Chapter 5

Twelve years later, Walter Madigan passed away in his sleep. His wife, Alicia, and her seventeen-year-old son, Zack, who knew his real father was Jake Pestova, returned for a time to Alicia’s hometown of Gallatin Heights in Montana. Once a small community fifty miles away from Bozeman, and almost the same distance from Helena, it was now only another of the many seedy suburbs of the sprawling twenty-second century cities that spread over the lower half of the state.

Civilization was on its last legs and spiraling down rapidly. Over fifty percent of the population was impotent by now, and almost as many people were dying of the new cancer as were being murdered.

The giant corporations which had more or less taken over the world ten years ago were coming apart now as competent personnel became increasingly scarce and holes in their operations leaked out millions in lost revenue. It was becoming common practice in hostile takeovers to simply assassinate the ruling board of directors of a corporation and set up one’s own. Ironically, the first attempt of that nature had been Blacker’s failed efforts to take over Tomlin Security.

In the last two years, three members of the Supreme Board of Directors of the United States of America had been assassinated. Transportation was unsafe outside the Continental U.S. as two strato-jets had been shot down by terrorists in the last six months. A nuclear ‘device’ was detonated off the coast of Maine as an unknown group attempted to smuggle it into New York harbor.

Gangs ruled the larger cities at night. It became popular, once again, to carry a sidearm for protection as the police were completely overwhelmed by organized gang violence. The biggest difference between city life in 2101 and life in the old west was the availability of personal armor and infrared eyewear.

On a planetary scale, the population was down to around two billion; maybe three. No one really knew for certain, anymore, how many people were still alive on earth. Wars were breaking out everywhere, it seemed. Several nuclear devices were detonated in Africa and China. But, so far, an all-out nuclear war had not yet occurred. It was only a matter of time, though.

That was the reason why Alicia and Zack moved inland, away from the large, metropolitan targets. They reasoned, ‘Who would want to bomb Bozeman?’ The rest of the Tabor clan was moving inland away from the coast, also. The ship to take them all to a planetary paradise called New Eden was only eight months away and Alicia vividly remembered her apocalyptic visions from when she had been mind-linked with Béla.

Tanya and Lisa ducked instinctively as another artillery shell sailed noisily overhead. “Where are they?” Tanya yelled, unable to mentally hear Lisa through the deafening sounds of exploding artillery shells.

Two of Jackie’s half-brothers had been working in Nigeria when war broke out. Her full brother, Jake Hedron, Chairman of Tomlin Security, sent his two best agents, she and Lisa, into the war zone to get his half-brothers and anyone else they could rescue, out.

It upset the Chairman of Tomlin that one of his best agents was his grandmother, Tanya, but she insisted on going as soon as she heard about the mission. They were her grandchildren, after all. But, he put his foot down and absolutely forbade his wife, Tabatha, to go with them. Risking his half-sister and his grandmother was more than enough to upset him. His wife was too valuable both to Tomlin and to him, personally, to allow her to go, too.

“I don’t know!” Lisa yelled back. “They’re supposed to be right here!” They were at the barracks where the Americans were supposed to have been housed. The buildings were in shambles from artillery fire with only two still standing.

Lisa closed her eyes and called out. ‘Fred! Charlie! Where are you?’

There was no response. She wasn’t surprised. The two missing men were third generation and male – their special mental abilities even more limited than their healing capabilities. Each should have some empathic powers, perhaps enough to hear Lisa’s psychic call, but that was about it. Telepathic powers seemed to favor the females more than the males in this family.

‘Lisa? Is that you, Sis?’

“I hear them!” Lisa cried out to Tanya.

“Where are they?” Tanya yelled.

“I don’t know!” ‘Where the hell are you?’

‘I don’t know! We’ve been captured. I can’t see. It’s dark where we are!’

“They’re not here!” Lisa said, less loudly. She sat down on a piece of crumbled wall. “They’ve been taken somewhere.”

“Oh, great!” Tanya grumbled. “Any ideas?”

“Their thoughts are too faint,” Lisa replied, worried. “I’ll have to wait ‘til it’s quieter.” They ducked again as another shell flew overhead. The sound kept getting louder. And louder! It was coming right at them!

“Fuck!” Lisa cried. She flamed her body, creating a force field around them both. The reddish-white flame became a brilliant, solid wall of energy as the shell exploded. The detonation of the falling shell knocked Tanya out cold, shattering her eardrums and rupturing quite a few blood vessels even though she was protected from shell fragments and most of the actual blast by Lisa’s fiery force field.

The fiery ball containing the two girls was blown several hundred meters away from where the artillery shell exploded. It actually became a target of the great guns for several moments until Lisa teleported them both to a more remote area, away from the barracks.

It was evening. The sky was a brilliant red, mostly from the dust, the smoke and the fire caused by the uprising. Tanya opened her eyes and frowned at the dark, fibrous roof a few feet over her head.

Lisa was hovering over her in an instant. She was naked, having burnt her clothes off (again) to save their hides. “Move your eyes from side to side,” she said urgently, staring into Tanya’s eyes. There were still dark splotches of blood in the whites of her eyes.

“What happened?” Tanya said, surprised that her voice sounded quite normal.

“We were hit. You have a concussion,” Lisa said, simply. Tanya closed her eyes. She felt much more comfortable with her eyes closed. She dream-walked out of her body, leaving it asleep – letting it heal.

‘Lisa?’ Tanya said into her friend’s mind from right next to her.

“What?” Lisa replied, both verbally and with her mind, then realized, ‘Oh. You’re dream-walking.’

‘Just leave me sleeping here. Let’s go find your brothers, ‘ Tanya thought into Lisa’s mind.

‘Fine with me, ‘ Lisa thought back. ‘Fred! Can you hear me?’ There was no answer.

‘We must have moved farther away from them, ‘ Tanya suggested. She closed her eyes, leaving an image of her destination in Lisa’s mind so she could follow. An instant later, they were back on the compound. It was quiet, now.

‘Chaaarrrllliiiieeee... ‘ Tanya called out with her mind, imitating the sound from that old Pat Boone flatscreen she saw back when she was an actual teenager.

‘I hear something ... Fred! Wake up! Somebody’s calling... ‘

‘Fred! Charlie! Can you hear me?’ Lisa called out mentally.

Tanya realized she could hear them talking quietly to each other. But she still couldn’t tell where the thoughts were coming from.

‘We’re going to have to triangulate their thoughts, ‘ she thought at Lisa. ‘Let’s separate out.’

One girl changing location at a time, they moved about twenty miles north of the bombed-out barracks, finally locating Lisa’s nephews in what was once a bank building in Ngala. There were perhaps a dozen other American and Euro prisoners.

‘I’ll be right back... ‘ Tanya thought at Lisa. ‘Wait for me!’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Gotta go get my ride, goofball, where’d’ya think I’m going?’ Tanya dream-walked back into her body. After a few minutes, she woke up, feeling a lot better. She teleported back to where Lisa waited.

“Say ‘cheese’,” Tanya grinned at her friend. She was the only blonde in their little trio of Supergirls, so she always got to be the distraction. Tanya’s sexy blond hair and hot, well-proportioned body was always the bait in any of their operations where a sexy distraction was needed. And according to Tanya, a sexy distraction was always needed.

She walked forward out into the open. It was after dusk, but her beautiful blond hair gleamed in the early twilight with a glow all its own.

“Halt!” someone said, standing in the shadows. “State your business!”

“Who? Me?” Tanya said in her best ‘Tootsie’ voice. “I’m lost! Do you have anything to eat? I need to find a phone that works so Daddy can send somebody for me...” She could hear the guard cursing something about stupid American bimbos under his breath.

“Come over here!” Tanya walked a few steps toward the man in the shadows. “That’s far enough. Take your clothes off!” he ordered.

Tanya began to unbutton her blouse. ‘Looks like I’m in, ‘ Tanya thought to Lisa.

She knew Lisa was watching every move made by every person whose mind she could feel in the area. She was beginning to believe that Tomlin’s intelligence was faulty. There were less than a handful of people around them and this was supposed to be the guerrilla’s stronghold.

“Just drop it on the ground,” the guard ‘suggested’ as Tanya held her top out to him hanging from a finger. “Now turn around. I need to see if you’re armed.”

“I have two arms,” Tanya said innocently, holding them out level with the ground and turning. Anticipating a really good gang rape, she found it difficult to act nervous and clumsy, but she did the best she could.

“Walk towards me,” her unseen guard commanded. When she was a few feet from him, he ordered her to stop. “Down on your knees – hands behind your back.”

Tanya looked up at him. He was tall and black. His bright eyes and white teeth contrasted against his dark skin and clothes. He thought he looked scary. To Tanya, he looked sexy as hell. Unknowingly, he radiated his lust at her. He walked around behind her and stood for a moment.

“Am I doing this right?” Tanya asked, making her voice tremble. “Can you take me to a phone? Can you please tell me what’s happening? Things are really scary right now ... I just wanna go home, okay?”

Quietly leaning his rifle against the wall, the guard pulled off his belt and strapped her wrists tightly together.

“Hey! Watch it!” Tanya complained, beginning to act more frightened. The guard pulled her back up onto her feet and shoved her against the wall. “What are you doing?” she cried out, getting more vocal.

“I have a gun and I have this nice, hard club,” he said, showing his teeth in an evil grin and letting his trousers drop around his ankles. “I can use either one on you – depending on how much noise you make. Got it, rich little white girl?”

Tanya widened her eyes and stared at him as she backed against the wall, demonstrating her fear of him. She nodded nervously, not making a sound except her uneven, nervous breathing.

The guard produced a knife – more like a bayonet – and sliced her bra off. Tanya trembled and tried to shy away, then his hand was holding her face, forcing her to look right at him. Then he bent down and pulled down her slacks. Tanya stood frozen in place with the black guard kneeling down in front of her. They stared at each other for a moment.

“I can cut these off, if you prefer,” he said, sounding dangerously quiet.

Tanya jerked, suddenly realizing that he expected her to move her legs so he could continue undressing her. She timidly lifted a foot. He slid her slacks down the rest of her leg.

As he reached for her other leg, she savagely kicked him in the head, knocking him cold. ‘One down... ‘ she excitedly thought to Lisa, waiting somewhere behind her in the darkness. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the belt securing her wrists. She managed to teleport enough of it elsewhere so she could get loose.

She pulled her slacks up and put her blouse back on, sans bra, then continued up the street. Behind her, she heard Lisa approaching the unconscious guard, probably to make sure he didn’t wake up. Tanya wasn’t a murderer. In her entire life, she had killed only a handful of men. And they had badly needed killing. Lisa seemed less ... fastidious ... about death.

There were two more guards. They weren’t as friendly as the single, lone guard had been. Neither of them were just lusting for her, they wanted to hurt the desperate, young American girl. They intended to rape her, then kill her in such a way so she would know she was dying, and slowly. They desperately needed to show the girl what they thought of the interfering, nosy, rich Americans.

Tanya cried out as they grabbed her and ripped off her clothes. They stood her against the wall to take turns raping her. They laughed about how wet she was as the first one shoved his big, black cock into that hot, wet tunnel between her legs.

The black guard’s cock was stretching her pussy as much as Lisa’s sweet Macario did whenever Tanya could corner him for herself for a few minutes.

Tanya’s orgasm began to build as the giant, black cock shoved slowly deeper into her. She trembled and gasped as he filled her insides with his girth and length. Then she came, crying out her pleasure to the cold, brick wall, her legs weakening, afterward.

Tanya could see in their minds what they said to each other about her. ‘See the American slut, her cunt constantly dripping with honeyed desire as she scours the world looking for real men with real cocks, there being none in America, of course, ‘ they laughed. ‘She finds real men here, tonight. Real men to made her honey flow out from between her legs. Tonight she discovers real pleasure from real men, then she will take that pleasure with her to the great beyond.’

Tanya didn’t care what they said – she didn’t plan on going to any ‘great beyond’ anytime soon. She smiled to herself as she felt another wonderful orgasm approaching. That beautiful cock stretched her, owned her, made her come.

She could feel in her mind that the second guard would be more difficult. He hated the Americans. They exploited his country and stole its wealth for themselves. They withheld their needed medicines from the populace, simply to show their supremacy over the blacks of Nigeria. Although he withheld judgment on his friend’s tolerant behavior toward her, he didn’t plan on letting their captive white girl enjoy what he was going to do like she was enjoying herself now.

Tanya cried out her second orgasm as her body was jolted repeatedly against the rough brick wall. “Put it in my ass,” she cried, feeling yet another orgasm building. “I want that marvelous big cock in my ass!”

The guard fucking her stopped, then repositioned his cock so his thick cockhead was pressed against her anus. He shoved. She shrieked. Then he was inside her, fucking her ruptured sphincter with slow but increasing urgency.

The second guard watched, glaring with hatred at the young blonde being fucked in the ass by his fellow guard. That was what he had intended to do to her, to make her cry and beg, but instead she was enjoying it! The slut liked being fucked in the ass! He wondered how she would like having his bayonet shoved up there.

Tanya was crying out and coming, one orgasm after another. Then she felt that wonderfully hard, huge cock spasm deep inside her ass. Her rapist was coming. He groaned his pleasure into her ear, then seemed to relax, leaning against her, pushing her harder into the wall.

Everything was very quiet. She couldn’t hear any gunfire or artillery. Her rapist held his breath, tightly gripping her shoulders, then his hands fell away.

“What?” Tanya twitched in surprise as that huge, beautiful dick slid out of her ass, and the black soldier began to slide down her back. He dropped to his knees and slowly fell over sideways.

Tanya looked around. Lisa was standing behind her, naked, holding a bloody knife almost as long as her arm. Tanya stared at her.

“He was going to stick this in you,” Lisa said calmly. She tossed the blade carelessly away into the darkness.

“It wouldn’t have killed me,” Tanya said in her own defense. “It was just getting to be fun.”

Lisa laughed. “I forget. You like it rough, too. You’re as bad as Mom!” She turned to continue up the street. “Do you want me to run point? You can watch my back for a while.”

“If you want to,” Tanya sighed. “I’m pretty wobbly right now, though. I don’t know how good a backup I would be.”

“Okay, then,” Lisa quipped. “How about we go together?” Tanya grinned and stepped back out into the street with Lisa at her side. Both girls were naked, now. The guards they’d met had cut Tanya’s clothes to shreds and Lisa had burnt hers when she flared to create a force field earlier.

They walked another half-block, then Lisa stopped. “They’re in here!”

The girls stealthily walked toward the unguarded door. As they reached the main entrance, Tanya’s right nipple exploded. She lost her balance and fell against the door frame, a trickle of wet warmth flowing from the bullet hole high on her back. She grunted in shocked surprise and rolled against the wall. She looked outward toward the street looking for movement. ‘Fucker shot me... ‘ she thought to Lisa.

Lisa crouched in the shadow of the door on the other side of the entranceway, mentally searching the darkness across the street for the mind of the sniper.

“There!” Tanya pointed unsteadily. She sent the image to Lisa, who promptly vanished. A scream echoed from the roof of the building across the street. A body hit the ground in the darkness across the street, then Lisa was back.

“Let me see!” she commanded, rolling Tanya around so that her bullet wound was more visible.

“There’s one lodged in your shoulder blade,” Lisa murmured, seeing two bleeding holes in Tanya’s back. She made an image for Tanya to see. “I don’t know where the other one is...”

“Okay, I got it!” Tanya gasped. “One went clear through...” She looked down at her half-healed nipple and broadcast the image to Lisa.

‘That looks like fun... ‘

‘Work now, play later, I promise... ‘ Tanya thought back, then spoke out loud; “Was that it? This is too easy. Where are the rest of the insurgents? Who’s guarding the hostages?”

“Let’s find out!” Lisa said, reaching for the door.

“Wait!” Tanya cried out, still trying to be quiet. “Let’s dream-walk in first. It might be booby trapped.” She sat down on the paved walk of the entranceway and closed her eyes. Lisa didn’t need to lie down. She could simply project her mind into the room and look around while maintaining motor control of her body.

‘Wow! There’re enough explosives in here to blow us into next week!’ Tanya exclaimed into Lisa’s mind. ‘I can’t really tell, but the door doesn’t seem to be wired or anything.’

“It isn’t. I checked,” Lisa replied. She reached down and opened the door. Tanya woke up her body and went in behind her.

“There must be a remote timer or something,” Tanya mused. “Everything’s wired to blow, but there’s no detonator. Do you think this is a ruse of some kind?”

“I think someone probably has a radio remote,” Lisa conjectured. They reached the end of the first room, then, checking carefully for tripwires, they continued into the second. In this room, there was a set of stairs and even an elevator door complete with a lit button.

“Why is the little light on if there’s no electricity?” Tanya asked, staring at the button.

If all this TNT they were surrounded with suddenly went ‘kaboom, ‘ both of them would be completely vaporized, along with the hostages hidden somewhere in the building and a couple of city blocks of Ngala.

“The Praetor says there’s probably a DC feed into the building somewhere,” Lisa replied. “That would be enough to power video feeds and a remote detonator.”

“Lisa,” Tanya said, hesitantly. “I think we’re in over our heads. We should get out of here.”

“I have two step-brothers in here somewhere,” Lisa replied quietly. “Go if you want – if you don’t think I can protect you. I’m staying.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Tanya replied. “I mean we need more backup to handle the explosive stuff. They’re my grandchildren, as well.”

“Yeah,” Lisa said. “Well, Mom’s in San Francisco and Tabby’s in Boston. Who do you want to call and tell them we can’t do this without them?”

“Lisa, I’m not trying to argue with you,” Tanya explained. “But I can’t regenerate from a vapor like you can. I’m not a phoenix!” They found a stairwell and started down.

“If anything happens I can come back and get you, you know,” Lisa quipped, following Tanya’s bouncy body down the dark passage.

At the bottom, they stopped. It was completely dark. “No lights on anywhere,” Tanya whispered. ‘Come back and get me? What does that mean?’

She reached for the handle of the door she felt in front of her. The girls mind-linked so they could feel each other’s movements in the blackness surrounding them. ‘Do you think the door’s booby-trapped?’

‘One way to find out... ‘ Lisa surrounded them with an almost invisible field of ultraviolet light. ‘This will turn solid if anything fast touches it.’

‘Thanks, but I’ve already had my concussion for today, ‘ Tanya replied, grimacing in the dark at the terrifying memory of that artillery shell going off only a few feet away from them. She pushed down on the knob. It clicked and the door moved open almost silently.

‘There’re people in here! I can feel them! They’re all really scared!’ “Chaaarrrllliiiieeee,” she sang out softly.

‘Jesus! Stop that!’ she heard someone yell in her head. Then her mind was flooded with images from more than a dozen terrified people.