Apophis (32 page)

She wrapped her legs around my lower body and pulled frantically on my forearm, encouraging me to thrust harder and deeper inside her.  Her moans were replaced by groans as I quickened my pace.  My body was overheating; I could feel the sweat trickling down my back as I pushed my body to its limit. I closed my eyes and concentrated on her voice; I focused on pushing her over the edge.

And when I succeeded, she looked up at me beneath those luscious, thick eyelashes with a small, post-orgasmic smile curled on her satisfied mouth.  I slowly rolled off of her sweaty form and onto my back for a breather; but she quickly found her second wind, and I found myself covered in her body like a human blanket. 

She stared down at me with those devastating aqua eyes.  Her gaze was full of promises that I was too scared to hope for.

+++++

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The next morning we were to report for our first day of work.  It was unsettling when we parted, each of our respective new jobs in a different part of West Genesis.  It made me realize that we hadn’t been apart from each other for any extended amount of time since we’d met. Even in Hot Springs we had always managed to run into each other after an hour or so.

I was nervous. All I had was an address.  And even at that it was simply coordinates, not an actual street name with numbers.
 I fiddled with the hem of my new sweater and shifted in my jeans. I doubted my ability to just fit back into some kind of civilized society. Even wearing normal clothes had become confining.

I rode the red line to its last stop – the Washington platform. When I exited the underground train I was blasted in the face with a shock of cold air.  I hadn’t thought I’d need my winter jacket for work, but now I was lamenting leaving it behind. The lowered temperature made me even more nervous than I had been before.

The train had stopped in a large empty bunker that looked industrial compared to the entertainment section of West Genesis –the Blue sector – where we ate our meals and had shopped for our new clothes.  For a moment I worried I’d misinterpreted the directions. I thought about going back to the train and heading back to our apartment, but the monorail left the platform back towards the compound’s more populated areas.

I saw a man heading toward a nearly hidden metal door.  I watched him use his keycard on an electronic sensor located by the door’s handle. The sensor light went from red to green and he opened the door.

My voice was caught in my throat, but I hustled over to the door. It shut in my face, too late. I took out my keycard and experimentally moved it back and forth in front of the sensor like I’d seen the man do. The light switched from red to green and I heard the door unlock.  Before it could relock, I grabbed the door handle and yanked.  On the other side of the door was a metal ladder that went up.  I looked up the dimly lit shaft, but it was too dark to see how far up the ladder went and what was at the top.  I had another urge to turn around and wait for the next train to come by, but I shoved those emotions away and began to climb up.

The ladder was metal and cold against the bare skin of my hands.  I climbed up, rung after rung, and my winter boots made an echoed sound with every step.  I reached the top of the ladder, a point at which I could no longer go any higher because there was now a ceiling above me.  I pushed tentatively against the metal ceiling until I felt it give.  A square section swung up on hinges like I was crawling out of a sewer through a manhole.

It was colder still once I moved the trapdoor out of the way. I found myself in a new part of West Genesis, and it teemed with activity.

“You look lost,” a young woman said.  She was bundled up in winter gear and appraised my own outfit of sweater and jeans with amusement.

“I’m not sure if this is where I’m supposed to be for work,” I told her truthfully. “I’m new.”

“HR assigned you a job?”

I nodded and pulled back the sleeve of my sweater where I’d written down the coordinates I’d received yesterday.

She grabbed my arm and twisted it so she could read the numbers. “Run out of paper?” she chuckled.  When her eyes crinkled at the corners, a hidden dimple made itself visible.

It might have been cold wherever we were, but I could still feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment. “I’m still getting acclimated,” I mumbled.

She gave me a half-smile, the corner of her pink lips lilting up. “Sorry. I’m just giving you a hard time.
 I’m Jazmin. And you’re in the right place.  Welcome to the Retrieval Team.”

Retrieval turned out to be a group of scavengers.  It was our job to go above ground and salvage what we could.

“Here.” Jazmin pulled a heavy jacket with a fur-fringed hood out of a nearby metal locker. “You can borrow my spare jacket for today. Just be sure you bring a jacket for tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” I pulled the jacket on.  It was a little big on me, particularly in the chest area, but it would work. “I’m sorry I didn’t know to bring my own,” I said gratefully. “No one told me what I’d be doing.”

Jazmin chuckled. “Sounds like Lisa Winter’s handy-work. You must’ve pissed her off for her to have been so vague with your assignment.”

“Yeah, I don’t think she likes my...” I trailed off, unsure of what label to give Nora. What were we to each other? “…roommate,” I finally decided on.

“Let me show you your sled.”

We walked up to a long row of snowmobiles. There had to be at least be 50 or so.

"Holy cow. Where do you get the gas for all of these things?” I asked, openly impressed with the number of snowmobiles.

“They’re electric.” Jazmin pointed toward a giant electrical panel. “It’s pretty fancy.  No one knows exactly how it works, but the machines plug into that circuit board thingy.  They charge at night and in the morning, they’re ready for our use.”

“Circuit board thingy, eh?” I lightly teased.

She smirked. “I don’t need to know how it works.  I just know that it does.”

All told, there were about 100 people on the Retrieval Team.  Jazmin and two other guys, Charlie and Greg, were the members of my immediate team.  Jazmin was kind and patient and thorough while Charlie and Greg laughed a lot and teased me good naturedly.  They reminded of the kind of guys I used to hang out with back at home.  Today, our task was to loop in a twenty-mile radius and to be on the lookout for people to save.  Jazmin told me our daily task, but Greg translated.

“Today, we get to fool around on the snowmobiles,” he laughed. “There’s never anyone out there.” He removed two keys from a metal cabinet lined with rows and rows of similar keys and tossed one of them to Charlie.  Each key was tagged with a number that I suspected corresponded to a specific vehicle.

“They found people in the beginning,” Jazmin said, defending the importance of our job. “Things have slowed down lately though,” she said with a small frown.

“And we do that everyday?” I asked.  They must not have been too good at their job because I hadn’t heard snowmobile engines or even seen snowmobile tracks in the snow. Although I probably would have just hid if I’d seen a group of people on snowmobiles.

“Just for today,” Greg chimed in. “Teams rotate tasks daily, so it doesn’t get too boring.  Sometimes we go into small towns and look for supplies to bring back, sometimes we get to track animals.”

“And sometimes we get to goof off,” Charlie said matter of factly. He climbed onto a two-seater snowmobile and turned the key in the ignition.  It was pretty fancy.  My family had only ever had those tug-rope starters like a chainsaw or lawnmower.

“Hop on,” Charlie told me.  He tossed a black snowmobile helmet in my direction.

I snatched the helmet out of the air and rested it against my hip. “Why do you get to drive?” Oh god. I was turning into Nora.

“You know how to handle one of these things?” he asked, looking amused.

“I grew up in North Dakota,” I snorted, pulling on the helmet and attaching the chin strap. “We drive snowmobiles out of the womb.”

It was a bit of a graphic exaggeration, yes, but I’d been driving a snowmobile on my own since I was 13.  When snow covers the ground for nearly half the year, learning to drive a snowmobile takes priority over things like parallel parking. I’d learned how to parallel park between two snow piles in the Walmart parking lot.

Charlie scooted backwards so he was sitting on the two-up seat. “It’s all yours.”

I climbed on and his arms went around my waist. “Woah, woah, woah,” I yelled over the thin sound of the electric motor. “Don’t you have something else to hold onto?”

He dropped his hands to the handles for the passenger and didn’t say another word. I didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but I didn’t know this guy. What made him think it was okay to cling onto me?

I revved the engine and waved to Greg and Jazmin on the other snowmobile to indicate we were ready to go.

I tightened my grip on the accelerator and the snowmobile jerked forward.  For an electric motor I was impressed with its pick-up.

We zipped forward, effortlessly catching up with Greg and Charlie.  It was a rush. Maybe things were finally starting to look up.

+++++

I was in an awfully good mood when I got back to the apartment.  I didn’t know if I should chalk it up to a good work day or the fact that I got to go “home” to a wildly attractive woman.  I assumed the latter.  They’d even given me back my confiscated hunting knife because of my job.  I resisted the urge to yell “honey, I'm home!” when I entered the apartment and saw Nora’s boots by the front door.

She was just exiting the bathroom, toweling off her recently shortened hair with another towel wrapped around her torso.  More urges came over me that I successfully ignored.

“How was work?” I asked, pulling off my boots and dropping them by the door near hers.

Her nose crinkled up. “I’m a waitress.”

“What?”

Nora made a frustrated noise and tossed the towel she’d been using to dry her hair onto the floor. “I’m
so
pissed off,” she growled, stamping her foot for emphasis.

“Did you talk to Lisa in HR about it?”

“I called her as soon as I got home. She said that with my background in food that waitressing would be perfect.  I said food
systems
, not food
service
,” she steamed.  “She did this on purpose to me.”

“Maybe there’s someone else higher up the food chain you could talk to about it,” I suggested.

“I called Cynthia, and she said I could take it to the CEO.”

“West Genesis has a CEO?”

“Apparently.”

“Then set up a meeting with this person.” It sounded pretty straight-forward enough.  I was sure it wouldn’t have been the first time Nora had gone above someone’s head to get what she wanted.

“Let’s go out,” I suggested. “We can explore a little more.”

Nora stuck out her bottom lip. “I’m not going to be good company.”

“Are you ever?” I immediately held up my hands, surrendering.  “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!”

She didn’t look amused by my joke.

“Come on,” I cajoled. “It’ll be more fun than sulking around here. You can put in a work transfer in the morning.”

Nora tugged on her short hair. “But I can’t get the smell of fried food out of my hair,” she pouted. “I’ve already washed it twice.”

“You’re probably imagining it.”

Nora stomped up to me and, grabbing a chunk of her hair, thrust it under my nose. I inhaled. There was no lingering stench of fried foods – just the sweet perfumed scent of Nora. My eyes involuntarily fluttered. 

“Yup,” I panted. “All in your head.”

My answer satisfied her. She stomped in the direction of the bedroom we shared to finish getting ready.

+++++

Outside of our apartment we didn’t get too far before my stomach started growling.  Life on the road had been hard and food had been scarce and now I think my body was trying to make up for lost calories.

Nora eyeballed me and my slab of meat. My mother would have been horrified at my disregard for table manners, but it was the most amazing, tender steak I’d ever had.