The way Ada spoke made it clear that her words held a second meaning intended for Priscilla alone. Priscilla nodded slowly, her smile deepening, becoming genuine. She took Ada’s place and carefully folded her arms across her chest, brimming with an odd anticipation.
“Hold on,” said Archer. “I had a couple more things to ask you about, Ada…”
“Sorry, I have to go!”
Ada blew him a kiss, while Archer pleaded after her with his eyes, begging her to stay. He felt like he was being abandoned to a situation so far outside his realm of experience that he might as well be naked on the moon.
Probably better if I don’t push my thoughts in that direction.
He took a long sip of his drink, and then looked up at the gorgeous woman sitting across from him. Priscilla seemed content to watch him squirm, rather than saving him by taking the lead.
“So…” Archer shrugged. “I saw you on TV earlier.”
Smooth, Archer. Real smooth.
She laughed, and he let himself relax a bit.
“Yes, I’m an actress,” she said. “I saw you on the TV, too. That interview was just about all the news channels played for most of the afternoon.”
“Those weren’t my actual answers,” said Archer. “It was all edited.”
“Yeah, I know.” She brushed a few strands of perfect, blonde hair out of her face. “You were never in the shot when Rachel was asking her questions. She’s done this to other people before, as well.”
“Has she ever done it to you?” asked Archer.
Priscilla nodded.
“Though, she never got me quite as bad,” she said. “But I grew up in the tower district. I learned pretty early on how the game is played.”
Archer sighed. She was looking at him expectantly, and he didn’t have the faintest of clues as to what she wanted.
“Look, I’m only here because Ada insisted I come out tonight,” he said. “I’m out of my element right now.”
“Relax, Archer,” said Priscilla. “I think it’s actually kind of cute. Here, take a hit from the vape.”
She picked up the tube and wiggled it with her fingers. A light on the front of the box that had been red when Ada had brought it over was now green. Archer frowned as she tried to pass it to him.
“Just take it like this,” said Priscilla, running her tongue across her perfect mouth. “And inhale.”
Watching her mouth close around the tip of the tube, lips forming a tight seal, was one of the most arousing things Archer had ever seen, though he wasn’t sure if she intended it to be or not. She pulled away after a second and blew a tiny vapor ring before passing it over to him.
“Alright,” he said. In the coal district, everyone had smoked. Vaporizers had been too expensive for anyone to afford, so they’d opted for the less healthy option, though Archer had never been a fan of it.
He brought the tube to his mouth and took a slow drag. Surprisingly, the vapor tasted good, a mix of sweet citrus and fruit flavors. He took a bigger hit than he probably should have, and coughed slightly as he exhaled, blasting vapor directly into Priscilla’s face.
“There you go,” she said. “It’s good for helping people relax.”
She came around to his side of the booth. Archer scooted down to make room for her, but she still sat so that they were in direct contact. He felt tingly, and not just because of her close proximity to him. His head felt light, and a little floaty.
“This stuff is… interesting,” said Archer. He smiled and started laughing, and didn’t exactly know why.
“You are adorable,” she said. “I knew your brother, you know.”
Archer tensed his shoulders. He tried not to let his immediate reaction takeover.
“Relax,” said Priscilla. “Not like that. All I was going to say is that he never touched the vaporizers. He didn’t enjoy the effect, apparently.”
“Right,” said Archer. Priscilla took another hit from the vaporizer and passed it back to him. His hand and mouth moved automatically, inhaling more vapor, accepting the head rush that came with it.
“Are you always this quiet?” asked Priscilla.
Archer shrugged.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” he said. “I’m not really sure what you expected.”
He took another hit of the vaporizer, and felt a wicked head rush.
This stuff is dangerous. I should probably go easy on it.
“What I expected…” Priscilla set her hand down on his thigh. “Was for the two of us to get to know each other a little better. For our own sake, but especially to mess with the media channels.”
“So what, it’s just a game to you?” asked Archer.
Priscilla frowned at him, her fingers sliding dangerously close to his crotch.
“I forgot sometimes that you used to be a smog,” she said. “Of course it’s a game to me.”
Archer scowled and slid away from her. She was on the outside of the booth, and the only way out of it would be for him to push past her. He wasn’t opposed to it.
“You know, at least smogs know how to be honest, and straightforward with one another,” he said.
“All of those honest and straightforward brothels in the coal district?” asked Priscilla, clearly game to argue. “Did you forget about those?”
“People do what they must to get by,” he said, through gritted teeth. “But in the coal district, people marry for love. And they don’t have to constantly worry about what the media channels think of them.”
Archer finished his drink and then took a long hit from the vaporizer, intending it as a gesture to emphasize his point. The substances practically bowled him over as he exhaled, and he felt the room spinning around him. He stumbled against the table, and then Priscilla was under one of his arms, and they were walking down a hallway.
“Easy,” she said, softly. “I have a room on the second floor where you can rest for a bit.”
“…What?” muttered Archer.
My entire body feels like a cloud. Those vaporizers… don’t mess around.
He started laughing, possibly from the absurdity of the situation, but more likely from the drugs. He walked for a bit, until Priscilla opened a door and led him through it, and over to the edge of a soft bed.
CHAPTER 27
Archer was in heaven. His pants were down and soft lips were moving against his hard shaft, the sensation amplified by all of the intoxicants he’d imbibed over the course of the night. Nothing had ever felt so good.
He thought first of Sabrina. She must have finally taken him up on his playful offer to come by his rusty old shack, deciding to wake him up in the most dramatic way possible. But the bed underneath him was soft, and clean.
It can’t be Sabrina…
No, it was Leigh. Sweet, submissive, Leigh, deciding that her master needed a special kiss to cap the night off properly. Leigh’s tongue and soft lips worked their way over his cock’s stiff head, polishing it with confident, sexual movements.
Leigh… The last place I remember wasn’t my own apartment, though.
Archer opened his eyes, taking a second for them to adjust to the dim light of the room. Someone was sucking his cock, and for all the unbelievable things he’d experienced over the past few days, it was almost impossible for him to wrap his mind around this.
Priscilla Favereau had Archer’s cock in her hand, and was kissing and licking it with the relaxed focus of child working a candy pop down to the center. She saw that he was alert and winked at him, following it up with a wet, passionate kiss on the tip of his tool. Archer moaned as pleasure burst through him, dancing through every inch of his body in celebration of the moment.
She pushed her mouth forward and began sucking, her thick, lewd lips sliding across sensitive skin. Her hair and makeup were still perfect, and she was still wearing her black cocktail dress. It was a juxtaposition of beauty, modesty, and sluttiness, like a quiet woman dipping out behind her husband’s back to be used and demeaned.
&nbs
p; And then, Archer remembered Leigh. He remembered the look in her eyes when she’d told him to go out, act like a bachelor, and stop being so sentimental. He wished it was her in the room, instead of the aspiring celebrity vixen.
Priscilla seemed to pick up on his lapse of attention. She slid her mouth as far forward as it would go, and then a little further, taking part of him into the entrance of her throat with such ease that it was clear she’d done it before. Her hands ran across his chest, and her eyes looked up at him, not seeking approval, but rather, dominating him with her gaze.
She’s going to make me cum. Whether I want to or not.
Priscilla pulled back and spent a few torturous seconds teasing him with small licks and tiny kisses. Her eyes flickered with amusement, as though she was giving him a test, or an out, if he wanted one. If Archer truly wanted to put his foot down and end the encounter, all he had to do was will himself out of excitement and let his hardness cool down.
He put his hand on the back of her head, barely conscious of the movement, and pulled her mouth further down onto his rod. Priscilla let out a squeal that was a mixture of pleasure and feigned innocence. She started sucking again and Archer could tell from the way her eyes fluttered that she genuinely enjoyed it.
Her tongue slid and flickered. Her lips tightened and softened, maintaining a perfect, sticky seal. And her hands roamed across his chest and stomach, appreciating his body like a newly purchased work of art.
Archer let out a grunt and thrust his hips forward, reaching his point of release. Pleasure lanced through him in pulses as his cum spurted out into Priscilla’s mouth. She didn’t let a single drop escape the seal of her lips, sipping it all down like fine wine. He fell back on the bed, floored by the depth of the sensation.
“…Wow,” he finally said. He felt bad and a little guilty, but it was hard to truly blame himself after experiencing Priscilla’s skill first hand.
If she’d have jumped straight to the point downstairs, it would have saved both of us some time.
She slid up beside him in bed, now fully naked. Her body was unreal, like something drawn or sculpted, rather than born from chance. She kissed his cheek, and then his neck.
“That’s just a taste,” she whispered. “We have all night.”
Her hand was already running over his crotch, preparing to work it back into firmness, when the alarm sounded. Archer didn’t understand what he was hearing at first, the noise rhythmic, high pitched, and far enough off in the distance to seem surreal from the inside of the hotel room.
“That’s… the central alarm,” he said. He bolted upright in bed.
“What?” Priscilla frowned at him, covering her chest in one arm as though embarrassed by her nudity. “It hasn’t gone off in over a year…”
“That’s definitely the central alarm!” Archer stood up and made his way over to the room’s TV. It was smaller than the one in his apartment, but serviceable. He turned it on and immediately saw Rachel Madison, standing on one of the city’s outer walls, surrounded by several armed Watchers.”
“-central alarm has been sounded,” she said. “This is not a drill. The fabricant was first sighted at a distance of about a mile from the city, and has been progressing on a direct course toward our walls.”
“Oh my god,” whispered Priscilla. “This… can’t be happening.”
Archer scowled. He still felt bleary and faded from the alcohol and vapor, but he was lucid enough to feel the weight of his responsibility.
I’m part of the Metal Squad. This isn’t someone else’s problem to solve.
He chewed his lip, realizing that Ada would have been the first person to be notified of an approaching fabricant. She had been right downstairs in the XYZ lounge, and hadn’t bothered to come and grab him. She didn’t value his help enough, at least in his current state, to spend a minute gathering him up before heading to the base.
“The Metal Squad has been dispatched,” said Rachel, on the TV. “We’re watching now as they begin their first approach toward the fabricant.”
The camera panned, and two Metal Knights entered the field of view. Vivian’s pink and white armor skin was unmistakable, but Archer hadn’t seen the dark green one moving alongside her before. He felt useless, standing half naked in the hotel room, wasting his time with pointless publicity games.
“I have to go,” he said, pulling on his pants.
“What?” Priscilla pulled the sheet up in front of her chest. “But, you can’t! I don’t want to be here alone!”
Archer stared at her for a moment before slowly shaking his head.
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “Probably.”
She let out a huff as Archer pulled on his shoes and darted out the door. The first steps of the stairs caught him off guard, and he was stumbling by the time he reached the lounge floor. The music had stopped, and all of XYZ’s patrons were huddled around a large TV hanging from the wall on the side of the room.
Hard to have a fun night with an existential threat on the horizon.
He broke into a dead sprint as soon as he made it outside, trying to shake off the effects of the drink and the drugs. Part of him was glad that he didn’t have one of the rail car control devices Ada seemed to love so much. He needed a minute to shock his body back into sobriety with the cold air and the pounding of his feet.
CHAPTER 28
It only took him ten minutes to reach the gates of the North Compound. The guards outside reacted to his arrival in stunned acceptance, waving him through the gate and saying nothing to him as he sprinted toward the elevator.
When Archer stepped out into the armory at the bottom, the eyes of everyone in the room turned toward him. Ada was up in the second floor command center, still dressed for a night on the town. She was the only one who didn’t notice him.
She was gesturing and speaking intently into her headset. Someone leaned over to whisper into her ear and she froze, spinning around and finding Archer through the window that peered out over the rest of the facility. She switched her headset over to the armory’s intercom.
“Archer, there is a reason why I didn’t bring you with me when I got the call,” said Ada. “You’re in no condition to be useful tonight. And Vivian and Bart have the situation in hand.”
Archer looked over at the armory’s TV. It was playing the same feed he’d seen in the hotel room. The cameraman had zoomed in on the action, and though the night was dark and the feed grainy, two things were immediately clear. The fight was ongoing, and the fabricant was pressing further in toward the city, now easily within a quarter mile of the wall.
“I’m going out there,” said Archer. “They need my help. I won’t let you stop me.”
“I’m ordering you to stand down,” said Ada, through gritted teeth. “I took a chance on you, Archer, and I won’t have you disobey an order and get yourself killed!”
He was already sprinting toward the locker room. Ada swore over the intercom.
If she wanted to, she could order the techs in the armory to restrain me. She knows they need my help, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
Archer changed into his undersuit in record time and sprinted back out. His armor skin was where he’d left it earlier that day, its black and navy metal shell gleaming as though it had been recently polished.
He slipped in through the opening in the back and powered it up, feeling his neural node linking up with the armor skin’s nervous system. A group of three techs carried one of the Frequency Claymores over and gingerly connected it to the armor skin’s holster, the powerful magnets inside of it securing it more tightly than any sheath.
Archer took a step forward. Almost immediately, Trevor appeared in front of him, arms crossed and a frown on his face. He shook his head as looked at him, making a dismissive, clicking noise with his tongue.
“Ada is right, Archer,” said Trevor. “You can’t handle going up against a fabricant. You aren’t strong enough to do this.”
Archer muted his
mic and tried to tune out the instructions Ada was relaying to him through his armor skin’s speaker.
“I have to do this,” he said. “And I’ll be the judge of whether I’m ready or not.”
Trevor grabbed Archer by the arm as he tried to walk by. He felt his brother’s grip as though it was real, except it was stronger than it should have been. Trevor held firm, and Archer couldn’t pull away.
“You aren’t stronger than me,” said Trevor. “Not even as I am now. I can stop you, if I want to.”
Archer glared at him and snarled.
“No… you can’t!”
He spun, flailing wildly. Trevor’s expression flickered with shock as he was flung away from the armor skin. Several of the armory’s techs were staring him, wearing their own surprise and confusion openly.
“Archer!” snapped Ada. “Quit fooling around and get down into the release tunnel!”
“The… what?” He frowned, trying to focus.
“It’s how we send Metal Knights into battle,” said Ada. “Just get into the elevator and I’ll send you down. It can be a little… harrowing. Be prepared for it.”
Archer nodded and ran across the armory to the elevator, feeling comfortable in the armor skin, familiar with its weight. He stood on the center of the elevator’s platform and it screeched into motion, bringing him down instead of up.
It felt like he’d been riding the elevator for several minutes when it finally reached the bottom. In front of him was a sealed tunnel large enough to fit a house inside of, lit by dim LEDs installed into its edges. A strange machine sat in front of it, long and thin with handles at the front.
“Get on,” said Ada, through the speaker. “There is no time to waste.”
“Uh, okay.” Archer walked over to the machine and climbed onto it, his legs straddling either side. It was attached to a rail that ran down the center of the base of the tunnel. He started to get an idea of what was coming next as the tunnel’s heavy steel door slowly slid open.
“Hang on tight,” said Ada. “The rail cycle is designed to get Metal Knights into combat as quickly as possible. We’ll be dropping you off at the first exit, so it will be a quick ride.”
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