Chapter 4

Benni felt as if he had just laid his head down when a shout from the doorway awoke him. A seeker was waiting at the gate for "the documents man." Benni disengaged himself from the pleasant weight of Shasa, who wasn't his even if everyone else thought so. He tried to push the pleasure of the pressure of her frame from his thoughts as his den mate urged him to hurry. Pulling himself together, he took the packet from the seeker only to find a message from his master requesting his early presence, usually an ominous signal.

While the stench of too many human beings in the underground maze was ever present, the wafting of human waste wasn't. Relieving oneself anywhere unguarded left one open to attack from thieves and body snatchers. The luxury of taking a dump without a knife out of its sheath was one of benefits of living within a family. Benni hated being rushed through one of the few pleasures of his dank life, but the master was calling.

The corridors weren't bad at this early hour, and the stairs leading upwards were almost clear. Ducking into a bodega, Benni grabbed a flavored protein stick and a news sheet for later reading. Off again, he strode down the center of the corridor. He made good time until he approached a temporary check point where a platoon of Upstairs Enforcers constricted the entrance, forcing the corridor traffic to veer around their un-muzzled energy weapons. The entrance to the commerce district was blockaded by the goons. Their dark face shields hid their faces, but their helmets left just enough of the side of their necks exposed that a good knife thrust could disable them. Benni faced forward, and swept past the cordon, expecting the press of flesh to keep his mug anonymous.

Forced to take a detour, he counted two streets on the right, and ducked down the third, which was obscured in shadow. In a few strides, he stopped at the entrance to Enclave Deptford, one of the oldest families in the Temperdis and waited for them to process his coded pass. They were more alert than usual. No wonder with a platoon of Enforcers on their level.

They let him pass, but only after he paid a slug for a family escort. Deptford consisted of several hundred souls and a number of interconnecting streets whose central location made transit through the enclave lucrative. Benni followed his escort down a couple of the passageways and then into a dormitory room, akin to dormitory rooms all over the Temperdis. With a flip of an unseen lever, part of the back wall opened silently onto a hidden room inside the commerce district. Benni stepped inside and the door shut behind him. Only then did a glow button light up, which Benni pushed once and waited.

If the next room was safe-be, he would be let out of the chamber. If not, then he would wait. With Enforcers in the immediate vicinity, Benni could be waiting for a long time. His eyes adjusted to the very dim light. With time to kill, so it seemed, Benni removed his belt which doubled as a sharpening strop, and started sharpening his knives. He fought the desire to glance at the time piece dangling from his neck chain, knowing that it would only make time creep even slower.

He was well into his third knife when the door finally opened.

"Safe-be," a female voice called from the other side, her body hidden by the thick plastmore.

Benni stepped into the storeroom, which was now in serious disarray from a hasty, haphazard search. He recognized the face even if he didn't know her name. "Safe-be," he replied as he kept his eye on the long knife in her right hand. He placed his empty hands in front of his body for her to inspect. When she was satisfied, her knife slid back into its hiding place.

"What are they looking for?" His curiosity was stronger than his sense, not for the first time.

She gave a signal with her fingers indicating the probability of listening bugs in the general vicinity. Even if such devices were not in the room itself, they could be attached to the outside of any of the walls. If she had something specific to say, she wasn't going to spill it in this room.

"I don't know. No one seems to know, but they are upset about the poison cloud last night on Level Eight."

She had given him enough of a clue to cue him in on the gist of the Enforcer search. They were ripping into every business they could find for some clue as to who was responsible. None were immune. Benni had handled enough documents to know that Master Yasher's shop was at risk. Although Benni knew little about the context of the papers he created, he could only imagine the dangerous things that Master Yasher had forged. They could be implicated if the Enforcers got a hold of even a scrap of their work, and easily be made to vanish.

Benni pointed to the door asking silently if it was clear for him to walk the passage. She touched the wall and flipped open a tiny panel, pushing one of the buttons inside. Benni strained his ears and was rewarded with a series of buzzes from an old-fashioned, electric dot-dash device. Whatever the code was, it was beyond him. It was probably a prearranged signal rather than words in sequence. Words in code were possible to break, but anything prearranged was impenetrable.

She closed the panel with a flurry of panic. "They heard something and are returning."

Benni looked to the back wall, but she shook her head. Instead she unbuttoned the top of her pants and stepped into him. In a flash both of them had their pants around their ankles and she stroked his cock to the easy hardness of youth. Leaning back on a crate, she pulled him down on top of her, and he slipped into her as if she were his fuck bunny. She started moaning and shaking her hips underneath him with a loud passion, even as he forgot that he was supposed to thrust his cock deeper into her just wetting pussy. The entire scene was unnerving. She bucked him once as a reminder, and he responded by calling out and moaning just as loudly as her and ramming his hips into her own.