📚 the atomic question - Part 10 of 11
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SCIENCE FICTION FANTASY

The Atomic Question Ch 10

The Atomic Question Ch 10

by treadedwater
20 min read
5.0 (640 views)
adultfiction

Gaines was silent as Dawson explained everything about Instinct. At several points he opened his mouth as if a question had occurred to him or he felt a desire for clarification, but each time he seemed to decide to hear the entire thing before commenting. The first time he blushed was when he heard about Instinct ending up with Mother Earth during their new moon celebration, an occasion which was common knowledge in San Francisco but seldom talked about in polite company. It was not the last time he blushed, and only towards the end when he had reached the point of utter saturation of perplexity did he stop being surprised or vicariously embarrassed by Dawson's descriptions.

When she'd finished he asked to be allowed to think for a few minutes and Dawson took the opportunity to pull up the footage from the shoot-out on her commpad. A news drone in pursuit kept a clear view of what was labeled Neon Justice as the creature inside shot Wilhelm Kross in the throat while shoulder-mounted speakers blared out You're out of touch! I'm out of time! But I'm outta my head when you're not around!!

It had been a nasty confrontation that wouldn't have looked out of place in the occupation and that no one had been killed on either side was a miracle. Instinct's restraint with the suit's rail gun was a testament to just how near she was to being like Dawson herself. Capable of taking the final step but never lightly, even if a menace like Kross had little likelihood of changing his ways.

The thought of that reminded her of something she'd been dwelling on for a while, and Gaines was the person to talk to about it. She turned her attention to him and at her regard he asked his first question.

"Is she good in bed?"

Dawson smiled. "Like no one else I've ever had."

He raised both brows. "That means something, coming from you."

"You've seen her," Dawson told him. "She was on the street yesterday. She stopped someone from suicide bombing you."

Gaines' eyes took on a mystified quality. "I looked at what I thought was you and something felt off. I... I couldn't make sense of the look she gave me, the look coming from that face I know so well. Like she was... apologizing for something. You, you never apologize for anything. People just sense your contrition. You know those things you did, they had to be done. However much we wish things could have gone differently, every step of the way."

Dawson felt the inclination to turn away as she had in years past when someone sought to truly see her, but the new strength since returning from the UCAS held firm and she held his gaze. "My regrets," she said, "Extend further back than the occupation."

His eyes went from mystified to misty. "I know," he said softly, extending a hand across the desk that half an hour ago they'd been fucking on. She took it and brought his fingers to his lips. "I'm not going to pretend that luxury or sex can ease your pain in that regard. All I need you to know is that anything I can do for you, you only have to ask."

Her grip tightened on his hand. "That's what I like to hear," she said in a suddenly husky voice.

He half smiled, half grimaced. "When you got on top, you said you'd fuck me until I was useless. If you want to go again, I ah... I'm going to need a glass of water. And maybe some leonization treatments."

"Don't worry," Dawson told him, reaching out with her essence again to twine with his. His apprehension was genuine, since his dick was sore, but so was his willingness. He'd signed the contract with his lips and this was the job. "I'll give you some time to recover. But Instinct will want a piece of you."

That he was a little more frightened of. "She going to steal my genes or something?"

"Yes," Dawson said, "And your heart. And there's something else. Do you remember the woman who put a gun in your face earlier this year? The Cutter?"

Gaines took his hand back gently and reclined in his seat. One corner of his mouth came up in measured distaste. "As if I could forget. What about her?"

"Her name is Carletta," Dawson reminded him. "You made sure she went away for a long time."

His eyes narrowed. "She threatened to shoot one of my department heads in the face. I'd have pushed for more except I thought it might upset you."

"The idea she's going to spend the rest of her life in a hole with no possibility of getting out upsets me."

"She should have thought about that before she..." The irritation on Gaines' face softened as realization dawned on him and his voice lowered in volume. The final few words of his sentence were quieter. "...picked up a gun."

"I'm not saying we open up the door and look the other way," Dawson said patiently. "I want to talk to her. I want to tell her that there's a possibility she could be free one day. And a citizen of the free state."

Gaines let out a slow sigh. "Alright."

"And when I tell her that, it's going to be true."

"You going to do this for everyone you put behind bars?"

She smiled slightly. "If I live long enough."

"I can't help you," he said evenly, "With people who are imprisoned because of crimes against megacorporate entities beyond Ares Macrotechnology."

"I'll get other help for those," Dawson assured him. "Tell me you're on my side with this."

She could tell from her connection to him that there was a feeling of tremendous relief in him that he could say his next words without hesitation. "Of course I am."

When they'd dressed, he insisted on walking out with her. In the elevator, with Cranston politely not speaking and bearing no particular expression, Gaines spoke. "So what was that about a suicide bomber after me?"

This got the ork's attention. But Dawson waved one hand, the other in her coat pocket.

"It's alright, she stopped him. We're working on it. Shouldn't happen again." She looked at him, saw his pursed lips, and a line of inquiry occurred to her. It would quell the urge she had to blow him for the rest of the elevator ride down.

"You met with Arthur Vogel, and he hasn't announced much since Knight went missing. What happens to Ares now?"

At the broaching of this topic, Gaines relaxed into the mask he'd worn nearly every moment of every day since she'd known him. The man with clout. "How about you make an assessment," he said, "And I'll tell you if I agree with it."

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Dawson's hands tightened in her coat pockets, a motion that helped her think while talking. "Vogel started life as an environmental lawyer. He got his seat at Ares from Dunklezahn's will and has been frustrating Damien Knight and the rest of the board ever since then. Rumors of his connections to eco-terrorist groups have never stopped, and with Knight gone--for now, anyway-- there's no one for Vogel to contend with, he has a majority share. He said he'd step down in 2082 regardless of whether the board has picked a new CEO, and I wonder what Ares' corporate hierarchy will look like by then. A lot less moneyed, a lot more radicalized, if I had to take a guess."

Gaines spoke in a low, even tone. "Close to the mark, Dawson. Project Pyro was how Knight got rid of people."

"And Vogel gets rid of them with GreenWar," Dawson finished. "Accomplishes the goal and sends a message to everyone else in the process. But you seemed surprised to learn about this. Did you think you were on his good side?"

For a moment Gaines had a far-away look in his eyes. Briefly he really did seem like a forty-eight year old boy. "Vogel told me he respected the work I'd done in San Francisco, during the occupation and since then. Said it was the behavior of a man who cared about more than just money."

Dawson took her right hand out of her pocket and set it on his shoulder, making him shift nervously. "I agree with that," she assured him.

"Told me if I would keep taking care of San Fran, I still had a place in Ares. Told me that... while showing me footage of you in the suit, fighting in the street."

She wasn't afraid. "Did you tell him?"

Gaines lifted his brows. "He didn't ask. Just showed me the footage and said he respected the risks I'd always been willing to take. Then sent me back here."

The detective in her spoke before anything else could weigh in. "Then why try to kill you? He could just fire you if he wanted you gone."

"Must not have been him," Gaines supposed. Any further thoughts he had on the topic were cut off by the sound of the elevator's arrival chime and the doors opening.

Dawson shook his shoulder lightly. "I'll get to the bottom of it," she promised him. Glancing at Cranston she added, "And hopefully nobody will lose any more hands about it." Behind his glasses the ork smirked but said nothing.

Just outside the main doors of the Orchard at the top of the steps, Dawson turned to regard him. She said, "Glad you're back."

He smiled then, the genuine kind he'd always put on when she'd come to see him once or twice a year when it was just them left from the occupation. Before Vayger came back, before Pickers' heart had softened, before Instinct had come to exist. Gaines had always been reaching out in his way, wanting to touch but forever afraid she would explode like an aging claymore and kill them both. It had been a well-founded fear for a long time.

But he wasn't afraid of that anymore. Feeling his essence with hers, there was a total absence of doubt in the spaces around the metal that was his astral silhouette. Their sex had driven out the uncertainty, leaving him open to her love. "I'm glad too," he said gently.

With slow reluctance she let their essence separate and the yearning to be near to someone was immediate. Whatever he was going to say next caught in his throat as his gaze shifted subtly to one side. At that same moment Cranston glanced up sharply and reached for Gaines' shoulder.

The ork shouted, "Get down!"

Gaines didn't bother to say anything, only grabbed Dawson's upper body with both arms and leveraged his whole body weight to one side to throw her. The gunshot echoed across the open space in front of the Orchard and the bullet ripped by the left side of her head a fraction of a second later. A small puff of powdered concrete announced the projectile's arrival into the wall beyond them.

On the ground Dawson had ended up on top of Gaines, who held one side of his neck with blood visible between his fingers. The quantity was not so much that the sight terrified her and she was able to keep her head, redirecting the mana within her to her right arm and leg and causing the moisture in the air to rapidly freeze into a bulwark of solid ice. It formed just in time: three more quick gunshots rang out and the bullets crunched into the ice, hissing hot from having just left the barrel.

Before more shots could follow Cranston's cybernetic hand gripped Dawson and Gaines by the shoulder. The muscular ork easily dragged the two of them back towards the doors to the Orchard, bringing them out of the shooter's line of fire. And then a second later his Savalette Guardian was in his his hands and firing up at one of the roofs of a building across the square.

Dawson turned her attention to Gaines, grabbing his wrist and prying it away from his neck. He grit his teeth and asked, "How bad is it?"

"Just grazed you," she told him. "You'll get another scar."

"Getting a lot of scars on your behalf," he remarked.

"Cost of doing business."

Cranston fired again and a perimeter defense drone flew into view, followed swiftly by another. Riggers somewhere in the vicinity of the Orchard were quick to respond to an incident of this nature. No more gunshots followed and Gaines' bodyguard holstered his weapon.

He turned at once and said to Gaines, "Inside." Belatedly he added sir.

"Why?" Gaines asked as Dawson helped him stand. "She's the one they were shooting at."

The ork opened his mouth but thought better of it.

"Because," Dawson said for him, "You risked your life for mine and that makes his job harder."

Gaines tested his hand on his neck where the hitman's bullet had been a few centimeters from fatal. Without his intervention that might have been the back of her head. "Who's trying to kill you, Dawson?"

Without asking permission she set her hand on his opposite shoulder. "Hired gun, I suspect."

As her touched persisted he tensed up. "Ah... What are you doing?" The injury on his neck ceased bleeding at once. He put one hand over hers.

"Don't do that," he said, "Knight Errant employs medics for this kind of thing."

Pain bloomed in her neck in the same place as his own but no wound opened as he pried her hand from his shoulder. Her tone was both impish and concerned. "You really want that BioMed gel all over you, Thomas?"

"You didn't complain much about my gel all over you," he replied. Dawson couldn't keep from breathing laughter.

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A medic in a Knight Errant uniform met them at the door, backed up by half a dozen body-armored sentries. Gaines let them fret over him with the grace and dignity of someone well accustomed to a crowd of minders.

"I ask again," he said with a little more sternness, "Who's trying to kill you?"

Dawson looked away briefly, thinking about what to say. In the past when these situations had arisen, she'd deflected all concern. Too many people had taken bullets for standing next to her, and just as it had every day since he'd been killed the hole in her shaped like Templeton ached.

When she met his eyes again she spoke at a volume implying discretion. "Probably a hitman, hired by Kane Reymont."

Gaines' reply was harsh and subdued at once, letting the people seeing to his injury and ongoing security know this was privileged information, not to be repeated if any of them wanted to keep their careers. "That portly confederate chicken leg? Is this revenge then, for ruining his half-baked scheme to be San Francisco's new mayor and running him back to the hills of Texas?"

Dawson lifted her brows slightly. "Sounds a little petty when you put it that way."

He turned his head to speak to one of his aides. "Call Captain Adeen. I want a brute squad put together."

Dawson extended both hands and slowly enfolded the sides of Gaines' face, at once regaining his full attention.

She said slowly, "Do not do that."

Everyone else present pointedly looked away from their suddenly intimate moment. Gaines said softly, "If that skull-measuring soy-butter ball thinks he can keep trying to kill you and never face retaliation he's even stupider than I thought he was. You may not mind being shot at, Dawson... How many people around you would take a bullet for you?"

"Too many," she admitted. "But let me do this my way."

His expression tightened. "Your way better end with that cretin in a cell." He reached up to his collar with one hand and pressed his thumb to the fabric, pulling it away bloody.

"I'll risk this for you, and I'll shed it for you just as quickly."

Her eyebrows went up in what she meant to be reassurance and not condescension. "I was on my own from the day I turned eleven, Gaines."

His reply was quick, starting out with his voice raised and then dropping sharply in volume when he remembered they were surrounded by other people. "Well you're--Well you're not alone now, Dawson. I can't fix things from twenty-eight years ago, I can fix what's in front of me."

Still holding his face, Dawson leaned forward and kissed him on the lips briefly, which he returned. "I know," she said softly. "You're the fixing kind and I'm grateful for it. I'll see you again soon."

Outside again there were dozens of security personnel on high alert. Drones in trios flew around the Orchard in tight patrols with full coverage of every building and window. Cranston raised his cybernetic hand to Dawson to get her attention, then wordlessly handed her a datapad with the information he knew she'd want to see.

A surveillance drone had spotted activity on one of the rooftops on the far side of the square, movement among the air conditioning units. The rigger on duty had quickly pulled up maintenance for the building and confirmed there was no servicing scheduled and immediately triggered a perimeter alert.

Through his implant Gaines was notified instantly; if he'd been inside there would have been a short delay to give security personnel time to assess the situation and form a report. Because he was outside it was corporate court regulation that he be informed so he could take cover.

Instead he'd pushed Dawson to safety, nearly getting a bullet in his neck for the sin. There had only been a five second gap between the notice and the timestamp of the first gunshot. Five seconds for him to see what was happening, the danger at hand, and decide his life was worth risking for hers. She wanted to go back inside and fuck him again just for that.

Drone swarms were flying over the district and a security team was combing the rooftop. Cranston's return fire had hit one of the AC units and driven the attacker away; some shaky footage from the drone that spotted the shooter showed a metahuman deploying a personal glider with wings made from reflective fabric that caused him to blend in with the urban environment around him. It appeared to have electronic signal shielding to deflect ranged scans, but one thing the drone could identify was that the device was nuclear-powered. In under a minute he outpaced the drone and dove into a narrow alleyway to break line of sight.

"Fucking hell," Dawson whispered, "This guy is a pro." It was a miracle neither she nor Gaines were dead.

Gaines' bodyguard was not the type to procrastinate or make small talk. He asked in his deep baritone, "How can we help?"

She thought for a moment and handed the datapad back to him. "A taxi. Someone has my car and may not bring it back right away."

Cranston's eyebrow went up slightly. Even before the occupation it was standard in higher-end vehicles provided by Knight-Errant to be biometrically keyed. His black sunglasses, the ones he never removed in public unless knocked off his face by the likes of her fist, betrayed nothing but behind them she knew he was wondering: who could be driving your car but you?

At that she smiled impishly. "Don't worry, you'll meet her soon. She'll come here soon to try to fuck Gaines to death. And you too, if you don't tell her no."

The slightest curl appeared at the corner of his mouth. He said, "I'll get you a taxi."

= = =

Last month of 2027

Abandoned Aluminum Mine in Henan Province, China

- - -

The last push towards Beijing had been disastrous. At dawn Gao Jin Wei had told Commander Zheng that something was wrong in the morning air, that they should call off the assault, but Zheng had set a hand on Jin Wei's shoulder and said Have faith, comrade. We are on the right side of history.

Somehow in spite of their intelligence efforts they'd been on the wrong side of the artillery.

The days since had been the most difficult of Jin Wei's life. Zheng and all the other senior officers were dead save for General Liang and Major Hu. The party leadership had been in debate over the next steps since even before the retreat back to the province. Some wanted to keep prosecuting the war against the dissidents, and some were pointing out that even with almost half their forces wiped out in Beijing they would soon be struggling to feed those that remained if they did not see to their infrastructure.

Jin Wei worried for the future. He had always been comfortable with the rank of lieutenant and with so much of the leadership gone, a new generation would need to take up the defense of the party, and the people.

As he dug his shovel into the side of the shaft by the light of his electric torch, Jin Wei found he was not afraid of dying in battle. It was starvation that he could not stave off with gun or sword. He could not feed his brother's children with bullets, could not water crops with a bayonet. Now more than ever the party needed resources, of the kind he hoped to find. Henan province had yielded aluminum in the past, before the so-called New Progress Party and their corporate puppet masters had brought about this terrible division in the people.

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