“Wow,” Uncle snarked. “And we’re the good guys.”
“We do what we have to do,” Kyong said, surprising herself when she spoke up. “I lost my crew in El Segundo,” she said. “Because of this Kite shit. A lot of people died there. Fucking Barstow. So yeah, I’m good with keeping a woman alive who might be the answer to this mess, because don’t forget she would have gone out and spread this shit all over the place if it hadn’t been for you guys figuring it out. She isn’t one of the good guys, not anymore, even if it wasn’t by choice or design on her part. She might not be the brightest bulb on the branch, but her condition is Reverend Silo’s fault, and don’t you forget it.”
She had used her reading time the afternoon before to bring herself up to speed on Reverend Hannibal Silo’s Church of the Rising Sunset.
She would admit she wasn’t a religious person, but she’d sat through her share of services of different denominations in her time in the military. He wasn’t running a church, he was running a cult. It didn’t matter how mainstream he tried to pretend he was, it was still a cult when you took into consideration all his behind-the-scenes bullshit.
“Okay,” Papa said. “We’re on the same team. For today, I want watches posted, but everything else is on hold. Take a breather, folks. I think we all need it.”
Despite their new status, none of the three of them were really in the mood to be frisky just yet. After breakfast, they returned to what was now their shared quarters and straightened everything up, getting their gear in order and sorted from the previous night’s hurried move.
She felt the tension throughout the building. Unlike the simple precaution of the men going through decon procedures after finding Korey and bringing her in, they knew this was more serious.
By lunchtime, everyone was still testing clear in the lab—other than Korey, of course. Because of the direct blood contact, even though just on gloves, Q wanted to err on the side of caution.
At eight hours, Q went ahead and called them clear and let them out of the lab. Kyong watched as Pandora threw herself at her two men once they were out in the hallway, hugging and kissing them before the three of them disappeared up to their room.
“She’s had more than her fair share of waiting,” Kilo said as he watched them go from where they sat in the common room area.
“How so?” Kyong asked.
“First Tango, back in Australia. Then Doc a few weeks ago getting sick. Then Tango the other day after we brought Korey in, even though we all knew that was just to make sure. Then that. Surprised she isn’t half out of her mind from all that stress.”
Foxtrot laughed. “She’s with a pair of Drunk Monkeys. She’d have to be half out of her mind to start with.”
“Well, I have her beat, Kyong said. “I’m a pilot. I’m already half out of my mind. And that’s before I met you two.”
* * * *
After dinner that night, the three of them returned to their room and settled in. Kyong didn’t want to just go to sleep without taking advantage of their new status.
She grabbed Kilo and kissed him, grinding her hips against him.
“Oh, baby wants to play,” Foxtrot teased.
“A little,” she agreed. “Not like last night. I need time to recover from that.”
Both men frowned. “We didn’t hurt you, did we?” Kilo asked.
“No, didn’t mean it like that. I’ve got the good kinds of aches today,” she said. “Promise.”
The men rolled her onto her back and kissed her, working their way down her body. “Then lie back and let us do the work,” Kilo said before burying his face in her pussy.
She wasn’t about to argue with him. Foxtrot played with her nipples, back and forth, sucking on them and teasing them into tight peaks with his fingers.
And when the first orgasm hit her, she made sure to keep her mouth firmly closed, softly moaning against her hand as Kilo held on to her thighs and wouldn’t stop what he was doing until he’d pulled a second one out of her, too.
Breathless, she stared at the men as they sat up, satisfied smiles on their faces and their cocks ready to play. “What?” she asked. “Why do you two look so smug?”
“Because,” Foxtrot said, “We’re going to do our best to give you at least two every time we’re together. One for each of us. You’ll never have to worry about not getting enough from this point on.”
She didn’t even feel like adding the caveat, “Unless I decide not to make it permanent.”
Tonight, she didn’t want to think like that. Today’s events were a reminder how short life was, and it was stupid to deny her or them this pleasure that the three of them obviously enjoyed.
Deserved.
Foxtrot knelt over her, his cock dangling over her mouth, while Kilo slid between her legs and buried his cock in her cunt.
She looked up and caught Foxtrot’s gaze, holding it as she opened wide and stuck her tongue out at him playfully.
His smile, so handsomely different from that first afternoon on the tarmac by the plane when she’d dressed him down. And again in the truck that day.
She never wanted to be the reason he looked like that again.
Oh, shit.
Maybe she was already falling for them.
Shoving that thought out of her brain, she sucked on his cock as he lowered it between her lips. Down below, Kilo had started a slow, sweet, deep rhythm with his cock, plowing her in a way she wasn’t entirely sure might not just get her over again if he kept it up long enough.
And when he reached up and started playing with her sensitive nipples, that tipped her over the edge.
Foxtrot started fucking her mouth. “Oh, baby. I heard you come.”
“Yeah, she did,” Kilo said, also speeding up now. “Got one last one out of you, didn’t we?”
Maybe it didn’t matter how they’d gotten together. What mattered was they wanted her there, and they wanted to be there with her.
Life is short.
Foxtrot’s cock hardened. “Get ready, baby,” he said. “Swallow every drop for me.”
She drained him dry, every last drop of cum his balls pumped out going right down her throat.
Kilo quickly followed, emptying himself inside her pussy.
And when they snuggled her between them, all three sated and content, she knew this was exactly where she wanted to be.
The future could take care of itself.
For now, she was happy to let go and let the men carry her along while they did what they did best, which was try to fix the world.
If they managed to fix her broken heart in the process, she’d consider it a bonus.
* * * *
Kyong had been an item with Foxtrot and Kilo a week when the group caught wind of more trouble in the Seattle area. There’d been a small protest near City Hall that turned violent, fifteen people killed and dozens more injured when some idiot plowed a car through the crowd. Then the driver was killed by the mob, and police had to tear gas everyone to get them to disperse so they could reach the wounded and dying.
The good news was that Q and Sin thought they might have achieved a breakthrough identifying some of the protein chains with the strain of Kite that Korey had. A couple of their early tests looked promising that they might have found the necessary antibodies needed to combat a broad range of the virus strains. They had a few more tests to run, including Canuck taking another trip over to the lab her friend worked at to have her verify the findings.
Papa called a meeting that evening after chow to discuss things when once again they heard alarms go off in the lab.
This time, it was Sin and Tango who bolted down the corridor. Doc, Q, and Annie had already been pulling a shift in the lab. Papa followed them to wait outside the door and get word.
Silence descended over the room as the minutes ticked by. Finally, nearly an hour later, they heard the lab door open and a male voice speak with Papa.
He returned looking grim, everyone’s focus on him.
<
br /> “She died. She coded and they couldn’t get her back. As grisly as this sounds, they’re draining her blood, taking the samples that they’ll need, and then they’ll get her packaged in a couple of body bags. There’s an incinerator for medical wastes over at the lab where Canuck’s friend works. We’ll take her there. No questions that way.”
No one spoke.
Kyong looked around. “I’ll say it if no one else will. It’s a shame she had to die, but at least she did it for a good cause, instead of just disappearing into the tunnels and never coming out again. She didn’t know she was being used. She was a trusting person who believed the crap she was told. She might not have been one of the good guys, but that doesn’t make her a bad person.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Papa agreed. “All right, we’ll deal with this, and then, tomorrow, I’ll call a meeting and the countdown starts for when we’re bugging out of here and heading to Florida. Dismissed.”
Kyong sat there not wanting to move, still processing.
Kilo stroked her shoulder. “You all right?”
“Just thinking she was luckier than a lot of people. Maybe her family doesn’t know what happened to her, but someone does. And she didn’t die in vain.”
“You’re right,” Foxtrot said.
“Can we go up to the roof for a little while?” she asked.
“Sure,” Kilo said.
They pulled plastic chairs together and stared at the ghostly summit of Mt. Rainier softly glowing in the distance, the last strains of the sun bouncing off the clouds, which in turn caught the snowpack at the top.
“Florida doesn’t have mountains,” she softly said.
Foxtrot snorted. “Tell me about it.”
“Are you all right?” Kilo asked her.
“No.” She took a deep breath. “But maybe I will be again one day.” She laced fingers with both of them and stared out at Mt. Rainier. “I know I want to be all right, but I’m not even sure I know what that means anymore.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jerald finally returned home a little before 11:00 p.m. and locked his condo door securely after him.
Maybe it was simple paranoia on his part, but he thought he’d sensed a shift in the reverend’s attitude toward him over the past couple of weeks. Especially in the last several days.
I hope he doesn’t think I’m trying to derail our plans.
Yes, they were having an unusually bad string of luck. But it wasn’t as if he had control over the events.
Okay, yes, he’d been short-sighted on the security for the Preachsearch Project, but having armed guards and forcibly keeping the volunteers locked in the facility would have raised more questions than there would have been benefits. He’d own up to that.
But he never anticipated the one guy’s sister trying to get her brother out of the program. That wasn’t his fault.
Neither was the earthquake in LA that forced the team there to leave before being able to find out where the Drunk Monkeys had been hiding.
Should be called the Rancid Rats the way they scurry around. Or the Coddled Cockroaches.
The last thing he could afford at this point would be to lose his position of trust with Silo. Yes, he’d siphoned off enough money over the years he could leave if he had to, but the world was in terrible shape. His best chance for survival lay with remaining secure in Reverend Silo’s shadow, on the front lines of rebuilding the country from the ground up and able to have first access to the Kite vaccine when it was developed.
If he had to strike out on his own, it’d be expensive. He preferred not to take that route…unless forced to.
Their research team in St. Louis couldn’t be pushed any harder or faster than they already were. It wasn’t like they had control over the situation, any more than he had control over some of the things that had happened thus far to derail their plans.
Maybe it was time to speed up their timeline in the Northeast. He’d thought to delay the widespread distribution of Kite the drug there for another few weeks, but the virus was already beginning to organically transmit throughout the population. Due to the logistics, the CDC had been able to keep a tight lid on any news getting out about the virus, or the previous Kite overdoses.
How much longer they could do so remained to be seen.
Or, perhaps I should just keep my head down, focus on the reverend’s more personal plans, and put my full energies into those to show him how faithful I am to his success.
Frankly, he thought what the reverend had planned was distasteful, but he wasn’t in possession of a uterus, so he wouldn’t worry about it too much. The girls Silo had selected as his final choices were all over eighteen, or would be shortly, before he…whatever Silo wanted to call it. Consummated. Deflowered.
Whatever. He didn’t agree with it, but he’d never tell Silo that. He hadn’t kept his position as long as he had by not picking and choosing his battles carefully. If the reverend wanted to father babies with a bunch of women, he wouldn’t say a word about it. Wasn’t like they were being abducted or anything.
He pulled a beer out of the fridge and twisted the cap off. Something a lot of people couldn’t afford anymore, it was just one more item on his usual shopping list. He took a long pull from the bottle, the cold, sharp taste filling his senses. He didn’t have one every day, liked to space them out.
Alcohol would have to be something he made sure they took care of in the strongholds. It would be both a welcomed treat, and a way to reward loyalty. Depending on how desperate things got outside the walls, it could easily be used as a form of barter, too. They might even need to look at brewing moonshine for alternative fuel sources.
You couldn’t deny the people that. They’d have to carefully watch them, though, to make sure there wasn’t an explosion of alcoholism.
He thought about that and grabbed his phone, activating the voice notes feature. “Make sure general residents are screened for drug addiction and alcoholism before confirming their residency status. Exemptions for elected and appointed government officials. Plan for intervention and drug-slash-alcoholism treatment.” He hit pause and thought for a moment. “Confidential disposal contingency plans for people who fail all intervention methods.”
He set his phone on the counter and took another long swallow from his bottle. He probably should stock up on some good wines, liquors, things like that. He didn’t drink anything other than the occasional beer or hard cider. But it could come in handy as a bribe or trade.
Jerald would be set up in St. Louis, in the same condo building as the reverend. The reverend would have the penthouse, both for living quarters and his private office. Jerald’s condo would be on the floor below him, as would his office, the reverend’s daily office, and the administrative assistants’.
The St. Louis stronghold was the gem of them all. It would be their world headquarters, and their base of operations once things settled down, the Kite vaccine was finalized and distributed, and was where the scientists were based anyway. Their network would broadcast from there with their new, state-of-the-art, satellite-linked facility.
They’d probably have the only network on the air if things went downhill too far.
Which wouldn’t hurt their feelings at all.
All Silo, all the time.
Jerald would never admit it to anyone, but the politics were irrelevant to him. Each side had their points and drawbacks. Each side thought they were right.
Money and power were his main concerns. With those, he’d be okay.
And as long as he kept Silo happy and kept proving his value to the man, he shouldn’t have any problems. He had no desire to be in charge. One didn’t need to be in charge to be in power, and how well he knew that.
He was content to let Silo be in charge, be the face of the new America. He was happy to stay in the shadows, a nameless, faceless person.
It meant even more power for him in the long run.
Once they sealed the gates on the stronghold in St. Louis,
he would think about finding himself a woman to settle down with. There would be plenty of eligible women, smart women, qualified women with skills and education, and likely money of their own.
He was forty-nine, and had dated off and on over the years, but never wanted to let anyone stay long enough to become permanent. He didn’t need the distraction, and didn’t need anyone trying to latch onto him yet and think they had a right to take credit for anything he’d done thus far.
Then there was the fact that they might have had a problem with how much extra time he devoted to work and to being at Silo’s beck and call.
But he’d reaped the rewards of that thus far.
Waiting a little longer to decide on a wife wouldn’t hurt him. He could relax for a while, content to manage things for the reverend from their secure, well-guarded office, insulated from the troubles of the world.
Insulated from the death, violence, and anarchy that would no doubt engulf much of the nation before they were able to step in and provide guidance and relief to those who’d listen and agree to follow Silo.
The faithful.
The gullible.
He finished his beer and rinsed the bottle before dropping it in the recycling bin under his sink. Tomorrow he had several calls to make to his contacts in DC, people he needed to stay in close touch with at this time. Not just to find out information from them, although that was one of the reasons.
But to also make sure they were still playing ball with them, on the same page and understanding that it was in their best interests to remain loyal to Reverend Hannibal Silo.
Especially now.
Chapter Twenty-Three
With the Seattle area growing increasingly unstable, Papa didn’t want to wait until the point of no return to cement their future plans. The next afternoon, he called a group meeting for everyone except the scientists working in the lab.