Raiders (13 page)

Kama realized that the song was made over two hundred years ago. She resumed her observation of the band who continued to play and remain shadowed against the stagelight from the rear. While the girl smacked away on the drums one man played a bass instrument that was suspended from his abdomen. He also sang while the other man played a guitar. Kama knew what a guitar was but had never seen one quite like this. It had seven strings and changed its sound depending on the position held. The instruments were all outlined with a projected hologram which traced them from behind the bar and far above the crowd. The resultant effect was a haloed glow around the instruments’ outer edges, even the drum pieces. The holographically generated haloes changed their intensity and color in synchronization with the music while they played. Kama was entranced with the spectacle. She had never seen anything like this before. She may as well have landed on a faraway, alien world and watched ethereal creatures perform their native music.

“This song rocks, yeah?” Mirabella screamed at the middle of the table and chewed on her straw as she drank. “Wooo!!”

Kama shook her head and yelled back, “This song is really old!” She could barely raise her voice above the music.

Mirabella leaned over to Kama and cupped her hands around her left ear. She yelled right in. “Yeah that’s why they call themselves the Deathtones! They only play songs from bands who are dead at least two hundred years!!”

Kama pulled away from Mirabella’s hands and nodded. She simply mouthed, “Oh,” and then continued to watch the band. All round people screamed and shouted riotously at the stage.

The first song ended and the patrons yelled and cheered, the sustained chaos emanated from all, new and old alike. A few seconds later the band started a new song. She looked down once more to read the table surface. Some new words scrolled through. “CLUB FIRE WELCOMES YOU :: DEATHTONES TONITE ONLY :: 26 OCTOBER 2511 :: CURRENT SONG ++SPACE AGE LOVE SONG BY A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS (year 1982)++.”

Calliope waved her hand to the table’s center to grab the others attention and then motioned that she was headed to the ladies room tucked away in the club’s left rear corner. Mirabella and Kama both nodded to her and then continued to watch the band play the long lost song written over five hundred years ago.

As the band played three spotlights illuminated the players at the same moment the singer hit the first vocal notes.

I saw your eyes and it made me smile

for a little while, I was falling in love.

S
tage right held the guitarist who moved around in place as he played and rotated his motion-sensitive guitar up and down and forward to skillfully alter the flange, echo and distortion. Mirabella noticed that he stared straight at Kama while he flawlessly played the archaic but beloved tune. The guitarist then looked at Mirabella, lowered his head for a second then panned his eyes around the club. Kama did not notice his behavior at first since she was preoccupied with the female drummer’s technique and style.

“That’s Dusty! He’s pretty good!” Mirabella yelled over to Kama.

“What?” Kama squinted across the table then pointed to her left ear to pantomime that she could not hear Mirabella at all against the tooth-rattling noise level. Their glasses shimmied around with each bass beat. They slowly vibrated out of place a half millimeter at a time as if the glasses enjoyed the song along with everyone else.

Mirabella pretended to play a guitar for a few strums and then pointed to her own eyes and finally to Kama. “Get it!?” She screamed.

Kama understood her for she did not move for a few seconds. She casually cranked her head around to face the stage. Dusty the guitar player smiled and winked at her with a sanguine laced nod. She did not move a muscle, frozen. They continued to stare at each other for the song’s remainder except for a few moments where Dusty broke their fixation and looked around every now and then.

Although his outfit was costume quality it still looked vaguely like Kama’s battlesuit, leather strips that were black instead of her brown wrapped around his arms and legs. The leather was thin and wrinkled but the similarity was there. His black hair was long and unruly and it roughly teased itself out in all directions. He wore a red cloth bandana over his neck covered in skulls of white. Kama could not stop admiring his youthful and attractive face.

When the song ended the singer announced that they would take a short break. Dusty disappeared behind the stage curtain which left Kama somewhat crestfallen. “Wow!” She said as she looked at Mirabella.

“Yeah, wow is right. Did you see how he looked at you? Holy shit I could almost see freakin lightning bolts between you two!” Mirabella smiled and circled the table display to order another drink. She firmly pointed her finger down to the table. “Wanna nother?”

“Sure!” Kama yelled back. The house music played at about half the volume of the band. Mirabella circled the drink once, looked up at Kama and then kicked her shin under the table.

“Hey!” Kama exclaimed. Mirabella froze in place and not three seconds after her unannounced assault Kama felt like someone who stood right behind her. She quickly vaulted around in her chair on defensed reflex. It was Dusty.

“Hi, I'm Dusty.” He held out his hand to shake Kama’s. She slowly raised her hand to meet his. Dusty looked over to Mirabella. “What do you guys think of us so far?”

“AWESOME! You guys are great. I love all these old songs!” Mirabella sang out.

“Great. Thanks.” Dusty briefly laughed and then asked Kama, “And what is your name?”

Kama realized at that moment that she still held onto his hand from before. Embarrassed, she eased it away and said, “Kama.”

“Kama,” Dusty repeated. “Hey you’re that Raider! Well Goddamn I can’t believe it! Can I get you a drink Kama?” .

“No thanks, my friend already got me one.” She motioned her left hand toward Mirabella.

“Okay, well, great to meet you, uh, Kama and friend!” Dusty said.

“Mirabella!” Mirabella waved to her chest as she announced her name to Dusty.

“We'll talk after the show. I’ll be back. You can tell me all about your Raider life Kama. Cool?”

Mirabella perked up her chest and threw her jaw forward. “Hell yeah!” Kama said nothing but smiled and nodded with an affirmed yes.

"Great. Enjoy the show!” Dusty walked away from the girls and into a door labelled PERFORMERS ONLY.

When the band finished their songs Dusty returned to their table. By now the three girls were fairly bombed from their exotic drinks. For the night’s remainder they all talked and flirted non-stop. Dusty even tried to show Kama how to play his specially made guitar. Mirabella, Calliope and even Dusty could not stop laughing at her silly attempts to play it.

The last thing that Kama remembered with any clarity that night was when she stripped her clothes off as a half-disrobed Dusty firmly kissed her over her bed. Every touch, every caress that they exchanged felt charged and natural like they had already met many years before. Even when Kama had to retreat to the bathroom all she could think about was getting back to Dusty who lay all wrapped up in the sheets and sweat and oil.

For the first time in her life she genuinely felt like she
needed someone
. The revelation set off a smattering of emotional alarms within her. The newly discovered need scared her but it also made her climaxes more intense while she slowly and rhythmically heaved up and down on top of him, her hips tilted forward then back with every cycled push and release.

Dusty was equally enamored with Kama. She was strong and she was beautiful and her sexuality was unmatched by any girl that he had ever been with before. There was a mystery that shadowed her tattoo emblazoned skin, like a blanket, like the shell of a dream. It aroused him with every grasp and kiss and pleasured motion that the fortuned night gave away to them.

They both could feel it in their spirits although neither one whispered a single word to each other, not one. This was not something that was going to end with the rising of the Sun, the new day.

Four and a half hours later, exhausted, they fell fast asleep.

Five weeks passed and the three girls’ friendships grew stronger since their night out at the club. Kama started work as a civilian consultant for the Military Centre as a consultant Officer Assistant while she simultaneously attended the Officer’s Training Academy. The courses were rough going for her. Kama's English was not terribly strong and they didn’t have any textbooks, electronic or otherwise that were translated into Mandarin. Colonel Eiger assigned a language tutor to help Kama. .

Kama rolled out of bed after her headboard alarm awakened her. She slinked out of the Pod bedroom in an oversized fluffy nightshirt. Clinks and clanks emitted from the kitchen. Dusty rummaged around the cabinets as he crouched and pawed in desperate search of coffee or some tea perhaps. “You hunting for coffee? I’m out.”

Dusty stood up and looked over the counter island at her. “Yeah, wanted to surprise you but there’s no quiet way to look for anything in this kitchen. Did I wake you?”

“No, I have to go to class early today.” She scratched her head and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. As she did this Dusty grabbed her by the waist and kissed her. She reflexively kissed him back and rubbed him with a playful tease. He rubbed her back just for a quarter second and then she pushed him away. “Can’t. Have to be there in an hour,” she said.

“Yeah, okay sure.” Dusty admired her form as she walked toward the showering room. He said to her as she walked, “Mirabella left a message by the way. They want to go out again tonite.”

Kama said from the showering room, “That sounds good. These classes are killing me. I could use a break.” She lightly yawned and stepped into the shower, closed the carbonized glass door, then said, “Forty three light.” With neither an auditory or visual confirmation the shower turned itself on and adjusted its stream down to a low impact waterflow. The temperature was feather-warm and relaxed at forty-three degrees Celsius or about one hundred ten Fahrenheit, the water warmed from passive solar collectors far above the City.

She grabbed the bottle of homegrown liquid soap a family from across the City made and lathered up her narrow circle of long hair along with the rest of her scalp, neck and face. Fourteen metallic bands that normally tamed her longer hair were presently de-clasped and gathered in a pile on the vanity outside. Kama could faintly observe her reflection in the carboned glass as the pearlescent bubbles slowly and abstractly streamed to her feet. Whirling, whirling down.
Am I gaining weight?
She pondered as she inspected this dimmed countenance that the shower glass offered back. She patted her belly and turned her body in profile for further self-edification. The glass offered no answer. As she slowly washed her body she looked at her tattoos. The wings and circle, the Sun and moon, the crosses and symbols emerged and disappeared from the brief illusion reflected in the glass.

She thought about her life long past. The water flowed down her head and over her closed eyes. All those times, all the hyper-sexual encounters with the Elder leaders and sometimes women too, worthless moments of the animal, meaningless and trite and forever buried away somewhere in the Wastes far away. Kama didn’t tell Dusty about her past experiences or even that she was a former Chosen, an elite in a world of many thousands of the common. But the stars and circles, they knew. They knew but they would not speak about it so they silently testified. Those marks, etched into her skin forevermore about some mystery so great that not even the strongest of men could hold them throughout all time. Revelations too strong for most souls to carry not even for a day, not even for a singular hour. And yet she did, inside that little shower box somewhere far removed from home and under the stormblasted earth. Somewhere inside the benign and charitable fold of Polar City Three.

Dusty stepped into the shower and silently traced his hand over her shoulder blade and then down her back. an then he caressed her left side, the right and finally both at once. Neither one said a single word to each other while the glass showerbox gave to them a quiet misted rain, a brief moment of insular serenity. She could not see him from behind, a relaxed sigh released from her while she kept her eyes firmly shut from the water fall.

He stroked her breasts with only a fringed and feathered touch. He her hips outer sides. And then he circled her back and shoulders with his palms, the soap and water both traced out bubbled whorls, streaks of white vagueness against her tattooed skin painted on for only a second or two.

She turned around to face him and then they kissed. They simultaneously lowered themselves onto the showerbox floor. Dusty rested his back against the opposite wall while Kama straddled him in a crouched stance and together they guided him into her. He kept his knees bent upward to give her a makeshift rest for her backside. The waterflow broke against her upper back and ran down their bodies in several streamlets down. She let out a few suppressed pleasured groans as they slowly rocked together. He pushed himself up, only slightly, a few centimeters timed with her motions. They stared and did not break focus even as the water ran down their faces a the reflex to close their eyes overpowered. Her breasts kissed his chest when she leaned in to him.

She could feel it, an energy unseen that flowed between them all the way into her bones, her marrow. This was not the animal, not here, not with him. This was something more and she knew it all the way down. And as she climaxed she clutched her fingernails straight into his chest without realizing she had even done so. Dusty came only a second after and through the sudden pain and release he let out a groan,
aorrw!
and then frowned against the rain.

It was only a few minutes perhaps but it seemed like it was much longer than that somehow. Kama rested on top of him and together they sustained a streamstared bliss. She kissed him some more while he remained inside her for a moment longer. Dusty ran his free hand over her head and down her unbanded hair.