Chapter 43

Time: Friday, February 1, 2019 7:33 AM

Jada, Lynn, and Akiko were in an intense discussion on whether to send Kiyoko the go code for seizing the Black Mall lounge. The scene outside Jacob’s Bar and Grill was chaotic and it seemed a perfect opportunity, except for the fact that there was still one compadre and one taskmistress missing.

At 7:17 AM, Uno and the two men of A-team had come charging into Jacob’s with Hernando to check out Ricardo’s initial warning cry. Uno was horrified to see that Jacob’s door to the entrance to the Mall had been lowered, and his first thought was that an armed enemy might be in the Bar and Grill with them. Ducking low behind a dining table, he yelled at Diego to go get more help. Uno, Alfredo, and Hernando then began checking out the first floor.

Diego returned with Alfonso, and the two slipped up the stairs and searched the second floor of Jacob’s. Satisfied the place was empty, they carefully made their way back down the stairs, where Uno waved a sign to them that the store was clear. Diego walked over to the door and pushed the access button. Ten seconds later the door completed its four-meter rise.

Diego peered outside left and right down the corridor. The time was now 7:27 AM, and by closing the door before she fled, Amber had provided herself a critical extra few minutes to run out of sight. She was now panting in a large drug store at spiral-mark 69,360 along the inside arc, just three stores away from the locked door of Puppets Galore!

It had taken a lot of guts to follow the sprinting Ricardo rather than running away from him, but Amber correctly reasoned her best chances were on the side of Black Mall’s home complex where Uno’s adversaries had appeared. She had risked her life that Ricardo wouldn’t turn around and see her running after him, and the risk had paid off.

What she would do now was unclear. Just hiding for a while and letting things develop seemed the most reasonable plan she could think of. Perhaps she would look around the drug store for some sort of weapon. Amber was convinced that she had signed her death warrant by escaping from Uno’s group, and she had no intention to submit meekly to Ricardo’s tender mercies if she were caught.

Time: 7:33 AM

Uno and four compadres were plainly visible hanging around the entrance of Jacob’s Bar and Grill. There was no audio for Jada or her team to hear, but they could guess what he was yelling about. He was livid that Amber had disappeared. Lynn spoke and broke the silence in the observation room. “If we’re going to risk extracting Mark, we need to decide right now.”

Jada nodded, her mind racing so fast it almost hurt. Mark and his group had already been notified a few minutes previously, and they were abandoning their sanctuary as quickly as they could.

Hell, thought Jada. How could she have been so stupid?! Mark and Toshi and Frida should have been positioned at the start of the mission! But the success of the lockdown mission was based on the assumption that everything would be unobserved. It just didn’t occur to anybody that failure from one perspective would open up an opportunity for success in another.

Jada reviewed her reasoning with Lynn and Akiko one final time. “We’re assuming the stairwell entrance into Jacob’s is critical. Jenaro must be there guarding it. He has to be. Otherwise someone could lock the door and trap Uno in the Mall. Okay! Send Kiyoko the go code!” Two seconds later the Matrix sensors in Esau’s Bar and Grill started flashing repeating bursts of three quick yellow flashes. Jada silently prayed she wasn’t sending two people to their deaths.

Flashback: Time: Forty minutes previously, in the bee sanctuary of Black Mall diamond array

Mark, Frida, and Toshi had spent the last several hours monitoring the progress of the Black Mall operation, and then shortly before 7 AM Mark and Frida started feeling restless. The sun was up and it was a beautiful if fake day outside, and Toshi suggested the two go outside and stay nearby but also get some exercise. Toshi would continue to monitor mission progress on the Leophone and would call them if they were needed.

About a hundred meters from their home, Mark and Frida started martial arts training that quickly turned into full-speed sparring. Frida tried some fairly advanced maneuvers and Mark was thrilled for a moment with her rapidly improving skills, but then she did something insanely aggressive, attempting a takedown by sweeping Mark’s legs. If the movement were successful, she’d have a commanding position on him, but the setup left her horribly exposed and Mark scored two potentially crippling blows, a knuckle-punch to her throat and a powerful backhand directly to her solar-plexus. Both times he carefully pulled the punches and made just feather-light taps against her body.

And then his legs were swept and he hit the ground with a thud with Frida straddling him and landing on top of his groin. Mark gave a soft “umph” from the impact.

They both stopped and looked at each other. “Frida,” said Mark, “that maneuver was absolutely absurd.”

“No it wasn’t. I have you just where I want you.”

“But...” Mark gasped. Frida had lifted most of her weight off him and was rubbing the bottom of her pubis up and down, pressing lightly against his groin and penis. Mark’s mind seemed to flash as it attempted an extraordinary shift in perspective. The attacking opponent pinning him had transformed into a lovely and aroused woman wearing only a bathrobe, and the bottom of the robe was open and she was rubbing her sex against his. The soft cotton of his own bathrobe was only barrier between their genitals.

“Frida,” he whispered.

“Mark,” she whispered back, and then she stared at him, pleading for him to lock eyes with her.

There were no words, just infinitely complex constructions of emotions from both their minds, meeting and entwining and building something faster than either could comprehend. They saw the entirety of each other’s lives, the intimate understanding of each other’s childhoods, the hopes, the fears, the dreams, the desires, and how each child had become the person before them.

Frida started to cry, and in the slowness of accelerated time, she removed her bathrobe from her shoulders and let it fall insanely slowly to her waist. Then she began to arch her body over Mark, eventually so far over that the eye contact was broken. Both their minds returned to normal time.

Frida completed her maneuver. She had positioned her left breast over Mark’s face and she thrust her chest forward, offering herself to her beloved. Mark stared at the tit before his eyes. It was so incredibly beautiful, fuller than Jada’s breasts or even pregnant Toshi’s. But beyond the sexual attractiveness lay the deep meaning from Frida’s mind. Directly behind her left breast lay her heart, and that was the true gift Frida was offering now. Frida was asking Mark to take her as his wife.

“It is February, you know,” she whispered above him as she waited to be suckled. “Aren’t women allowed to ask men to marry them in February?”

“Uh...” Mark laughed. “Something like that I guess. But I thought it was at the end of the month on leap-years.”

“There are no leap-years anymore,” whispered Frida. “Besides, Februaries are a lot shorter now. We have to make allowances.” She paused and added, “Please Mark.”

It was never his intention to refuse her. His tongue came up and licked the nipple, and then his lips kissed and pulled the offered flesh into his mouth. Frida petted his head as he suckled her, crying and whispering the word, “husband...”

Toshi came running towards them from their home. “Hey guys! So sorry to break this up, but we have to evacuate! Now!”

Time: 7:35 AM

A shivering Whitney was being held prisoner in the lounge by an annoyed looking Jessica who was armed with a wicked looking Bowie knife. Whitney had been rudely pulled out of her shower a few minutes ago. She had been up for the last hour and was preparing for her daily shift with A-team when Jessica had burst into her shower area with the knife and ordered her out. Whitney barely had time to grab her bathrobe as she was hustled into the lounge. It was a drill Uno had forced her to practice several times, but one look at Jessica’s wild eyes told her this wasn’t a drill. So Whitney sat meekly in a chair, her hair dripping wet. She was shivering and trying to look harmless.

Both Jessica and Whitney gasped in shock as the lounge elevator door began to open. Brandi! And Kiyoko!!! Jessica’s jaw dropped, and then she raised her knife and growled an order for Kiyoko to obey her.

Kiyoko laughed and displayed her gun and an even larger kitchen knife from Esau’s. “Not today, Baby Jessica!” she shouted. “You want to rumble with me?! I’m ready!”

And then Brandi pulled out their group’s fifth and final pistol. Brandi and Kiyoko had never fired a weapon in their lives, but Jessica didn’t know that. Brandi flashed Jessica the most wild, gleefully evil smile she could manage, and then she and Kiyoko fanned out with the obvious intent of attacking Jessica from two sides simultaneously.

“Drop your pants, Baby Jessica!” Kiyoko howled insanely as she waved and twisted her long slicing knife. “It’s time for your rectal exam!” Jessica’s lips quivered in horror, and Kiyoko continued, “Don’t worry, this knife might look sharp, but I promise, this’ll be the last rectal exam you’ll ever get! Hee Hee!”

Jessica quickly decided she wanted no part of this insanity and she made a dash to escape through the kitchen. Brandi and Kiyoko allowed the maneuver but pursued her from five meters distant. Kiyoko kept giving fake maniacal laughs and calling out derisions and how she was going to disembowel the Baby and then slice her intestines into pieces for little sausages.