Annulus, p.5
Annulus, page 5
part #2 of Cyberratum Series
Instead, Summer was using her power to influence her sisters against him.
“Fine,” Arthur said, standing to feet, exhausted from the day’s feat and ungratefulness. He walked over to the water bag he and Liz had brought back and drank from it heavily. The liquid filled the pit of his stomach and sloshed around in it queasily. “You our welcome to our water, but if you don’t want to share your fire and work together, then I propose we split up in the morning.”
“Arthur,” Autumn pleaded, but he chose to ignore her.
Liz’s eyes were stern. If looks could kill, hers would have drowned Summer’s fiery tongue and the venom she spat.
“I am with Arthur,” she said, standing tall.
Arthur waited for Autumn to stand, but no other came to his side.
He reached out and extended his hand toward Liz. She grabbed it, and followed him into one of the two huts, set far apart.
Inside the shelter, he found his fawn serape, and he laid it out to put some kind of insulator between their bodies and the ground. He remembered learning in training that cold ground is much more dangerous than cold air. If the ground is colder than the body laying on top of it, it will continue to pull heat away from the body to maintain equilibrium, not stopping until it is as cold as the ground.
Arthur sat down, rustling up what other scraps he could while Liz lowered herself into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her body to provide warmth, and also the affection he was dying to show her.
“They will never let you live all that down,” she told him, handing him back the azoth ore.
“I know,” Arthur said solemnly.
A pair of footsteps trotted its way toward the shelter Arthur and Liz were in. The steps moved quickly, padding over the cold dirt. Liz was the first to see a pair of legs, pale and toned. As the rest of the woman’s body lowered, Arthur could see it was Autumn. Her face wore a disheartened look. Despite her sorrow, and how she had treated him, she was as magnificently beautiful as ever.
“Come in out of the cold,” Liz invited, making a spot next to her.
Autumn smiled, nodded, and lifted part of the flap door, ducking into the makeshift hut. She nestled in between Arthur and Liz, nestling her body against Liz’s. Arthur felt Autumn’s cold arms and rubbed them up and down to bring the warmth back into them.
“I am sorry,” Autumn said, staring out at the glowing fire that Summer had reignited. “My sisters… they can be difficult sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Liz asked skeptically. “Ever since we picked them up, they have been resentful.”
Arthur nudged her, reminding her to respect Autumn’s feelings. Even despite their attitude, he wanted an amicable camp. It was no one else’s place to judge how another felt. They all had feelings. He just hoped they would eventually understand that coming to Annulus was the only choice. Maybe they would see this when General Malick arrived.
He will not be as compassionate as I am, he thought. “Nonetheless,” Arthur said, moving past Liz’s comment and embracing the two women in his arms. “We are all in this together. To fight and bicker about what could have happened is pointless.”
The ladies fell silent, snuggling into each other deeper. Arthur lay on his side and closed his eyes. He felt Liz lay her head on his thigh, and Autumn laid on Liz’s. Arthur laid still, unsure what to make of this positioning, until he felt Autumn’s small frame turn around and climb her way up toward Liz.
It stunned Arthur to see Autumn hovering over Liz, caressing her body.
“Uh, what are you doing? Liz asked insecurely.
“I know one way we can stay warm,” Autumn said in a lilting voice, running her hand up Liz’s shirt, physically manifesting her impish thoughts into reality.
Liz lay stunned, like a deer in headlights.
After what seemed like an eternity, Liz finally relented, reached out, and pulled Autumn to her chest. They kissed each other softer than Arthur had seen before. The two women made out on top of his lower legs, both gradually becoming more aggressive. They were warming up, and so was his sexual excitement.
Autumn reached down, running her hands along Liz’s hips, following the subtle curves and moving down into her panty line. She rubbed Liz up and down over her clothes, and Liz shot her head back. The sight stimulated Arthur. He could feel his cock grow by the minute.
He tried to pull Liz’s hair back from her face, but she arched her back and kicked her legs up when Autumn slipped her fingers inside her. In and out, Autumn moved her fingers, while she kissed on Liz’s breasts, which were threatening to burst from the thin material of her shirt. Autumn rocked her hand up and down and then pulled it out.
Arthur was still in shock when Autumn brought her head up to Liz’s level and reached out her hand for him to lick her fingers and taste Liz. The gesture enthralled him, and he put his mouth over her fingers. Liz’s juices tasted as sweet as honeydew, contrasting against the saline on Autumn’s skin.
But his neocortex was soon roundhoused by his reptilian brain when he felt Liz turn her body and pull herself up to him. She planted a few kisses on his chest like a signature, and then moved to his neck while grabbing the bulge that was more constricted than a boa. She rubbed it, and it swelled more at her touch.
Then he felt another body.
Autumn pulled herself along his other leg, sharing the space with Liz equally, but stopping just at his pants. He felt Liz beside her as they kissed each other unbuttoning his pants. A few snaps, and Arthur’s erect penis was met with a freeing bite from the cold air. The tinge of pain was swallowed by Liz’s warmth as she collapsed her lips over his shaft.
He arched his back in pleasure, just to feel a pair of hands cupping his balls and pushing them against pouting lips. The pleasure was insane. He looked down at his two loves, feeling each of their mouths caressing his nether region. Liz worked one hand on his shaft and trailed the other up his abdomen.
That’s when he couldn’t take it any longer.
He gently pulled both them off his genitalia and stood up. His head nearly poked out of the top of the makeshift hut. He dropped his pants, his penis engorged to a point of explosion, and Autumn sucked on it like it was a popsicle in the heat. She popped her mouth on and off the head of his penis till it was a bright red.
He looked at Liz while she played with herself, spreading her gorgeous legs and arching her back. Her eyes were closed, and Arthur wanted to help them both.
He pulled Autumn off his hard cock, pulled down her shorts, and bent her over, lowering her to her knees. He spread her ass open, and saw her tight, pink muff glistening in what light they had. Liz rolled to her back and positioned her lower half just under Autumn’s face. Autumn pulled Liz’s boy shorts to the side and licked her effortlessly while Arthur rubbed the head of his cock over Autumn’s other juicy lips.
He slipped himself into her, easing the just over half a foot shaft into her. With each push, Autumn licked Liz harder. Arthur watched Liz with pleasure as he rolled the ecstasy from himself to Autumn and then to Liz.
Arthur gripped Autumn’s pert hips, pushing all of himself into her. When Autumn felt the length of all of Arthur, she passed the yearning on to Liz, and Liz pulled Autumn's tongue deeper and cried out in joy. She spasmed with her eyes closed for a few seconds, and then arched her back for another kick of pleasure.
Arthur was in heaven, and he worked Autumn harder.
“Oh my god,” Autumn screamed.
Arthur rocked harder, moving all his dick inside her. As Autumn orgasmed and screamed, trying to muffle her pleasure with her hand, Arthur pulled out his shaft. Autumn dropped to Liz’s side, and ready for Arthur let his load go, but Liz shot up from her feet. She pushed Arthur on his back and slipped his cock inside her. She rolled her body on top of his and squeezed her legs around his. He couldn’t contain himself any longer.
He squeezed on her bulgy bit of skin where her hip met her ass, pressing her down as far as she would go. Ropes of hot silken cum shot inside Liz. She opened her eyes in surprise to the warmth that filled her. Arthur huffed in excitement, finally able to release the sexual tension that had been stirring inside him.
6
An Oncoming Storm
Arthur, Liz and Autumn laid in each other’s arms through the night. The bitter cold of the night nipped at their noses while they tried to share as much body heat as possible. In all of Arthur’s training, never would he have thought that he would be in this kind of situation, but here they were, stranded two hundred and twenty miles above the Earth’s surface. The station spun at a constant rate of one thousand miles an hour. This centrifugal force created the artificial gravity that now plagued Arthur’s back.
The layer of space the station inhabited, the thermosphere, was cloudless and free of water vapor. However, non-hydrometeorological phenomena, such as the aurora borealis, occasionally occurred.
He turned onto his side, trying to get a more comfortable position and making sure not to disturb the women. Through the hut opening, he watched the subtle green light of the aurora glowing just past the sides of the station in the distance. Natural stars were absent, instead replaced with remnant cities that twinkled among their icy voids.
How ironic that the cities of old will serve as the new heavens.
He focused his attention back on the land, moving his eyes over the landscape that climbed up into sky. Thoughts of how they would gather the next resource they needed in order to survive hounded his mind. He had no clue where they would get nourishment. The only hope he hung onto was that, when they perused the station with their newly built vessel, they might find nomadic tribes that could help.
The air twisted oddly in the far horizon just as the land started its ascent. What looked ominous at first only became bigger, stretching from station wall to station wall. In the center, something seemed to cut directly into the billowing essence.
Arthur squinted his eyes and raised himself onto his elbow to get a clearer picture. The billowing essence grew larger. He felt his heart beat in his throat when he realized what it might be. He quickly shot up and fastened his clothes before stepping out. His movement caught Liz and Autumn off guard, and the women rubbed their eyes, still drowsy from sleep.
“What’s wrong?” Liz called after him.
Arthur was quiet, staring into the horizon.
Liz and Autumn came from the makeshift shelter, fastening up their jumpsuits and boots. They ran to his back and stared at the oncoming cloud of dust.
“What is that?” Autumn asked.
Arthur’s mind was racing, looking one last time at the approaching threat to make sure it was what he thought it was: sandstorms. He had only heard of these sand blasting hazards happening every few months, but here one was, upon them.
“Sandstorm!” Arthur yelled back at the other makeshift hut. “Liz, prepare the craft! Autumn, get your sisters.”
Autumn ran to where Winter and Summer were sleeping, but screamed in terror.
Arthur ran up behind her and realized why — Winter and Summer were missing. He shot out of the hut, looking at the remains of the smoldering fire and then out to the horizon as if he would find the two sisters waiting for them. But there was nothing.
The storm was now billowing up high into the atmosphere, where the air thinned and space rolled downward toward the station’s glass walls.
Arthur grabbed Autumn by the shoulders as she came out of the tent in tears. He pulled her to the craft where Liz was preparing for their departure, and yelled as the noise picked up, “We must go!”
“But my sisters,” Autumn cried out in despair.
“If we don’t find shelter, we will suffocate in this madness,” Arthur clamored.
The clouds were violent in the distance, swelling into a terror of chaotic, rolling crests before them. They shielded their eyes from the ensuing dust and sand as they climbed into the craft. Liz readied the spring-loaded parachute contraption that Arthur had jerry-rigged earlier.
If only Winter was here to guide us through the winds, he thought.
Liz then sat down in the back and pulled Autumn toward her while Arthur darted to his seat and gripped the steering wheel tight. He could feel the forceful wind on his back as the raging cloud of dust approached.
Arthur slammed down on the makeshift lever, and the parachute launched outward. A few tugs of the wind currents pulled on its hem, and the fabric let out a roaring rip.
POP!
Then the cables snapped, and the chute tumbled away from them.
Arthur’s stomach dropped to his bowels as he watched their only lifeline to safety roll away like tumbleweed in the desert, along with any hope he’d had left.
He looked back at the relentless storm. Something strange dotted the ground at its base. Liz caught his perturbed gaze and mirrored where he was looking. What they were seeing was clearer now, as the dust devil was closer; it was not a natural phenomenon, but stirred up by a set of vehicles.
Each one was more provisional than the next, outfitted with scraps, space satellite debris, and junk cobbled together. The prime vehicle in front was larger than the rest and seemed to cause a volley of winds in its wake. In addition, to the violent winds that had reached them already. Arthur could make out the car-like shape with a flatbed on the back, some kind of hybrid front loader and El Camino, equipped with a neon yellow scoop on its grill.
“What is that?” Liz tried to call out over the screeching wind.
Arthur was panic-stricken in every sense. He wanted to run, but knew it would be futile, as the marauding group would catch them quickly.
What do they want?
He looked back at Liz and Autumn just as they hopped out of the vessel and bolted in the opposite direction of the oncoming threat. He reacted, following them. They sped past the improvised shelters, and dodged the first shifting lake, which still held their pod captive at its bottom. Ahead, on the horizon, they saw a cluster of fumaroles and aimed to hide behind them.
But it was too late.
A smaller vehicle reached them first, made of aluminum and cables. In its hull was a glowing rocket thruster taken straight from a first stage launch. Arthur was huffing as deep as his lungs would go and pumping his legs, trying to keep himself between the marauder transport and the women. He sprinted hard, but another small vehicle pulled up on his other side. Two men, painted in red dirt and black oil, yelled obscenities from the chassis hull while holding a black iron object similar to a frying pan.
What the hell?
THUNK!
Arthur felt the hit from behind. A noisy vehicle scooped all of them up into a front trow, then lifted into the air, tumbling the group back and onto themselves.
Before Arthur could reorient himself, he was met with a foul-looking man holding a billy club in one hand and a jumper cable in the other. Autumn and Liz rolled next to Arthur just as he received an unhealthy dose of the marauder’s weapon.
WHACK!
He felt liquid running down his face, and sleep fell heavy over him.
Blackness.
When Arthur woke, his head rang like a continuous bell, and with each throb of his pulse, he felt as if his brain would explode from the pressure. He touched his bandaged head and found it wrapped in cloth that had dried and clotted to his scalp. He steadied his eyes, and felt the warm Earthshine upon his face.
It was daytime now.
He was outside, next to what looked like an encampment of some sort. Junk and trash was scattered next to it, as if a horde of desperate humans had rummaged through garbage with no regard for the invidious conditions.
What kind of people are here on Annulus, he wondered. Especially ones that would hurt another human being, he qualified, remembering the events that had occurred.
He tried to lift himself up, but he was at odds with what strength he had, and settled for propping himself up on an elbow. More upright, he cast a wide-eyed gaze around, appraising his present situation and learning more about the puzzle before him.
From that, someone had buckled a heavy shackle around his ankle, and he could barely move it from the weight. He was chained to what looked like a thick, iron railroad spike, driven deep into the dirt.
Arthur rolled over onto his stomach. The smell of garbage was more present in his nostrils as he made out the landscape before him. Across the way was another hut constructed out of aluminum scraps and flaps from a satellite, bonded together with what looked and smelled to Arthur like shit.
This design of hovel repeated throughout the encampment and encircled him, terraced chaotically about. The wretched smell filled Arthur’s nose and was incessant in its reach, nearly making him gag.
An insufferable shriek pulled at his attention, one that was familiar, causing his heart to beat in his throat.
“Nooo!” a female voice screamed from beyond the first row of trashy huts.
Arthur pushed himself up with his arms, calling on strength that was now clouded with fear. The thick iron chain was long enough to allow him to stand, but offered hardly any slack to let him stray far enough to see where the panic was originating.
From the passageway between two shelters, he watched a large, brooding beast emerge. A set of grotesque teeth protruded from its lower jaw. Its body was deformed in hideous ways, resembling a woman in only certain areas, like the chest and thighs. Its lower legs stood out noticeably, as it had animal legs with a backward knee.
Arthur immediately corrected his thinking, remembering this was an ankle on digitigrade legs, not a knee.
However, its core was the most disfigured. It was carved out, hollow and porous, with toothy openings.
How can such a beast survive when its vital organs are absent?
Arthur ducked down to the ground so as not to startle the beast, and got a look at what it was pulling behind it. A woman lay limp as her body gouged the soft dirt under her. Her forearm had been cut away and its end charred, leaving only a blackened nub of flesh below the elbow. Arthur ran his eyes over the woman’s face and saw the familiar features of Liz. Her cheeks were flushed from the screaming she had bellowed not five minutes ago.
