Chapter 10

Béla was almost a mile high, her wings spread wide as she glided over the silent city gleaming in the light of the Aurora Borealis. There were electric lights visible in Wichita where it had been dark for almost fifteen years now. That most likely meant the final futile surge of civilization called the Confederacy had reached Kansas.

Béla felt annoyed that these outsiders would come so close to her chosen people. Soon, the Confederates would be farming the land that supplied most of Solar City’s produce and using it for themselves, probably even stealing the transmitted energy from Solar City’s own power relays to run their farm equipment.

She circled down, deciding to investigate who was down there in what should be a dead city. It had been awhile since she’d been in the field and her mind was still partially occupied with the impending journey looming ahead for all her people.

Béla landed on a rooftop overlooking the lighted street below. She hadn’t been here since electricity, and didn’t know exactly where she was in relation to where the old town hall had been two hundred years earlier. Now, Wichita was another sprawling dead town, one among thousands deserted as radiation survivors, hearing rumors about the rise of the Confederacy, had flocked to join, often leaving their worldly goods behind.

Béla wondered what would have happened if word of her little mountain stronghold had gotten out. Would she have been forced to fight off and maybe kill humans whose only crime was that they were hungry and dying? The alternative would have been to accept them into Solar City and abandon them to their fate, later, as there wouldn’t be room in New Eden for all of them. She was glad she hadn’t had to make that choice.

Her wings still formed, she dropped off the rooftop down to a darkened side street, her bare feet touching down silently in a silent city. Pulling her wings forward now, she reformed her arms, resuming her normal human appearance. She was perfectly naked, as well. She grinned to herself, realizing that this part was what excited Tanya about their adventures – walking into a situation where she could just as easily be gunned down as raped, and pretty certain that one or the other would be likely to happen.

Well, Béla liked to play ‘point-girl’, too, and she rarely even got to participate in the Femmes’ activities since she’d declared Jake’s son, Jake Hedron, persona non grata in her home for withholding the information that put them all into this fix.

She stayed in the middle of the street and walked toward the lights. As she drew nearer, she could see that the lights were strung on bare wires and hung along the fronts of several buildings. ‘An amateurish attempt to light the way home for someone, perhaps?’

“Hello?” she called out, not too loudly. She stood in the middle of the street and waited. She couldn’t feel anything mentally and was pretty certain that no one was here. After a moment, she walked into one of the buildings with a light dangling against the wall. It was dark inside and she couldn’t really see. Broken glass crinkled under her bare feet and she suddenly realized what was odd about the street outside.

There wasn’t any debris.

There was something watching her, now. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human. It saw food and there were a lot of ‘it’ watching her. Béla chastised herself for being unreasonably nervous. She’d lived on this planet for almost five thousand years and knew what kind of dangers there were. Large carnivores were about the only things she ever needed to worry about – carnivores and people – and there weren’t any of either, here.

But something was here. It knew she was here and it wanted her. She could feel it. It was an alien sensation – something ... new. There were images attached to the sensation. She closed her eyes against the darkness and concentrated. The waveband of the mind (minds?) producing these images was different than the telepathic band she and her blood-sisters used. It was even different than what the Praetor used for its broadcasts.

‘The Praetor! Of course!’ she suddenly remembered she had a backup, after all. ‘Praetor! Can you hear me?’

Béla opened her mind to the Praetor – and to whatever was watching her.

She dropped down on the warm, furry animal in the middle of the room, signaling the attack.

Béla shrieked as something landed in her hair. She teleported out to her rooftop landing point and shook herself all over, making sure there wasn’t anything crawling on her. Then she teleported back to the doorway and peered into the room where she’d been standing. The floor was covered with dark moving shapes. ‘Big fucking spiders! Holy Crap! As Lisa would say... ‘

She could feel the group mind of the spiders. They were intelligent! The lights were meant to lure warm animals like her to their lair so they could feed and reproduce. As she mind-linked with them, they mind-linked with her, as well. Béla shielded as soon as she felt the group mind invading hers. In addition, the shapes and shadows on the floor were all scuttling toward her, now that they’d located their meal, again.

Béla backed away into the street and turned. Forming her wings, she leaped, beating wildly for air space. ‘Lisa! I need you!’ she cried out mentally.

The spiders had invaded her mind. She didn’t know how much they’d been able to see – about her, her species, their mountain hideaway or the nearly completed orbiting ship. She also couldn’t tell if the spiders were still mind-linked with her. They operated on a different mental frequency – one that her Praetor had momentarily enabled her to perceive.

Lisa appeared a few meters away, simply hanging in the air and levitating at the same speed her mom was flying. ‘S’up?’ she chirped into her mother’s mind, then got very serious as she felt Béla’s fear radiating from her.

“We have to blow it all up!” Béla exclaimed. “The whole city. It’s filled with mutant spiders – and they’re intelligent!”

“Wow! Mutant spiders?” Lisa exclaimed, suddenly excited. “Cool! Think I’ll go have a look!” She vanished before Béla could warn her. She felt Lisa reappear near the lighted area.

‘The lights are a trap!’ she mentally screamed at her daughter. ‘And the spiders are telepathic! Please be careful, Baby... ‘

‘Don’t worry, Mom, Every... ‘

Béla felt Lisa flare her body. She was fighting something, but Béla couldn’t get a clear image. Then Lisa radiated a flash of exhilaration.

There was a blinding flash as the whole building exploded and then a fireball roiled up into the sky.

Béla stopped flapping and almost fell out of the air. The fireball was radiating an intense orgasmic flow.

‘Enchi! That’s Lisa!’ Béla realized as she blinked, trying to see through the bright images that were fading too slowly in her eyeballs.

The fireball became a huge fiery woman with legs and giant wings rising in the air as Lisa blew off excess nuclear energy. After another moment, she was able to rematerialize into a solid form again – as solid as her hybrid body gets, anyway.

‘Got ‘em!’ Lisa sent to her mom, crowing with victory. ‘Lisa, ten thousand! Spiders – big oh! And it was a really big ‘O’, if you... ‘

‘I got it!’ her mother interrupted, terribly upset. ‘You almost gave me a big o-old heart attack! What were you thinking, going in there like that?’

‘Just looking for some fun, Mom, ‘ Lisa replied mentally. She relocated so she was right next to her. ‘You still treat me like a kid! I’m forty-four, Mom. Go have another kid or find something else to fuss over. I have an orgy to get back to. Bye.’

‘Wait!’ Béla yelped into her daughter’s mind. Lisa turned back around, still levitating. Béla thought she looked ridiculous just hanging in the middle of the air like that. ‘I thought you were on reconnaissance with Tabatha.’

‘Tabby and I finished that hours ago, ‘ Lisa confessed, almost smirking. ‘You called me right in the middle of rescuing her butt again. I time-walked back six hours to see what you wanted.’

‘So you’re in two places right now?’ Béla asked, trying to wrap her mind around the idea that her daughter had ignored her cry for help for six hours.

‘Mom, ‘ Lisa moved closer. Béla stopped flapping for fear of striking her daughter with her wings, then felt Lisa holding her up, levitating them both with her mind. ‘Mom, I can be any ‘where’ and any ‘when’ I want, ‘ Lisa thought solemnly into her head. ‘I own the whole universe!’

‘Don’t get so superior, Beth, ‘ Béla thought back at her, angry at her daughter’s arrogant attitude. ‘Remember that you died the last time you tried to take on too much... ‘

‘I wasn’t a phoenix, then, ‘ Lisa interrupted her. ‘And don’t call me that. It’s not who I am!’ She vanished, deliberately leaving behind a fiery image of herself that dissipated quickly into smoke.

Béla began to drop now that Lisa wasn’t holding her up anymore. Spreading her wings and arching her back, she flipped over, her wings catching the air rushing past her. She circled around and glided back toward the towering pillar of smoke. Her daughter was powerful, but careless. She could easily have missed some – perhaps a whole nest. Béla wanted to make sure the spiders were all dead.

She dropped down next to the flaming building, so close that the heat scorched the thinly stretched flesh of her fragile wings. Reforming her arms, she walked around the roaring fire trying to sense any mental broadcasts in that odd frequency the spiders used earlier.

There was debris all over, now, and the myriad cuts in her bare feet kept breaking into her concentration. She looked up and down the street. The city looked eerily dark beyond the pall of the flaming building. The darkness seemed to attract her – seemed to be watching. She tried to feel the mind that she knew was there and failed. It was evidently well shielded, having been educated by the group Lisa destroyed.

Béla began walking up the street. The attraction she felt was almost mesmerizing, but not so much that she wasn’t paying attention. She continued walking, her bare body silhouetted by the pale yellow light of the distant burning building. It was dark where she was, now, despite the undulating ribbons of light high above, so she used what she could feel in her mind to guide her.

‘Praetor, follow my thoughts and record what I see, ‘ Béla broadcast out into the air. Whatever was here, she wanted a recording of it for analysis later. There was something happening here. Maybe Wichita was special, or maybe it was happening in other places, too. She needed to find out.

There was a soft hissing sound that ended abruptly. Béla looked toward where it came from. She heard it again and walked closer. She was starting to feel warm. Her arm brushed against something stiff – a small rod or a reed of some kind. It was sticking out of her torso. Surprised, she looked down at it. ‘Why don’t I feel that?’ she wondered.

She pulled it out with her fingers. It weighed practically nothing and hadn’t gone in very deep – barely piercing her skin, in fact. As she held it up and looked at it, trying to determine what it was in this darkness, Several more appeared, sticking out of her stomach and breasts. She gazed down at herself, surprised. She felt pleasantly warm and comfortable. ‘I’m being attacked, ‘ she realized, feeling very relaxed.

She twisted her body back and forth, checking to see if whatever was on the little darts was paralyzing her or not. Her body moved in its usual supple way, indicating her motor control was fine. She picked the little reeds out of her one at a time. While she was doing that, a couple more appeared. She pulled them out, too.

Whatever was shooting at her seemed to be out of the little darts, now. At least, no more struck her. Béla rubbed her fingers over the tiny puncture marks as her skin healed. Everything felt normal, except that she was feeling warm and lazy and perhaps a little horny. With an effort, she cast out with her mind to make contact with whoever (or whatever) was lurking in the darkness.

‘Praetor, are you receiving anything?’ Béla called out with her mind.

‘Praetor?’ Alarm replaced her lethargic warmth now as the Praetor failed to respond.

Béla reformed her wings and leaped straight up, beating furiously for altitude. Something was seriously wrong. She was flying, but she couldn’t feel the air. She circled around, trying to determine what was happening.

‘Praetor! Respond!’ she cried out, becoming even more frightened.

Then she saw it – standing in the middle of the street. Peering down into the darkness, she dived closer. Her eyes widened in fear and confusion as she recognized it. It was...

‘My God! That’s me!’

Her body was standing in the middle of the street, not moving. There were a dozen of the little reed-like darts sticking out of her bare breasts and belly. In the darkness of the buildings, shapes were detaching themselves and moving toward her.

‘Wake up!’ Béla desperately cried to herself.

There was no response. She dove down and slammed into her body, shrieking in terror as she passed right through it and crashed down into the pavement beyond. The pavement burns on her knees, wings and shoulders felt real.

‘Everything’s real except me!’ Béla realized, stunned. ‘But which one do I need to protect? This me? Or that one?’ Perhaps the body lying there was just an illusion. But how powerful could a mind be to trick her like that?

She pushed forward with her wings and reformed her arms again, needing to use them to get upright and off the pavement.

“Hee-Yah!” Shouting loudly, she leaped toward one of the shadowy creatures crawling toward her ‘other’ self. It ignored her completely. She stomped down with her bare foot, trying to kill it. ‘Hey! It squashes! Great!’

She jumped around, squashing several more. But others were starting to crawl up her bare legs. She could feel them, but there was nothing there when she looked. She brushed her hands against her legs to get rid of the weird, almost erotic sensations as tiny legs with hooked feet seemed to be crawling on her. Nothing she did would make the feeling go away. Then she looked at her image lying in the street. Spiders were crawling all over it!

‘We’re both real!’ Béla realized, astounded. ‘Why am I separate like this?’

‘Praetor! Respond!’ she cried out again as she ran toward her other self standing helplessly in the street. She began pulling spiders off and tearing them apart with her bare hands. She stomped on the ones that ran into her feet. After a moment, they seemed to notice her ‘second’ presence. Now, they physically were climbing on her, too. But at least she could knock them off.

Something stuck her in her stomach. She savagely brushed it off, but there was nothing there. Then she realized that her other body, the helpless one, was being attacked again. A spider was sticking something inside her. She reached down, grabbed the spider, and pulled it away. She felt the protrubance being yanked out of her stomach as she did so.

Suddenly stunned with erotic sensations, Béla dropped to her knees. She stared at the hand-sized body of the tightly gripped spider, realizing that the sensations were coming from it. It had been fucking her helpless body! ‘Spiders don’t fuck! Do they?’

Erotic sensation began to overwhelm her judgment. Confused, but desiring more of that overpowering erotic feeling, she turned the spider’s belly towards herself and moved her hand to press it against her own right breast.

‘Yes! Let me worship your sweet warm-blooded body! Let me inside of you. It is truly a wondrous sensation I offer!’

The spider’s legs touched her warm breast. It couldn’t see what was holding it, or the breast it was feeling with its legs, but it felt around and realized that this was the same warm animal it had been probing before. It shoved its protrubance forward, penetrating the soft, warm tissue of her breast.

They were mind-linked – spider and warm animal, each astounded at the sensations experienced by the other. Other spiders were crawling on her, now, each one mink-linking with her as they carefully crawled up what they perceived to be her invisible, but warm, animal legs. There were spiders crawling on her other body, her helpless one, as well.

‘We need to worship you, to crave your touch as you must crave ours, to love... ‘

Béla arched her back at the incredible sensations of the spiders sticking their protrubances into her warm, animal body. Shaking with her need to orgasm, she picked up a spider and pressed it against her pussy lips. It quickly snagged its legs into her invisible flesh to hold itself against her, and shoved a protrubance in right next to her clitoris.

‘No! Not there! The little hard part! Stab it into the little hard part – my clit, you moron!’ She pulled the spider off and carefully guided its protrubance up right against her clit. It pierced her clitoris this time, sending waves of orgasmic sensations through her body. Her orgasm was so intense that she accidentally squashed the spider that gave it to her.

She grabbed another one, there being lots of them around her now, and pressed it up between her legs. It behaved the same way. The spiders on her stomach and breasts were burrowing their protrubances deeper, making her whole body itch with sexy sensations. She realized that the itching was probably some kind of anesthesia, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t putting her to sleep – it was making her more aroused. It wasn’t like they could kill her or anything...

She could feel the spiders on her inert, silent body next to her burrowing their way inside as intensely as she could the spiders she kept placing on her own (to them, invisible) belly and breasts. She had three on each breast, now, happily burrowing into her soft, warm flesh, and seven or eight penetrating her stomach and sides. They didn’t seem to be interested in her upper back, but several were burrowing in beneath her ribcage from behind and almost a dozen lovingly stabbing their protrusions into her thighs and buttocks.

Béla’s body was so alive with sexual need that she couldn’t stop writhing. Grabbing another spider, she rolled backward, squashing several that were on her back and placed this one over her ass. It immediately behaved just like all the others, hooking its feet into her tender flesh and burrowing its protrubance deep inside her.