Chapter 1

Lieutenant Barley waited nervously outside the Colonel’s office. The information he had was incredible and completely unbelievable. But he had the proof. All that was required was the Colonel’s attention for five minutes.

“Sir, Colonel Sattersby will see you now,” the aide said, stepping out of his superior’s office.

The lieutenant stepped into the dark, wood paneled office. Colonel Sattersby looked very fit and professional in his gray uniform as he browsed through a manila folder. The Confederate flag hung from a pole behind the desk next to a wall map of the territories claimed by the Confederacy and the few outlying areas of civilization that still existed.

The Colonel looked up at the junior officer and frowned, then cleared his throat. “You’re the head of intelligence in Knoxville?” he asked, his gruff voice unfriendly.

“Um, yessir!” the lieutenant said, coming to attention.

“At ease,” the older officer said more softly, returning his gaze to the folder in front of him. “Barley, Lieutenant, Conroy. Two last names. Humph.” He cleared his throat again and read some more. The silence in the room was nerve-wracking to the young lieutenant. After a long moment, the Colonel spoke.

“You have verification?” he asked, looking up, not even bothering to ask why this Lieutenant Barley, Conroy was there. They both knew why.

“Yes, sir!” Barley replied briskly. “I came here as soon as I received it.” He handed an envelope to the Colonel. Opening it, the Colonel read the dispatch. His eyes widened as he continued to read.

“This would be very difficult to believe, Lieutenant,” the Colonel informed him. “Why should I take any of this – nonsense – seriously?”

“Sir, I...” Lieutenant Barley stammered and started again. “I f-found it difficult to believe myself! But, the facts are clear. The transmitters hidden among the supply shipments changed locations almost instantaneously, across three states, Sir!”

“This states that six transmitters were among the stolen supplies, and that four of them are now transmitting from somewhere in Colorado. Where are the other two?” the Colonel asked. He’d read it in the report, but he wanted the young greenhorn to say it.

“The ... they’re in orbit, sir,” the lieutenant stammered, “directly over the transmitters in the Colorado mountains. Sir, I realize that this is difficult to believe, but I think that we’re dealing with a group of survivors that have advanced technology. It would be most worthwhile to offer them a place in the Confederacy.”

“That’s your opinion,” the Colonel stated, dismissing the idea immediately. He looked at the young man standing in front of him for another moment, then decided to take him into his confidence. “You ever been to Atlantis, Boy?” he asked.

The lieutenant looked at his superior officer, confused.

“It’s a casino,” Sattersby clarified, “off the coast of Florida. It’s underwater, of course, and it survived the destruction of the major cities in that area.”

“Sir?” Barley queried.

“They still have technology there,” Sattersby explained, “and some of it’s pretty amazing. What I’m about to tell you was top secret before the collapse of the Supreme Board, and was probably top secret back in the days of clandestine military intelligence.” The Colonel stood up while he was talking and walked around his desk.

“Here,” he pointed to the edge of the Atlantic near Miami, “is where Atlantis Casino is located. Sit down, boy, ya bother me, standin’ all stiff like that.”

Lieutenant Barley found an old wooden chair and sat down, stiff-backed and looking very uncomfortable. It wasn’t proper to sit in the presence of a senior officer who was standing, unless, of course, it was as part of a group briefing. The Colonel smiled gruffly to himself as he watched relief appear on young Barley’s face as he sat back down at his desk.

“They had – have – the most advanced technology for uncovering dishonesty in the world,” the Colonel told him. “They have technology that can read minds!” He watched as the lieutenant absorbed that information.

“H-how did they come by this technology, sir?” Barley asked, curiosity overcoming his discomfort.

“They got it from a branch of the old Tomlin Security Corporation,” the Colonel informed him. “I looked up their last known corporate headquarters. Do you know where it is?”

The lieutenant shook his head.

“Do you know what NASA is, or rather, was?” the Colonel asked him, seeming to change the subject.

“Um, yes, sir, I think so,” Barley responded, not quite following the Colonel’s line of questioning. “It was the Space Agency back in the late twentieth century. But they were disbanded, I thought, when the U.S. government collapsed.”

“That’s right,” the Colonel said, smiling at the younger officer for the first time. “Cigar? They’re from Georgia.” He opened a box on his desk. The aroma of rich tobacco wafted out into the room.

“Um, yes, thank you, sir,” the lieutenant said, timidly reaching forward and, feeling his way around inside the box, lifted a thick cigar out, then put it in his pocket when the Colonel didn’t take one himself or offer him a light.

“Yes, NASA, disbanded,” the Colonel said, repeating himself. “But a research and development group called Camden, after the university, mind you, salvaged what was left of NASA and began to finance it again.

“I thought it was interesting that Camden and Tomlin were both located in the same city – Boston, mind you. It was also interesting that both of those corporations ‘jumped ship’, so to speak, just before the collapse of the Supreme Board, relocating to the same town in the Midwest. In fact, the town was seemingly built just for them, right in the middle of the Colorado Mountains.

“Do you know exactly where in the Colorado Mountains these two corporations with the most advanced technology in the world are located?” the Colonel asked, leaning forward conspiratorially and glaring at the lieutenant.

The lieutenant nervously shook his head, sweating now. Then it struck him like a thunderbolt out of the sky. “No!” he exclaimed, jumping out of his chair. “It can’t be! Can it?”

The triumphant gleam in the Colonel’s eyes told him it was true.

“They’re the ones who’ve been stealing from us?” he asked, incredulous. “I mean, Sir?” He remembered just in the nick of time whom he was addressing.

The Colonel slowly nodded his head.

“Then that means,” Lieutenant Barley’s mind was working overtime now. “That means that they knew there was going to be ... that what happened was going to happen. I mean...”

“Yes,” the Colonel agreed. “They had to have known. An underground city was constructed for them long before the sun’s radiation became lethal. They had advance knowledge, and they have advanced technology, and they hid both those secrets from the rest of the world.”

“That also means they’re not going to be interested in joining us, doesn’t it, sir?” the lieutenant asked, understanding now why his proposal to invite them was rejected so abruptly by his senior officer.

“How do you determine what this report means?” the Colonel asked. “It states that two of your trackers, following the radio signals for the stolen shipments, arrived at the entrance of a highway going into the mountains, but were unable to enter. Can you elaborate on that, son?”

“Uh, well, sir,” the lieutenant replied. “I questioned them personally. They said that they encountered a, um, energy field that, um, expelled them every time they tried to walk into the cavern. I questioned them quite thoroughly on that point, sir. They both claimed that to be the truth, even under heavy duress.”

“So, assuming that these scientific renegades won’t join us,” the Colonel said slowly, “and assuming that they have managed to seal themselves away from the rest of the world, what would you assume to do? Or rather, what would you have me do?”

“Well, sir,” the lieutenant spoke up, more confident now. “They have what we need to survive. So, I would recommend military action to take them over.”

The Colonel grinned slyly. This lieutenant would make a fine senior officer one day. “Thank you, son,” he said. “That will be all.”

The lieutenant stood at attention, did an about-face and left the office. Once in the outer office, he grinned in relief at the officer’s aide sitting at the desk. The aide grinned back. He knew how intimidating the old war-horse could be.

Once outside, Barley realized that any more efforts in regards to retrieving the stolen supplies would be set aside in favor of a military campaign against the renegades hiding away in their mountain stronghold. Orders of that magnitude would be decided and issued at a much higher level than he participated in. His own romantic ideas, of course, would have the renegades warmly offer their technology to the Confederacy in return for a safe haven in a peaceful new world. But, knowing how most people reacted with faced with such adversity, he doubted that a peaceful solution could come of this.

‘Might as well take the rest of the day off – it’s almost morning anyway – time to get underground!’ he thought, remembering a popular water hole he’d discovered that last time he was in Nashville, the capital of the Confederacy.

He walked briskly along the street in the same direction as several others who were headed underground until he came to the first subway entrance he saw. Along with most of the others, he trotted briskly down the four flights of stairs into the damp air of the hollowed out and renovated subway tunnels.

He found himself in a food court that contained a bar. It was a different bar than he’d been in the last time he was here, but it didn’t matter. Beer was beer, and a bond girl always served it. If he were lucky, she would be pretty, available, and interested in working off her debt. She could help him celebrate a rare day away from his home base, for a little pocket change, of course.

He entered the bar. It was still early, and almost empty. There were three bond girls there, so the competition was going to be fierce. He downsized the amount of pocket change he planned on spending as he picked out the girl that would win his affections for the evening.

The tall, slim blonde he didn’t pick came over to him first. “Drink, mister?” she asked, smiling. Crystal blue eyes gazing directly into his startled him for a moment. Her gaze was fearless, but interested.

“Beer,” he nodded, trying to be disinterested in her. He watched her slim rear end move seductively from side to side as she walked to the bar to get his drink. Moments later she returned, drink in hand.

“Anything else I can get you?” she asked, smiling down at him, her distracting blue eyes gazing into his soul again.

“No, thanks,” he said, dismissing her. He tried to place her accent, then decided she was simply imitating some old Tri-d recordings to make herself more alluring and mysterious. There were few survivors from the northeastern states, and that area had been pretty much uninhabited for most of his life. The blonde didn’t look old enough to have a real accent like that.

Fifteen minutes later, his beer was gone. There were a few more patrons there, now, but not so many as to drive the price up for the girls. The petite brunette that he’d decided on came by and asked if he wanted a refill.

“Sure,” he said, pretending not to really care. “Who’s the hot blonde?” If he pretended interest in one of the other girls, the little brunette would go with him with less haggling over price.

“That’s Alicia,” the girl said candidly. “You don’t want her, she has a son your age. Besides, she belongs to Sattersby. She just slums here sometimes.”

Barley laughed at the girl’s audacity. “She can’t be more than twenty-five. Even you look older than that!”

The girl flushed, angered that someone would accuse her of being her actual age. “She’s almost forty!” the girl declared. “I’m nowhere near that old!”

She looked angrily down at his laughing face, realizing that she’d been taken for a ride. She was the one he wanted and he was just trying that old hat stuff about the competition to keep her price down.

“It’s twenty for the day,” she informed him haughtily. “And there’s no haggling. Even the ‘old has-been’ won’t take less. You can ask her if you want, but I might be taken by the time you make up your mind, Soldier!”

Barley laughed at her backside as she stomped away from him.

Sally halfway expected him to call her back, but realized that the morning was young yet. There was time – if not with him, then with someone else. But he was very attractive. He might even be fertile. That would make him husband material. But right now, she was only interested in getting out from under her bondage debt.

Mr. Drake, her bond owner, had found her abandoned and alone, and had taken her under his protection when she was still a child. He’d provided food and shelter for her, along with several others near her age.

When she became old enough and her tits started to grow, he introduced her into the world of making pleasure for men. He’d charged her for her ‘schooling’, claiming that she could make up the additional payments by putting the special sexual techniques she learned from him into good use to please her customers.

It seemed like a good idea, and her expertise often earned her a nice tip at the end of the day, but her debt didn’t seem to go down as fast as she thought it should. She tried making extra payments to Drake with her body as well as with the extra money she made in an attempt to pay him off faster, only to discover that he charged her double for his services when she did that.

An hour later, she was back at the lieutenant’s table serving him another drink and he agreed to her price. By now, other girls had arrived and the competition was starting to get fierce. The tall blonde was gone, too, having left alone, presumably to return to her gilded cage and Sattersby.

“I usually get fed before,” Sally stated as she and Barley left the bar. They both understood that the twenty she expected didn’t include dinner. But they were in a food court, and dinner could be gotten pretty cheap.

Barley gestured expansively at the booths around them, allowing her to choose one. She smiled up at him and led the way.

“Hey, Sal,” the guy behind a counter grinned, greeting her. “The usual?”

“Yeah, Sammy, thanks!” the young girl replied. The counter attendant slapped a long kraut dog up on the counter, already made, as he had seen her coming.

Barley looked at the girl as she greedily wolfed a large bite into her face.

“That’ll be two-fifty, mister,” the counter attendant informed him, “unless you want something for yourself.” Sally’s pickups usually didn’t, but he always asked, just in case.

Barley gave him three. “Keep change.” He watched as the girl crudely swallowed part of the barely chewed bite.

“You should try it,” she said around the food still remaining in her mouth. “Kraut’s good fer yer digestion.”

Barley grimaced as his stomach informed him of what would happen if he ate that. Especially if he ate it like she was eating it... “That’s okay, thanks,” he told her, grinning through gritted teeth. “Go ahead and enjoy it.” He looked around, not seeing anything being served that he would trust in his stomach.

“My place or yours?” Sally asked before inserting the second half of her kraut dog into her mouth. Then she looked more closely at his uniform. “I guess it’ll be mine. You probably won’t want to share me in your barracks. Costs extra for groups.”

“Your place will be fine,” Barley replied, wondering if the willowy blonde who’d originally approached him would have actually been available. Perhaps Sattersby had sent her to keep tabs on him. His memory of her deep blue eyes burned into him and he wondered what it would be like with their bodies both naked with him stretched along her entire, languid length. ‘What was her name? Alice? Allison?’

Sally’s second bite was surprisingly more demure than her first. The girl had evidently been starving, but now exerted some control over her base need for food and ate the rest of the sandwich without any further vulgar display of her lack of table manners.

They walked a bit into the tunnel where a series of rooms had been cut into the sides of the main subway line. At the fourth door, they stopped and Sally let herself in with an old fashioned key that unlocked an old fashioned deadbolt.

Expecting her housekeeping to match her table manners, Barley was surprised to see her room was clean and neat. She didn’t have much in the way of furniture, but the basic appliances were there – stove, fridge, table and chairs. Another table by the bed held a small lamp. A tall lamp stood next to an old couch. There didn’t seem to be a Tri-d set or even a radio.

“All the simple pleasures,” she announced, presenting her home to him. She smiled up at him hopefully. He smiled back, appalled that she could live like this.

“All this yours?” he asked, trying to be interested.

“Well, no,” Sally admitted. “I rent this place from my bondsman – the furniture, too. He makes sure I have room and board. I owe him for that.”

Barley understood only too well. This girl was a slave. She was owned. The surprising part was that she didn’t really fight it. She seemed to accept her lot in life. The reason for her Spartan existence was that she simply couldn’t afford more. Her pimp bondsman kept her too poor to escape this life. She would die of old age, still owing him, unless he threw her out. But that would be against the contract they had between them unless, of course, he convinced her to sign a release.

Sally watched the young officer, knowing that he had more than she did, even though he lived in a barracks. There were wonderful (but old) houses and apartments topside, but if you tried to live in one of them, you would be dead in a week – microwaved to death by a life-extinguishing, over-energetic sun. She privately breathed a sigh of relief as he seemed to accept these surroundings.

“Twenty up front?” she asked, smiling and trying to be as pleasant as possible about the business end of their relationship. Barley grinned sheepishly and handed it to her. She folded it and shoved it into a box built into the kitchen table.

“Neat,” Barley murmured, looking at the slotted table.

Sally grinned up at him. “Yeah, I guess. Drake, I mean my bondsman – he had the table made special order after I got beaten and robbed once. There’s a radio alarm in it that rings a bell over my door. It’s expensive, but it keeps me safe.”

‘And poor!’ Barley thought to himself. “How do you get the money out?”

“Oh, Drake does that,” Sally replied. “He always lets me know how much I made and how much I still owe him. I’m down to fifteen thousand.”

She smiled, pleased that she was making enough so that her debt was decreasing, despite food, rent and clothing.

Barley pulled the poor girl into his arms, mostly so she couldn’t see his face. He was pretty sure she couldn’t read or write. She could probably count well enough so that her customers didn’t cheat her, but the big cheat was her bondsman.

‘Fifteen thousand!’ he thought to himself. ‘She won’t make that in her entire lifetime – not with paying rent for this dismal room and her old, used furniture. The bastard probably overcharges her for the food in the fridge, too.’

Then he sighed. The girl was just a prostitute, after all. She probably didn’t have much of a career choice, given her lack of education. But there were thousand’s like her. He couldn’t save them all. He didn’t have fifteen thousand he could use to buy her bond, even if he wanted to.

His emotions under better control, he put his hands on her soft, warm shoulders and slipped her blouse down around them. He loved the contrast of her alabaster skin against her dark hair. She looked frail and sweet, like a girl should look. She closed her eyes, enjoying his touch, trusting him much further than she should have for as long as they’d known each other.

Barley began unbuttoning the front of her blouse, enjoying the warmth of her soft breasts against the backs of his fingers as he worked the buttons free. When he was through, she stepped back as though she was on queue, allowing him to open her blouse and view her sexy, white breasts. There were no tan lines, of course, as it was too dangerous to go outside during daylight, and tanning salons were way beyond her financial reach.

He caressed her soft, milky-white breasts, always amazed at how soft and pliable a woman’s breasts felt in his rough hands. These were ‘all-natural’, having the same warm lack of texture throughout. He preferred natural breasts to the larger, better looking ones that some women sported. The feel was much more erotic than the view, and he’d cheerfully argued that point with his comrades-in-arms on several occasions.

A quiet moan in her throat brought his attention back to her face. She stood with her eyes closed, luxuriating in the sensuality of his touch on her breasts. Barley realized that this was probably the only form of adoration and acceptance she ever got as, one after another, unknown hands and faces passed through her empty life, and she was bravely making the most of it while she could.

Sally opened her eyes, sensing that he was studying her. She smiled, not really knowing what to expect. He wasn’t cruel, so she wasn’t concerned about being injured, but he was different than others she’d brought here.

‘Maybe he’s gay, ‘ she thought to herself. ‘Yep! He’s too nice! He’s really a girl inside and just doesn’t know it yet.’

She smiled up at him and put her arms around his neck, Her alabaster breasts rubbed against his uniform shirt as she stretched up to kiss him. The rough cloth felt really sexy against her nipples as it impressed upon her the fact that she was wickedly half-naked and he wasn’t.

Grinning and trying not to laugh at the bubbly feeling inside her, she began unbuttoning her consort’s shirt. Barley grinned back at her, unable to resist her playful enthusiasm, and began unbuttoning his shirt starting at the bottom. When their hands met, he pulled her hands up to his lips and kissed them, in true Southern Gentlemanly fashion – at least as best as he could mimic from the few old Tri-d recordings he’d seen.

She laughed out loud at him then, and pulled him across the room to her bed. There, she sat him down and, dropping to her knees, began to pull off his boots. After that, she massaged his feet, ignoring the sweaty feel and smell of him.

This one was special. She even planned on sharing her precious water with him to let him shower with her, knowing that many men liked soaping up her slender, sexy body and then taking her right there with the water running over the both of them before going to bed for the night. Also, shower sex usually meant a good tip – more money to pay on her bond.

Soon, she had his pants off and was playing with his half-hard dick, blowing on it and caressing it with her fingers. It was time for their shower. She stood up and held out her hand. He accepted it and tried to pull her down to the bed while she was trying to pull him up. They both laughed as she fell off balance on top of him.

“What were you doing?” he asked, enjoying even the sharp elbows and shoulders of her sweet, warm female body as she squirmed around on top of him.

“I was going to let you wash me in the shower,” she replied, giggling into his face. “Don’t you think that would be fun? Soaping me all over?”

“Sure,” he admitted. “But this is fun, too.” He rolled her onto her back and began kissing and sucking on her breasts, chuckling to himself at her squeals of pretended protest. He began tickling her ribs, giving her something real to squeal about.

Sally realized that his lovely, tickling tongue and mouth were headed south and tried to pull him back, not sure of how she smelled down there. She’d bathed just before she went to the bar several hours earlier, but she knew some men were fussy about hygiene, insisting that she smell clean enough for them to believe they were the first ones between her legs – at least for today.

Barley laughed, understanding her sudden anxiety and placed his fingers between her legs. She went stiff the instant he touched her there, surprising even herself as she didn’t believe in the pretenses of social decorum often displayed by the girls who worked her bar with her. She forced her body to relax, and parted her legs for him. She shuddered at the sensation as he touched her labia and stroked up and down her slit with his fingers.

She watched with some concern as he brought his fingers up and touched them against his lips. Was he kissing his own fingers? Was he simply breathing in the scent of her body? She watched, mesmerized, as he inhaled slowly. He had an odd smile on his face as he breathed her in, his eyes locked with hers.

His smile broadened slightly as she shuddered with an emotion she couldn’t describe. Was it fear, awe, amazement? She didn’t know. And her mind didn’t seem to be working.

She sighed in relief as he turned his attention back to her body, caressing her more between her legs and kissing her soft, warm belly. Sally realized she wasn’t in control anymore and could only hope for a good outcome. She’d fallen in love before, and always, the burn of its death was worse than the heightened elation it gave her while it lasted. She didn’t want it to happen again, but she was no longer in control of her body. It would do what it liked and be damned with how she felt about it.

She hissed as she inhaled, feeling a finger caress her more deeply than before. Her heightened sensations were already carrying her beyond where she usually traveled in her lovemaking, and he wasn’t even making love to her, yet.

‘It’s only a body and he’s only a man. Christ! I don’t even know his name!’

Barley slowly licked his tongue along her moistening slit, still pressing his finger just inside her. She was trembling under his touch. That didn’t usually happen this early. He revised his plan of attack, realizing how sensual this girl beneath him actually was. He slowed down and began concentrating on her clitoris. It was already hard, and just peeking out from her woman-flesh – a tiny little bit of female sensuality for him to stroke with his tongue.

She shuddered as she felt his lips encircle her most sensitive spot, almost climaxing as he did so. She didn’t want to climax yet – she wanted this to last as long as possible, but her body was in control now. She was just a helpless passenger on a wild, sensual ride. She hoped it would last a while.

Her hips jerked upward as a moistened finger slid back toward her rear end. “Nuh ... Oh!” she gasped, her body having an orgasm at the mere thought of him torturing her back there. “No ... please,” she begged, gasping more coherently this time.

Barley stopped, waiting while she made up her mind. Her body was hot and willing for almost anything. She just had to realize it. After a few more seconds she wriggled her hips upward and moaned, pleading, needing him to touch her again.

She twitched as he ran his finger up and down her slit, moistening it again, then slid it back toward her ass. She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed as she decided to let him continue what he was doing. It felt too wonderful for her to want to stop, now.

His finger circled her anus, making her twitch, not knowing if he was going to enter her down there or not. She wanted him to, but she also didn’t want him to. She wasn’t clean enough. What was she possibly thinking, coming to the bar and not being prepared for something like this? It was positively insane! And insane was where he was driving her with his damned finger.

“Christ! Stick it in, damn you!” she cried out, not believing she said it even as the damning words came out of her mouth.

She was certainly damned, now. She was a slut and a whore who needed to be taken in the ass. She cried, accepting that she’d announced her slut status to him and cried out again as that magic finger penetrated her anus.

Barley heard her cry and felt her butt squeeze shut against the tip of his finger and realized that the dark-haired little sex maniac was having another crisis of self-acceptance. He waited patiently. She relaxed and wiggled at him after another moment.

‘God! If ever there was a girl I could make love to for the rest of my life, it would be this one... ‘ he realized. She was so responsive to his every touch that it seemed they were made for each other; made to love each other. There was so much of her to explore.

He moved his finger into her a little farther, then stopped and pulled out a little. He licked around his finger and her butt hole for a few seconds, increasing the lubricating moisture available, then slid it back in. It went in much more easily the second time.

As his finger reached its maximum penetration, he felt Sally’s body shake as she experienced another orgasm. He looked at her pussy lips a few inches from his face. They were pulsating and a thin, clear liquid was seeping out. He delicately licked it off her pussy lips before it ran down onto his finger in her anus.