*** 8 Beyond Death Mountain ***
They had known there would be fog but the density caught Fucker by surprise. Bikes were basically useless since you had to take great care where you stepped. The trio left the machines behind. A shame.
Not far into the crater and the ground became swampy. Mud soon caked the punks to their knees. There was only dead fauna and eerie silence.
"Yo, stop for a sec," the leader said. "We're supposed to scout out the area but so far we've seen nothing."
"Cause we can't fucking see anything," Pyro said.
Savage held map and compass. "There's an unchartered ruin a bit west. Was full of infected last time someone checked."
Fucker shrugged. "Good a place as any. Let's go before we sink totally into... um."
He was stuck. His body had sunk into the swamp up to his knees and he was rapidly sliding in farther. The other two weren't fairing much better. Savage sank the fastest, being by far the heaviest.
Fucker didn't know what to do and the mud was already approaching his hip. The nearest firm object was a tree, barely visible through the fog. It was just out of Savage's reach. Was this the inglorious end of their trash punk gang?
Then he wanted to slap himself.
With telekinesis the boy pulled on the tree's branches. "Savage, grab it."
The brute pulled on the branch, making the tree groan. He managed to stop himself from sinking but didn't get out of the swamp. Fucker had sunken all the way to his upper abs.
Pyro conjured fire and leaned over to heat the mud around Savage. As his intense heat dried the underground, it broke off the brute in chunks and he could pull himself out.
His dick pouch stayed behind but at least his bag was still attached to his shoulders.
Once he had one foot on the tree stem, he leaned back to grab Pyro. The way thinner twink was almost trivial to pull free. He, too, lost his clothing and also his shoes.
Fucker mentally said goodbye to his trusty sneakers as he was also unearthed in the nude.
Pyro took his time getting a really, really hot flame to burn. Then he smashed it to the ground in front of them so it dried with a sizzling. It would have taken too long to do this all the way to their destination, but it gave them a moment of safety.
They picked off the worse chunks of mud and used copious amounts of rinse-gel to get rid of the rest.
Three fully cleaned, fully unclothed boys pondered their next steps. If the path was this treacherous...
"Quiet," Savage said. "I hear something."
Fucker held his breath and could clearly sense someone driving by. He realized why he knew the sound so well. It was their bikes.
They waited in silence, until the thieves had made it past them, hidden by the everlasting fog.
"Yo," Fucker said. "They must have come in after us by some secret way and seen our rides. Of course those fucking wannabe-raiders know which spots are dry enough to move on. I think... we should go the same way."
Spitter slowed down and Hardass could drive up next to him to shout over the motor noise. "Yo, what exactly are we looking for?"
With a shrug, Spitter lifted his visor. "He's just a slave, but he's also a freak. His ability is, he doesn't need to sleep."
That didn't sound too impressive, but Spitter wasn't finished.
"What really matters is that he found a way to deactivate his collar. We don't know how he did it, but I assume it's just that he had a lot of unobserved time when everybody was asleep."
Pisspig caught up to them on the other side of Spitter. His nipple chain thrashed in the airstream.
So there was an unknown way to turn collars off. Yeah, Hardass had to make sure that guy was safely stowed away.
"What happens to him," Hardass asked. "Once he's caught."
"Becomes a regular prisoner. Unless he signs the slave contract a second time. Normally that's not an option, but Sunbreaker would take him in again. Under... slightly altered circumstances."
"Like what?"
"He'll be milked 24 hours a day. The no sleep ability makes him a goldmine."
"Man, I think I should sign that contract."
The unknown criminals had left the bikes next to a big corrugated iron hut. Fucker's gang snuck around it.
"Yo, I need to know more about the situation to make a plan. I can't even see the other side of the building through this fucking mist."
After a minute of recon, they knew there were no other exits. But was there a tunnel leading away? How many armed assholes where in there? How long would Savage take to get up on the roof?
In the end, they decided on smoking them out.
"Okay," Hardass said as they stopped again. "I have to ask. What the fuck are you even looking at?"
Spitter grinned. "Didn't I mention? My power is to see heartbeats from really far away. That's why I was so confident we'd find the runaway even though we have only a vague direction. Let's rest for the midday heat, then go on. He can't have gotten too much farther than this."
Pyro walked to the entrance, but far enough away to remain hidden from sight. He charged up a fire orb as quickly as possible. Then Fucker gave the sign to the third punk.
Savage jumped superhumanly high and grabbed onto the overhang. He pulled himself up on the roof and ran along the side, to make sure his weight was supported by the wall underneath.
Of course, on the iron, he was inevitably loud. The criminals were alerted now. Then Pyro threw his flame ball right into the entrance. It smashed into the back wall and exploded into a hundred tiny fires, spreading across the room.
About a dozen guys ran out, shouting in panic. Fucker was right side of the entrance and opened phaser fire. Pyro had moved to the left side and fired with his phaser, too, while charging up an orb in the other hand.
As the first two enemies dropped, the remaining ones began to run forward – to the bikes. Then Savage flew off the roof and landed his knee on the head of one guy and his fist on another before hitting the ground.
With the brute in the center of the crowd, Fucker had to move closer to avoid shooting at his friend. The first few fleeing guys were caught up in a wall of flame, which threw creepy, orange reflections onto the fog.
Two more fell from phaser fire, three from Savage's beating. The still standing three were completely paralyzed. They looked young, about fifteen or so. It was probably the old story of dumb kids wanting to be really big, following the first best idea and watching things get out of hand.
Fucker knew the tale well, since it was pretty much the story of his life.
"Yo, listen up little bitch boys," he said. "I need to know if you have any weapons on you. Strip slowly till there's nothing on your bodies."
He noticed they all had the same solid black tattoo wrapped around their navel – a snake on fire. Tacky, but not unusual as far as gang insignia went.
What would his gang use as a symbol if they went official?
With Pyro and Savage keeping an eye on the kids, the trash punk leader grabbed a thong from one of their captives. It was full of piss, clearly just wetted in fear.
He used it as a face mask to keep from inhaling any smoke while he looked through the hut. The fire had mostly gone out but it was still spreading along the few burnable items.
Fucker grabbed everything that looked valuable and stuffed it into his bag.
When he came back outside, each captive had a rope around their neck, tied to a bike's front. Every punk gave his bag to one of the kids and they rode to the airlock, slowly, with the captives leading the way on foot.
"Fairly sure it's him," Spitter said as they moved toward the crack in the sandstone. "It's a narrow valley, not a cave, but you should still be hard to spot."
Hardass went (nearly) invisible and snuck ahead. Spitter was going to talk to the escapee alone while Hardass could move into positon.
They found the missing slave crouched next to empty Hydro-Cola cans. He wore nothing except the collar. His slender body and narrow face were topped by a royal blue mohawk. Dust covered his sweaty body.
"Yo, K," Spitter said, startling the guy. "I've come alone, don't worry. Here, catch." He threw a bottle of water. "I'm surprised to find you with the collar on. We all thought you have recycled it somewhere."
The slave was strangely calm. Either he really didn't think Spitter was here to collect him, or he had some sort of defense hidden around the area. Hardass wanted to investigate and made his way slowly past the conversing pair.
"Nah," K said. "Never fiddled with the hardware. I just broke the gene-bond."
"Just? That's unprecedented."
K chuckled. "With the tools at Sunbreaker and all those nights to myself I only had to plug the collar into a junction terminal and figure out what code to inject. Once it was overloaded, I reset it. It's unbound now, but still locked."
Hardass spotted something very worrying. It was no weapon. At least not one K could have wielded deliberately. How could he warn Spitter without ruining the plan? He just had to hope things got sorted out quietly.
Spitter stepped forward. He took a phaser from his side pouch. "I'm bringing you back. We're not mad. We just want to know what exactly you did."
K jumped up. "You think you can take me alive?"
Then Spitter shouted, "Hardass! Now!"
It was exactly what he shouldn't have done. The mutant sleeping way farther into the valley woke up. Hardass ran.
"Mutant!" he screamed. "Get out!"
The abomination charged toward the source of noise and Spitter fired. He hit one of four arms and severed it. Then the massive beast took to the air almost elegantly. It would descend exactly on K.
Hardass was already in reach of the runaway and threw his arm around the collar. He dragged K to the side a split second before the mutant's concentrated might slammed into the ground.
All three humans ran.
Hardass shouted ahead and hoped Pisspig was able to figure out that he needed to be on a bike once they emerged from the valley.
The punk jumped onto his own machine and didn't look back. Once he had some distance between himself and the hiding spot, he risked a glace over his shoulder. Pisspig was right behind him. The other two shared a bike, K having come along willingly.
Spitter shot backward and hit the mutant in the face. The creature could still scream afterward, so it had to be mostly intact. The shout of a second mutant farther back echoed through the area.
They didn't stop until they were back at arcology 4.
The original trio had delivered their loot to Sunbreaker HQ and was waiting in the lobby. The city guards from the entrance had alerted whoever was going to take the captives to get a prisoner ID on their foreheads.
Meanwhile, Savage drilled the hole of a lucky/unlucky captive, who alternately screamed for mercy and begged for more.
Pyro had put the milking machine back on but let one captive lick his feet while he filled the tube with pre-cum.
Fucker had organized new clothes for the punks. The engineers running the arcology had donated them once they had seen what was among the loot, even though Fucker couldn't tell what was so special about it.
The other team wasn't back yet but Fucker had gotten apparel for the whole group. Three snow white thongs and one dick pouch.
When the third captive crawled up to him, Fucker spread his legs. He was still nude so the boy could suck him off immediately with no trouble.
Instead, the kid spoke. "...what's going to happen to us now?"
Fucker looked at the soon-to-be prisoner. He had full lips, beginning muscle definition and a pale orange mohawk.
"Well, you little asshole and your friends are fucked now. Prison labor from today till forever." Fucker grinned. "With the arcology still getting built they won't run out of brutally hard labor in your lifetime. Nobody can say when you'll get to suck a dick again, so enjoy mine for now."
"I..." the boy stuttered. "Can I sign a slave contract and come with you? I wanted to be a trash punk, but... My friends asked me to join and..."
"And it got out of hand?"
"Fuck yeah."
The punk leader had to talk it through with the others before deciding anything so he grabbed the boy's hair and finally pulled him down into his crotch.
Tune in next time for deception and intrigue.