand was so unlike the last person he’d fucked, who was all planes and angles. Taut muscles pulled tight over fine, sharp bones. A drum-tight pale ass, and Rune’s cock penetrating. Urna, on that rooftop…

  Rune ground his teeth together. Lavinia’s head was turned back over her shoulder, her face—wanton eyes and full, flush lips—was mostly hidden by the curtain of her thick, black hair. Her skin was bronzed by the sun. Superficially, as far as pigment, hair color and meatiness of body, she, of all the women who came to see him, least resembled Urna.

  In short, she was the polar opposite of the man he called his lover. And his professional partner. And his emotional adversary.

  The two males might be bound together in training and in battle, but as far as Rune was concerned right this moment, that was where their association ended. Here, out of sensing range in his room, Rune wanted nothing to do with his contemporary, subconscious or otherwise. This was a source of near constant frustration, however, because Urna always seemed to sneak into his thoughts anyway. It was like Urna was as determined to disobey Rune here as he was in the Unsafe.

  But whatever. Rune had better things to think about, so he tried not to dwell on this particular defect or the implications it might hold. He simply accepted it. Another fact of his strange existence, like the drugs he’d obediently swallowed an hour earlier. Like this room, which he kept neat and plain. Like the woman with him. Lavinia.

  She moaned again and Rune felt his orgasm lurking tantalizingly close. Just out of reach, as it had been for several minutes now, despite the steady plowing he’d been giving her. He released his grip on Lavinia’s hips, brought his hands to her shoulders, shifted himself, pulling her up onto her knees. He planted his own knees between hers as she settled onto all fours.

  She made no protest when his fingers crept in from her shoulders to curl around her throat. She was accustomed to his proclivities. Immediately, as he applied pressure, he was closer to completion, waves of warmth and pleasure in his groin spiraling outward and up his spine. He jerked Lavinia upright onto her knees with a low growl. She didn’t struggle, though sometimes he liked that, too.

  He pulled her against his chest, her backbone pressing onto his sternum. He felt the sweat-dampness of her flesh. His hands still clasped her throat. His hair, as dark as hers, blended with her locks as he dropped his forehead onto her shoulder. She fell back onto him and he found himself even deeper inside her. She rode his cock hard, grinding her pussy on him and gasping urgently. By the motions of her shoulder he could tell she was sliding her hand up and down her clit, spreading her wetness onto him as she started to come, and he was set to join her—

  Just as the alarms let loose.

  These were followed by three sharp bangs in the short distance, all coming from different directions. Gunshots? No, of course not. Doors slamming. The corridors of the Shadowflash wing were suddenly alive with commotion.

  Bootsteps were moving in the direction of his room, quickly. ETA, one minute, forty-five seconds. That was, however, a genuine estimate. Rune could only pick out sounds with absolute razor certainty when Urna was involved. Otherwise his senses were merely extraordinary, not superhuman. Another reminder of that treacherous affinity they could never seem to escape.

  “Stop,” Rune ground out. “Get off.”

  But there was no stopping Lavinia as she relentlessly rode the waves of her orgasm, delirious with pleasure. Her vaginal walls gripped him like a slick fist.

  “I said, off!” The urgency of his own body’s needs had been canceled out by the sounding of the alarms, which continued to wail in the nighttime. He finally managed to shove her roughly forward. She offered a small yelp of surprise, sprawling across the mattress as he wrenched his still-rampant cock from her. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached down to retrieve his discarded clothing.

  His denied orgasm was meaningless, he told himself grimly, even as he found some difficulty wedging his rigid shaft down into his briefs. Duty called.

  Lavinia rolled onto her back, cast Rune a disparaging glance. He paused to eye her vaguely up and down. With her knees spread and her pussy dripping, propped up on her elbows with her breasts heaving, she still managed to look oddly dignified, more offended than ridiculous.

  “What is it?” she wanted to know.

  Not knowing why he deigned to
reply, he said, “Someone’s coming.” He pulled his pants up one-handed, not bothering with the drawstring. With a curt snap of his other arm he tossed Lavinia the gauzy garment she always wore on these visits.

  He’d once briefly entertained the idea that all of the women who’d come to his room over the years—and, he knew, to Urna’s room as well—were first taken to a changing area somewhere containing nothing but this same flimsy dress and a hundred like garments. Color and size would vary slightly to accommodate individual preferences. Did some female who Urna routinely fucked also wear this same sheer garb he always thought of as Lavinia’s? The notion had troubled him when it first occurred to him. Why? Did it bother him that women were sent to pleasure Urna too, if that was even the accurate verb to apply to what these females did? He and his Weapon partner never discussed the matter in depth. Of course they didn’t. Despite how close they were in some respects, they were still separated by an unresolved emotional gulf. By a shared but indistinct past.

  Before Rune had deduced that the women were part of a breeding program, he had assumed that they were meant to keep the two males unwound, so that they wouldn’t be distracted by carnal urges in other situations. So much for that. He had also concluded that they likely came from the border towns rather than from the more prosperous populace of the city surrounding the Citadel or even the nearby outlying towns of the Safe proper. He was at least certain that the women weren’t actually housed somewhere here on the compound, stored like so much equipment. Now there was a morbid thought.

  But he’d never bothered to ever ask one of these females anything about her background. It didn’t matter to him, in the end. He performed with them in here like he performed with Urna out there, and that was as much as he needed to know.