Chapter 92

Three weeks later.

Time: Tuesday, August 5, 2019 7:58 PM GHT

Mark paused to stretch as he worked at a library console at the Red Mall complex. Outside there was a single hour left for evening sunlight. Tonight would be their first night of the summer season with six full hours of darkness and twilight. How precious the darkness was, and how enjoyable when you had so little of it. But the season was progressing and in Mark’s opinion, the balance between night and day was almost back to normal. In three days the northern hemisphere would be at mid-summer, the same day the Bee Park would start its three-week autumn and Wobanakik would start its nine-week autumn. It still felt strange to work with the multiple seasonal timescales. Mark thought the novelty of having different environments and yearly cycles so close at hand might never wear off.

And it wasn’t just the enclosed environments. The discovery of the pyramid in the equatorial mountains had been a wake-up call for them all. The Society began an intense investigation of the satellite image database. Even the people at Manhattan joined the effort. The Society now had a much more complete understanding of the geography of the world.

In addition to the three southern continents, the southern hemisphere had six very large islands, ranging in size from 269,000 to 786,000 square kilometers, with a range of southern latitudes from 29 to 58 degrees. There were no such large islands in the northern hemisphere. Rather, the northern half of the planet contained more than a hundred islands ranging in size from a tiny 10 sq km to over 20,000 sq km. In contrast, the southern hemisphere had very few islands in this range, the largest being the 4,000 sq km circular island precisely centered at the south pole.

And on every single continent and island the Society had studied, there was evidence of Builder construction. Their artifacts were everywhere, nothing as large as the Great Hexagon, but many grand buildings similar in size of the equatorial pyramid, often occupying a quarter square kilometer with their footprint. There were hundreds of such pyramid-size complexes on the planet and thousands of much smaller ones, ranging in size from modern office buildings to what appeared to be hexagonal homes for single extended families. Many of the castle-like buildings on the smallest islands seemed like fanciful vacation getaways.

Were there other refugees from Earth here on this planet? All the imagery so far studied suggested no. Except for the Great Hexagon, every other complex examined seemed dormant. Only their current location was currently showing illumination. Even the equatorial pyramid was now dark. It shut itself down moments after the last humans left it, leaving the Society with the sober realization that it might be years before all the members of Party #4 were found. Their intense search of the pyramid had proven to be only partially successful.

Three weeks ago, On the GHT morning of June 13^th, Cordelia, Katelyn, and Sarah evacuated to Green Mall and became Boost Team 8 at the Bee Park the next day. Sydney volunteered to stay with Aggie’s search team, and it took them only a few hours to find Julie and Hailey. The two women were very receptive to the prospect of joining a larger society, and with Sydney became Boost Team 9 on July 4^th.

Two days after finding Julie and Hailey, Aggie’s search team was contacted by three additional women at the pyramid, Caroline, Ginny, and Kaylee. They had a remarkable story to tell. Two groups of four women each had abandoned the pyramid many weeks earlier, Laura’s group hiking down to the north and Kelly’s group skiing down the southern slopes. Both groups were well provisioned for extended exploration, and neither group had mentioned any timeline for returning. They were gone, off exploring the great expanse of Africa.

The census counter and Mark’s employment logs were showing all eight women were still alive, Laura, Morgan, Natalie and Samantha in the north and Kelly, Nicole, Jordan and Claire in the south. A search of the satellite images of the highlands revealed nothing, but there had been ample time for both groups to reach the great sub-tropical forests. The best the Society could do is keep studying the images and someday hope to capture clues to the two groups’ locations. Meanwhile Caroline, Ginny, and Kaylee joined the Society and eventually became Boost Team 10 starting on Friday, July 8^th.

On Saturday July 9^th, a search team consisting of Emily, Heather and Hannah made the Society’s latest great find for new survivors. They found four women trapped in a building about five kilometers west of Yellow Brick University, and their names were Margaret, Emma, Alexis, and Farideh. The four women had been trapped since Christmas Eve and they were overjoyed to be rescued. They also related the horrible fate of Party #6.

The party had started out as nine couples who were already dating each other. They were the fourth group of eighteen people to ride the elevator from the underground tunnel at Castle Commonwealth, departing just after the two trips made by Beta Sigma Rho to Black Mall. The group arrived at their lounge buffet approximately two hours before sunset, and unlike the other parties, they sensed immediately that something was seriously wrong. The elevator ride had taken far to long to be reasonable, three and a half minutes, and none of them had felt any motion. They were astonished to find themselves above ground, and after a quick discussion agreed to ignore the buffet and explore the building first.

It was a confusing couple of hours. The building seemed fully functional. There was even an elevator in the library below the lounge, but the damn keyboard went dead as soon as somebody touched the first key. Nothing they saw had an easy explanation. It seemed inconceivable a frat house would have such an opulent setting, the space and the quality of the workmanship just didn’t make sense. For a while the group congregated in the multimedia room on the ground floor, about half the people debating what was going on while the other half briefly watched a sports game on the huge TV. As a group, they all went back upstairs to the lounge shortly after 4 PM, about an hour before the network stations would break the news of the Intruder.

What to do? The outside light was fading and none of their cell phones were working. Several people commented how strange that was, saying reception had been decent before they entered the tunnel and now they were above ground again just a short distance away. Could the building be shielding their phones from the cell towers? Someone suggested it was more likely some technical problem had occurred with the local cell tower.

What to do? The solution seemed obvious, especially after several people admitted they were uneasy whether they actually had Castle Commonwealth’s permission to be here. Was their invitation some sort of cruel hoax? The group agreed they should all return to Burlington. But before they left a few people tried the buffet and loudly exclaimed that the food was fabulous. They lingered for a while to eat, and it was well past evening twilight when they finally left through the door adjacent to the lounge elevator. The night sky was densely clouded, and after a bit of confusion about orientation they headed off in a westerly direction.

They walked for three hours in a state of constant bewilderment. Castle Commonwealth was supposed to be a mall integrated with residential areas. Nothing they saw resembled either. Their path was a random walk through one great maze. All around them were great buildings which were often windowless. Warehouses? Factories? And there were no signs anywhere. And there were no roads for vehicles! Their path alternated between enclosed walkways to park-like areas between buildings. Where were the roads?!

The construction seemed complete. Outside the stone paths were tastefully landscaped and the walkways inside always impeccably clean. “Who would build like this?!”, people kept exclaiming. The party was finding it very difficult to keep a straight course. Everything around them seemed to be laid out on a vast hexagonal grid, all the buildings, all the walkways, and with all the seeming factories and warehouses around them, there was never any access for trucks. It all seemed so absurd.

They finally took shelter in an inviting looking building shortly after 8 PM. They were tired, frustrated, a bit wet from the strange cold drizzle, and more than anything else profoundly confused. If only their phones would work! But at least their new location was providing some welcome amenities, a kitchen and dining facilities and a large lounge area with an adjacent restroom facility. The building’s interior was very strange, multi-level hexagonal rooms joined by spiraling oval staircases.

They explored the building for an hour. Unknown to them they had found one of the very few structures within several kilometers that was permanently unlocked, and often couples would wander outside for a few minutes, vaguely scanning the cloudy night sky for a glimpse of familiar stars.

At the end of their search, they gathered in the lounge and compared notes. They were in a building with a dozen split levels, most of which were completely underground. It was curious that the builders had excavated so deeply, four-meter ceilings for each of the basement levels. So far underground, what was the point? Land was fairly cheap here. It was certainly plentiful. Why spend the money to build deep down?

And all the storage rooms! Vast stores of supplies, but no way to re-provision in bulk. It appeared everything must have been carried in by hand. And the building also seemed to have just one giant restroom. How bizarre was that? After cracking a few jokes about taking coed living to new levels, they realized they would have to share the facility for real. The women went first.

What to do? People were nervous about just staying here overnight. It felt too much like trespassing. But they were tired, and then more than tired. Many of the men were being struck by sudden urges to hug and kiss their girlfriends, and they were delighted to find the women extremely receptive to their advances. One women shouted out that the sofa she was on would fold out into a bed. A quick investigation revealed that was true of the other sofas as well. In a short period of time the lounge was transformed into one gigantic bedroom.

Farideh related their ordeal in a dead voice. The months of isolation and imprisonment had made the nightmare seem like just that, a bad and unreal dream. She was lying with her boyfriend Madhi, lying in the darkened lounge area in bed with her lover. They were petting each other, stroking each other, arousing each other. Farideh had never gone this far before, would never have dreamed of allowing Madhi to undress her in public, but that’s just what she had done. She was naked from the waist down, wearing only an opened shirt and a bra pushed up around her neck to expose her breasts.

She was kneeling on top of Madhi, straddling him with her knees, playing a game she and her lover had just invented, a game of catch and suckle. The rules were that Madhi could not lift his head off the pillow below him, and that if he managed to touch the hard nipples on the jiggling breasts above him, Farideh would have to drop her breasts for a moment and hold still and allow him a good suckle. And all the while a very erect penis was pressing against the soft inside of her thigh. Farideh was in ecstasy, and the only way she wanted this game to end was to have Madhi hug her and then roll her over and mount her from above.

“This is so strange,” a small corner of her mind commented. “Where are my morals? Gone. Isn’t that strange? And the game ... Oh!” Madhi had caught her, flicking the tip of his tongue against her sensitive left nipple. Farideh had not expected him to be able to stick it out that far. She quickly and obediently dropped down to let him nurse, loving the feel of her tit sliding into his mouth, feeling him work the nipple and the milk ducts beneath with his lips and tongue. It felt so nice. It felt like paradise, and Farideh held her lover’s head as he suckled and she whispered that she loved him.

And the game was so curious. The small voice in the back of her mind kept asking puzzling questions. Where had the game come from? They had invented it of course, Madhi and Farideh, but how? It was so strange. Farideh distinctly remembered discussing and agreeing to the rules, but she also remembered French kissing Madhi at the same time, his soft and electric tongue, the taste of his lips, and his beautiful black eyes, eyes that were staring into hers, eyes so full of love, so full of appreciation.

Her lover! She had hoped for this, hoped and longed for it so badly, and now she knew! Madhi loved her, he truly loved her. His eyes had miraculously become a window into his soul, allowing Farideh to see a heart that was full of love for her, love and desire. And Farideh felt like a woman in a way she never felt before. She would do anything to satisfy her lover’s desire. It was time for them to mate. Any other action would be unthinkable. She gazed into her lover’s eyes and pleaded silently for coitus.

Rough hands grabbed Farideh’s hips from behind and lifted her butt, and then an explosion of pressure formed on her labia an instant before she felt her body horribly invaded, an uncaring penis brutally tearing her hymen before plunging into her depths. Farideh cried out in anguish from the pain as powerful hands squeezed her breasts from above and then lifted her away from her lover. Within seconds her body was vertical and suspended in the air, her weight supported by two cruel hands with viselike grips on her breasts and a raping pole impaling and tearing her vagina.

Farideh screamed, her eyes sharing her horror with her lover for a moment before the man behind her began to shake her. The eye contact broken, Farideh tried to twist her body and uncouple from the penis within her, but her turning only stimulated her rapist. He started thrusting up into her, hard quick pumps that lubricated his cock with Farideh’s blood. The woman could feel it trickling down her thigh, and she screamed at the pain and violation.

Madhi was on his feet by this time, screaming at the man behind her and trying to hit him. The man laughed uproariously and turned, pumping Farideh without mercy and keeping her positioned between himself and Madhi, using Farideh as a human shield and all the while the penis kept drilling her, plunging her. Farideh continued to scream, her eyes pleading with her lover to do something, anything, and all the while a deep bruising pain was building on her cervix and the back wall of her vagina. Her body was not designed to take this kind of punishment.

Madhi rushed in and was repulsed, and then the man behind Farideh charged, forcing Madhi to retreat and then stumble backwards as the low sofa bed caught the backs of his knees. The rapist surged forward, tipping Madhi over and then slamming him with the combined weight of his and Farideh’s bodies. The massive explosion of pressure on his chest drove the wind out of Madhi, and before he could recover the man above him and Farideh began punching his head, vicious simultaneous blows to both sides of his head. The concussions drove Madhi senseless and Farideh started to scream, both from her continued rape and the sight of blood flowing from Madhi’s ears.