The Seek (3 page)

As Kyn joined the line of bodies pressing forward into the space, she opened the pack, slipping the slim black vibro over her head to settle firmly against the pad on the bony ridge at the front of her throat. Then she dug again in the grey pack, pulling out a tiny purple pill and throwing it into her mouth.

Bottoms up.

The music started to seep into her bones as the line shuffled forward. She was queuing behind two tall blonde girls. One turned to Kyn, her face obscured by her mask but the lines of her body taut. ‘Isn’t this wild?’ Her voice was deep and melodic, impossible to separate as that of a man or a woman.

The second blonde beside her grasped her arm. ‘Wow, you sound freaky, Jyntai,’ she said, her voice the same throaty melody and her face also masked. Both girls touched the vibros at their throats and laughed in unison.

‘Don’t care, don’t care,’ sang the first blonde. ‘I’m gonna fuck me an Avenger tonight.’

The second blonde hushed and tutted, but the first girl would not be silenced. ‘Well, that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?’

‘You, maybe,’ her friend jeered, digging her in the ribs and glancing back at Kyn. ‘I’m here to dance.’

And then the line moved and they were gone. Kyn was there, and the Connect was doing its work. Her joints felt loose and liquid, and she heard the girl’s word echoing in her tingling brain.
I’m here to dance
. She sailed forward to the dance floor, the crush of bodies moving as one teeming human wave to the electric noise infiltrating her brain where Connect met her synapses. She needed movement, to dance. She needed physicality and bodies. And this place might be illegal, and off limits to Avengers, but it was the only place she was going to get them tonight.

She looked around, watching the tall, tight and toned bodies writhe on the dance floor in time with the music, and with the Connect in their bloodstreams. She sure wasn’t the only Avenger here tonight. The masks and vibros assured anonymity for them, but she could have picked them anywhere. Their hard bodies were moving like it was the end of the world. For many, it was, or it would be soon enough. Who could blame them for wanting to dance, and take Connect, and maybe drink, maybe sleep with a groupie.

She laced her hands over her head and threw her head back, tipping back into a flip and landing on the floor again, connecting with her body, driving the darkness away. As she came up, swaying into the lights and music, she watched two tall, masked men with bare chests hold a young woman up to the light. They were lifting her like she was a statue of a goddess, higher and higher, towards the sound. She stretched her long arms high, trying to touch the roof, and they were lifting her effortlessly.

As they brought her down, one of them spun her towards him, holding her against his chest. The other came up behind her and lifted her short silver dress from behind, running his hands over her buttocks. The girl turned and kissed him on the mouth as all three continued to keep time to the music, swaying and grinding. The man holding her from the front undid the skinny straps of her dress, slowly, rhythmically, peeling one side down then the other, to reveal high white breasts.

The girl leaned back to the man behind her, arching her back and lifting her breasts so the one who had undone her strap could lick them. The man standing behind her pressed forward, his snake hips pushing into the girl from behind. The three were as one, swaying close and hot as the two men leaned over her to kiss each other on the mouth. Kyn had no doubt they were Avengers. Their chests were bare and their arms were ripped, both sporting long red scythe tattoos on their right forearms. She rubbed her own arm, tugging the dress down over it. Maybe they could be anonymous with their masks and their vibros alone. Not her. She was the only woman with that scythe on her arm, and if any of them saw it, they would all know immediately who she was.

She pushed the thought away. She was here to dance. And it was working, driving out the blackness, driving away the panic. She could feel bodies pressing in on her, their rhythm building with the music, their skin heating up as their movements became more frenetic. She rose up on her toes, en pointe, and then spun in the thrall of the sound, watching the lights blur in her vision, feeling everything contract to this. Hands snaked around her from behind, but she brushed them off. She kept spinning, moving her hands up toward the roof and the lights, letting her body have some room, giving it permission for a different dance from the one she led it in each day in the training rooms. It felt as though the lights were inside her brain, blurry and alive — pregnant with sound and sweat and movement. It was hot and dark and oh-so-decadent.

When the track ended, she pushed to the bar, adjusting the vibro before she spoke. ‘Old school whiskey.’

The mask on the bartender couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘You got the G for that shit?’

She passed over a hundred galleons. ‘Make it a double.’ Her vibro-ed voice pleased her ears — deep and melodic. But most of all, anonymous.

The squat, stocky barboy nodded and whistled. ‘Yes ma’am.’

The amber liquid was in Kyn’s mouth as soon as the glass hit the bar. So hot; so perfect. It kicked the Connect into a different zone, lighting her up and making her skin tingle; making the world, which had seemed so dark and scary, alight with possibility.

She kicked back from the bar, moving towards the bathrooms, feeling like a gazelle — loose and languid. Powerful. As she headed to the back of the cavernous space, she passed the playrooms. They had black doors with red crosses emblazoned on them, but almost no-one bothered to close them. Tonight, the rooms were teeming. Men and women in various states of dress pressed together — kissing, licking, fucking. She could see it all. All beautiful, and all determined towards this moment, melting into the heat and the music, the Connect liberating them from the fear and the rules and the almost-certainty of impending death. The lights in the rooms were low and dark green, making the twisting, grasping bodies shine as their glow hit sweat and sex.

Normally, Kyn strolled by the playrooms, unmoved. But tonight it was different. Tonight she went slower, enjoying the perversion of it; the wildness. Her eyes flicked over the various scenes briefly as she passed: a room of young men, all ghostly white and naked, kissing and stroking and driving into each other. But no fury, no violence. That was the Connect. Every stroke was passionate, but gentle. In the grip of Connect, love filled you up.

She watched one young man, his head completely shaven behind his green mask, stroking the face of another boy, this one blond, who was kneeling at his feet, his face buried in the first one’s groin. The strokes were feather light, and Kyn was sure if she could lift his mask the shaven headed one would be watching his fellator with soft eyes. It looked like the touch of a lover.

The next room she passed was less crowded. She recognised the girl from the dance floor with the two men who had been lifting her and kissing. The girl was lying on a long white bench, one of the men kneeling between her legs, licking her enthusiastically, while two others stroked her breasts, her face and her arms. She was writhing and crying out, an ecstatic smile visible beneath her masquerade mask.

Kyn was almost disappointed to hit the bathrooms, but she still avoided looking directly at the tall thing of muscle and easy grace who stared at her as she pushed through the doors.

Something about him — the loose ease folded into his big, lean frame — picked at her brain.

But she was only here to dance. And right now; to take a leak.

But he had other ideas.

He was waiting when she emerged, the Connect lighting her skin warm and bright. He leaned lazily against the opposite wall, a slow grin spreading across the lower part of his face, and she could tell he was enjoying the sight of her in the tiny, stretchy dress, despite his mask. Everyone did what he or she could to be anonymous in this place. But he had no chance. Not with that too long, slightly grubby-looking hair grazing his jawline. Everything about this boy — from his stance to his grin — suggested that he didn’t give a shit if the whole place recognised him.

Even though he was taking her in with what looked like a considerable amount of testosterone-laced pleasure, she was almost positive that he didn’t recognise her. If he did, he would have saluted. Even here. Avengers were like that.

‘Hey there, gorgeous.’ Such a shame, about the vibro. Voice was important. ‘I saw you out there, on the dance floor. You sure got some moves.’

‘And about eight years on you, I reckon.’
Down, boy
. You’re cute, but I’m not here for that. She knew exactly how cute he was, under that mask and behind the vibro. The interaction with him earlier in the day outside the ice chamber, was fresh in her mind.

‘Age is just a number.’

She almost snorted. Yeah, right. Age was only a number, except when it was the difference between pre and post Apocalypse. This pup may have been born on Earth, but he would only have been two or three when the place went down in flames.

Not eleven.

Eleven was different. Eleven, and you remembered. It was like a line in the sand, a great dividing chasm that you could never cross. Kyn guessed it was weird enough for these kids, growing up as they did, no childhood of riding bikes and climbing trees to haunt their dreams. They grew up in the endless black, the endless quest for the next place. Scavenging and searching. But it was nothing on how weird it was being there when the shit went down. That shit screwed you up from the day it happened ‘til the day you bit the galactic dust.

She studied the boy in the casually-fitted mask. What had he said to her earlier that day?

So why the hell did they let you in?

She tried to work out how much recognition showed in the lines of his fine, hard young body. It was hard to tell; the Connect was fuzzing her natural instincts, but she still guessed he had no idea who he was dealing with. She knew what they all thought of her: heartless bitch. They would never place her here. He would never place her here.

‘Such a philosopher,’ she purred, making to push past him, back to the place from where the music snaked out, heady and wanton. As she slid past, he reached out and grabbed her arm. His grasp was firm and dry around her wrist. Instinctively, she braced. Her cells had become hard-wired to respond instantly to physical contact, but not in a good way.

‘Strong,’ he murmured, his vibro voice raspy against her ear and the smell of his skin and hair filling her nostrils with something warm and human.

She tried to relax. It would be very bad to blow her cover in here. ‘We’re all strong.’ She laughed, not feeling it. ‘Now.’

‘Some of us are stronger than others,’ he said, his lips very close to her ear now. ‘And Avengers are the strongest of all.’

She stiffened: did he know? Was that why he’d said that? Kyn tried hard to relax into his grip, like a groupie would. And he relaxed beside her. She wasn’t just pretending, either. She wanted to. She wanted to lean back against that hard young chest, and soak up all the good smells and easiness of him. She wanted to rub against him, like she could remember an old ginger cat doing a long time ago, and hope some of his casual comfort-in-his-own-skin might rub off on her.

‘That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’ Even through the vibro monotone, he sounded a little bitter; his words crisp and brittle. ‘To jag yourself an Avenger? See if the stories are true? To give us one before they send us out to die?’

‘You worried about getting treated like a sex object?’ Kyn fought to keep the sarcasm out of her vibro-ed voice.

‘No, ma’am, I am not.’ He laughed, still holding her arm and pulling her closer against his hard chest, and the phrase sounded so old school, so easy and sweet and surfer-boy charming she almost wondered if she’d got it wrong, if he really was the cocky lieutenant from earlier in the day at all. Maybe this guy was older; maybe he still remembered lazy days and salt water and old Malibus.

Something about the smell and feel of him, and the easy way he pulled her close, made her feel warm and sweet. Or maybe it was the Connect, making her dizzy with love and appreciation of all that was left of humanity.

Normally she just used the drug to heighten the dance, but who was to say she couldn’t…?

She shook her head to clear away the thought. This was too dangerous, all too dangerous. She wasn’t some groupie, out to land herself an Avenger for the night, so she could brag to her friends.

She was a Captain of the Avengers of New Earth. And he was an Avenger, too.

She could command him to pick up a weapon, jump off a ship and go to his death.

She did not pick up boys in illegal clubs. She did not drag junior officers home.

She did not need this.

***

Oh God, she needed this. He dragged calloused fingers over her breasts, using the weight of his big hands to follow through, making her wait for the last delicious second until his fingers met her nipples, and give them an extra pinch as he slid his hands off to start all over again at her clavicles.

He tugged in annoyance at the stretchy black fabric getting in the way of his attentions. ‘You know this would be a lot better with this thing off, right?’ He’d lost the vibro, but she’d carefully kept hers in place. Along with her wig.

Kyn thought about the red scythe tattooed on her forearm. ‘I’m kinda shy,’ she said. She was sitting astride him on the floor at the back of the recycling station. Her dress was riding high, pulled up to expose her breasts, but, more importantly, to make sure the long sleeves covered the telltale ink.

‘You don’t look so shy,’ he insisted, tugging a little at the fabric. He sat up under her, pulling himself forward to catch one nipple in his mouth, and continue the teasing his hands had been meting out.

‘Looks can be deceiving,’ she said. ‘Like for example, no way did I think you were going to be this good back there in that club.’

‘That club would have been a lot more comfortable than this shithole,’ he complained, shifting under her so she could feel his huge erection pressing into her through his black standard-issue station jodhpurs. ‘They had couches back there, beds even.’