Chapter 1

Things had changed, but people on Earth needed the familiar, so even while some institutions crumbled and fell away, others remained to give people something to cling to. The Clark County Fair has been going on every July for the past hundred and fifty years, and it was going on today, nearly two and a half years after the announcement that aliens were coming to destroy the world. There were a lot of people on Earth who weren't going to be able to do much about it -- and EVERYBODY needed a little time away from the harsh realities of the situation. The 4-H club kids were there with their animals and plants for the livestock show and the various other competitions, the handicrafters and the cooks and the farmers were all there looking for prizes or markets for their various wares in the exposition barns and -- perhaps most important -- the carnival midway was in full swing with its rides and shills and 'games of chance' and other entertainments. The throngs were everywhere from the riding rings to the restrooms -- where at least one odd phenomenon was going on: Apparently, the end porta-potty was ALWAYS occupied, and people came out regularly -- but no one in line ever saw anyone go in...

The changes were there for all to see, but they were becoming the norm, allowing people to ignore them, usually -- and in some cases, they were just extensions of phenomena that had been in place for some time... Something about the fair had always led women to make questionable fashion choices -- whether it was the heat or just a certain feeling of freedom wasn't certain, but there it was -- and this year, pressures generated by the urgent need to be desirable to a selectee for the Confederacy's Defense Forces on a moment's notice had driven just about everyone to serious extremes. Standards that two years before would have been considered 'decent' were by the wayside; teenage girls, in particular, wore almost nothing. Somewhere, somehow, a consensus had formed in the fashion world that going bottomless was unsanitary -- and that was the only limit; the uniform of the day for teenage girls was a bikini bottom or micro-mini skirt (usually a jean skirt) and flip-flops, and an over-the shoulder handbag that tended to be heavy, but contained whatever the wearer figured she just HAD to have to survive if she wandered into a pickup... Even THAT 'standard' was breached, here and there, by girls who wanted to be cutting-edge; that minority ditched the panty or the skirt (if there was a skirt, it was likely that there was no panty beneath -- that was the compromise of the pseudo-brave) and wandered the midway and the paths in nothing but flip-flops and a purse -- and perhaps some body paint, something that was enjoying ROARING sales...

Older women tended to go with the minimum that presented them well -- or what they thought did, anyway. Some could -- and did -- compete on an even footing with their younger counterparts -- and a fair number who really shouldn't have tried duplicated the effort...

Did it lead to some kind of licentious bedlam? No. When one or two or five women do something like this, it's an irresistible lure; when a couple of thousand do, it is sensory overload. Things had been drifting in this direction for two years -- plenty of time for everyone to get over the whole thing. Oh, it was nice -- a veritable wonderland of exposed flesh -- but it wasn't abnormal in any way any more, so everyone tended to ignore it -- even the males ignored it while enjoying it.

It wasn't a 'look, but don't touch, ' situation, either; that wall had come down, too. No still meant no -- and if anything, penalties for crossing the line to rape were more viciously enforced. But the universal availability of nanobot birth control and cures for most sexually-transmitted diseases, coupled with a need to become sexually sophisticated that extended down to the age of fourteen brought the availability of sex to the average guy up to a level where it had probably never been before. Male sexual advertising was the newest fad; the codpiece was back in style, among other things. But a CAP card with a score above six point five on it made you a preferred mate no matter WHAT you looked like; guys who had never been able to compete before suddenly found themselves very much in demand...

Women were getting used to having casual samplings made of their various charms; a pat on the ass or a squeeze of a breast in the workplace that would have gotten a guy fired just a couple of years before for sexual harassment was now confirmation to a woman that, yes, she WAS desirable; instead of freaking out, the majority now treated casual touching by a male as a compliment. Of course, there were women out there that didn't want it -- and you could pick them out of a crowd pretty easily by the way they dressed. With the vast majority headed the other direction, they pretty much got their wish...

When the ability to have sex in public becomes a survival trait, it's going to happen. The planning committee for this year's fair actually set aside areas where they hoped to keep it contained -- but just like indecent exposure, prohibitions against 'public displays of affection' were by the wayside. Couples were fucking on the Ferris wheel -- regularly. In fact, the carnival had gone to some expense to redesign the seats with padding and altered restraints so that couples could enjoy sexual activity on the ride in safety and comfort -- and the modifications had paid for themselves handsomely after VERY little advertisement. The freedom to bring one of their most powerful weapons to bear in public gave women certain advantages, too. Boyfriend says no to buying the big teddy bear? No problem -- after you've knelt up right there on the midway and fished his cock out of his pants and sucked on it a bit, looking up at him with big, soulful eyes, his resolve will no doubt crack... So what if you get looks from old grandmas who grew up in the Stone Age when you had to cover up everything from head to foot -- it's good advertising. If boyfriend turns out to be not sufficiently malleable, somebody who IS will probably drift over to watch enviously... The tools and thought process had been around forever, but free play had been clamped down on pretty hard for quite a while; now it was 'weapons free' for sexual wiles...

Looks counted for a lot, as usual -- but it had been pounded into the collective consciousness that looks were NOT a selection criterion for the CDF and that if you managed to make the trip, your looks could be altered radically. For those who couldn't really afford to expose themselves too radically, T-shirts with 'I'm performance-oriented!' prominently displayed were all the rage... 'So what if Sugar Daddy is sixty? If he doesn't have a heart attack before he's picked up, he'll be twenty-five and hunky... ' 'Yeah, Edna weighs two-seventy-five and has tits that hang like gunnysacks to her waist -- but she can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch and fucks like a carnival ride! I'll shrink her and her jugs down to something more pleasant to look at when the time comes -- in the meantime, I'm being well taken care of... ' More and more of this type of thought process was appearing... and it was a good thing for those involved, in most cases.

Moving a whole company of Marines into the area was a bear, more or less; Marines had a standard augmentation package that made them two meters tall, for one thing -- which was ESPECIALLY prominent in females. Hot looking babes that stood six feet seven just weren't normal. But even infusing guys that height into the population wasn't going to work perfectly...

"Hey, Buddy!"

Lance Corporal Eduardo Colon gazed down in surprise at the pint of peanuts tugging on his arm. "Yeah?"

"Come here a minute, willya?" The girl started dragging him off to an area between two booths. Ed thought about resisting, but it would make a scene... Looking around, he noticed a heavier, Hispanic-looking girl following them. Glancing at his watch, he noted that he had twenty minutes to get into position, anyway...

Once between the booths, the girl stopped tugging and stood there, fists on hips, her stare underlined by the fine pair of conical titties standing out from her chest. "Okay, so what's going on?"

Ed glanced around -- nobody but the other girl seemed to be following the conversation. "Excuse me?"

"Look, Dude, any monkey can tell you're a Marine -- you stand out like a sore thumb!" the girl announced. "Something is up -- wanna tell me about it?"

'Shit!' "I don't know what you're talking about," Ed bluffed.

"Yeah, right! Even if you weren't fourteen feet tall, the way you walk watching everything at once would give you away!" the girl insisted. "Quit jerking me around and maybe I can help!"

"Yeah? Like how?" Ed demanded.

"Protective coloration," the girl replied, eyeing him narrowly. "Camouflage, I think it's called. You need someone else with you so you don't scream what you are just by being here..."

"The female is correct," sounded in his ear. "Perhaps you can enlist her aid without exposing anything."

"I'm on vacation," Ed grunted.

"Liar!" The girl stomped a flip-flop shod foot, throwing up a puff of dust.

Behind Ed, the other girl muttered, "Maybe we shouldn't..."

"Quiet, Mindy -- I know what I'm doing." The girl's eyes hadn't left his. "If you want, I can go out there and start yelling 'Marine!' and pointing and see what happens..."

Ed could kill her where she stood -- and he MIGHT get the other one before SHE could move, too -- but it wasn't even CLOSE to the mission parameters. "You'd just make things a lot harder on a whole bunch of people," he replied reasonably.

"I figured. Are you gonna get some people here, then?"

"How old are you, Honey?"

"Old enough." The eyes never left his.

"The highest probability assessment of her motivations indicates that she will assist you if you provide her with access to the extraction," the AI intoned.

"No shit," Ed muttered under his breath. "All right, Honey -- suppose you prove that."

The girl dug in her purse -- a big shoulder bag, the wide strap of which crossed from her left shoulder between her pert breasts to her right hip. "Here," she muttered, producing a CAP card.

Somehow, the six point one on it wasn't surprising at all. The age was, though -- the tiny thing was fifteen! "What about her?" Ed asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the other girl.

"Fish it out, Mindy."

The heavy girl circled around front and handed him her card, gazing at him solemnly. That SHE was fifteen wasn't that much of a surprise, although she was carrying a good bit of baby fat and her legs still had that undefined, childlike look. That the other girl was running things was also not surprising; Mindy had a three point seven -- and a LOT of sheep in her. The other girl was obviously the sheepdog... "Okay, I guess I can deal with you directly, and not your momma," Ed grunted. "Is she here?"

The girl shrugged. "Somewhere. Let's not get into that. You were going to tell me what's going on." She was staring him down again...

"Maybe I was trying to decide whether to stun you and leave you here!" Ed retorted.

The girl's age finally showed as her nerve began to crack. "Come on!" she cajoled. "Am I that bad?"

"Well, no..." Ed shook his head. She was a kid -- except behind those eyes. Fucking her would make him feel like a child-molester. "But you're not my type."

"What about her?" the girl's eyes flicked to her girlfriend. "Show him how good you give head, Mindy."

The chunky girl glanced at her, glanced at him, glanced back at her, and moved to kneel before Ed. "That isn't necessary," Ed got out before something stupid happened. "I don't have time for it."

"What DO you have time for?" the girl asked, back in the saddle.

"Not much." Ed sighed. "Okay, yes, we're doing a pickup here -- a BIG one. You really don't need my help, if you want to go..."

"You need ours, though," the girl replied. "I'm just the first person to see what's going on -- there will be a bunch more before you get where you're going," she cocked her head, "which is?"

"I'm heading for the horse show ring," Ed supplied. "It might not be a prime location for you." He eyed her. "You might want to go to the amphitheater."

The girl cocked her head. "What if I stay with you?"

"You'll probably be all right," Ed admitted.

"Good." The girl nodded and fished two rubber bands from her purse, making a pair of dog-ear pony-tails in her hair in short order. "Carry me -- let me ride on your hip. Mindy, you stick with us. Hold his hand, if you can."

Ed blinked. "And this helps -- how?"

The girl grimaced. "I look even younger than I am, right? Well, you're Daddy, now... Your height won't be so obvious with me hanging off you -- and Mindy will help..."