Your mind is your arsenal, fortress, and armory. Your words are potential weapons you give to your enemies to assault the citadel of your soul.

To PokingFun and Talenwolf for the editing help. Also, for all those who helped with the creative process of this story. My weary mind cannot put a name to you all. We share a darkness, a confusion with the injustices in society and struggle to make sense of our lives in all of this mess. Keep going. It is all we can do.

*****

To give credit where credit is due, the President's eyes barely flickered off-camera. You had to be looking for it. Off screen, some woman, phone in hand, was starting to run down the information leak I'd just used to urinate on the President's hopes and dreams. The Leading Lady was no slouch in the debate forum.

It took her about a second to unleash her inner attack dogs. The vector was formulaic - destroy your opponent's credibility by exploiting their vulnerabilities. She got high marks for information, education and experience but you don't get to be President because you take risks, or are imaginative. Voters don't like people in charge who have 'new' ideas. That's scary.

My most glaring weakness was my sanity, or lack thereof. An attack on it was obvious and the weapon was my history. Me having been sexually traumatized in the past was maternally endearing if you were a Mother and I was your 20 year old daughter's date she'd brought home. For a man acting as the harbinger of a pandemic, it was most likely fatal for my message.

"Mr. Jensen - Israel, I was afraid this might happen - that the accumulated stress that has been inflicted on you has unhinged your mind. I am so sorry," she played the Great Mother so well, "I am fearful that such a public appeal would be too stressful to your fragile mind. Trust me, I understand. You have been brutalized repeatedly in your life and none of it has been your fault."

"I beg you to find that thread of human decency that reaches back to the boy you once were, and break free of the vengeance-filled, trapped and battered young man you have become. Women have wronged you. The multitude of womankind have not. Find it in your heart to break free from your chains of madness and let us help you."

"Hold on, Madam President," I rallied, "are you implying that I've been raped, lost my mind, or both?" Come get some, Bitch. Make my case for me. By destroying my credibility, she was going to give me credibility. It was simply credibility that no one with political ambitions would want.

"It is too late in the day for evasions, Israel," she sighed. "When you were 16 you were kidnapped, raped and tortured. You went to..."

"Wait," I shouted. I turned to Capri, off camera, "how can she know that?" I wailed. No, I wasn't denying it and I was looking at Capri because, while my voice inflection was good due to my training in public speaking, I was afraid my acting wasn't up to par.

"Israel," the President kept coming.

"There is no record of me being raped," I interjected. "Who are you saying raped me?" I was hoping I sounded like a hysterical person trying not to sound hysterical. Capri later told me I did a good job - probably because I was terrified I would fail at this crucial moment.

"Israel, that's not the issue," she tried again.

"Yes it is," I insisted. "You can't accuse someone of being raped without proof, President Pillyere. That's immoral, and slander, I think." I had to put her on the defensive so she'd have to drop the kid gloves and really come at me. Please, please, please...

"Your tragedy shouldn't be exposed to public scrutiny, Israel," please, please, please; for all the needless cruelty I've suffered, let this once be something that helps me, "but you were kidnapped, raped and tortured by the Aurora Slasher for 87 days. That broke you as a man. With the help of women - some very skilled and devoted women - you recovered."

"Sadly, after you exited therapy, you were the victim of a truly barbaric act. You went to a Sorority Party and were viciously used as a sexual toy by the girls there," she poured on the sympathy. Barbaric was a nice touch...but I wasn't raped, I was used as a sex toy...at a party, according to the President, I'd gone to willingly. Well done.

"Saturday night, you fell into the clutches of a known underworld figure who inflicted all those bruises on your precious body we have all become familiar with. The Arena was a tragedy. You were beaten, lethally threatened yet still managed to save a life even though you were clearly falling to pieces on the inside," she added.

"Bravo!" I clapped. "Well done, Mrs. President. The problem is...Show of hands," I raised my hand. "Who here didn't know I was insane when I showed up today?" I looked over the studio. Virtually everyone, Mirabel included, raised their hands.

"Come on now, after Monday's career implosion and my plea to the police at the hospital last night, I am undoubtedly off my rocker. This doesn't mean my information is bad," I pointed out.

"Sure, I could be deluded, or you could be lying too. This is an easy bit of confusion to clear up. Why don't we contact the GNN affiliate in Shanghai? Or San Francisco? Have their journalists go to the relevant hospitals and observe how lethal this 'flu' outbreak is."

"You are causing needless and irresponsible panic, Mr. Jensen," the President firmly chastised me.

"Irresponsible? Perhaps, but I'm not paid to be responsible, you are and you are sucking at your job," I grinned. "Why? That's the 'needless' part. The people NEED to be told that you are letting a pandemic spread across the country so you can isolate a few key economic centers so that some shell of a country can persist that you can rule."

"That's pathetic if you are a woman, or man, considered vital as you are all going to die off in a few decades anyway, and truly suctacular if you aren't one of the Chosen Few. They are about to catch a disease that kills both men and women in seven days - the last four are really unpleasant, I can assure you," I told them.

"Mr. Jensen," the President snapped.

"Shut up!" I shouted back.

"Madam President, you will have your chance at a rebuttal in a moment," Mirabel jumped in.

"Thank you, Ms. Cartwright," I nodded.

"For everyone else, here is the puzzle of the day: Why am I here? We all know I'm a nut and a troublemaker and if you believe the President 'happened' to show up...well, stick your head back in the sand - you'll be happier, believe me. For the rest of you, please recall what Dr. Vasco said yesterday on GNN."

"My antivirals kill the T1. She proved it which surprised me as much as anyone else. What you probably don't know is that I did not develop these antivirals on my own. As the President just confirmed, I was kidnapped by the Aurora Slasher. She experimented on me with a variety of things. One of them was Carabolix-37."

"It was stored at St. Jerome's hospital, which records will confirm was the place where the Carabolix-37 live trails were performed. Twenty years ago, it killed or caused every man who was given the drug to have their nuts cut off. I am the only survivor and no one knows why, save the Slasher herself. Why don't I know?"

"The Aurora Slasher did many horrible things to me, a sixteen year old virgin boy. They were so bad that the therapist had to suppress many of those memories so that I could be functional in the eighteen month timeline they were given.

Saturday night, along with spending a painful sexual encounter with said mobster and having my sexual liaison with the woman I love used as a marketing tool in the slave auction I was forced to participate in, Dr. Delilah Fremont, creator of Carabolix-37, woke up one of those memories. Yes, it was the torment of those resurfacing nightmares of being trapped in her cellar that broke me."

"There it is. I admit it. I was driven insane when I was sixteen and I'm close to being that shattered husk once again. That doesn't change the fact that I was in that basement, I was experimented on with something that has made me immune to the Gender Plague, and it doesn't change the fact that a new, updated version of that Plague is coming to kill you all."

"The how and why of Carabolix not killing me may be locked up in my head somewhere. With it would be a way to allow men to create antivirals to counteract the Gender Plague and this new horror coming for us all. This is why the President is making her appeal to me now on world-wide video."

"This is not some ego-driven fantasy. Think about it. This 'gift' from the woman who destroyed my childhood is nothing but a curse. Rape survivors don't want the limelight, we want to hide. Last time we were 'noticed' something bad happened to us. I agree I have had an egregiously unlucky life," I was winding down.

"Yet, I have managed to find love and compassion at this late date, and with that, hope. That's all I can really pass on. Spend the next week giving a damn about a total stranger, tell the person you love how you feel and follow your heart. If I'm wrong, you've blown one week of your hopefully long lives. If I'm right - how else would you like to go out?" I finished.

"Madam President," Maribel passed the verbal baton.

"Mr. Jensen, you are a lunatic," the President sounded so full of concern and sympathy. I really had to hand it to her. She was about to screw me royally.

"Agreed," I nodded.

"Wait your turn, Israel," Maribel cautioned me.

"You have turned an unfortunate influenza outbreak into an epidemic only you can cure. How realistic is that?" my current aggressor kept chiseling away at me. "I'm trying to bring men into the pending gender issue and you are jumping off the Cliffs of Reason."

"Mrs. President," the neurologist from Texas interrupted, "we know he has the cure to the TI Gender virus, as he claimed on Monday. Can we at least find out the source of Mr. Jensen's information?"

"It comes from his imagination," the President was getting snappish. No more Christmases!!

"No, it comes from the Ministry of Security, Operations Section, as well as members of JSOC and certain satellite intelligence," I confessed. "The pertinent fact is not that I'm undeniably crazy. It is that your own administration has betrayed you, Madam President." BOOM! Take THAT!! It was no longer about my credibility or confidence - it was about hers.

The logical next step was to mock my access to anyone with their hands on such sensitive information. Except the military had made a grab at me an hour ago, it looked like her Attorney General had bungled the handling of the Jensen Investigation on Monday and her National Security Advisor had talked her into this public appeal fiasco this morning.

"Who told you these things?" she growled. "I want names." Even as those words poured out of her mouth she realized the enormity of her mistake. It was too late now. Her mental turmoil, brought about the disaster at the MAL rally, the on-coming plague, lack of sleep and her anxious efforts to save what she could, had eroded her poise enough to give me a ray of hope.

Whether you wanted to consider it irresponsible journalism, or a matter of the public having the right to choose, it was Maribel that landed the killing blow.

"Madam President," Maribel shot up from one of the elevated stools she, and I, were sitting on, "I have only this moment heard confirmation that there is going to be a quarantine that encompasses the San Francisco Bay Area in four hours. What is going on here?"

What was going on was a matter of human psychology and logistics. No one, not even the President, could simply order the cessation of all land, air and sea travel out of a location and have it happen instantly. You had to marshal forces, seize chokepoints and organize your internal resources for the crisis's to come - disease, hunger, lawlessness, and fear.

The last problem could be the biggest. When told that a horrific disease was breaking in your hometown, your instinct was 'I'm healthy, so I should get out while the getting is good'. It was a very human reaction. If you were trying to contain a contagion, this was very, very bad. This virus had a three day incubation period.

People who felt perfectly healthy could be walking corpses and not know it. Sadly, none of this mattered to San Francisco. The infection had been spreading around the cities of the Bay Area for six days by this time. The path of the initial plague bearer was a nightmare. She'd been at the airport, as well as eating, shopping and clubbing for two days all over San Francisco.

As an act of kindness, the director of GNN San Francisco began informing the Emergency Managers of every city about to be affected that she had spilled the beans. By the time the listening audience made up their minds to tell their buddies before packing up and making for some means of egress, the wheels of the quarantine were rolling.

Rental cars were no longer available, trains and metros stopped running, and the ports, ferries and all airports, great and small, shut down. It was an imperfect containment, but it was something.

"This conversation is over," the President barked. "Who is in charge there?"

"Special Agent in Charge Enola Treyvon, Gender Investigative Unit, Federation Bureau of Investigation, Madam President," Dimples stepped forward, cloaked in an invincible aura of purity. "What are you orders?" Camera's panned to her and she came on-screen for the masses.

"Special Agent Treyvon, arrest that man," the President commanded.

"I can't do that, Madam President. He is not in violation of any Federation Law," Dimples replied.

"His bracelet is malfunctioning," our Fearless Leader pointed out.

"Noted and explained, Ma'am. It was disabled in a police action, by an authorized law enforcement agent striking him accidentally. He has informed the proper authorities and has an appointment to remedy the situation upon leaving this building," Enola answered.

"It happened last night," the slightly exasperated President continued.

"Ma'am, the offices were closed last night and don't open for another thirty minutes. What exactly was Mr. Jensen supposed to do?" Dimples was a cool, sedate calm.

"Just arrest him!" the President's patience was wearing thin.

"Well, Madam President, if you declare a State of National Emergency, I could do that right now," Dimples pointed out.

"So ordered," the President commanded. Clearly the woman was exhausted from a long sleepless night. She was definitely worn down, stressed and not at the top of her game.

"Could you please clarify," Dimples requested monotonously.

"I declare a State of National Emergency - now take him into custody," she barked.

"Thank you Madam President. Madam President, I am placing you under arrest - the charge is Treason," Dimples announced.

"WHAT?!?" the President shouted. "You can't do that."

"Yes Ma'am, I can. Page 37 of the Emergency Powers Act - Section 40 - paragraph 1: 'Any authorized federal law enforcement agent, or armed forces member directed to act in a law enforcement role may arrest and detain any public officer, or employee, deemed to be acting against the public welfare, and interest, for 72 hours without a legal hearing.'

"You really should have read what you just made into law, Madam ex-President," Dimples remained totally neutral and comported herself with astounding gravitas.

"I'm going to call your boss, the Attorney General, and settle this matter right now," the maybe ex-President threatened.

"Mrs. Pillyere (the Quebecois former President's last name)," SAC Treyvon mused, "if the AG takes that call, she will be charged, quite legally, with Conspiracy to Commit Treason. I imagine your popularity is going down the toilet right about now, so please be cooperative. As we speak, Ms. Montanyard, of the 10th Federation Legal District is sending an arrest warrant to the Minister of the Treasury, directing her to order the Secret Service Presidential Detail to take you into custody."

"Aren't you at least going to arrest Mr. Jensen?" the stunned ex-President mumbled.

"Why? He's been totally cooperative and up front with everything we've asked him to do - unlike you," Dimples lectured.

"But - the cure," our former leader pressed.

"He doesn't have access to a global, or even national cure. He never has. Besides, he's not a public officer, or official," Dimples pointed out. "He isn't required to do anything to help anyone. To force him to do so would be unconstitutional - the 14th Amendment says so."

"Wait, he's a member of the staff at City Hall, isn't he?" the ex-Pres. kept trying to tread water.

"The world would be a much tidier place if everyone would simply read the handbooks created for such situations," Dimple sighed. "Mr. Jensen is under a termination notice by the Civil Affairs Review Board which, I quote, 'removes all duties and responsibilities from said individual until the time of their termination review hearing'.

"That is next Tuesday, if you are curious. To pre-empt your next suggestion, only Mr. Jensen can request a speedy hearing. The Civil Affairs department cannot request one because that violates his rights to mount a 'timely' defense," Enola remained outwardly detached. I didn't know this shit and I worked for the city.

A Grand Cosmic Law was being revealed to the world at large: Dimples wins. Dimples always wins. You see, there were only two outcomes possible. The President successfully resisted and the country descended into civil war because if the Chief Executive of the Nation was publically disobeying the law, why would anyone follow her?

Or, the ex-President went to the FBI, squealed like a stuck pig and took down her entire cabinet for their complicity - including the Vice President - and the country was decapitated. By issuing the State of National Emergency, she'd silenced and neutered the Congress for 72 hours as well, so neither the Speaker of the Assembly nor the President Pro Tem of the Senate could legally take over the country.

The Supreme Court was technically still intact, but what in the hell were they going to do? They had no enforcement powers and the government bureaucracy was running on autopilot. In theory, authority devolved down to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. More likely, it was in the hands of the Regional Military Commanders.

On paper, a million women warriors were theirs to command. In reality, the majority of these women were clerks, mechanics, armorers, medics and other support personnel. The minority were combat troops. Very few were actually military policewomen/shore patrol.

The military had three missions: military confrontation, police actions and training the next generation of women to fight effectively. Among other things, this meant a disparity of combat power between installations. South Atlantic Command had a plethora of Coast Guard cutters and frigates, several air bases of mostly reconnaissance planes, a combat air training facility and a dozen battalions of Reserves.

There were two Ranger Regiments in her area plus their training base, but they answered to a separate command, the JSOC.

In comparison, the Mid-Atlantic MC was a Goddess of War. She had two fully functional combat divisions, six combat air wings, the world's third largest naval base, the Naval Academy and roughly two and a half divisions of reserves from various branches of the armed services.

While the commanders of the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic regions were theoretically equals, if South Atlantic did something Mid-Atlantic didn't like, or had something - like that nuclear power plant - that Mid-Atlantic needed, a major ass-whooping was in the offing.

To add to the fun, if a naval or Coast Guard vessel was at sea, it was under their various Naval Fleet commands. If it was in port, it was under the local Military Commander's command. The Chief of Naval Operations was ordering all naval vessels to bolt for the high seas. If you were a civilian in Halifax, Hampton Roads, Veracruz, San Salvador, San Diego or Vancouver, watching all those grey ships running for open water must have been a sight - and not a good one.

In a final cluster-fuck, there was the majority of one airmobile division and two Ranger battalions right outside the city that were NOT part of our Regional Military Commander's power structure. The Rangers belonged to Joint Special Operations Command and the Airmobile belonged to the Old Southwest Command - the old US Southwest States and several northern states of old Mexico.

Their RMC was probably really, really curious when she was getting her only active service division back, too. I hoped she wasn't holding her breath. She had a shitload of territory to cover, a small number of support and reserve units to use and, oh yeah, there was a plague breaking out right over the border in California with the corresponding exodus.

While the Federation was in a really bad way, the Europeans were totally screwed. All morning long, their leaders had been standing up and telling their populations that things were bad - a deadly flu outbreak in China - but they were going to ride out the storm. The EU and the Federation were on top of the crisis. They could all breathe easy.

Somewhere between lunchtime and dinner - depending on which European time zone you were in, the Federation government was overthrown by a military coup, or so it seemed. Collectively, the citizens of Europe took a deep breath - and then totally freaked out. There were runs on the banks and mass migrations from the cities.

Factories, trains and overnight package delivery via the internet stopped. The Pope called for calm while quietly sending units of the Swiss Guard to protect a handful of boys' schools the Holy See had established on the island of Sardinia. In France, Italy and Spain there was a call for a General Strike. Some midlevel functionary ordered the evacuation of the Louvre, setting off more panic.

In Germany, a peaceful vigil turned violent and the Chancellor declared Martial Law. In Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ukraine, a State of Quarantine was declared along with a midnight curfew. There was a run on the stores. Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavia appealed for calm.

You could see it in their leaders' eyes. It wasn't going to be enough. The European economy was going down the crapper in the next 48 hours and nothing could stop it. After Nigeria imploded at the end of the first Gender Plague, the only states in Africa that mattered economically where Egypt, Greater Ethiopia, Kenya and the Republic of South Africa.

Yes, there were states in West Africa. That was the problem; there were a lot of little states. In the center of Africa, southern Angola and Katanga had been gobbled up by the RSA. North of that was a No Woman's Land all the way to the Sahara - which has spent the last fifty years marching south.

The RSA had 'leaked' the information to its people about the oncoming Plague, so the official revelation wasn't crushing. They were talking quickly with their African neighbors, the few European powers that were still taking their calls and South America, trying to keep some kind of economy going. They needed India.

India's response was that they had Plague in 18 of their largest cities. India was one of those nations that came through the Gender Plague 'okay'. Unlike China's One Child policy that had left them male-heavy, India always had plenty of women. She was sent reeling from all the deaths like everyone else, but she'd come out comparatively stronger world-wide.

India was one of the five great world economies along with China, the Federation, Russia, and the RSA. Everyone thought China was fading fast, now India was about to go the same way, Russia's biggest trading partners were the rest of Europe and China, in that order, and now the Federation was 'iffy'. There was no way the RSA could carry the weight alone.

In a final act of feminine superiority, Dimples had destroyed Western Civilization. She had to share credit with the T2 virus for the rest of the global catastrophe and I was sure she was okay with that. For me, it was the start of my flight to freedom. I could do no more damage there. That wasn't really important because at this stage of the disaster, Capri had been willing to use her stun gun on me and drag my ass to the elevators if I hadn't cooperated.

"Ladies, I have to run. Take care and be good to one another. I wish you all the best of luck," I signed off. "The Final Word for today is 'Resilience'." The presidential staff cut her connection. Maribel nodded good-bye and returned to her job. She was telling the audience that GNN would start running continuous updates on plague outbreaks and work toward a cure.

What else could she say? No one chased Capri and me to the elevators. No one on this floor was jumping ship. In a sad reversal of fate, they were the ones realizing there was nowhere for them to run while I had finally found a way out. Special Agents Fraklos and Vabishi met us at the elevator. They must have made it up seconds ago.

"Time to go, Israel," Fraklos gave me a weary half-smile. "We are going to try and bluff our way out the back. For some reason there are over a thousand young ladies gathered out front."

"What?" I gasped.

"Less impressive sex, Bitch," Capri muttered. Her phone rang. She saw the number and groaned.

"Hi, Mom," Capri plastered on a happy face.

"Honey, did you overnight that shipment?" Mom got straight to the point.

"Oh, I tried Mom, but he fountained so much into me that I gagged. I ran to the bathroom, threw up and accidently hit the sensor - it all got flushed down the drain - all three loads," Capri sniffled.

"You WHAT!" her mother snapped.

"I know Mom, I've let you down again. I know I'm a failure, but I promise to try harder. I can go down on Israel right now," she turned the phone my way for a second. "I'll suck him off before the elevator makes it to the ground floor and - I don't know - spit it into my purse and send that to you," Capri pleaded.

"Ah...I'll call you back," Capri's Mom stammered and the connection went dead.

"Whore," Capri griped. Her phone rang again. "Damn it," Capri growled. "This is new," her tone changed when a video of an ambulance appeared. It took Capri a second to figure out who the driver was.

"We need to get here," Capri showed the screen to Fraklos and Vabishi.

"That's straight through the mob," Vabishi looked at her dubiously. "We won't make it." I was paralyzed by the thought of me in a sea of female bodies tightly packed together. I had done this. Since Monday, I had done all this to myself.

I was an emotional masochist. I hurled my fractured psyche at the very things that I knew would tear me up inside and chisel away at what little mental reserves I had left.

Angel.

Angel's eyes, her smell and the way her lips parted slightly before she spoke. How her eyebrows came close together before she unleashed her anger at me - often deserved.

The way my heart felt when I cried while she held me - the absence of my shame and her lack of condemnation, or pity. She wouldn't always like me. She did love me. I couldn't give up my faith in that belief. Not now.

"Angel is with Roni," I spoke up. "We are going to the ambulance."

"Israel, I'm not sure we can get you there," Fraklos observed.

"That's okay, you are not coming," I grinned at her. "Capri and I have a better chance on our own and quite frankly, if I don't go for Angel, she'll come for me. I might as well make it easy on her for once in our relationship."

"Israel..." Vabishi started to try and talk some sense into me.

"Give it up," Capri sighed. "He loves her. He's going. I'm following along because I have jack-all for job opportunities now." Capri really liked me...or maybe she was remembering her promise to kill me once we survived all this chaos. I preferred to think she liked me.

"We'll run interference with the police and reservists while you two make a break for it," Fraklos shrugged. "It hasn't been a pleasure in the slightest and thank you for making my life long dreams and ambitions totally irrelevant, Israel Jensen."

"Stick with Dimples. She'll see you through," was my only advice.

The elevator doors opened and a half dozen female faces were looking our way. Barring strict protocol or routine, if someone acts like they know what they are doing, people tend to accept that they know what they are doing. That was the scenario Fraklos and Vabishi were playing out. The Metropolitan Police and the Army Reservists had orders concerning me.

To the police - "this was a Federation matter". To the Army - "the President had just been arrested for treason so they had to go back up their chain of command to figure out if they had valid orders or not". They were FBI - they were elite FBI. Could they be mistaken? Could they be helping a male fugitive from responsibility make his escape through a mob of girls?

That was crazy talk. Besides, I didn't look like a man about to make his bid for freedom. I looked almost catatonic. That was because I was nearly catatonic from fear. Less we forget, I was gang-raped by a bunch of girls close to the age and social make-up of the ladies outside, right down to them being interested in me because of the sexual favors I had willing given to another.

I had no internal hero to call upon. I never viewed myself as heroic. I was a victim and an exceptionally unfortunate one at that. There was no shard of my psyche that could do this.

'You are free to do whatever you want'...bunny hop with a smile...'you were that man before you came here'...holding hands...'thank you'.

I had not given up the will to live for 87 days. I had exited that sorority to graduate at the top of my class. I walked into a sea of policewomen to save the life of a boy I had never seen and would, most likely, never know. I was not a coward. I was a survivor and a good man - a good human being.

I was a survivor. Survivors were rarely respected. I wasn't a hero, but I could pretend to be one for as long as it took to make it into Angel's arms. They only tore heroes apart after the fact. We walked out into the light downpour. Capri opened my umbrella. I didn't need it. I needed to be seen and I was. They called out my name and pushed forward against the line of patrolwomen.

The reservists had an answer for that. Those hexagonal devices I had noticed coming in were sonic crowd suppression devices. They ruined your equilibrium and made you vomit. From both ends, the women at the controls began working over the mob of young women. Two ranks beyond the cops, women began going down in droves.

The soldier closest to us operating the device was suddenly showered with shrapnel. She received a few painful lacerations to her upper arms, but was okay. She was still trying to figure out what had happened to cause the near-total destruction of her weapon when the device on the other end of the column shut down.

The rotator assembly had exploded, fortunately sending slivers of composite away from the woman operating that weapon. That soldier was going 'wtf' when the first one figured it out.

"Sniper!" she shouted over her com-net and ducked down into her vehicle. The reservist sergeant in charge of this detail didn't panic.

She starting figuring out what kind of casualties she was looking at - none - and where the fire was coming from. The first sonic technician was doing those physics herself. It took her a few seconds to work the trajectories and she didn't like what she came up with. She should be dead, as should her comrade controlling the other device.

That sniper hadn't missed. She'd hit exactly what she was aiming at without killing any of the soldiers involved.

"Sergeant - rounds coming from the south, down Marlowe Avenue. She must have at least five meters of elevation, if not more," she said. That was ONLY a few acres of real estate.

Right about then, the fifteen seconds those sonic devices effected someone after they had been subjected to the attack wore off. The policewomen had easily held back the closest two ranks of girls the devices had not affected. Now those girls behind those two ranks were getting back on their feet, covered in their own vomit. Those girls were very, very angry. They surged forward.

The policewoman in charge gave the order to use tasers while calling all units to rush to the scene. Patrol cars had been coming this way since the growing number of girls was detected. They had been moving in cautiously so as to not incite an incident. It was a slow escalation of force. Now they turned on their sirens and came running.

More cops would have come running if not for another calamity a few kilometers away. Keverich mobsters had attacked and killed the Mayor and most of her entourage. That was what the reports were saying anyway. Beyond that, the police were still rounding up and detaining thousands of men. They were stretched thin.

The police went to tasers, a few girls went down, and then one girl countered with wasp spray. In many ways, it is worse than pepper spray. For starters, it has a longer range. This girl dowsed the cop who just tasered her friend. This woman closed her eyes and got an arm somewhat in the way - she was partially incapacitated.

The girl then turned the stream on the cop to the left with the same results. The patrolwoman on the right had her eyes wide open when the spray hit her face and went down screaming. The police cordon collapsed. This was not the Arena. The ladies wanted their plight to be recognized, or their support of me to be known.

There was anger, not bloodlust. The blinded policewoman was picked up by a group of girls, carried forward to one of the light transport vehicles and told to stay put. Cops were taken down fighting. A few tasers were stolen - no firearms. They wanted GNN to come out and record their voices and witness their defiance.

The reservists were putting a second, smaller, line together when I shouldered past them from behind and ran into the press of girls. Even those who weren't here to support me recognized me. Capri and I were quickly engulfed. I could feel the last sands of my resolve falling through the hourglass. I had to hold on just a little more.

I scanned the group of girls closest to me, seeking the lead lioness.

"I have to get to that ambulance," I shouted my appeal. She seemed worried and confused. "My girlfriend is there," I explained. There was that tinge of jealousy. There was also that spark of romance, a modern day 'Tale of Two Cities'.

This lead lioness began shoving other girls, getting their attention and forming a protective knot around me. My words came back to haunt me.

"We have to save one life - just one life - His!" she pointed at me. "Come on ladies, let's go." This group of total strangers forced a path against the tide, working toward the rear of the mob.

I never let go of Capri's hand. I couldn't have made it this far without her and I wouldn't have been worthy of continuing on if I let her go. An eternity later, the pressure eased and we emerged on the far side of the mass of humanity to see Roni and Angel outside the ambulance, waiting for me.

Angel took two steps toward me, I took a few steps toward her - I was losing the ability to count.

"She seems awful old," the lead lioness remarked boldly. I doubted Angel cared.

"Love is timeless," I turned and told my unknown saviors. "Thank you."

"Come on, Ladies," that girl laughed. "Let's go get them," and she led that dozen young ladies back to their chance to be famous.

"Come on, gang," Roni shouted over the noise. The reservists were using their middle vehicle's grenade launcher to bounce tear gas grenades off the surrounding buildings thus disrupting the crowd. "Capri, you and Israel get in the back," Roni helped me along. I saw Angel get in the driver's seat.

We were hustled into the rear of the ambulance, Roni shut the doors and ran back to the front passenger side. The vehicle rolled away, only accelerating when we were clear of the chaos. For a second, I thought of Doyle Crane. I wondered if he was finally living the life he'd always wanted - upholding the long tradition of investigative journalism and unrelenting social commentary.

"You did it, Israel. You made a difference," Capri comforted me. "I think a vacation is in order." Mouth agape, I stared at her then I started laughing. It was my crippling hysteria; it was a deep vibrant echo of a former life. "What's so funny?" Capri studied me.

"I haven't had a vacation since I was ten and my Mom and I spent a few days at a rustic little bed and breakfast in upper Minnesota," I enlightened her.

"After that, it was all summer camps, therapy, college and finally here," I shook my head. "I've never had 'nothing' to do since 'that night'," referring to the night the Aurora Slasher took me.

"Nothing?" Capri chuckled. "Can you take a sexual joke?"

"I'll do my best," I sighed.

"When you get tired of sitting around 'doing nothing'," she 'quoted' with her fingers, "I think there will be a few women around who can help you with that." I wanted to joke back with Capri. She was fun. Those mental reserves? Those last grains were slipping past. I couldn't muster the strength to do anything more than keep my eyes open and my mind receptive.

Angel drove the ambulance to an abandoned, pre-Plague warehouse west of the city. We switched to a passenger van that Angel had liberated from Police Impound. As the women were transferring the medical equipment from the ambulance to our new ride, I overheard their quiet discussion.

Someone had to retrieve Venus and Samantha. Roni had contacted Samantha and those two were going to the Farmer's Market and wait to be picked up. They were coming to the conclusion, with Capri's urging, that Capri take Angel's personal vehicle. Roni was a paramedic with a skill set our group desperately required. I needed Angel to be there when I mentally returned to the world.

Capri joked that she was a lawyer; a profession that was about to be rendered useless. I wanted to say something except their logic was unassailable. Capri was right, Roni and Angel were correct in agreeing with her and I couldn't volunteer myself. I was in no shape to make the drive even if the other three would let me go. I knew they wouldn't.

I wasn't going to make a false declaration when I knew the outcome and the sacrifices being made on my behalf. Venus had rubbed everyone the wrong way at least once. Samantha...Samantha was the Quiet One. She didn't stand out, sparkle, or shine. She was steady and unspectacular. They were also part of us and the tribe had decided to not leave anyone behind.

Capri left in the car, going south. Angel, Roni and I headed west for a few more kilometers. We came across a home off the beaten path - decent acreage, mostly wood covered with the dwelling not clearly visible from the road. As we turned down the gravel driveway we saw a sign; 'Trespassers will be' - with white tape over the bottom word(s) and the addendum 'use your imagination' finishing the warning.

The house was a sprawling one-story affair that didn't look fabricated. It looked woman-made, except that woman had an incomplete knowledge of architecture and home construction. Angel pulled around to the side of the house. It appeared we had been told to park there.

"Where are we?" I murmured.

"Kuiko and Aniqua's co-worker's home," Angel informed me. "I understand he's disreputable, if not downright criminal."

"We figure people won't know to look for you here," Roni added. We piled out of the van, gathered the approached the door.

There were two hand-made, woodcarvings on either side of the main, side door. One was 'Jethro McFarlane' and the other was 'If the pussy ain't fresh, I ain't interested'. Kuiko's information came flooding back. Still, who said shit like that? Angel drew her sidearm, put it behind her back and knocked on the door. Aniqua answered fifteen seconds later.

"Hey," she smiled with some relief, "you made it. Where is Capri?" My mind was rattling along as best it could. Aniqua didn't know about Capri because they were keeping their phone chatter to a minimum...that made sense.

"Israel...Israel?" Aniqua repeated.

"Huh?" I managed.

"Why don't you come in and take a nap?" she offered. "Get a bite to eat maybe?"

"Going down the home stretch," I muttered while trying to sound upbeat. That was it for me. My mind informed me I was out of gas by shutting down. My demons would always exact their toll and I was all out of the 'soul' currency they craved.

(The End of the Day)

I woke up in a strange bed with no recollection of how I go there. It stank. I was putting definitions to what smelled as I raised my head and looked around. Whoever lived in this place liked to kill animals, as witnessed by the stuffed animals and animal head wall ornaments, and had an all-consuming aversion to housework in any of its forms. There were clothes on the floor, every piece of furniture was stacked up with something.

On the wall the bed was pushed up against were animal horns of various kinds of creatures and every prong had a pair of women's panties dangling from them. I could almost touch them. When I moved I realized the ceiling above the bed was covered with a huge circular mirror. This made sense because the bed was circular too. Where the fuck was I?

I almost missed the eyes at the 'foot' of the bed. They were big brown eyes, slender eyebrows, a smallish nose bridge and bangs over the top quarter of the light brown/yellowish forehead with the rest of the hair pulled back.

"Hey, Kuiko," I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

The entirety of her head popped up.

"Hello Israel, are you feeling okay?" she asked compassionately.

"So-so, I guess," I shrugged. I had pushed myself up on my elbows. "How long have you been there?"

"About twenty minutes," she grinned. "I had to wait until everyone else was pre-occupied."

"Did everyone get here okay?" I maneuvered up to waist level.

"Yeah. Capri came in with Venus and Samantha a few hours ago. They brought most of your clothes," she related. "Jethro's bimbos made it too. They have some stupid names - Paisley and Lavender." I reached out and gingerly tapped the walls of my mental collage.

"Is Mistress Sano displeased?" I teased her. Kuiko rose higher. I imagined she was on her knees. She was also really happy. I was playing a game with her which suggested I was recovering from this morning's psychic marathon. She shook her head. "I'd really like a hug if it isn't too much trouble, Kuiko Sano."

Her teeth shined white-bright. Kuiko crawled up the bed. I thought she was trying to be non-threatening, so she slithered up the bed to be level with my lap. She placed the side of her head to my stomach and slowly - tenderly hugged me.

"Can I ask a favor?" she whispered.

"I'll do my best," I offered.

"Please stop trying to hurt yourself so often. Make an effort to avoid danger instead of running straight at it," she murmured into my shirt. "Not only for me, but for all of us who care about you."

"I'll work harder at it, I promise," I stroked her hair. "And Kuiko..."

"Yes," she replied quietly.

"I love you, too," I said loud and clear so there was no doubt. Kuiko jolted. Slowly she looked up at me.

"I wasn't sure you heard that," she whispered. "I hoped..."

"I hope you don't mind that I love two other women besides you," I met her gaze.

"Of course not, Silly," a tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm totally and completely fine with it. How you deal with Zara and Angel is another matter."

"Hey, how did you know I love Zara?" I wondered.

"I'm not good at many things, but I'm good at welding and at seeing love and she's got it bad for you and you've got it bad for her. It's obvious," she grinned once more.

"You forgot one thing," I regarded her. She seemed confused. "You are good at the sexy."

Kuiko studied me then gained this wicked cast to her lips I hadn't seen before.

"Mistress Sano is very good at the sexy and she is very displeased," Kuiko play-scolded me. She sleekly mounted me on all fours. She repositioned herself so that her pubic area was on my crotch - which was very awake - and waggled her finger at me.

"Bad, bad Israel," she chastised me, "not giving your lady-friends enough of the sexy. I will have to punish you most severely." Punishment came in the form of her rubbing her vulva over my cock with ever increasing speed. "You are too happy," she noted. It was the truth. Kuiko made my spirit rise and my soul sing. She banished all the evil from my life, if only for a little while.

"I clearly must apply more punishment," Kuiko looked devilish. She dismounted me then remounted in reverse cowgirl. She looked over her shoulder victoriously. "It seems my tight little butt must torment, tease, and tantalize you as well." Someone had been looking at a thesaurus.

A few gyrations into this newfound peril, the door opened and a tall, over-stacked young lady with long black hair, short-shorts and a white t-shirt in danger of spilling its load, walked in.

"Oh, sorry," she babbled. "I came in for my..."

"That's okay," Kuiko squealed. "I'm riding my boyfriend to multiple orgasms!" At some future date Kuiko is going to understand how far her voice carries. At that moment, Roni was in a far bedroom, crashed out. Angel was asleep on the sofa in the living room where Venus and Capri were glued to the social media, taking the pulse of the city.

Samantha and Lavender were attempting to teach Aniqua something about cooking in the kitchen in the back of this ramshackle abode. Jethro was in the backyard dealing with his still. According to Capri, Angel went from quietly asleep to racing toward my room in one second flat. It took everyone else a few more seconds to figure out what Kuiko's proclamation meant.

Paisley went stumbling into the room as Angel shouldered past her. Kuiko vaulted off of me and squeaked when she tumbled off the corner of the bed, wedging herself between the curve of the bed and the wall, legs sticking up. Angel had on her 'cop' bra on with a shoulder holster for her pistol. Thankfully her look was one of concern, not anger.

"Israel, how do you feel?" Angel questioned.

"Hey..." Paisley groused.

"Whatever, Pansy," Angel didn't even look at the girl.

"It's Paisley," she insisted.

"Shut up before I pistol-whip you," Angel muttered. Paisley wisely opted to back away from Angel and deeper into the room.

"I'm feeling better, Love," I tried to reassure Angel. "Kuiko was teasing me for putting all of you through the ringer the past two days." Angel sighed and looked down.

"I..." Angel searched for the words.

"You can punish him if you want to," Kuiko mumbled from her stuck position. "A little help here."

"Can we spend some time together?" Angel clarified her desires.

"I'm looking for my Henna kit," Paisley stated.

"I'd love it if you would spend some time with me, Angel," I felt so desirous of her.

"Help," Kuiko repeated. There were too many conversations going on.

"I'm coming, Kuiko," I told my little lover. I locked wrists with her then pulled her back on the bed. "Here you go."

"What's a Henna kit look like?" Angel turned to Paisley. Kuiko snuck a quick kiss on my lips then joined the hunt for the ornate wooden Henna tattooing kit. With a bit of Angel's detective work, they traced the kit to the last place it had been used which led, in turn, to boxes and boxes of condoms. I barely knew what they were. Kuiko was at a total loss.

Both Paisley and Angel knew what they were. Angel had a friend/ex-friend who was in Sex Crimes. I didn't know enough about Paisley to hazard a guess about what she knew.

"Go," Angel pushed the Henna case into Paisley's midriff. Kuiko didn't need to be told. By this time I was on my knees looking at Angel.

I sensed that tiny bit of progress I was making. Angel was all wrong in so many ways yet I wanted her. I wanted her embrace, her comfort and her scent permeating me.

"I need to vent," Angel requested as she shed her pants and crawled onto the bed. I was totally clothed. I didn't think sex was in the offing but I liked the view - I honestly liked it.

"I deserve it," I said piteously. I really didn't want to get bitched out though I earned it. She crawled on all fours to me until her breath was strong in my face and our noses almost touching.

"I'm very angry with you," she glared.

"I apologize. I was confused and selfish," I confessed.

"Good, I'm glad we got that out of the way," Angel said then kissed me and kept on kissing me as she pushed me over and pressed herself down on my body. Fear clutched my heart. My heart reminded me that I could say 'stop' and Angel would stop. I loved her and she loved me. I had to feed that emotion.

Feverishly desperate kisses evolved into hungry French kisses with occasional brief hesitations to gather our breath.

"You still wearing clothes," Angel panted. I didn't feel that forcing any levity would be appropriate.

"You are on top of me," I moaned.

"You get top - I'll get bottom," Angel directed. My belt went 'bye-bye', my zipper down and my pants were yanked off. The underwear followed suit. She let me keep my socks. I managed to get my shirt off quick enough so that I was able to roughly remove her bra.

Angel gave me a feral look as I tossed her grey sports bra away. She took care of her panties. Now we both only had socks on. I was contemplating being playful when Angel pushed me down by my shoulders and got on top. Foreplay consisted of her maneuvering my cock into her pussy before she slammed down on my pelvis hard.

Angel's head rolled back as I filled her up. She took several deep breaths before she gazed down at my prone form. Oh God, she was crying.

"Israel, you make me so angry," she choked back a sob. "I'm so crazy about you. Everything in my life has fallen away and I so terrified of losing you too."

"I swear I'm going to do a better job of listening to you, Angel. I really need to work on our relationship," I said.

"That's sweet," Angel grunted then kissed me, "but I also want you to promise to fuck me every night before we go to sleep and first thing every morning when we wake up."

"I want you," kiss, kiss, "for more than sex," she panted - kiss. "I want to make sure that you to know I really, truly want sex too."

"Request noted," I grunted back. "Can I start playing with you now?"

"Go - right ahead," she grinned. I leveraged myself up with my right arm so I could snare her breast with my left hand and suckle from her teat.

My mind whirled with fear and worry. I felt so guilty that I ran away from the good things. At that moment, that was all washed away by the burning thought that I deserved to be happy, even if briefly. I didn't know if the survivor in me believed that when it embraced the idea. The instinct was to grab at anything that pulled me back from the precipice of mental disintegration.

I came to the epiphany as Angel writhed above me, seized in a torturous climax, that survivors were not nice people. They were not bad either. They cut away every bit of their mind and body that didn't keep them going because to keep going was all they had. If they could do that to themselves, they could do that to anyone - decide friendships were expendable.

In the same way I had found my world to be expendable. I knew it wasn't me and me alone. That was unimaginable hubris. I'd still abandoned ship instead of trying to save more - somehow. In the same vein, I had agreed to go with the Vanishers. In the same vein, I had surrounded myself with these companions.

It wasn't that I didn't have love and affection for these women. I did, yet that nice teenage boy those therapists had tried to resurrect and Bethany had shattered was gone forever. His shade remained, but his voice in the cacophony of instincts of my head had been nearly silenced. I could be Kuiko's best friend and Angel's lover yet that chiseled core I had talked to Flame about was at the center of my being; this Monster I had to live with.

I sat up until our bodies were perpendicular to the bed, her breasts pressing against the base of my shoulders. Angel held the sides of my jaws as we delved into a lengthy and vigorous kiss. When we finally broke it off I caught sight of the audience at the door. The gang I could deal with. The two newcomers were almost too much.

"My gun is on the bed," Angel whispered. "If they are going to be a problem, I could shoot them for you."

"You are the only one in the room," I answered. She liked that. Her vagina clamped down as she swiveled her hip, rocked back and forth.

"I'm going to make sure I am the only one you see," Angel smiled.

"Honey, I don't even know where we are," I grinned back.

"Good boy," she purred then kissed me again. I withheld the fact that I really didn't know where I was. I'd been telling the truth.

Stress, interrupted sleep and mental turmoil combined in a cauldron of sexual frustration. Angel orgasmed for a second time, my cock ached, but my sperm continued to not provide any release. I couldn't ejaculate. I had to roll over on top of Angel so we could keep copulating.

"This," she panted, "better not be - Venus' fault," Angel pried.

"Besides - I thought Aniqua - would be next," she added.

"It is not a rotation system," I clarified. "Asking Venus felt right for the moment. It isn't like earning a prize. It is more like courtship," I tossed out there. "As long as everyone understands that I have to have an hour-long sex session with Kuiko whenever I have sex with anyone else, we should be okay."

"YIPPPPEEEEEEE!!" came the shout at the door followed by some pummeling.

Angel wrapped her legs around the top of my thighs, clinching me tight.

"I think you are forgetting who your Number One Girl is," Angel gave me the sexiest smile I'd ever witnessed. No verbal comeback came to mind so I responded with the pulse of my body. Angel let her legs open and fall to the side - still folded at the knees.

Her arms unwrapped from my shoulders, coming to rest over her head. I could barely contain the image of the beauty that presented itself beneath me at that moment. Angel's eyes were closed in a casual fashion - no effort to shut them tightly. She was reveling in the touch and sound of our coupling, removing all extraneous input.

I started planting random kisses on her biceps, underarm and shoulder joint. At the same time I started making slower and longer penetrations into Angel's vagina. My glans rubbing against her labia at the top of each stroke was tearing Angel up. She would take a deep intake of breath every time I did it.

"This sex is not my apology," I told her softly.

"I know," she murmured, eyes shut but with a blissful turn to her lips. "You are not like that. You show me you love me when you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is give me that precious, sleepy smile. I want you to know that means so much to me."

"It took me three long years to get that far," I kept relishing her sensuality. "Truth be told, you did more with me in one week than I did for myself in those three years."

"I was right to put my faith in you," Angel rubbed her clit against my pelvic bone to increase her pleasure even as she spoke. I couldn't help myself.

"When my Mother died, I went to live with my Aunt in a Sapphic nunnery where I was taught the arts of how to pleasure a woman. I became so skilled they named me Israel, which means the Promised Land," I teased her.

"Aaahhh... 'Temple of Pleasure' - I thought the male leads name was 'Canaan'," she purred.

"You mean there really is a book like that?" I groaned. "I thought Capri was making that up."

"No - no," Angel absorbed the sensitive stimulation from our carnal acts, "it is real alright. The strict, yet lonely Mother Superior, the anxious and curious neophyte, the Amazon Princess and even a male-eating tribe of cannibal women - who apparently will devour Canaan if he can't pleasure every one of them."

"I can relate to his anxiety," I grunted. Angel inserted a giggle within her panting.

"Oh, he has boyish good looks, a penis that is 25cm long and 10cm thick, and testicles the size of plums," she informed me playfully. Oh God, those dimensions scared me and I'm a guy. "Don't worry," she teased. "I'm very happy with the equipment I have."

Her equipment? I pumped her a few times quickly as a test. Angel sucked in a tight breath, arched up against me and moaned heatedly. Yes, it was still my equipment. Gloating over that point, I almost missed Angel giving off these little huffing noises. She was close to climax.

"Are you my Amazon Princess?" I quietly taunted her.

"Oh Goddess! Oh Goddess, she likes to do it like a beast," Angel gasped while looking terribly excited - shower - fourth time that Saturday. I rapidly wrestled the stunned Angel's leg up, over and around, pulled up on her hips until she was on her elbows and knees and plunged into her steamy cunt once more. As I recalled during the shower I took it slow, but Angel liked it hard and fast.

All other imagery faded into vapor as I was engulfed in the presence of Angel. The glitter of sweat on her back, slowly pooling along her spine. The slapping of her ass against my hips going off like firecrackers. Her breath was coming in ragged puffs. Angel wasn't tired; she was erotically excited - a culmination of fatigue, her worry about me and a desire to recapture the magic of Saturday morning.

We did an excellent job doing just that. Angel bucked up against me as her orgasm grappled with her physique. Somewhere in the process, my body sought its own release and I inseminated her womb. I couldn't let go. I seized the moment with selfish hands and kept going. Angel was wondrously resilient and mirrored her passion with my own.

We rocked back until Angel was sitting in my lap, her back pressed against me and my hands cupping her breasts and twisting her nipples while her hands reached back and ran through my hair. Angel and I didn't roar to one last, simultaneous climax. We coasted into a tender, romantic, entwining of a pair of lovers.

It was a fantastic advancement for me and a huge leap for Angel. I was cuddling with her wrapped up in my arms as she reclined against me, vulnerable and trusting. Angel was allowing herself to be vulnerable, ramping up our trust and stepping outside the dominant role she had assumed in our relationship.

"I am still angry with you," Angel murmured with contentment.

"I wouldn't be me if you weren't," I kissed her ear. I received a very light elbow in the ribs for that one.

"Israel, are we really going to stay together - you and me?" Angel asked.

I could have said 'I hope so', or 'I'll try' yet that was clearly inadequate and untrue in my mind.

"I've lost too much love in my life, Angel. I don't want to go on without you. I doubt I could stand it," I confessed. I felt much the same way about Kuiko, Capri and Zara, but Angel - Angel would stand against the nightmares when I could not.

Kuiko would rebuild me with her cheerful patience. Capri was truly the one who would keep me on the right path. Zara would allow me to live without constantly looking over my shoulder. Angel would always be that first one in my bed since Bethany. I don't think she really understood that. Talking about my past, failed love affair was pointless.

Angel didn't need to go through that. In the same way I would never yell at Kuiko, never flip off Capri and never doubt Zara. I had to meet each commitment with a commitment of my own. That was going to be the way my life worked now.

"Thank you, Israel," Angel laid her arms over mine which surrounded her. "I'm pregnant."

I stopped breathing. I was pretty sure my heart stopped. Angel was using our proximity to judge my reaction. This was piling on the dread.

"Israel? Israel, are you okay with this?" Angel prodded me.

"Wow...yes. Yes, I'm okay with this. Are we going to have a boy, or a girl? What about names?" I began babbling.

"Israel, calm down," she told me. I tried. "I'm not pregnant."

"What? Huh? Did you have a miscarriage?" I gasped.

"No. I wanted you to go through some of the emotional hurricane I experienced last night wondering where you were," Angel growled, "only to discover you ran off with a hit-woman."

"You're not pregnant?" I mumbled.

"No, but we are even now," she informed me.

"Babe, that was cold. Seriously, I think that was out of bounds," I protested.

"Out of bounds? Israel, I combed over the bodies of nine hundred dead males praying I wouldn't see your face," Angel explained harshly.

"Your bracelet gave off its distress signal then died. Your phone wasn't working. For nearly an hour I had every reason to believe you had died - with me only a few hundred meters away in the same building. I was getting ready to shoot some policewomen myself," Angel grumbled.

"Thoughtless and stupid," I described my actions. "We are even."

"I know it was a low blow...I didn't want to break down in tears and that was my only other option," Angel switched up her emotions from anger to anguish.

"I am glad we are on the same page on that," I nodded. Yeah, Angel had come back with overkill. That was her nature and since I loved her, I was going to have to deal with that.

"Is that the reason we ended up in the position we are in now?" I altered course.

"Oh no," Angel shook her head. "I have a thing for Amazon Princesses - in a purely heterosexual way."

"Good to know," I kissed the nape of her neck. "I think we should rejoin the others before we end up stuck this way."

"True," Angel agreed. "Any more time in your lap and I'm going to start getting possessive once more."

'That's right Angel. Driving everyone from the room so we could have sex wasn't possessive in the least', I kept that slice of sarcasm to myself.

Sometime during the process of our love-making, our audience had departed and the door to the bedroom had been shut. We dressed, put an arm around one another's waists and opened the door. We were immediately gifted with the aroma of a freshly cooked meal. Angel and I must have been at it a while because dinner had been served.

Thankfully there was plenty to go around. People were around this good-sized dining room table. Samantha, Kuiko and Roni were leaning against the wall with their plates on various pieces of furniture. Closest to me, in the end chair, was Capri. She was looking at me intently, gauging my level of sanity.

On the right side of the table were Venus and an empty chair. On the left side were Paisley and a girl who had to be Lavender. She was like a Paisley clone, except white-blonde where Paisley was dark. Otherwise, they shared the long-leg, over-endowed chest and beautiful, youthful countenance our host seemed to favor.

This was my first time seeing our host. Quite frankly, he appeared the oldest human being I'd ever seen. He was certainly the roughest looking. White, wiry hair billowed down past his shoulders. His thick, white moustache drooped five or six centimeters past his chin. His cheeks and chin were covered with white and grey stubble.

The man - Jethro McFarlane, I guessed - had hazel eyes flecked with gold sheltered under thick, white eyebrows. The eyes were a bit bloodshot, yet burned with a fierce intellect and defiance that belied his advanced years. This guy was scary at 67. I would have hated to meet him when he was my age. Hell, I would have hated to meet him when he was 40.

Jethro put his fork down, stood up and extended a hand my way. I walked around the table, past the spare chair and clasped his hand. I then screamed and fell to my knees. Jethro squeezed my hand, grinding the knuckles together... they popped out of alignment. He let go of my appendage and I pulled it to my chest. Angel was coming up fast.

"Want to try that with me, Old Man?" she seethed.

"There is no point," Jethro responded laconically. "You are a girl."

"What the fuck does that mean?" Angel sizzled.

"It means you are not a man so you wouldn't understand - Cop," Jethro matched her glare.

"Bastard," Angel growled. She put a hand on my shoulder. "Israel, are you okay?"

I was searching for the answer to that as well as Jethro's needless cruelty. I didn't know the guy. Had someone he'd known died because of something he thought I did? And what was this about being something only a man would understand?

I had heard 'you don't get it, you aren't a woman' plenty of times in my life. That was because men didn't have much time for 'group think'. No - men as I had known them didn't have group think but long before I was born it had been very different. No one said 'it's a man-thing' because men didn't have time for their own 'thing'.

Before men counted lionesses, women counted lions. My mind wrapped around that analogy. When a young lion walked into an established lion pride, the lionesses didn't rally to drive him out, the Pride's lion did - lions in rare instances. I didn't have a twin. I certainly wasn't a lion, but my lionesses couldn't help me and would be at a disadvantage if I did nothing.

I couldn't win...it was most likely I couldn't win. I had to continue to fight even without hope of an obvious victory because I had to be able to live with the consequences of my actions. For reasons I didn't understand, men of a dozen nations, fighting under the French flag died in a hopeless cause two hundred years ago. The last six, out of ammunition, charged their vastly superior enemy.

This tiny snapshot of history didn't apply to me. It applied to Jethro. He was one of those six.

"I'm doing fine," I pushed myself back to my feet. "I don't think we've been properly introduced," I extended my hand to Jethro, "I'm Israel Jensen." He took my hand in his. This time I wasn't surprised by his steely grip. It took me five seconds to wince in pain.

Jethro let go of my hand and sat back down

"Nice to meet you," he said as he resumed his seat. "I'll get you something to eat. You look like you need it." He followed this with, "Paisley, get Mr. Jensen a plate full."

Paisley hopped to obey like it was nothing. She even smiled at the old timer and sashayed around him on her way to the kitchen. He slapped her ass in passing - again, like it was nothing.

I surreptitiously scanned the table. Only Lavender appeared to be taking this interchange in stride. It wasn't like we didn't know that there were Alpha males. They existed, but they hid it well because instinctively Alpha females went after them - the lust for conquest is genderless. The thing was, in our society, the male couldn't win.

Women had the power and their culture put a low premium on independent-minded men. The lady had the law and numbers on her side, thus the lioness analogy. Stupid Alpha females took a man on alone. It wasn't that they couldn't win, except why play fair? No, they gathered three or four friends, cornered a guy - taxis worked wonderfully - and wore him down.

Unless they physically damaged you, the man had no recourse. This meant Alpha males were very careful. They chose their dates carefully and exited in haste with their prize. If confronted with an Alpha female, they knuckled under like every other man, took their medicine and waited for the ordeal to be over. Alpha males certainly never advertised the way Jethro was.

"Here you go," Paisley placed the plate in front of me. She patted me on the shoulder before making her way back to her seat.

"Thank you," I responded. She smiled then went back to eating. Angel had to go get her own grub. This was awkward for me because I looked to Angel for protection and Jethro scared me.

Life became more difficult to comprehend. Kuiko moved to my side, between Jethro and me, knelt and started trying to feed me. Where the hell was that coming from?

"Kuiko, I've got this," I told her. "I've pretty much been able to feed myself for the past seventeen years."

"Please?" Kuiko looked up at me. No one was of any assistance.

"Okay - a few bites," I conceded. Kuiko lit into my steak, cutting it into several pieces, rubbed a chunk around some sort of sauce then pushed the piece of meat to my lips. It was different than any beef product I'd ever tasted - way different.

"Thanks, Kuiko," I mumbled as I chewed. After I swallowed I addressed Jethro, "Mr. McFarlane, what is this?"

"White-tail deer," he replied. He reached out to pat Kuiko on the head. My response was unexpected, even to me.

I met Jethro's gaze with an intense stare that very effectively communicated an answer to his challenge. Jethro eyeballing me and the hand movement were a possessive expression and for some unknown reason I was NOT okay with it. I had never been possessive of any person my entire twenty-one years - until now. Kuiko was mine, ours. I would not sit by and allow him to undermine our group.

I thought no one noticed the exchanged. Jethro certainly didn't back down. He patted Kuiko's head, she turned and smiled at him then returned her attention to me. She had to prod my lips with my next slice of deer because I was still grappling with the concept that I had not wanted Kuiko to be with that man.

Angel returned with her dinner, took a station behind me and glowered at Jethro the entire time. I didn't have to see her to know that was what was going on. She didn't comment on Kuiko feeding me. I did send her away after three more bites. I was a grown man after all. Funny tasting water - it came from a well out back - and something called Wild Cherry - which tried its best to incinerate my digestive track and succeeded in making me gasp and cry - were handed around as beverages.

It was not much of a consolation that most of the women, Paisley and Lavender included, had my reaction. Jethro drank it like I'd drink a Coke - effortlessly. As the meal wound down, Jethro stood up, ordered the women to clear the table and motioned me to come with him.

"We are not your damned servants," Venus groused. Jethro slowly turned and regarded her.

"Did you like the deer I shot? Did you like the alcohol I brewed? Did you like the vegetables my hard work paid for?" Jethro calmly responded.

"I..." Venus stuttered.

"Then shut up and pitch in, you stupid bitch, because if you are adverse to work you can leave right now," Jethro glared.

"Don't call Venus a stupid bitch," Angel and I said at the same time. I was standing right next to Jethro while Angel was a few steps behind me. If someone got clobbered for opening their big mouth, it would be me. Jethro shrugged and kept walking.

"Come on, boy," he called out. Angel and I followed him around to the kitchen and the door leading out to the backyard.

"Stay, Cop. This is man stuff," Jethro stated calmly.

"Listen up, Caveman," Angel growled, "I'm not letting you walk off into the woods with Israel. I don't fucking know you."

"In case you missed it, Bitch," Jethro gave Angel a measured stare, "that wasn't a request."

"You seem to have a problem with me," Angel shouldered me aside so she could come face to face with Jethro. "Why don't we step outside and settle it right now?"

"When I finish with sissy-boy here, I'll come back and we can settle things, Officer Kristi," Jethro smiled. "I haven't killed a cop in a long while so I guess I'm due."

"I'm not letting you take Israel," Angel countered.

"That's not your choice to make. It is his," Jethro reposed.

"Let's get this over with," I placed a hand on Angel's shoulder. "If he wanted me dead, he could have killed me in my sleep." Angel very reluctantly stepped aside.

Jethro and I walked in silence some way from the house until I was lost in the woods with the last rays of the Sun fading in the West. Out of nowhere, Jethro turned and punched me in the gut. I folded up and fell over. Jethro shook his head then offered me a hand up. I took it so he punched me in the eye. Down I went again. He offered me his hand again.

"Don't be like that," Jethro chided me as I pulled myself away from him. "Come on." My hand touched on a downed branch. I swung with what limited strength I could from my prone position. Jethro twisted his hips and took the fragile branch on his boot-covered shin. It snapped into pieces. I fully expected hate to start raining down and to hear myself crying out for help.

Jethro looked down at me then gradually smiled. I crawled away then returned to my feet.

"That's the first lesson," Jethro related. "Never accept help to do anything if you can do it yourself. If you become used to being helped, you'll wait around for help to come when you could do the job on your own. That goes for both sexes."

"Second lesson; men are warriors. It is our nature. We scrap, we establish pecking orders, and jockey for resources. Women can do these things, but it is not their job. Women want to talk shit out when a thirty second brawl will settle the issue. If you beat a man then treat him right, he will work with you. Women exist to back-bite and argue. They need men to keep them in line."

"That's not to say you don't listen to a woman's advice. Women are just as smart as men. It doesn't mean we should let them make decisions, though. Men make decisions because they are the ones who should be putting their lives on the line first and foremost. Being a warrior is more than just martial prowess, it is the willingness to make decisions and be responsible for them."

"There are too few men to behave that way," I responded.

"Bullshit. Kuiko tells me you've been fighting for your life for the past five years. You kept it together during some really tough shit," Jethro said. "Where you went wrong was that you kept trusting other people to save you when things went wrong."

"My friends are helping me get my life together," I challenged him. "I don't think that's wrong. They give a crap about me and that's not wrong."

"Don't be stupid, Kid," Jethro sighed. "If you get gut-shot, see a doctor. If your car doesn't run, see a mechanic. If you have a problem you can't solve, there is nothing wrong with going to someone who can solve the problem for you."

"Trying to do something you are unprepared for is stupid, not macho," Jethro stared at me. We were walking back for around a minute when, "Why did you eye-ball me over Kuiko?" I had to think over my reply because I wasn't sure myself.

"I saw your move and I grew angry," I worked out.

"Nothing wrong with that, Kid," Jethro chuckled. "Besides, Kuiko's like a daughter to me. I'm not trying to get her to jump in bed, or anything. Good to know you are willing to let another man know where the property line is."

"Kuiko isn't my property," I stated angrily. "I love her."

"How do you figure that - the not property part?" Jethro smirked.

"Ah - she's a human being. People shouldn't own people," I answered.

"Yet it is okay for that cop to own you?" Jethro turned things around.

"Angel doesn't own me. I love her, too. I also love a third woman named Zara, but that's it," I responded.

"Ha," he laughed. "Yeah, I heard you were hell in the sack. That's nothing to be ashamed of. Still, this Angel-girl has a gun and appears comfortable to tell you what you can and can't do. In my experience, guns and authority go hand in hand."

"Bullshit," I countered. "She let me go to the Arena. She was worried about my safety, for good reason. Just because I don't live my life like yours doesn't mean I'm not a man."

"Thus endeth the third lesson," Jethro chuckled. "In the final accounting, each man has to live his own life. I'm going to tell you some useful shit over the next few days. Take it, or leave it as you see fit. I don't want you to be me. I want you to be the man you should be."

"Who is that supposed to be?" I mumbled. I already had too many people in my mind.

"You'll figure it out soon enough," Jethro assured me. "Think of this. Wolves run with wolves, dogs with dogs and lions with lions. Don't worry about being a cougar, leopard, or tiger. You are not a loner."

"Okay," I finally replied.

"Shit, you have been fucking buried in their culture," he shook his head. "Boy, look at the women you chose to surround yourself with - that's who you are." That made no sense what so ever. I abhorred violence yet I chose women skilled and comfortable with it. It hit me far harder than Jethro had. Those women had something else in common; they protected people.

As we approached the house, lodging, whatever Jethro's domicile was called, he reached to the small of his back and pulled out a revolver.

"What's that for?" I hesitantly asked.

"I'm going to shoot your cop friend," Jethro said matter-of-factly.

Attacking him was pointless. Screaming to warn Angel wouldn't as useful as it might have seemed. We were in the dark; she was in a lit building.

"Don't," I took a deep breath, "I'll take care of it."

"Remember - be firm," he advised.

"Are you telling me how to deal with my woman?" I gulped. Did I just say 'my woman'?

"Yes," he affirmed. "You haven't a clue what you are doing and I don't want to make Kuiko cry when I kill her friend."

"Oh...in that case, thanks," I nodded.

When we entered the space lit by the floodlights, Angel came storming out. Like Jethro, she had her gun out and pointed down.

"Stop," I held up my hand and basically pleaded with my lover. Angel wasn't paying attention to me.

"ANGEL!" I screamed. That brought her up short. "Get back in the house."

"What?" Angel sounded incredulous.

"You don't know what is going on, so get back in the house," I stated in a steady voice that belied my inner fear and turmoil.

"Israel," she got out.

"NOW!" I yelled at her. There was a hush. Even the wildlife had gone quiet.

"That's not how it works," Angel growled. Her baleful gaze flickered from Jethro to me.

"You are acting like a child," I countered aggressive. "Now get in the damn house."

"No," Angel defied me. I struggled for the reaction, or words. I took a few steps toward her.

"I'm disappointed in you," I said softly. I tried to move past her. She grabbed my arm.

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Angel demanded.

"I know what's going on. You don't, yet you won't listen to me," I grumbled.

"You aren't ignoring me because I'm crazy, or in danger. You are ignoring me because this is a violent situation and I'm a man," I explained. "That shames me because I love and trust you."

Angel blinked. Her mouth opened and closed.

"Let go of me," I commanded. "I'm going inside. You and this old man can start shooting at each other whenever for a reason, or reasons, I don't understand."

"He hit you," she pointed out.

"Yes. I am well aware that he hit me. It is my problem, not yours. Had I needed your help, I would have called out. You could have assumed that since I didn't, I had the situation well in hand...but you refused to," I outlined for her. She had no comeback to my logic.

"Israel...I apologize," Angel whispered.

"Apology accepted," I stroked her cheek. "Now get your ass in the house." She stared at me.

"If you slap my ass, I'm going to arm-bar you," Angel warned me as she headed inside in front of me.

"I'm more of a massage kind of guy," I sighed, both happy and weary. I was also true to my word. I caught up with Angel, put my hands on her tightly clothed posterior and massaged those wonderful pieces of female workmanship. This time around, the Wild Cherry was a welcome distraction from the stress permeating the house.

We retired to something Lavender called a 'Man Cave' though it wasn't subterranean. I made the brilliant decision to make use of Jethro's home gym. Only when I got my shorts and shirt, came back and began adjusting the machines did I realize they weren't on a man's setting. A woman had been the last one to use these.

I was garnering attention, which I had learned to ignore long ago. I trusted enough of the women in the cavernous room so that I wasn't too intimidated by the looks I was getting.

"Take off your shirt," Jethro called out.

"Huh?" I was almost propelled off the treadmill.

"Give the girls some eye-candy," he snorted.

"We don't treat Israel that way," Aniqua spoke up. Angel was biting her tongue. There was a stalemate going on, then Kuiko jumped off her seat and fell on her knees.

"Show us the sexy," she pleaded to me with her playful expression lighting up her face.

Kuiko implored me with her hands held up in supplication. She was so freaking adorable. Suddenly Samantha fell on her knees beside Kuiko, quickly followed by Aniqua and Venus. Roni added to the mix somewhat reluctantly.

"Please, please, please," they chorused.

Aren't there something like twenty porn channels out there plus hundreds of websites?

"You don't need to tell women what to do," Jethro laughed. "Just have what they want."

I didn't want to have what women wanted! That was my nightmare three times over. My female companions were - fuck - they were playing with me. Damn it.

I languidly peeled my shirt off, hopefully maximizing my sex appeal. Had I understood sex appeal more, I might have done a better job. By the wide eyes staring at me, I mistakenly did something right. Trauma warred with the desire to heal - to be cleansed somehow.

"Kuiko, this is all you fault and you must be punished," I glared intense menace her way.

Kuiko looked enraptured with ecstasy. She began tearing off her clothes much to the shock/amazement of the other occupants. After she wiggled her shorts off all she had on was this pink thong with a strategically placed heart as its centerpiece. Kuiko popped up and started running around the room, arms out like an airplane.

"I've been bad and I'm going to get punished," she squealed repeatedly as she circuited the room.

Jethro's stare caught my gaze and his look was indecipherable.

"Worse case of negative reinforcement I've ever seen," he laughed. I lowered my head in defeat and returned to my exercises. It was better that way. The machines had safety features where my life had none.

I was ten minutes from completing my routine when something beeped on Jethro's TV. The old man flipped open one of the arms on his recliner and pulled out a sawed-off pump action shotgun.

"We've got company and I ain't expecting anyone else," he rumbled as he stood.

Angel also rose to her feet, taking in the male with a weapon.

"How many ways in?" Angel barked.

"Too many," Jethro calmly replied. "This place is made for egress, not to be a fortress."

"We'll talk about your firearms later," Angel grumbled.

"We can talk about how little I care later, but right now Cop, go to the side entrance where you came in," Jethro directed. "I'll take the front door."

"What so the rest of us do?" half the voices called out. Not me though.

"I'm a paramedic, but most of my gear is still in the van," Roni added. "Do you have a medical kit?"

"Paisley, show her where we keep the medical supplies," Jethro directed. He was already heading out, swiftly followed by Angel. I went after those two.

"What are you doing?" Angel snapped at me.

"Being a man?" I shrugged. Jethro chuckled.

"Here ya go," he handed me his revolver. "Ever used one?"

"I was taught by an expert," I pledged. As far as I knew, Flame was an expert. Surprisingly, Angel kept her mouth shut though she looked exasperated with both Jethro and me. She had barely separated from us when there was banging on the door.

Whomever had driven up must have been driving recklessly fast.

"Israel, open up!" yelled the voice from outside. Jethro was looking at a screen I couldn't see. I didn't need to see who it was because I knew the voice. I ran to the door. It wouldn't open.

"It is a friend," I shouted over my shoulder to Jethro.

"Who is your friend's banged-up buddy?" Jethro inquired laconically.

"Short, or tall?" I requested.

"Tall," he filled me in.

"That would be Silent. The maniac about to blow her way in here if you don't open the door is Flame," I explained.

The door clicked, I turned the knob and opened it and Flame came tumbling in with a semi-conscious Silent.

"Roni!" I yelled. I stepped up and hugged Flame. I almost wept.

"I knew you couldn't die," I murmured.

"Of course not," Flame snorted in amusement. "I haven't killed you yet." Someone cleared their throat. "Nice welcome wagon - an old fossil and a pissed off fuck machine." I had to fix my mind on the second reference. Flame had seen Angel's sex tape.

"This is Jethro McFarlane - it's his home. The woman with the pistol is Detective Angel Kristi - my lover and friend," I started introductions.

"Jethro and Angel, this is Flame aka Brigit and Silent aka Davia. They are part of the Keverich organization," I finished.

"I've heard of them," Jethro mulled things over. "I'm kind of curious why I'm not already shooting them."

"Me too," Angel added. No one moved, or spoke, for a few seconds.

"Israel, I think they want you to move so the bullets can start flying," Flame snickered.

"I'm actually aware of that," I kept hugging her. Silent moaned. Roni finally arrived.

"Can I take care of the wounded woman?" she addressed the room.

Flame muscled free of my embrace, dragged/carried Silent to the living room sofa and plopped her down. There was a pregnant pause as Roni maneuvered around the furniture with a first aid kit and knelt down next to the wounded bodyguard.

"So, what happened?" I finally asked. "Where is Magdalena?"

"Dead or in custody," Flame shrugged. "When I last saw her, she was wounded in the left shoulder and down on the ground. About that time I discovered that while my Baby will fracture the glass armor on an attack helicopter's canopy, it won't penetrate, so I ran."

"Are you okay?" I worried. Flame patted my cheek.

"That's what I like about you," she smiled flippantly. "You care. I don't know why, but you care."

"What exactly happened to Little M?" Angel advanced.

"Looked like Army types and SWAT stormed one of our safe-houses," Flame sighed. "It was in a high-rise and they came at us from all angles."

"That's bad," Angel muttered.

"Amen to that," Jethro confirmed.

"Huh?" I looked back to the two people who seemed to know what was going on.

"Back at the rail station," Capri came stepping up beside Jethro, "when the soldiers came for you this morning, Israel. That was illegal because there was no State of Emergency or Martial Law."

"Now the Army really is in charge and can round up anyone they wish," she continued. "The curiosity is why they haven't declared their intentions and a curfew."

"Isobel Diaz pointed those bitches our way," Flame related. "That's for certain."

"That's nice," Jethro stared. "How did you know to come here?"

"After Davia and I fought free, we had nowhere to go. All the gang's operations had cops all over them. I figured the Outfit was done for and we needed out. The only person I was sure had an exit plan was Israel, so I went looking for him. I knew his normal haunts would be crawling with surveillance then I remembered his buddy, Kuiko," Flame informed us.

"I went to Kuiko's workplace, talked to her boss and she told me about this place. Here I am," she grinned.

"You killed Amy (Kuiko's and Aniqua's boss), didn't you?" Jethro glared.

"She's in Hell alright," Flame snickered. "Plastered her brains all over the back wall, destroyed her personal and business computers then set the building on fire. I like being thorough."

"You appear to take pride in being a remorseless psychopath," Capri noted.

"Flame is my friend and she's a fighter," I argued. "We'll need her with us on the road we will be taking."

"Flame is it?" Jethro asked. Flame snorted. "You can stay as long as you know who is in charge."

"I suck at taking orders," Flame responded.

"That's not my problem anymore," Jethro grinned maliciously. "Israel, it is up to you to keep that pussy in line." What the fuck? How did that come about? Flame punched me in the arm.

"Are you going to tame this kitty?" she laughed.

I looked around for a lifeline. Kuiko had put her shirt on, but was otherwise only in her thong.

"Kuiko, could you show Flame to the kitchen and help her get some food and drink," I requested. "She's most likely not eaten all day."

"Sure thing," she beamed. Kuiko wiggled through the group of women by that portal.

"Come on," she beckoned Flame. Flame smirked at me then walked over to Kuiko. Kuiko linked arms with Flame. I feared a beating was in the offing. "Thank you for looking after Israel last night," Kuiko smiled. "We appreciate it."

"You do realize I put a gun to his head and nearly killed him, right?" Flame mused.

"Of course," Kuiko giggled, "but you didn't. It is because you two are friends."

"He fucks you a whole bunch, I can tell," Flame teased her.

"Yes," Kuiko bubbled. "Every time he has sex with another woman, I get a non-stop hour of sex with him too. He's going to torture my nipples later on, if you want to watch."

"Tons of fun," Flame chuckled. "I can't wait. Nipple torture - how does that work?" was the last thing I heard as they went out of hearing range. Events took on a life of their own after that. Roni sent Angel to their van for medical supplies. Paisley was a junior Biology student, so she volunteered to assist Roni. Aniqua and Samantha hung around so that the four of them could easily move Silent to the floor when the time came.

Roni was still working away while the rest of us were in the man-cave once more. Flame seemed happy taking long pulls on the Wild Cherry and smacking her lips. I wasn't surprised she wasn't worrying about Silent. Her wounded comrade was a reliable pair of guns guarding her back and nothing more. Emotional bonds were contrary to her psychopathic nature.

Jethro had been sitting on his 'throne' for fifteen minutes, deep in thought.

"I guess it is about time we got those guns," he announced as he stood up. His words captured everyone's attention yet he didn't appear to care. He started walking from the room and the rest of us followed along. The need for guns had brought us here in the first place.

His path led us into his walk-in pantry. One wall of shelves rolled out and to the sides on seamless wheels. Beneath that spot was a steel door, a tad over one meter wide and three meters long. It must have been spring-loaded because once Jethro yanked on the hole that only one finger could fit into, the portal swung open and back.

Stairs led down into darkness. Jethro turned around and followed them out of sight for several seconds. Then a light came on. The drop looked to be around four meters. Angel went next. A strange level of respect allowed me to go third. Flame was at my back then Kuiko, Venus and Lavender.

The floor was grey-painted concrete. The room stretched out five meters in each direction. 80% of the room was covered with stacked crates with a variety of markings on them, a few even in English. Angel was incredibly tense. I didn't know why, but I had a feel for her moods. The other 20% of the room was an immaculate workbench.

Considering Jethro's aversion to cleanliness, this was definitely something noteworthy.

"What is all this stuff?" Venus asked.

"Weapons," Angel preempted the old guy.

"This is an awful lot of weapons," Lavender muttered. No one wanted to say it, so I did.

"Jethro, you were in the MRA, weren't you?" I tossed out there. I'd told the nation that the MRA was dead and here I was looking at a small armory of illegal weaponry. Jethro had been walking over to the work area. He turned and looked us over.

"I'm going to do something I don't normally do," Jethro met each of our gazes.

"I'm going to explain myself. Let's pull some assault rifles out of those crates, make sure they in top shape then go upstairs 'cause I am only going to do this once," he stated.

"These people don't know how to use firearms," Angel cautioned angrily.

"They'll never learn if they don't have one and we are approaching the point where we'll need everyone to be a shooter," he countered. "Let's get to it."

And that's what we did. These weapons had been top rate stuff at the start of the 21st century. Now, they weren't quite antiques - only old. The basics of using some sort of explosive substance to propel an object at your target remained the same. In the case of firearms, it was remarkably the same, or so Angel said.

Kuiko went straight for the Russian-made Surface-to-Air missile - because she thought that the Cyrillic writing looked pretty. It was one of the few exotic devices. Most were clearly Federation military, or Police issue, undoubtedly stolen from some armory at some point early in Jethro's terrorist career.

I was irate that Kuiko looked so cute with a bandolier of ammo packs and an automatic shotgun. Angel insisted that only she and Jethro took loaded firearms upstairs. We could carry the gun and the ammo as long as the ammo wasn't in the gun. Venus argued that this defeated the purpose of having the weapon.

Angel countered that if she couldn't load it quickly, she probably shouldn't have it in the first place. I caught Flame bagging up a few boxes of ammunition, but Jethro didn't seem to care so I let it slide. It fell to Flame and me to lug extra rifles and cartridge belts up to the rest of the group, being the strongest - Angel was keeping an eye on Jethro and he was keeping an eye on her.

Fifteen minutes later, we had gathered back in the spacious dwelling space of our host. Jethro, on his throne, finished off a glass of Wild Cherry and began his tale:

"I was seventeen and in high school when the Gender Plague first broke out. I was quarantined for a month before the Supreme Court decided it was illegal and set us men free.

I took the opportunity to enlist in the Navy - the US Navy - because of the man shortage when I was released. Went through Basic, the Specialist School - I was a Damage Control Technician which meant I was a fireman - then a second outbreak happened. I was quarantined for three months this time.

I got out and was assigned to the destroyer Michael A. Mansoor. During the Relief of Athens, we all damn near died. Of the eighteen men and women in Damage Control, only me and one other rating survived. My officer, an ensign, stayed behind to make sure the forward ammunition storage was secure. Our CPO had us seal the ensign in. We saved the ship long enough for the crew to be pulled off.

The Mansoor exploded. We were never able to locate her body. She was some ROTC kid who was only with us four months. I never knew her first name until the ceremony after it was all over. She may have been the bravest human being I've ever known. After that, I served aboard the Little Rock working ant-piracy in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Since I took part in some land action during that tour, the Navy - I hate using the term Federation - reassigned me to Shore Patrol duty. I took police training and everything. I did another tour aboard the Little Rock the following year then they dragged me off when Congress decided that men couldn't be given combat assignments.

Seven months later, they discharged me and thousands of other men as part of a down-sizing program. Unfortunately, the same act of Congress that exited me from the Navy also forbid me joining the fire, or police departments. A buddy of mine was able to find me work in a machine shop where I learned the craft of welding.

After that, I was a good boy. I dated, joined a motorcycle club and built up a nice life. When the Gender Inequality Act was passed I was more annoyed than angry. All that changed when I was twenty-nine. See, I had some male friends who joined up with a group called Male Awakening. They were a group devoted to the repeal of the GIA through political means.

Things including publically supporting male-friendly candidates and working against GIA-supporters though boycotts and the like. I was rolled up in an FBI sting and those ladies informed me that they'd make those charges go away if I agreed to go inside and spy on Male Awakening. They knew I was friends with those guys. I told them to fuck off, fought the charges and beat their trumped up bullshit.

By the time I cleared up my legal troubles, they took the MA down anyway. It seems their Treasurer took off with their funds after leaving some financial irregularities. That was a total load of crap because they never caught that guy, but they did manage to put away most of the group's leadership.

A few months later, I ran across one of my buddies who had asked me to join Male Awakening. He'd heard about my troubles and over a few beers, he hinted that the fight wasn't over. This time I bought in. This incarnation didn't have a name. We weren't public. We dug up dirt on corrupt female officials by any means necessary.

We destroyed the careers of the worst oppressors of men. Violence wasn't our aim yet we armed ourselves for what we knew would be a harsh crackdown. We operated in small cells, but I knew we had lawyers, judges and even a few Congresswomen on our side. Since we had bracelets by that time, we used women to communicate between cells.

Our cell received word of the major Federation sweep a day before it happened. We were able to move most of our material stashes to new locations before they fell on us. The Writs of Exclusion were abominations. No one ratted me out. For weeks I sweated bullets every time I saw a cop car, a mysterious unmarked car, or heard a siren.

After a few months, I began searching for other survivors. We came together in secrecy, united in our fury. The Federation had broken every law and covenant so we agreed that waging a guerilla war was our only option. A week later I bagged my first cop. Put a bullet under her left eye at 80 meters. She was dead before she hit the ground and it felt good.

They - the Federation - had murdered my country and now they were paying. Three days later, I waited for a Federation agent to walk out on her porch to see her little girl off to school. I walked up, told the little girl her mother was a whore and put nine slugs into that whore's body and I felt just fine about that too."

"No," squeaked Kuiko.

"That is the way it was," Jethro gave Kuiko a paternal look. "Those women came at me with every dirty trick they could come up with to take away my freedom and I put them in the grave for it."

"You murdered people," Angel growled.

"Fuck you, Cop. The Gender Inequality Act was passed by women to enslave men. No man ever voted on it," Jethro snarled. "Men tried to use the system so you cheated. Boohoo that your bosses didn't figure out our only option left was violent resistance."

"I killed seventeen government officials and my only regret is I didn't kill more. Not one was a fair fight. Kuiko, I killed that bitch in front of her daughter because I wanted her buddies to come around and see the anguish on that little girl's face. I wanted them to worry about their own daughters. I wanted them to know they were at war."

"You are a murdering scumbag," Roni snapped.

"I disagree," Flame shook her head. "You are morons if you think he should have called out every freaking target and said 'hey, I know you have all the back-up in the world and I'm alone so I'm giving you ample warning that I'm going to try and kill you'."

"You are a psycho," Aniqua pointed out. "It figures you would agree with him."

"He didn't have a choice," Samantha intervened. Her speaking so decisively was almost as stunning as her words themselves. "Having a gun might not have saved Israel against the Aurora Slasher, but it might have discouraged those sorority students."

"The politics of payback," Flame laughed. "Jethro might sound like some sadistic bastard to the rest of you; not to me. His tactics are sound and they work. Kill enough cops and women stop joining the force. The authorities either crack down harder, bringing more over to your cause, or they concede to some of your demands."

"It is how a very small force fights a much larger adversary," Flame concluded.

"That's still cold blooded murder," Angel reiterated. I didn't know what to think. Jethro butchered defenseless women. The President doomed millions. I admired what Zara did except it was some of the same things that Jethro did...yet she was a soldier and he was a terrorist.

"There is no resolution to this argument," I spoke clearly and loud. "Short of violence to silence the opposition, there is nothing we can do to rectify the past now. Jethro, why did you stop being a member of the MRA?"

"Spokane," Jethro answered. "I had no problem with killing cops and Feds, and intimidating their families. They were part of the problem."

"Those high school girls though - that made no sense to me. We weren't at war with the female gender; we were at war with the government and their policy of enslavement. Killing random kids was wrong and I wouldn't be associated with it. I talked this over with my cell, they disagreed and I told them that if I saw any of them again, I'd kill them," Jethro clarified.

"I had several caches only I knew about. I waited a few months then moved up to the city, slowly bringing everything up here as I had the time. A year and a half later, my old buddy was caught up in a traffic stop, shot it out with the cops and was killed. From stuff they found on his body, he rolled up the rest of the gang, but the other members didn't know my real name."

"The GED came out and talked with me. They kept an eye on me for a few years. I behaved and grew old so they eventually went sniffing elsewhere. We wouldn't be here now if I hadn't gone drinking with Kuiko and let slip about my gun stash," Jethro smiled at my little friend. "I knew she'd never betray me...and she hasn't."

"Now I've got a front row seat to the End of the World so I get one last chance to make a difference," he said. Yeah, this old guy wanted to go down in a hail of gunfire, no doubt about it.

"Good for you, you butcher," Roni glared. "I won't do this."

"I signed on to make a difference," she continued, "not to hang out with cold-blooded killers. I'm out of here. Is anyone with me?" Aniqua stood up. Venus seriously hesitated before joining them. Venus was looking right at me. Angel's eyes were boring holes into me as well.

"Israel?" Angel inquired.

I could go with them. I could stay. I could beg them to stay. I could stay silent and let events drag me along. My mind was playing Jinga with the vortex of intellectual input and buzz saw emotions that were boiling forth.

"Angel, Roni, Venus and Aniqua sit back down," I stood and stated. It took them a varying number of seconds to realize I was NOT pleading.

"Israel, you don't get to decide that for us," Roni replied evenly. "We let you go to the Arena last night. This time, we get to choose and we are leaving. If you are the man I hope you are, you will come with us."

"At the same time you're pressuring me to give more to the group despite my misgivings, Roni, you are giving less?" I countered. She started to protest. I raised my hand for a reprieve.

"Hear me out," I continued. "It isn't that simple. I am not questioning your moral quandary about working with people too comfortable with taking human life. It is very real and I feel it. The difference is that you would rather be right and dead than alive at any cost. You've never had to make that call before, but I have and I'm alive to tell you that you are wrong, Roni."

"You are dead wrong because dead does nothing. The living can always come back and make something better. Hell, that's what my life has been about the past week and a half. The rest of you are neophytes going into this. I'm not. I know exactly what it takes morally to survive. Don't make me follow any of you out that door. I love each and every one of you."

"I do love you, but am I obligated to jump off a cliff for you? I respect your choice to choose suicide. It would be wrong of me to rob you of that freedom. Please don't try to make this about affection, compassion, or loyalty though. It is a matter of life and death. Roni, you are trying to kill me, which I'm okay with. I resent you killing Angel, Aniqua and Venus," I stressed.

"That's fucked up reasoning," Roni fought back. "Those two get off on killing other people. They enjoy it. Why can't you see that they are just as likely to get you killed as keep you alive?"

"I will agree with you that Flame gets off on watching people suffer and die," I nodded. "It is the way she is. I don't know Jethro so I'm not ready to make a judgment call on him."

"I do know that both of them have exquisite weapon skills and I'm pretty sure we are going to need them before we are truly free," I explained. "I would prefer an all-male super commando squad who had passed every psychological test ever made. That doesn't appear to be on the menu, so I'm willing to hold on to whatever resources are available."

"So you are willing to risk all our lives for the sake of expediency," Angel glared.

"Absolutely," I shot right back. "In case no one is paying attention, I am not in some government facility helping working on some kind of serum to fight the new plague. In case you missed it, EVERYONE here agreed with my decision to flee instead."

"Roni - Angel, you do realize that young lady who saved me this morning is going die, right? I could have insisted she come with us. I could have given her the cure. I didn't. None of you asked me to even after I told the whole globe of an unstoppable wave of death coming for everyone. I'm not asking you to take responsibility for my decision because it was mine."

"I'm begging you; understand that it isn't the end of morality to stay. When the madness ends, you need to decide if we will still be worthy of continuing on. You'll no longer be part of that equation if you go now," I declared.

"Are we supposed to ignore that he was a terrorist and she is a homicidal maniac?" Aniqua said.

"I'm not homicidal," Flame grinned. "I'm a psychotic sociopath. I don't randomly kill people. I do it with malice of forethought." Jethro didn't show a desire to defend himself.

"Israel, Flame almost killed you last night," Venus pointed out. "Why would you stick around?"

Why was I sticking around?

"Israel, don't do this," Angel said. "You promised me you would stop running into danger."

"Angel, why do you have to be right and I have to be wrong?" I sighed.

"Because those two are dangerous criminals," Roni answered. Didn't Roni understand that I was a far more callous killer than either of those 'criminals' and I didn't have to lift a finger, or look at a single grave?

(Before the Curtain Call)

Shortly after nine-thirty that night, the awaited and feared seismic event happened in China. A few minutes past sunrise over Hong Kong the rains broke and a fleet of helicopters and VTOLs (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) were heard over the city. Helicopters were not unknown in this center of wealth and commerce. Well over a hundred all coming in at once was noteworthy.

For many of the citizens of the city, it had been a restless night. After midnight, police sirens had been wailing all over the city. Some even heard gunfire. What they didn't know was that for the past four hours, private security forces working for the most prominent communities and some special police units had raided the middle class communities of the city and stolen their men.

They forced the men into protective suits and hustled them back to the high-rises that sheltered the most 'important' people. This was an outrage that they could not get away with - had China still functioned normally. A new order based on brutal social cannibalism was taking place. The rich were taking their vassals and their new 'acquisitions' to their estates far from the population centers.

This was supposed to be a gradual process except late yesterday afternoon the other Great Families learned that one of their own had their first reported case of this new 'flu'. They could wait no longer. They would have preferred to flee under the cover of darkness, but rain and the danger of so many helicopters and VTOLs moving around forced them to postpone until first light.

You didn't have to be a connoisseur of conspiracy theories to figure out what was going on. Men had been stolen and now the rich were bugging out of town in one big hurry. Late Friday, the 'flu' began to appear in the population in a big way. The workers in the hospital were afraid - not fearful - afraid.

The councilwoman from one of the poorest districts called the Head of the City Council - no answer. She called one of her colleagues from one of the richest districts - no answer. She was a savvy political creature and she smelled a rat bigger than the Tomb of the First Emperor. She called the General of the 9th Reserve Division; Hong Kong's defense force.

The first problem was that the 9th ® division only existed on paper - the troops had to be called to arms. The second problem was that the 9th ® was not well equipped. That was one of the fundamental differences between the Federation and Chinese militaries. Both had large, volunteer professional armies. That was their only real similarity.

In the Federation, the average enlistment time was 6 years - two 3 year terms. In China, women enlisted in to the ranks for 20 years with an option to continue 10 more if you were a high enough ranking NCO. Soldiering was all these women did. Officers in the Federation went to Military Academies with a perchance for democratic selection and the average term of service was 10 years.

In China, you had to come from an upper tier community, you went to a military academy and then you served until you were 62 years old with a deferment for 10 more years if you were high enough rank. It wasn't that one system was better than another. The Federation troops and Chinese troops got along well on UN missions.

The Federation command thought the Chinese were disciplined, brave and experienced. The Chinese considered their Federation counterparts to be aggressive and more prone to individual initiative. The issue was back home. Federation troops exited the standing military and many entered the Reserves.

They had the same equipment and less intense, but similar training at their full-time counterparts. By and large, the regular commands felt they could rely on the Reserves to fulfill any active duty role they were trained for. In China, it was very different. Their reserves' role was defensive in nature - to protect strategic areas while the regular army was elsewhere.

Regular armed forces troops did not rotate to a Reserve division after leaving service. They got a pension and a government job. The reserve troops enlisted under a different system. Same length of service - different mission entirely. Their training was less rigorous, their equipment more primitive and their duty was to assemble when called then report to their assigned defensive position in their region.

The Central Government did NOT want a Reserve Division to be able to hold off a regular service division for purely political reasons. See, the command of Reserve Divisions usually fell to someone of lower or middle class background. There simply were not enough upper tier women around who did well in the military. These backup divisions were therefore more egalitarian.

The other issue was one of association. Regular service enlisted women thought of themselves as part of the military family. They would spend a huge chunk of their lives in arms. They didn't participate in the lives of their childhood communities, nor did they identify with the working classes. They were separate and distinct.

The officers were very different as well. They were very much part of the political life of their communities. They had to be good at their trade yet mindful of their family's needs. Their general attitude was that enlisted troopers were tools, finely honed for their assigned task. Personal relationships were discouraged with the lower ranks.

This societal and professional divide was about to be tragically played out in Hong Kong. See, China was a middle class country. These women staffed the government buildings, taught and went to the universities, filled out most of the professions and were the workhorses of the economy. It would stand to reason they had the most men and they did.

Over the past week, the upper tier families had been doing the genetic and reproductive mathematics. Yes, they had the best women to men ratio, but it wasn't enough. They were going to die out. They could either change the basic fundamentals of their society - or they could steal more men. They chose kidnapping.

Stealing men from the poor, while better for the long term political outlook, was sending your precious security troops into some really bad neighborhoods. The middle class? They lived in nice quiet neighborhoods. Besides, the upper tier no longer cared about long term political consequences. Now it was a battle for survival.

The middle class women didn't simply hand over their men. They fought and in more than a few cases, died trying to keep their lineage alive. At the time, most had no clue why this savage act had befallen them. Words from on high instructed the local police to do nothing. The flaw in the evacuation plan was that most policemen were middle class too.

A special effort had been made by the kidnappers to not steal men from communities with policewomen. That would have been a catastrophe. The thing was, the rank and file policewoman identified with their fellow worker. Their orders didn't make sense - men were the most precious commodity. Police unit began having hushed communication with other police units.

They didn't like the picture that was being revealed. With the roar of aircraft at dawn, the cops knew what was happening and the tide of rebellion was rising with the Sun. The schedule had the majority of the evacuations being finished by late afternoon, even with bad weather. One of the keys to making this possible was to shut down the communication network.

This is exactly what the Security Troops did. Sure, there would be panic, but it would a disorganized panic. All of this failed to take into account the human condition. Shortly after seven o'clock in the morning, a police sergeant boldly walked through the central headquarters, took a quick right turn past two surprised police administrative officials, opened the door to the Police Commandant's office and filled that woman with all eleven bullets in her gun. Why? A Special Security Team had mistaken one address for another, stormed in, and killed her mother, aunt and three sisters in the process of stealing her community's two males and her son.

The Sergeant dropped her pistol and waited. Policewomen, weapons drawn, swarmed the room. In a normal world, the assassin would have been born to the ground, arrested and medical aid summoned for their downed leader. This was not a normal morning. While those policewomen couldn't put a finger on what it was, something was horribly, horribly wrong.

The Sergeant turned to her growing audience and began issuing orders. For an instant, no one moved then the first lemming jumped off the cliff and the flood gates were opened. Several minutes later, the head of Hong Kong's tactical unit was leading her team toward the Security Services HQ with order to link up with other units and storm the building.

What was she waiting for? While the Security Troops were very well equipped, the HK Police had armored cars used for riot suppression. Like their Federation counterparts, these vehicles normally fired tear gas. The Chinese were extra efficient with their devices though. They also fired a variety of grenades, even a rocket meant to penetrate hardened structures.

Yes, Virginia, the cops had armor piercing shells for their little RVs. The Security Building was solidly built and the troops defending it were confident they could hold out until other units relieved them. When the first chunks of granite began exploding in on them, the fear gripped their ovaries. In theory, the structure should have held out for 24 hours.

In fact, it held out 18 minutes. By the time the Security Services helicopter showed up, the communication network for the city had been restored. The helicopter strafed the police but didn't have anything that could deal with the armored vehicles. They called in the Marine Regiment assigned to Hong Kong to come and restore order.

The Marines prepared their land and air assets to roll out then discovered a problem. Outside their gates a battalion of infantry from the 9th Reserve division had assembled. It was their post after all - replacing the Marines if they had been sent to a war zone. There were 2500 Marines and only 600 light infantry. The issue was exactly where did the 9th Reserve division stand in all of this mess?

The Marine Colonel didn't want to roll out of her base only to have the reservists storm in once she was gone. Splitting her forces wasn't a good idea either. Apparently the Security Service had a real fight on their hands. While she was trying to figure this conundrum out, the Navy began shelling - Canton. Compared to Hong Kong, Canton had gone totally insane.

She called up the commander of the 9th Reserve Division to see where she stood. That General informed her counterpart that she was about to storm the towers and to hell with anyone who got in her way. The Colonel called the Security Services' new commander to find out what was what. The SS commander started screaming at the Colonel to get off her ass and into the fight.

After some careful consideration, she called her liaison with the naval amphibious detachment and formally requested to be evacuated from Hong Kong. The Navy was coming to help her out. Why? Because the head of the naval base in Canton wasn't an idiot either. She had ships, but no troops and now here was this 2500 women force volunteering to be her much needed muscle.

This was a far more crushing need because Canton had a regular service division barracked there. Duly informed of a riot supported by the police breaking out in the wealthiest section of town, the division had raced to the rescue. They massacred the mobs around the towers and rescued the private security forces defending there.

As soon as she secured the perimeter of the district, the General of that division had her troops storm the towers. These weren't a mob of workers with policewomen in the mix. These were combat troops and they cut a swath through the private security. Men were 'liberated' along with other assets that hadn't escaped yet. This act of betrayal accomplished, the General and her division began their withdrawal.

The Chinese Army and Air Force had been hammering rebel positions all morning. Now they didn't know what in the hell to do. Over the next forty-eight hours, many division commanders came to the same conclusion. It was time to take the men and run. Remember the relationship between regular divisions and the populace?

This was coming out badly in a big way and not in a way most people would have thought of. The civilian woman had no connection to the soldiers what-so-ever. That meant no atrocity was out of bounds. Both sides knew that defeat meant death. The soldiers were in all metrics better save two; the soldiers were outnumbered a hundred to one and most fights were in an urban environment that lessened the soldiers' technological superiority.

The other brutal aspect of the struggle was every dead soldier was irreplaceable. The civilian woman-pool was effectively limitless. With low male ratios and the Plague added to that, China appeared to be on a fast track to oblivion. Before that happened, one final drama had to play out.

Shanghai.