Future Unleashed Read online

  We had no time to celebrate, because a pair of drones came swooping in from the opposite direction. Instead of turning the Konnodar, I jumped across onto its thick neck, sliding down as the barrel of my gun went up. I sent rounds streaming up at one drone and then the next, but I needn’t have targeted the second intruder as Tegan, balancing on her feet like a dancer, had locked on and vaporized it in a single spray.

  I regarded her balance and pose, then gave her a smile. “A touch more graceful than I could have managed.”

  “Some skills translate well from the royal training regimen. This appears to be one of them,” she said.

  “Wave off any other drones, Poulter. No sense wasting tech. The gimbals work, and their balance is superb. I assume there’s an internal system?”

  “Gyroscope and direct link to the barrel. You probably could miss, but it would take some doing. Range on the guns is fifteen hundred meters, but that’s a stretch in any kind of wind. Inside seven hundred is where the gun is almost flawless. You’ll have an ammo box on the Konnodar. The lizards can carry a lot of weight, but we kept the system light in case you use the Konnodar for evac,” Poulter said.

  “Good. I’d say these are in play. What’s next?” I asked Poulter.

  “We run the printers at maximum capacity for the next few hours, and we’ll truck the finished units out to the rally point,” Poulter said. “We’re building a convoy of gear to go along with the Daymares and their weapons.”

  “Fold them into the convoy and confer with Aristine regarding the assigned destination. We leave here when that’s ready, but not before I get a look at what the team has found out about the Proc,” I said. “I think we’re good. Let’s take the lizards inside the truck bay and see if they’ve got snacks.”

  “Snacks? For us, or the Konnodar?” Tegan asked.

  “Both.” I smiled and waved her forward to the massive door hidden behind thick growth. There was a path if you knew where to look, and in minutes, we were inside, with a team of Daymares taking the reins and leading the Konnodar away.

  “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful about the weapon, and the use of the Konnodar, but—have you noticed that they carry a particular odor?” Tegan asked.

  “Different from a hippo?”

  “Quite a bit. More . . . um. Just more. I need to clean up before I eat. Aristine is taking us to a pre-planning dinner in section three, whatever that means, but it’s not until tonight. I’m assuming it’s okay if I use the shower?” Tegan asked.

  “You have your own shower?”

  “And my own place. I’m an honored guest, unlike you, who appears to be some sort of pirate, sweeping in from the Oasis and bedding women in between.” She waved her hand vaguely as we emerged into the wan light of the main chamber. It was thirty degrees cooler and the air was fresh with pine and moss.

  “I believe you were complaining about me building a world in which I have unlimited sex?” I said, helpful to a fault.

  Tegan stripped off her leather vest, which was attached to another shirt with a pair of snaps. “This way,” she said, turning to a walkway that that led up the bole of a massive redwood. Her place, as she called it, was a circular structure around the tree, not unlike many of the others. It was comfortable inside, with a screen, small kitchen, and two large rooms filled with beds and a standup shower.

  She pulled the sliding doorway closed behind us and walked across to a chair, where she began unlacing her boots. “Did they have laces in your time?”

  I followed suit, looking down at the worn combat boots on my feet. Everything on me was worn except my body, which was better than ever. “Some things never go out of style. Like laces.”

  “And showers, I hope,” Tegan said, achieving a state of nudity with amazing speed.

  She came closer, her eyes dark in the low light. With great care, she lifted my vest away, then my belt, and then placed my blades to one side, not dropping them but not caring where they went.

  “And showers,” I agreed.

  “Good.”

  “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but I have a thing about showers,” I said.

  “What thing is this? You don’t like them? I have to say, good hygiene is critical to me, especially in someone who’s about to share my bed,” Tegan said with a wicked grin.

  “Ah. Bed. Good. See, that’s the thing.” I reached out and took her in my arms, reveling in the smooth touch of her skin. Her soft breasts and flat stomach pressed against me, warm and feminine and welcome, all in a flash that made me stiffen in readiness. “I prefer the bed over a shower. For the actual act of . . . discovery, let’s call it.” I kissed her open mouth, and the sweetness of her breath was like a drug. She was every inch a queen, and I went slowly, savoring the moment.

  “Then we should begin, but first, we need to be clean.” Tegan turned on the water with a soft panel, and the shower rained down in a straight line from the perforated top of the enclosure. It was large, partially open, and stocked with a single aromatic bar of soap that smelled like all of summer at once. I watched her step in, tanned flesh quivering with each step as she slid underneath the warm rain from above. She took the soap and began to wash me from head to toe, and when she was done, I had an erection that could destroy cities.

  “My turn.” She lifted her arms as I began to wash her, and I turned her around, running my hands along the lines of her muscles, her breasts, and the nape of her neck, which was too inviting not to kiss. I could have stayed in there for hours, but we had things to do, so we turned off the water and stepped out, drying off in a warm blast of air from the doorway of the shower.

  “Now you can have me,” she said, pulling me to the bed.

  I put a hand between her breasts and used to other the push her knees apart, revealing my goal. One of my goals, I should say. I flicked my tongue across the fragrant skin of her inner thigh, using it to part her lips with a pace that was glacial despite the heat of her body. She lifted to me, responding with little moans while smiling, eyes closed and arms over her head, twisting a blanket like she was wringing it dry.

  I let my tongue play. In, out, up and down in a pattern that gradually gained speed, but never too fast, letting the twitching of her thigh muscles tell me when to speed up and when to slow down, helping her build to what came next: her.

  She clamped her long thighs around my head and shook with quiet fury, gasping for a full minute until her pleasure subsided, leaving her twitching, grinning, and too sensitive to touch.

  “I think diplomacy between our states is going rather well,” she said, and her voice was slowed by lust.

  “Is it? I hope to continue our discussion, of course,” I said. I joined her, running my thumb along the curve of her breast as she regarded me through heavily lidded eyes. She was stunning. “I went two thousand years into the future and confirmed something I already knew.”

  “Which is?” she asked. Her breath was warm on my neck.

  “Redheads are worth time travel, that’s what.”

  She laughed, then bit me lightly on the chest before climbing over to mount me, but not before dipping south and running her tongue along the underside of my shaft, finishing with a single deep thrust of her mouth that took me in to the root. When she pulled her mouth away, my erection defied gravity and every other physical law. With a soft moan, she parted herself and began sliding down until I was buried inside her, staring up at her creamy breasts as they moved in unison with her hips.

  “I like these negotiations,” she said, and then, for a long time, we said nothing. I took her hair in my hands as she leaned forward to kiss me, grasping firmly at the base and turning her mouth so I could explore her neck and ear.

  “Good,” she mumbled.

  “Good?”

  “Yes, always pull from the base, not the ends,” she said, grinning wickedly. She bit my lip and leaned back, riding hard as she sought to bring our negotiations to a close, and I was in full agreement. After a few more minutes, she put her palms o
n my chest and began a slow grind that broke my resolve as she came a third time. My hips took on a mind of their own in a series of hard lifts that bounced us both until we were spent, glowing with sweat and the best kind of exhaustion. She blew a lock of red hair out of her eyes and smiled, then touched my lips with her finger. “After Kassos is taken, come to my lands and take me again. Or before.”

  “Definitely before,” I said.

  While I still pulsed inside her, she laughed, then kissed me a final time. “I’m glad we merged our borders.”

  20

  I stood in the lab, staring down at the Proc. He was not the same arrogant being who had been there hours earlier, and I was fresh off the kind of afternoon with Tegan that makes life worth living. We were in radically different places, and he knew it.

  “You don’t look well, friend,” I said.

  He said nothing, turning his odd eyes away and staring at the wall. A small tremor ran across the planes of his face, and he ran a pink tongue along his thin lips.

  Aristine and her people came in at that moment, an array of quizzical expressions on their faces. The only person who seemed unconcerned was Aristine, who held a tablet and was frowning at it.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Not what I expected, that’s for certain,” Aristine said. She stepped to the bedside and glared down at the Proc, letting him feel the hostile weight of her stare. After a moment, he turned to regard her with a face that was now in pain. Something was wrong with him, and it was happening quickly. “Jack, do you think you could pull one of his teeth for me?”

  “Of course,” I said without hesitation. “A knife, please? Or pliers, hammer. Anything metal, really. How many do you want?”

  “You don’t have to do that. I’ll tell you,” the Proc said. His voice had lost some of the authority from earlier. It had none of the arrogance.

  “Tell her what?” I asked.

  “My age. I assume you’re going to butcher me for the joy of it. You could have simply examined my telomeres and tissue samples to determine my age, given your level of technology. I don’t fear your clumsy attempts at torture, but I can tell you I might not survive them, if that’s what your intentions are,” he said.

  “Do you have a name?” I asked.

  “What?” The Proc looked alarmed.

  “A name. What is your designation among your kind?” I asked.

  He pressed his lips into a hard line, then relented. “Korac.”

  “Thank you, Korac. There’s no reason we can’t communicate with some civility, despite what’s happening to you. You’re dying?” I said.

  He hesitated, then gave a terse nod.

  “And this rapid aging is not your normal state, I take it?” Aristine asked. All of her team leaned forward with fevered interest. I knew they had found something that made no sense.

  “No,” Korac said.

  Without a word, I leaned over and put my thumb against Korac’s eye, pushing in just hard enough that he froze. “If you give me a single word answer again, I’ll tear your eyes out and make you eat them. Is that clear?”

  Behind me, everyone gasped except Aristine, who knew that I don’t do anything without a purpose.

  “I understand,” Korac said. “Will you ask the question again?” He finished his statement with a cough, and there was blood on his gums.

  “Why are you dying now, after years of being in suspended animation with no serious effects? Why are you thrown out of your people’s plans?” I asked.

  “I was a traitor. I didn’t believe that what my—what they were doing was legal or right, and I was hunted down and put into a suspended state against my will. I was not killed because the Procurators are fighting a losing game regarding replacing their population, and I might be needed at a later date,” Korac said.

  “What were they doing?” I asked.

  “You already know. They harvest people and use Kassos—and other cities—as a kind of breeding ground, nothing more. The ruling class knows nothing of it in the cities, let alone the street people. It’s a glorified farm, and the Procurators have been living off them since before the Eden Chain was created. Yes, I know who you are, General Aristine, and yes, I know a great deal of the world you avoided for all those years, building your empire in the dark while you waited for someone like him,” Korac said, cutting his eyes to me with a blend of fear and accusation.

  “General Aristine, do you have any drone footage of a settlement that was raided by the Procs?” I asked.

  She said nothing, but thumbed her tablet, humming for a moment. The silence was oppressive, then Aristine gave a sharp nod and tapped the screen twice. “Here. You can enlarge if need be, right down to a square no bigger than your hand.”

  I took the tablet but didn’t look at it. Instead, I stepped to the bottom of the bed, where Korac’s bare feet were attached to the frame. “I have so many questions, but two of them are more important than anything else because the answers could save lives. Thousands, I think, but that depends entirely on you, Korac.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m dying. I do not know if I have the answers you want,” Korac said.

  “Let’s find out. What parts of the victims do your people harvest?” I asked. The question hung between us like an unfired gun, and I could hear myself breathing as I waited for him to respond.

  “Stem cells when present, the entire central nervous system, and certain glands,” Korac said.

  “I thought as much. Are your people dying out because of inbreeding?”

  Aristine hissed. “I hadn’t considered—”

  “I had,” I said. “These Procs are ghosts. There are two reasons for that, and one of them is that there aren’t many of them in control of a massive area. How many of you are still alive, Korac?”

  “I don’t know. When I was banished, less than forty. Maybe thirty,” he said.

  “What’s your other question?” Aristine asked. Every face in the room was watching me, so I reached out and touched Korac’s foot. It was smooth and unlined, like a child’s. “I was—I am—a soldier, which means I’m an expert at bitching, waiting, and walking. Your kind don’t strike me as the type to do manual labor, and we can’t find any roads, which leads me to wonder about this.” I held out the tablet to Korac so that he might see the handiwork of his people. He wanted to avert his eyes, but he couldn’t. “What’s this patch of earth right here, that looks like a rocket landed, or a herd of cattle had a fight? It’s churned and burned. That’s not natural, and I’ve seen it more than once.”

  Korac licked his thin lips, then twisted his neck to address Aristine. “May I have some water?”

  She brought him a squeeze bottle, put the straw to his lips, and waited as he drank. When he was done, his pupils dilated and he seemed less weak, but still pale and twitching.

  “You were from the early part of the twenty-first century?” Korac asked.

  “Yes. Why?” I said.

  “Have you ever heard of Engine Ultramafic?” Korac asked.

  “Like the rocks?” Aristine said, her brow furrowed.

  Korac gave a tight grin. “Like the rocks, but only in name. You want to know how we get around and harvest the innocents? You wonder why I don’t wear boots and tromp the land like a good soldier?” He coughed, cleared his throat, and looked directly at me. “WE don’t travel over the land. We travel under it. In a drill that delivers us right into their homes in the dead of night, and we’ve been doing it for two thousand years. Engine Ultramafic isn’t something the Procurators invented. It was your doing, Jack, and when the pocket reactors went online, we had power enough to outlast every person on the face of this earth.” He smiled at Aristine, and it was a gruesome expression. “But we couldn’t outlast the people underneath, and now, here you are, come for your vengeance against a death cult who pry people open like oysters, and I know, because I’ve done it until the remains of my soul died.”

  “A drill?” I asked in disbelief. “Through the
earth?”

  “Have you ever found a Procurator road?” Korac asked.

  “No—we didn’t even know you were real until—well, hell, I wasn’t even convinced you were real until I saw you,” I admitted.

  “Two drills. Two groups. Separate dwellings where the victims are taken, and regular trips into the cities to keep the legends and fear alive. We tell the select few that we’re injecting them with nanobots to make them live forever, and they’re never seen again. When supplies run low,” Korac said, and I held up a hand in anger.

  “You mean when you run out of people?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’s what I meant. Then, I imagine the attacks on small settlements began. Either the people in the cities are aware of us, or their ruling classes are so sold on the idea of being gods that they’ll fight to the last drop of their blood,” Korac said.

  I rolled my shoulders and sighed in naked disgust. “Fucking cultists and inbred predators who eat spinal tissue. What a world,” I growled.

  “Kassos is not entirely under the control of the elites,” Korac said.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, my full attention on the only link I had to saving lives in a city filled with violence and danger. “Tell me.”

  “Before I do, show me the location of the last farm attack,” Korac said.

  I tilted the screen and pulled up an overlay that gave positions relative to us, where Korac had been found, and points in between. He stared, flicked his eyes around, and then inclined his head toward the screen. “I’m happy to tell you everything I know about Kassos, but I have something I think you want even more.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Free my hand,” Korac said.

  I stood and released the flexible restraint on his right arm without a word. If he moved wrong, he would die, and he knew it, but all he did was reach a trembling finger toward the screen, tap it, then expand a small area between some low hills. There was a collection of buildings there next to a series of three round ponds. “There. That’s where they’ll attack next.”