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Vanishing Manhood: Part 10
Vanishing Manhood:
Part 10
Dining with Mobsters.
Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand. Listen to the
► Podcast at Explicit Novels.
Had my life been a comedy, I would have bumped my noise,
looked sheepishly over my shoulder and given a weak smile. I had experienced an
infantile urge to run away from the shame, violation and the pain Zara's
information brought. My hands had instinctively come up to save my face from
impact. My fingers were trying to dig into the stone until my tips felt as if I
was tearing the skin off.
I loved sex. I loved the pleasure it let me share. What I
didn't love was the romantic mystique I tried to weave around that act being
torn away, shredded for the entertainment of people I didn't know. How could I
protect myself if any woman looking at me had seen me naked, in coquitos? How
could I tell who was really a threat if I couldn't see behind their eyes?
Step, Capri and Zara were not talking. They were not closing
in on me.
Step, people passed by. The scuff of their footfalls told me
they were looking my way, but not stopping.
Step, I had to get out of here. The authorities would come
looking and we all had to leave.
Gears contacted gears and the machine that was my mind
lurched forward once more. I had things to do. People were taking incredible
risks on my behalf. Capri and Zara understood what had happened and let me
heal, just enough to get my feet back under me.
"Let's go," I muttered and we moved down the
sidewalk once more.
We covered two blocks in silence.
"Zara, you are with the government, aren't you?" I
began. She gave me a quick look, but didn't respond. "Let me rephrase: you
are still an active duty soldier, aren't you?" Now Capri stumbled.
"Yes," Zara whispered.
"Shit," Capri groaned.
"Okay, I understand now," I nodded. We traversed
another block.
"Fine, what do you understand?" Capri nudged me.
"I know who the Vanishers are," I leaned in and
replied quietly. Zara's eyes flickered my way again.
"You do, don't you?" Zara's eyes blazed with pride
in me and wonder.
"Either one of you care to enlighten me?" Capri
grumbled.
"I need to get you off the street," Zara
intervened. "The FBI is on its way. I can deal with the cameras and your
phones, but not the bracelet." She steered us into a café where the early
lunch crowd as only starting to come in.
"How do you know he's right?" Capri prodded Zara.
"The last two questions he asked," she seemed
almost sad to leave us, me.
"Zara, take off and stay safe," I told her.
"I don't think I would want to do this without you." Zara had a
twinkle in her eye, nodded then left. Capri and I moved to a nice corner table.
I took the seat that would allow me to watch the door and most of the café.
"Okay, what's going on?" Capri leaned in.
"You start off with two guiding principles. No large
organization creates only one plan to choose from. Bureaucracies throw away
nothing. So, twenty years ago, when the Federation and or the U N figured that
the current system wasn't working, they planned out various
contingencies."
"One of those proposals was the 'Vanisher' conspiracy.
It was most likely advanced by a small cadre of mid- and low-level
functionaries brought in to work on the forecasted collapse. Their idea was
obviously rejected because we stayed the course and are now in the fucked up situation we are in now."
"The thing was, those planners didn't die and didn't
give up on their plan. At the start, they were powerless to do anything.
Besides, they had to believe all their idea was doing was postponing the end,
not solving the extinction problem. So, they worked on that dilemma,” I said.
"And that's you?" Capri doubted.
"No. They didn't know about me until five years ago at
the earliest and that's highly unlikely. Odds are they found about what
Carabolix-37 did to me when everyone else did," I replied. "What
happened, happened eight years ago while the W H O was combing over Central
Asia building a genetic database."
"What they found was the Warlord of Kwaziristan, the
last bastion of male rule on the planet." No, the Warlord wasn't some kind
of John Carter of Mars. By all accounts he was a castrated, obese, mostly bald
and very old man. During the collapse that Plague engendered, Central Asia went
under, their political systems, economies and infrastructures broke down.
In those last few, chaotic years, a recovering soldier and a
small detachment of troops found themselves guarding an orphanage. With the
city burning down around them, this man was ordered to take the boys and flee.
He went to the only place he figured they could hide out until the fighting
died down and the authorities could come rescue him.
He went to an old 17th century palace or fortress complex
outside his home town in remote Kwaziristan and there he held up while his
nation died. Eventually, hope faded and the 'Warlord' began to raid the
recovering female tribes for supplies. He had to feed his people. Somewhere
along the way, the female tribal leaders figured out he had a large number of
young men under his charge.
They struck a deal. The Warlord was worried that the women
would steal his men. The women wouldn't storm the place because all those men
had guns and killing them all would accomplish nothing, except to stop the
raiding. The agreement they reached changed everything, though it wasn't
immediately obvious.
The tribal leaders would send young women up to the
fortress. In exchange for making the young women pregnant (or one year to
pass), the tribes would pay tribute to the Warlord. The catch? The men inside
the fortress chose which woman they would mate with and by mate, they meant
live together in the same dwelling for months at a time.
It was courtship. It wasn't a plastic romance; it was
practical. The men needed the goodwill of the tribeswomen that inhabited the
land in all directions. Building up affections and bonds with their female
mates was necessary for the survival of the male community. Conversely, the
women lived in a mostly male world, from the beginning, the Warlord did have a
few female soldiers.
Men were lovers, providers, protectors and housemates. They
shared in chores, but compared to what the women had to do in their own tribe,
it was nearly paradise. Men still had their military duty, but when you had a
mate, you were given quarters in the dungeon of the fortress. Carved out from
the depths of the hill the fortress sat on, it was much cooler than the baking
heat above during the summers and warmer in the winters.
Enter the W H O eight years ago doing their survey. They ran
across a serious problem. Waziristan’s population was 24% above projections
(they were supposed to be dying out) and 2% over their previous level.
Waziristan was 'surviving.’ Sure, their tiny population was one Black Death away
from annihilation, but their numbers where slowly growing, very slowly.
This was great news right up until they found out about the
Warlord and his contract with the local towns and tribes. Was the U N really
going to say that some old fat eunuch in a clay fortress on a dusty hill in the
middle of nowhere was the savior of all mankind? The answer was obvious.
The U N sent in advisors and film crews to show the world
how barbaric and primitive the Warlord was. He certainly wasn't photogenic. The
men seemed enthusiastic enough. They even slept with some of the film crew.
They also became very irate when the women picked up and left. After all,
hadn't the women agreed to mate with them?
Why else would women come to the fortress if not to mate?
The local women were a bit peeved too, those were their men those floozies were
poaching. The U N began fishing around, seeking to convince some of the local
leaders to call in the U N to deal with the Warlord. When the Kwaziri women
figured that out they got really pissed.
They may have herded goats and sheep, woven wool into fabric
and scratched some crops out of the semi-arid soil for a living, but they also
knew they had more daughters in this generation than last. They couldn't fight
off the U N, there were only a few thousand of them and they lived in
near-desert conditions, but they did everything to let those foreign women know
they were unwelcome.
In one antidotal tale, a U N soldier guarding the mission
found a lost lamb and brought it to a local tribeswoman. The woman promptly
beat the lamb to death with a stone, explaining to the horrified soldier that
the lamb had been contaminated. In the end, the Kwaziri got what they wanted,
the outside world left them alone.
The W H O took gene, blood, air, water, and soil samples and
found absolutely nothing that explained this abnormality. The Big Lie was only
starting to sink in. Discovery World devoted a portion of a documentary to the
Warlord. A fourteen year old boy saw it and regurgitated that memory to a
twenty-one year old man in search of understanding.
"I know you are not advocating male rule," Capri
studied me. "So what is it?"
"A colossal gamble," I sighed. "I am a
freaking liberal arts major. I'm not a scientist, certainly not a doctor and
definitely not a virologist, but what if, if stress strengthens the Plague,
what if the reverse is also true?" Capri mulled that over.
"You mean, what if love, compassion and respect, as
viewed by the male, weakens the Plague?" Capri mused. "Damn right you
are not a scientist."
"It was the word Zara used and I believe it was
intentional," I persisted. "She said 'courtship.’ She also mentioned
men choosing their mates. That's what clicked in my mind."
"So this cockamamie
scheme of the Vanishers is based on 'love conquering all'? Crap, we are all
going to die," Capri muttered.
"Hey, I'm not saying I'm a convert, but it is the
current idea I'm running with. I'm willing to bet Zara's people studied the
Kwaziri for some time too," I countered.
"With no cure looming on the horizon, they began
recruiting young women from various agencies and branches of service into their
plan. Heck, some of the 'Vanishers' may still be thinking this is a sanctioned
covert operation. Even those women will want onboard when they understand this
society is going down the toilet."
"One of the saddest parts of all this is that the women
who set this all in motion won't take advantage of it," I bleakly
assessed. "The government will be closing in on them now."
"I wish I could disagree, but I think you are right,"
Capri nodded. "If you figured it out, someone who does this kind of
detective work for a living has put the pieces together as well."
There was no way to hide an operation this big once various
intelligence agencies started looking. They would figure out the key military
and civilian players. The only thing they could do was to totally detach from
the program. Now their baby was out there, running on its own power, directed
by people who had already vanished themselves long before any investigation started.
"FBI," I warned Capri. Special Agents Fraklos and
Vabishi had come in to our hideaway. Vabishi was showing I D to the girl at the
counter while Fraklos was coming our way.
"How did you get away?" Fraklos seemed truly
curious. There was a host of good answers and the truth wasn't one of them.
"Come on now," I leaned forward, "Princess
Leia didn't beat Darth Ventress, the Empire and the Dark Empress with the help
Ewoks alone. She had the help of Admiral Squid."
"Gial Ackbar; a Mon Calamari," Fraklos corrected
me.
"Who?" I questioned.
"Gial Ackbar, that was the Admiral's name,"
Fraklos clarified.
"Is that really important right now?" I asked.
"Having a bad day?" Fraklos turned to Capri. She
was asking if I was having a bad day.
"Yeah, pretty much," Capri nodded. "He walked
right into a wall about ten minutes ago."
"We need to get him out of here," Fraklos shook
her head. "Get him somewhere safe. The Capital is screaming bloody murder
over his latest stunt." Vabishi had finished making a quick call and joined
us.
"I can't do it," I stood. "I have a date with
a V I M at 12:30."
Fraklos stared at me.
"Very Important Mobster," I explained. "If I
don't show up they will probably do really bad things to Kuiko and I'm not
going to let that happen."
"What is he talking about?" Vabishi worried.
"I am attracted to violent psychopaths and for the love
of God, I don't know why," I sighed. "Worse, to hang out with me you
have to be insane or prone to fits of brutality. It is how I roll."
"There has to be something we can give Israel to keep
him on an even keel," Vabishi asked Fraklos.
"I'm not good enough at that sort of thing to take the
chance," Fraklos then looked to Capri.
"Fuck you both," she stood, "I'm a
lawyer."
My phone rang. 'G E D' it read. I typed back 'ty' and cut
the connection.
"Time to go," I announced and headed for the
kitchen. My guardian angels were working overtime.
There are few things as beautiful as competence under
stress. Not me. The three women tagging along with a lunatic didn't question
me; they divined my intentions and moved to cushion me from the world. By the
time we exited the back of the café, Fraklos was in the lead, then me, Capri
and Vabishi looking back from signs of pursuit.
"Ewoks," Fraklos guffawed. "We need better
code words." Ewoks meant Vanishers and Admiral Squid meant I didn't need
to be brought in. Next time we would use different words. Dimples said it was a
book cipher, essentially unbreakable if you didn't know the material.
"Be happy I didn't fall over laughing," Capri snickered.
"Israel, you play crazy really well," she added.
"I'd feel better about it if you weren't actually crazy."
"Who are we evading?" Vabishi spoke up.
"G E D," I answered.
The problem facing me and Dimples' crew was that we weren't
the Vanishers. We couldn't manipulate phone and surveillance feeds. Slipping
down alleyways while avoiding loading areas left us in the 'digital dark.’ We
were going to reemerge soon.
"We are trying to shift through the chatter and figure
out who is really trying to get their hands on you," Fraklos clued me in.
"Montanyard is building such an air-tight case against
you she could patch the Hindenburg," Vabishi stated. "She thinks she
can hold them off a week." Shelia could hold off the full weight of the
Federation Government for a week, one week. I needed a fucking miracle.
(Magdalena, Round Two)
My two FBI ladies delivered me as close to the Prometheus
Club as they dared. Mobsters had eyes too, though this was actually a pointless
exercise since the moment 'Little M' asked me what I was up to I would bury her
in the minutia of truth instead of the real deal. Capri would stick with me.
Mainly because the FBI would have to taser her to keep her from my side.
As I entered the restaurant, I was getting a whole new look.
It was the 'what in the hell is this guy still doing walking around?'
expression. Either I was a maniac or a national resource, or maybe both, not
all of them could decide. The maître de pointed me toward the semi-curtained
off area. A second later he motioned Capri to the bar. We knew this was going
to happen.
On my side of the curtain were two women; one sitting, one
standing. They didn't look like, well, what I though mobsters would look like.
They looked normal. The standing one ran a 'wand' over me then ran her free
hand over my frame quickly.
"Are you hiding anything?" she finally spoke.
I have a love affair with pain. That was all I could think
of when I opened my mouth.
"I had my knee caps replaced with high explosives. Does
that count?" I stated resolutely. She stared at me for a second then this
smile crept over her intimidating countenance.
"Damn, you really are a nut," she snickered.
"This way." She put a hand on my shoulder, I trembled and she led me
into the V I P area.
Three of the tables were occupied. The closest had Flame and
this woman whose face looked like it had lost a head-on collision with a truck.
She also looked to be around 250 pounds. The second table, close to an exit,
had two Hispanic women who had to be sisters, and pissed that they were missing
out on their 'killing kittens' time.
I was dealing with being manhandled, near terror, proximity
issues, and being in the company of yet more casual killers. Somehow, all of
this had to be my fault. Regular men stay locked in their homes. I needed help.
I shrugged off the hand on my shoulder and made a bee-line for Flame.
There was a 'whiff' behind me as my guide tried to corral me
back in, but failed. Flame and her 'buddy' (I was pretty sure it was a woman,
or a man with huge pecs) stood up. I extended my hands forward and just above
my hips. Flame and I collided. Her hands went to my ass. My right cupped her
leather clad left ass cheek while my left wrapped fully around her lower back,
touching something big and hard.
We did more than kiss. Flame discovered that I had my wisdom
teeth removed and I learned that she still had her tonsils. It was also
revealed to me that during a French kiss, Flame likes to bite tongue, my
tongue, her tongue, it doesn't seem to matter. We were both healthy adults with
the experience to know that breathing through your nose is a must.
It took us a while to come up for air. I had pulled her up
until she was on her toes. Her eyes were boring holes into mine.
"I need some strength," I whispered to her. Now,
there is no great Gestalt among the insane. There is no shared universe,
psychosis, or delusion.
What we do share is the fear and pain that comes from being
trapped in our own minds. The greatest creation of man, our brains, had
betrayed us. We were living a lie because our truths would destroy us. And,
worst of all, we were alone. That is why crazy people lash out. It isn't to
hurt others, it is to make others stop hurting us, with a reality that we see
as a lie.
I breached that inky bubble that shrouded Flame's mind. It didn't
make her my friend. It didn't stop her from being a beast and a sadist. We were
alone together. Each alone, but knowing that the other was in the same
condition. It wasn't understanding, it was kinship. Flame reached up with her
right hand, made a fist, and lightly tapped me on the forehead.
"There you go," she smiled. I returned the smile
and let her down. As I turned to walk away, she spanked my ass hard. I kept
walking, but half-turned so I could shake a finger at her.
"Just for that, no tongue penetration during our next
cunnilingus session," I threatened her.
"Oh, you love it, Bitch," she laughed. Turning to
her buddy, "That guy is loads of fun."
Belatedly, I came to Magdalena's table. It was a round
table, two-thirds wrapped up in a booth. To my right was this weightlifting
scumbag, oily, arrogant and stupid. Sometimes people don't try to hide their
ignorance. I wasn't sure this guy even knew what ignorance was, much less how
to spell it.
He had too much time in a tanning booth, too much chest hair
and a cultivated five o'clock shadow. He was also in a chair which suggested he
wasn't someone important. Next were two women, dressed nicely, Francesca-nice,
not Isobel-nice. They weren't likely to be putting any ships into orbit anytime
soon, but they were clever enough to observe before commenting from their booth
seats.
In the center was Magdalena in a dark blue Kashmir shirt
with a plunging neckline. Damn that woman was proud of her big mammaries. Her
jewelry was understated, her hair nicely done and her eyes
View all episodes
By Steamy StoriesVanishing Manhood:
Part 10
Dining with Mobsters.
Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand. Listen to the
► Podcast at Explicit Novels.
Had my life been a comedy, I would have bumped my noise,
looked sheepishly over my shoulder and given a weak smile. I had experienced an
infantile urge to run away from the shame, violation and the pain Zara's
information brought. My hands had instinctively come up to save my face from
impact. My fingers were trying to dig into the stone until my tips felt as if I
was tearing the skin off.
I loved sex. I loved the pleasure it let me share. What I
didn't love was the romantic mystique I tried to weave around that act being
torn away, shredded for the entertainment of people I didn't know. How could I
protect myself if any woman looking at me had seen me naked, in coquitos? How
could I tell who was really a threat if I couldn't see behind their eyes?
Step, Capri and Zara were not talking. They were not closing
in on me.
Step, people passed by. The scuff of their footfalls told me
they were looking my way, but not stopping.
Step, I had to get out of here. The authorities would come
looking and we all had to leave.
Gears contacted gears and the machine that was my mind
lurched forward once more. I had things to do. People were taking incredible
risks on my behalf. Capri and Zara understood what had happened and let me
heal, just enough to get my feet back under me.
"Let's go," I muttered and we moved down the
sidewalk once more.
We covered two blocks in silence.
"Zara, you are with the government, aren't you?" I
began. She gave me a quick look, but didn't respond. "Let me rephrase: you
are still an active duty soldier, aren't you?" Now Capri stumbled.
"Yes," Zara whispered.
"Shit," Capri groaned.
"Okay, I understand now," I nodded. We traversed
another block.
"Fine, what do you understand?" Capri nudged me.
"I know who the Vanishers are," I leaned in and
replied quietly. Zara's eyes flickered my way again.
"You do, don't you?" Zara's eyes blazed with pride
in me and wonder.
"Either one of you care to enlighten me?" Capri
grumbled.
"I need to get you off the street," Zara
intervened. "The FBI is on its way. I can deal with the cameras and your
phones, but not the bracelet." She steered us into a café where the early
lunch crowd as only starting to come in.
"How do you know he's right?" Capri prodded Zara.
"The last two questions he asked," she seemed
almost sad to leave us, me.
"Zara, take off and stay safe," I told her.
"I don't think I would want to do this without you." Zara had a
twinkle in her eye, nodded then left. Capri and I moved to a nice corner table.
I took the seat that would allow me to watch the door and most of the café.
"Okay, what's going on?" Capri leaned in.
"You start off with two guiding principles. No large
organization creates only one plan to choose from. Bureaucracies throw away
nothing. So, twenty years ago, when the Federation and or the U N figured that
the current system wasn't working, they planned out various
contingencies."
"One of those proposals was the 'Vanisher' conspiracy.
It was most likely advanced by a small cadre of mid- and low-level
functionaries brought in to work on the forecasted collapse. Their idea was
obviously rejected because we stayed the course and are now in the fucked up situation we are in now."
"The thing was, those planners didn't die and didn't
give up on their plan. At the start, they were powerless to do anything.
Besides, they had to believe all their idea was doing was postponing the end,
not solving the extinction problem. So, they worked on that dilemma,” I said.
"And that's you?" Capri doubted.
"No. They didn't know about me until five years ago at
the earliest and that's highly unlikely. Odds are they found about what
Carabolix-37 did to me when everyone else did," I replied. "What
happened, happened eight years ago while the W H O was combing over Central
Asia building a genetic database."
"What they found was the Warlord of Kwaziristan, the
last bastion of male rule on the planet." No, the Warlord wasn't some kind
of John Carter of Mars. By all accounts he was a castrated, obese, mostly bald
and very old man. During the collapse that Plague engendered, Central Asia went
under, their political systems, economies and infrastructures broke down.
In those last few, chaotic years, a recovering soldier and a
small detachment of troops found themselves guarding an orphanage. With the
city burning down around them, this man was ordered to take the boys and flee.
He went to the only place he figured they could hide out until the fighting
died down and the authorities could come rescue him.
He went to an old 17th century palace or fortress complex
outside his home town in remote Kwaziristan and there he held up while his
nation died. Eventually, hope faded and the 'Warlord' began to raid the
recovering female tribes for supplies. He had to feed his people. Somewhere
along the way, the female tribal leaders figured out he had a large number of
young men under his charge.
They struck a deal. The Warlord was worried that the women
would steal his men. The women wouldn't storm the place because all those men
had guns and killing them all would accomplish nothing, except to stop the
raiding. The agreement they reached changed everything, though it wasn't
immediately obvious.
The tribal leaders would send young women up to the
fortress. In exchange for making the young women pregnant (or one year to
pass), the tribes would pay tribute to the Warlord. The catch? The men inside
the fortress chose which woman they would mate with and by mate, they meant
live together in the same dwelling for months at a time.
It was courtship. It wasn't a plastic romance; it was
practical. The men needed the goodwill of the tribeswomen that inhabited the
land in all directions. Building up affections and bonds with their female
mates was necessary for the survival of the male community. Conversely, the
women lived in a mostly male world, from the beginning, the Warlord did have a
few female soldiers.
Men were lovers, providers, protectors and housemates. They
shared in chores, but compared to what the women had to do in their own tribe,
it was nearly paradise. Men still had their military duty, but when you had a
mate, you were given quarters in the dungeon of the fortress. Carved out from
the depths of the hill the fortress sat on, it was much cooler than the baking
heat above during the summers and warmer in the winters.
Enter the W H O eight years ago doing their survey. They ran
across a serious problem. Waziristan’s population was 24% above projections
(they were supposed to be dying out) and 2% over their previous level.
Waziristan was 'surviving.’ Sure, their tiny population was one Black Death away
from annihilation, but their numbers where slowly growing, very slowly.
This was great news right up until they found out about the
Warlord and his contract with the local towns and tribes. Was the U N really
going to say that some old fat eunuch in a clay fortress on a dusty hill in the
middle of nowhere was the savior of all mankind? The answer was obvious.
The U N sent in advisors and film crews to show the world
how barbaric and primitive the Warlord was. He certainly wasn't photogenic. The
men seemed enthusiastic enough. They even slept with some of the film crew.
They also became very irate when the women picked up and left. After all,
hadn't the women agreed to mate with them?
Why else would women come to the fortress if not to mate?
The local women were a bit peeved too, those were their men those floozies were
poaching. The U N began fishing around, seeking to convince some of the local
leaders to call in the U N to deal with the Warlord. When the Kwaziri women
figured that out they got really pissed.
They may have herded goats and sheep, woven wool into fabric
and scratched some crops out of the semi-arid soil for a living, but they also
knew they had more daughters in this generation than last. They couldn't fight
off the U N, there were only a few thousand of them and they lived in
near-desert conditions, but they did everything to let those foreign women know
they were unwelcome.
In one antidotal tale, a U N soldier guarding the mission
found a lost lamb and brought it to a local tribeswoman. The woman promptly
beat the lamb to death with a stone, explaining to the horrified soldier that
the lamb had been contaminated. In the end, the Kwaziri got what they wanted,
the outside world left them alone.
The W H O took gene, blood, air, water, and soil samples and
found absolutely nothing that explained this abnormality. The Big Lie was only
starting to sink in. Discovery World devoted a portion of a documentary to the
Warlord. A fourteen year old boy saw it and regurgitated that memory to a
twenty-one year old man in search of understanding.
"I know you are not advocating male rule," Capri
studied me. "So what is it?"
"A colossal gamble," I sighed. "I am a
freaking liberal arts major. I'm not a scientist, certainly not a doctor and
definitely not a virologist, but what if, if stress strengthens the Plague,
what if the reverse is also true?" Capri mulled that over.
"You mean, what if love, compassion and respect, as
viewed by the male, weakens the Plague?" Capri mused. "Damn right you
are not a scientist."
"It was the word Zara used and I believe it was
intentional," I persisted. "She said 'courtship.’ She also mentioned
men choosing their mates. That's what clicked in my mind."
"So this cockamamie
scheme of the Vanishers is based on 'love conquering all'? Crap, we are all
going to die," Capri muttered.
"Hey, I'm not saying I'm a convert, but it is the
current idea I'm running with. I'm willing to bet Zara's people studied the
Kwaziri for some time too," I countered.
"With no cure looming on the horizon, they began
recruiting young women from various agencies and branches of service into their
plan. Heck, some of the 'Vanishers' may still be thinking this is a sanctioned
covert operation. Even those women will want onboard when they understand this
society is going down the toilet."
"One of the saddest parts of all this is that the women
who set this all in motion won't take advantage of it," I bleakly
assessed. "The government will be closing in on them now."
"I wish I could disagree, but I think you are right,"
Capri nodded. "If you figured it out, someone who does this kind of
detective work for a living has put the pieces together as well."
There was no way to hide an operation this big once various
intelligence agencies started looking. They would figure out the key military
and civilian players. The only thing they could do was to totally detach from
the program. Now their baby was out there, running on its own power, directed
by people who had already vanished themselves long before any investigation started.
"FBI," I warned Capri. Special Agents Fraklos and
Vabishi had come in to our hideaway. Vabishi was showing I D to the girl at the
counter while Fraklos was coming our way.
"How did you get away?" Fraklos seemed truly
curious. There was a host of good answers and the truth wasn't one of them.
"Come on now," I leaned forward, "Princess
Leia didn't beat Darth Ventress, the Empire and the Dark Empress with the help
Ewoks alone. She had the help of Admiral Squid."
"Gial Ackbar; a Mon Calamari," Fraklos corrected
me.
"Who?" I questioned.
"Gial Ackbar, that was the Admiral's name,"
Fraklos clarified.
"Is that really important right now?" I asked.
"Having a bad day?" Fraklos turned to Capri. She
was asking if I was having a bad day.
"Yeah, pretty much," Capri nodded. "He walked
right into a wall about ten minutes ago."
"We need to get him out of here," Fraklos shook
her head. "Get him somewhere safe. The Capital is screaming bloody murder
over his latest stunt." Vabishi had finished making a quick call and joined
us.
"I can't do it," I stood. "I have a date with
a V I M at 12:30."
Fraklos stared at me.
"Very Important Mobster," I explained. "If I
don't show up they will probably do really bad things to Kuiko and I'm not
going to let that happen."
"What is he talking about?" Vabishi worried.
"I am attracted to violent psychopaths and for the love
of God, I don't know why," I sighed. "Worse, to hang out with me you
have to be insane or prone to fits of brutality. It is how I roll."
"There has to be something we can give Israel to keep
him on an even keel," Vabishi asked Fraklos.
"I'm not good enough at that sort of thing to take the
chance," Fraklos then looked to Capri.
"Fuck you both," she stood, "I'm a
lawyer."
My phone rang. 'G E D' it read. I typed back 'ty' and cut
the connection.
"Time to go," I announced and headed for the
kitchen. My guardian angels were working overtime.
There are few things as beautiful as competence under
stress. Not me. The three women tagging along with a lunatic didn't question
me; they divined my intentions and moved to cushion me from the world. By the
time we exited the back of the café, Fraklos was in the lead, then me, Capri
and Vabishi looking back from signs of pursuit.
"Ewoks," Fraklos guffawed. "We need better
code words." Ewoks meant Vanishers and Admiral Squid meant I didn't need
to be brought in. Next time we would use different words. Dimples said it was a
book cipher, essentially unbreakable if you didn't know the material.
"Be happy I didn't fall over laughing," Capri snickered.
"Israel, you play crazy really well," she added.
"I'd feel better about it if you weren't actually crazy."
"Who are we evading?" Vabishi spoke up.
"G E D," I answered.
The problem facing me and Dimples' crew was that we weren't
the Vanishers. We couldn't manipulate phone and surveillance feeds. Slipping
down alleyways while avoiding loading areas left us in the 'digital dark.’ We
were going to reemerge soon.
"We are trying to shift through the chatter and figure
out who is really trying to get their hands on you," Fraklos clued me in.
"Montanyard is building such an air-tight case against
you she could patch the Hindenburg," Vabishi stated. "She thinks she
can hold them off a week." Shelia could hold off the full weight of the
Federation Government for a week, one week. I needed a fucking miracle.
(Magdalena, Round Two)
My two FBI ladies delivered me as close to the Prometheus
Club as they dared. Mobsters had eyes too, though this was actually a pointless
exercise since the moment 'Little M' asked me what I was up to I would bury her
in the minutia of truth instead of the real deal. Capri would stick with me.
Mainly because the FBI would have to taser her to keep her from my side.
As I entered the restaurant, I was getting a whole new look.
It was the 'what in the hell is this guy still doing walking around?'
expression. Either I was a maniac or a national resource, or maybe both, not
all of them could decide. The maître de pointed me toward the semi-curtained
off area. A second later he motioned Capri to the bar. We knew this was going
to happen.
On my side of the curtain were two women; one sitting, one
standing. They didn't look like, well, what I though mobsters would look like.
They looked normal. The standing one ran a 'wand' over me then ran her free
hand over my frame quickly.
"Are you hiding anything?" she finally spoke.
I have a love affair with pain. That was all I could think
of when I opened my mouth.
"I had my knee caps replaced with high explosives. Does
that count?" I stated resolutely. She stared at me for a second then this
smile crept over her intimidating countenance.
"Damn, you really are a nut," she snickered.
"This way." She put a hand on my shoulder, I trembled and she led me
into the V I P area.
Three of the tables were occupied. The closest had Flame and
this woman whose face looked like it had lost a head-on collision with a truck.
She also looked to be around 250 pounds. The second table, close to an exit,
had two Hispanic women who had to be sisters, and pissed that they were missing
out on their 'killing kittens' time.
I was dealing with being manhandled, near terror, proximity
issues, and being in the company of yet more casual killers. Somehow, all of
this had to be my fault. Regular men stay locked in their homes. I needed help.
I shrugged off the hand on my shoulder and made a bee-line for Flame.
There was a 'whiff' behind me as my guide tried to corral me
back in, but failed. Flame and her 'buddy' (I was pretty sure it was a woman,
or a man with huge pecs) stood up. I extended my hands forward and just above
my hips. Flame and I collided. Her hands went to my ass. My right cupped her
leather clad left ass cheek while my left wrapped fully around her lower back,
touching something big and hard.
We did more than kiss. Flame discovered that I had my wisdom
teeth removed and I learned that she still had her tonsils. It was also
revealed to me that during a French kiss, Flame likes to bite tongue, my
tongue, her tongue, it doesn't seem to matter. We were both healthy adults with
the experience to know that breathing through your nose is a must.
It took us a while to come up for air. I had pulled her up
until she was on her toes. Her eyes were boring holes into mine.
"I need some strength," I whispered to her. Now,
there is no great Gestalt among the insane. There is no shared universe,
psychosis, or delusion.
What we do share is the fear and pain that comes from being
trapped in our own minds. The greatest creation of man, our brains, had
betrayed us. We were living a lie because our truths would destroy us. And,
worst of all, we were alone. That is why crazy people lash out. It isn't to
hurt others, it is to make others stop hurting us, with a reality that we see
as a lie.
I breached that inky bubble that shrouded Flame's mind. It didn't
make her my friend. It didn't stop her from being a beast and a sadist. We were
alone together. Each alone, but knowing that the other was in the same
condition. It wasn't understanding, it was kinship. Flame reached up with her
right hand, made a fist, and lightly tapped me on the forehead.
"There you go," she smiled. I returned the smile
and let her down. As I turned to walk away, she spanked my ass hard. I kept
walking, but half-turned so I could shake a finger at her.
"Just for that, no tongue penetration during our next
cunnilingus session," I threatened her.
"Oh, you love it, Bitch," she laughed. Turning to
her buddy, "That guy is loads of fun."
Belatedly, I came to Magdalena's table. It was a round
table, two-thirds wrapped up in a booth. To my right was this weightlifting
scumbag, oily, arrogant and stupid. Sometimes people don't try to hide their
ignorance. I wasn't sure this guy even knew what ignorance was, much less how
to spell it.
He had too much time in a tanning booth, too much chest hair
and a cultivated five o'clock shadow. He was also in a chair which suggested he
wasn't someone important. Next were two women, dressed nicely, Francesca-nice,
not Isobel-nice. They weren't likely to be putting any ships into orbit anytime
soon, but they were clever enough to observe before commenting from their booth
seats.
In the center was Magdalena in a dark blue Kashmir shirt
with a plunging neckline. Damn that woman was proud of her big mammaries. Her
jewelry was understated, her hair nicely done and her eyes