CARTAFELL: HELION BOOK 2

This is Book two of the Helion series. Book One can be found here: Helion

*This story, and all chapters written herein, contain themes of an adult and graphic nature. Violence, abusive language, depictions of death and gore, descriptions of non-consensual events, slurs, sex, drugs, and a very particular hatred of whitebois are to be expected. Please be advised that if any of the above material may cause you distress, find another story with which to satisfy yourself.*

Ch. 01, Of Dust And Ruin

Eve swayed gently on her bunk; beams of afternoon sunlight streamed through the small port window directly into her eyes as she tried to enjoy her nap. The susurration of the train had lulled her into a peaceful sleep earlier in the morning, but now she found it impossible to return to her pleasant dreams. Swinging her legs out over the side of her cot she hopped down onto the floor of her cabin. The steel floor panels thumped loudly as she scratched languidly at an itch under her left breast.

The inter-city trains were the lifeblood of the continent; massive networks of Maglev tracks had slowly crept over the barren wastes to reconnect a once divided nation. They grew like the fungal roots of a mushroom super-colony, creeping across the rolling deserts and craggy valleys that dotted the land. Where highway travel had once been the standard mode of transportation, trains now ruled the roost. After the violence of the Race War had left the infrastructure of the old world crippled, the forward-thinking Men and Women of the Free United Cities had to start from scratch.

With the advancements made to energy storage and transmission, the simplest and most efficient method of getting from one city to another was only ever going to be maglev trains. But the wastes were unforgiving, and many a desperate soul chose to make the harsh world outside the walls of the cities their home. It wasn't uncommon for trains to be derailed, boarded, vandalized, or even stolen wholesale from the tracks in the early days of their development. Slowly an arms race began to develop between the Free Cities and the wayward inhabitants of the wastes. Better armor on the trains led to bigger guns from the Wanderers, armed guards on the trains led to more complex strategies from the Wanderers, and so on.

Eventually, the trains had mutated into behemoths of steel and electricity. Hulking giants, armed and armored as though traveling through an active warzone. A single lead car could stand well over 30 feet high and 200 feet long, with armor plating over 3 inches thick, with more guns and firing platforms than a small mobile army could field. Naturally, such precautions limited the amount of luxury one could expect while riding in passenger cars. Allowances need to be made for the train to still carry as many people as possible. So when Eve leaned over the small sink under the porthole window she nearly smashed her face into the wall when Carmine opened the door behind her.

“Oh shit! Sorry, babe! Thought you'd still be sleeping!” Carmine squeezed herself into the small 6-foot by 6-foot compartment and grabbed a handful of Eve's ass as she shut the door behind her. “The goons in car six are dead, staged the compartment to make it look like they asphyxiated while engaging in some incredibly pathetic mutual masturbation.” She slid her hand between Eve's thighs and ran her fingers across Eve's drenched slit. “One of them begged me for its life, you know? Promised me it'd never even show its face in public.” Carmine was hovering over Eve's left ear as she spoke.

“It started crying as the belt looped around its throat, and you wanna know what the best part is?” Eve gasped as Carmine plunged three fingers into her dripping pussy, focusing almost exclusively on her g-spot. “I made its fuckin’ partner pull the belt taught.” Eve tensed as an orgasm rolled over her. A stream of hot squirts splattered all over the floor of their cabin and Eve grits her teeth to keep from moaning too loudly. A white couple down the corridor from their room had been reported on a noise complaint by a Black couple and were summarily thrown from the train.

“Fuck, babe! What would you do if I couldn't hold it in-mmphhh” Eve was interrupted by Carmine's lips on hers. The fingers slowly working over her pussy caused her to pant into her partner's mouth. “Fuck, how-oh shiiiit-how did you do the other one?” A feral grin spread across Carmine's lips before she growled and bit down on the nape of Eve's neck. Before she could cry out, a powerful synthetic hand clamped down over her mouth to stifle the cry.

“I looped its belt around the same railing of the top bunk and ordered it to stroke itself while I slowly took the slack out of the belt.” Eve could feel another powerful climax approaching as she pictured the scene of the struggling whiteboi. She wasn't as afraid to moan with Carmine's hand around her mouth and she cried out into it as another hot geyser of squirt soaked her legs and feet. Carmine retracted her hand from Eve's abused hole and released her grip from her mouth. “Honestly I'm surprised the Guild managed to convince two fuckwits like that to tail us.”

Eve collapsed to the floor of the cabin as her knees gave out. “You're lucky I'm naked or you'd be cleaning my clothes…” Carmine just laughed and sat on the side of her bunk. “Mhmmm shit, but you're right. I'm not sure what they thought they were going to gain from doing that. Maybe since they can't find Jasper or Cassidy they thought we'd let some information slip?”

Carmine mulled that over as she fished a Tellmin's from her breast pocket. “Possibly, though, if they wanted to get something from us they'd have sent a Black Man to get the job done. No… this seemed more like a message than anything.” She lit the smoke and took a generous pull from it before handing it off to Eve. “I think they were just letting us know that we couldn't run from them? Kind of a pointless gesture seeing as we've already fucked up one of their stupid Gods.”

Eve readjusted her posture to lean back against the small vanity and puffed contentedly on her cigarette. “Well, it would make sense if they've left the management of things in the hands of Whitebois, we already know that they're hiding their actions through several layers of scapegoats so this kind of thing wouldn't surprise me. Our superiors are smart and capable, decisions like this wouldn't come from one of them. Perhaps these two twats took it upon themselves to gain some notoriety?” They both pondered that as the train continued to rock softly on its magnetic fields.

The 6-hour journey to Cartafell in the south was a non-stop trip. Had planes still been a viable form of transportation it likely would have been 3 or 4, but with the proliferation of advanced weaponry even the Wanderers in the wastes could target and take down commercial flights. Airspace anywhere outside a city's walls was contested heavily and was largely left to City Guard forces, military contractors, and pirates. Eve glanced around the small cabin as she drew in a long breath of cherry-flavored smoke.

The thin sheet metal still had streaks from where the cleaning crew had swabbed it down. The porthole window was cracked where a bullet had struck the outer pane of bulletproof plexiglass. A small vented fan whirred quietly next to the single dim light on the roof. The cots were barely more than steel shelves with a thin sheet to separate the skin from the cold metal. “Why didn't you book us for the first-class car? It's not like we don't have the money for it.”

Carmine chuckled as she beckoned Eve to come sit in her lap. “Because, silly, we couldn't terminate those annoying little faggots from up there. Besides, if I start springing for every little luxury you'd get all soft on me, and I like you just fine as you are! Tough as nails!” Carmine lightly tapped Eve's kidney with a fist as she came to rest in her partner's lap. Eve leaned back, allowing herself to relax into Carmine's body as Carmine took up the task of stroking her hair.

“I haven't checked the time, how long till we roll into Cartafell?”

Carmine took a drag and then replied, “Another two hours, assuming we don't get raided.”

Eve swiveled her head slightly, “I'm not sure I liked the way you said that…” Carmine had a habit of coloring her words with more or less emotion depending on how much information she was trying to hold back, and Eve had started to just pick up on her tells. Or, at least, the tells she figured Carmine was allowing her to pick up on. The android was far smarter than most people, and often left Eve feeling a bit like a rodent in a wheel.

“There's a Warband on an intercept path roughly two hundred miles down the track, depending on what the conductor decides to do we may be stopping early so they can mount an effective counterattack.” Eve sighed. Of course, the wanderers would choose to raid their train. It seemed as though even the smallest windows of peace were doomed to forever be interrupted for her.

“How big is the warband? Any indication they're looking to board?” Carmine took on her distinctive look of trawling through her vast data arrays as she searched for an answer.

“There's two land yachts and four dune cruisers. The yachts look like they've got the hook skiffs loaded so they may be planning to board as the train blows by… probably a small group of trained hijackers. Depending on where they end up hooking the train, we may see some action, though it's more likely they're targeting the first-class cars at the front.”

Eve agreed with the assessment; while targeting the front cars held the highest risk since they were latched directly behind the heavily armed lead car if one could board the first class car and ransack it, then all manner of riches could be plundered. “I guess we just need to hunker down for an hour and wait, not like we had much else to do in this tin box.” Eve griped as Carmine ran her fingers through her hair.

“Oh? Funny… I was thinking there was plenty we could get up to…” and with that, Carmine dragged Eve down onto the hard surface of the cot and began to kiss her passionately.

“Mmhhhph.. babe! Lemme finish my smoke first! Damn!” Eve hissed as she flailed her arm out to the side protectively. After having lost all of her smokes in their assault on the water treatment facility she was hesitant to let one go.

Carmine rolled her eyes as she flicked her butt into the sink, “Ugh whatever, I'll occupy myself, then.” And she began to kiss her way down Eve's naked torso.

“Ah! Ohhhh, yeah… that works… mhmmm” Eve cooed as Carmine worked to spread her thighs. “Yeah, that fucking works…” Carmine was unnaturally talented with every part of her body, achieving a level of control and intuition about her partner's needs that few people could ever hope to achieve. Eve drew in a breath of smoke and exhaled a pink cloud along with her moan. The past day had been too hectic to enjoy a small moment with her lover like this, so Eve was grateful for the brief peace.

A knock sounded at the door just as Eve was riding out her 4th orgasm, she barely had the sense or strength to pull her new Deckland from the holster slung on the railing of her bunk but managed to make a half-decent defensive pose as Carmine removed herself from between Eve's legs. “Are we expecting anyone?” Eve whispered to her partner.

“No, and the Trainmaster already verified our passes, so that's not it either.” Carmine brushed herself off and wiped her lips to remove most not all of Eve's juices before she stepped to the door and used the small peephole. “Oh shit, it's the Black man from compartment Four-G, he looks… pissed…”

Eve swore under her breath and pulled the sheets up around her, “Well, we better see what he wants, I guess.”

Carmine opened the door and greeted the short Black man with a beaming smile, “Well hello, sir! What can I do for you?” The man's expression subtly shifted from pissed to intrigued. He was short for a King, Eve placed him roughly 2 inches under her nearly 6’ frame. He was built like a cannonball, with broad shoulders, and a barrel chest rounded out into a significant gut. His hair was trimmed short in a pseudo-military cut, but his lack of diligence with his attire and physique told Eve he wasn't a career military man.

He glanced past Carmine and spotted Eve in the bed, the expression on his face shifted once more from intrigued to predatory. “I'm wonderin’ who was makin’ all the squealin’. Figures it'd be a couple of dykes.” The man grabbed at his crotch, jostling his bulge suggestively. “S’pose you cunts ain't forgot what real pleasure is? That lil’ bitch a few doors down said she ain't, but her faggot whined a lil’ too much with ma hog in its ass so’s I had ‘em chucked off the train. Maybe you bitches’ll make a better go of it on the sand, huh?”

His cock was hardening in his loose sweats and Eve could see the thick outline of his shaft and head. Like every other Black man Eve had ever met, his size and girth were prodigious. “Reckon I could save y’all the trouble if’n ya… lighten my load…” The man chuckled at his clever remark and Carmine giggled cutely.

“Oh Hun! Do you think we'd let you leave with a set of full nuts?! Get your beautiful ass in here and let us show you just how much we know about ‘real pleasure’!” Eve sighed, more so out of relief than any sort of disappointment. As a sworn and inked snowbunny, it was more or less her ordained privilege to service Black men throughout the Free Cities. A role that she had both taken on willingly and enjoyed beyond any other function she had.

Before her Excommunication from the Hunters Guild, she would have ranked slaughtering whitebois for money just under it in terms of satisfaction, but now… well things had changed. The dynamics of the world had shifted, and she found herself on a crash course with cultural revolution. Exterminating the white race had become something more than just plugging a few stray dogs pretending to be human, it was rapidly developing into a war that she was on the frontline for. As a result of that, indiscriminately euthanizing whitebois had stopped being fun and had instead become gravely serious.

That didn't stop it from being incredibly hot, though. Every crushed throat, every severed limb, and every gaping bullet wound was still just as euphoric for her as they had been when she'd taken her first pathetic life. “You ain't said shit since that door opened, slut, that any way to greet your better? Spendin’ too much time buried in cunt n’ now ya can't pull your weight, s’at it?” This was familiar to Eve, even the smallest of slights could lead to significant offense, depending on the person.

The Black race had assumed command of humanity as naturally as they breathed. It didn't matter if you were white, Hispanic, Asian, or Middle Eastern, the strong, virile blood of African ancestry had trumped everything else almost uncontested. Despite the bombs, the napalm, and the chemical devastation that Whites had employed against them, ultimately the Black race had dominated every other weak lineage on earth.

So when the man directed his displeasure at Eve, she did what came naturally to her as an inferior white cunt, she slid to the floor and begged for his forgiveness. Whether she earned it or not would remain to be seen, but the man seemed more interested in dumping a few loads than doling out pain so Eve suspected this may be a short tryst. Or, rather, she hoped it would be short; if what Carmine had said about the warband was true then they'd be running into them sooner than later.

“Get off the floor ya slut, my cocks up here. And you, Blondie, I want you lovin’ on my sack like it's a fuckin’ bag of jewels. The last bitch was sobbin’ over her little pink shit gettin’ beat black n’ blue so she couldn't finish the job. M’all pent up here so don't waste mah damn time!” The man yanked his sweats down around his ankles and a hefty Black cock sprang out to greet Eve. It bobbed up and down as its weight caused it to swing through the air.

Eve lunged at it with her mouth, letting her need and lust take over as she worshiped at the man's feet. Carmine wasn't far behind her as Eve felt the android slither up between the man's legs, taking hold of the man's ass cheeks, Eve began to pump her throat up and down his 10” shaft. She swirled her tongue and rotated her head from side to side as she used her face to jerk the man off. She hadn't been at it more than 20 seconds before the man grabbed a fist full of her hair and began to fuck her throat in earnest, Carmine knew better than to hover around the man's balls as they swung wildly back and forth so she ducked out from between his meaty thighs.

Spit and pre-cum ran down Eve's chin as the man rammed his stiff rod down her throat, “Mhmm fuck yeah, milk that cock, milk that fucking… cock!” The man forced her face into the short, curled hairs of his pubes, gyrating his hips to rub the tip of his cock against the back of her throat. “Ugh fuck I'm gonna…” and then Eve could feel the hot jets of cum gushing down her throat and into her stomach. The thick, virile ropes of divine seed flooded her esophagus as though he were pissing.

The cock twitched and spasmed as his naturally large prostate pumped copious amounts of his delicious jizz into her. Eve held on and gently worked her throat around the shaft of his cock, swirling her tongue around the base of his shaft as he mashed her nose against him. “Phewww-shit, maybe you dykes know more about dick than I thought. ‘Least you got a decent throat-pussy, been a while since I dropped a wad that big.” The man began to extract his cock from the back of Eve's throat, but she clung to him, licking and sucking as he tried to pull away.

“Aight get the fuck off me now, damn… how much you love nigga dick anyhow? What the fuck are you doing with a chick? Oh no, I know what it is. You're an old bitch now! Yeah, that's what's up, you a washed-up ol’ cunt for niggas like me. You ain't gonna land yourself a man ‘cause ain't no one want your ass. Heh, well that's too bad, I don't want you either. Bet that pussy dryer than the wastes ain't it, bitch?” Eve winced.

Her age was one of the few insecurities she had left. It was one of the main factors in men consistently passing her over for younger, hotter women. It was also one of the things she couldn't do anything about; while the Hunter Trials had slowed her aging to a crawl, they hadn't happened soon enough to trap her in her prime. She would forever be “too old” for the men of the free cities to truly consider a viable partner in anything other than sexual relief.

Still, she put on a brave face and decided to push back with a bit of bravado. “Sir, this pussy will milk you harder than any woman you've met.” The man's nostrils flared and Eve felt for a second as though he'd strike her, but instead, he just laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, and my cock’s never been wet. I'm fuckin’ this sex-bot n’ you're just gonna sit there like a good bitch. If you even move I'm reportin’ yo ass to the Trainmaster. Eve fought back the tears as the man took Carmine by the hair and bent her over the bottom bunk. It stung, more than she knew it should. Just another instance of that fucking God-Curse doing its twisted job on her. It wasn't her body or her age. That stupid fucking God had cursed her before finally dying and being banished.

While her powers had staved off the bulk of the curse, it had sunk enough of its claws into her to continue affecting her life. Originally she had been cursed to never feel satisfaction again, but it seemed that it had been limited to only experiencing satisfaction in incredibly short bursts. Carmine moaned as the man slid into her tight cunt; the wet slap of their hips meeting echoed out into the hall through the open door.

Eve worried about the noise, but the man didn't seem to care one way or another. A curious whiteboi nosed around the corner to see what the noise was about and Eve had an idea. She wasn't allowed to move, but that didn't mean she couldn't still enjoy herself a little. “Hey, yeah, you. What cabin are you in?” The whiteboi looked around like it couldn't quite understand it was being spoken to. It tried to back away but Eve called it back.

“Nah, nah, get back her faggot. What room are you in? I feel like playing with you. You're… cute? Yeah, I think we could have some fun. Tell me what room you're in.” Eve had to swallow back her bile as she complimented the wretch. The sheer fact that it was making eye contact with her sickened her to the core of her being.

“S-sorry, mistress. I-I’ve never… uhhh… this is my first..” the whiteboi swallowed hard, truly at a loss as to what was happening to it. It couldn't take its eyes off of the round Black ass currently turning Carmine into a gaping mess beside Eve now. “M-my room? Uhhh… I'm in four-K… m-mistress, may I ask w-what you… intend to d-do with me? M-my wife… she, ahhh I need to ask her before I can do anything…”

Eve dry heaved as it stuttered its way through its pathetic response. The sound of its voice, the woman unfortunately tied to it, the unsure way it spoke, all of it disgusted Eve on a visceral level. “No, you may not ask. Go back to your room and wait for me, with your wife. She'll want to be involved…” Eve's pussy began to tingle as she thought of the depraved and twisted things she was about to inflict upon this creature. Its “wife” would make a fantastic tool to use on it to deepen the torment, if Eve was lucky she would also be a snowbunny.

The whiteboi shuffled back from the door, finally picking up on Eve's malicious intent. Their survival instincts were virtually nonexistent so Eve wasn't surprised when it agreed to what she had told it to do despite experiencing the crippling fear of mortal danger she had just manipulated it into. The Black King beside her finally took note of her existence again as he slid his cock out of Carmine's abused hole. “Get that fuckin’ mouth on this shit, can't be walkin’ around all day covered in some cunts juice like this. The missus would shank me.”

Eve dutifully turned and wrapped her plump lips around the head of the man's cock. Carmine's pussy tasted of sex and musk, with a hint of metallic gunmetal. As Eve licked and slurped the remnants of her lover off of the man's shaft, she also discovered to her delight that it was smeared with his cum as well. So he'd blown his load in Carmine while she arranged her playdate, lucky bitch… “An’ make sure you suck my spunk outta her pussy, too. I ain't havin’ no fuckin’ bastard. Not after that last one… had to put the fuckin’ mother down cause she wouldn't listen to a word I said… fuckin’ whitey… kept goin’ like “law this, illegal that”... Like I have a fuck! A brat’s a brat n’ I ain't want no fuckin’ brats!”

He seemed genuinely remorseful, but more so for having to have done the work himself than for the loss of life. Almost like that act of terminating the mother was something he was too good to be forced to do, as though eliminating her wasn't worth his time or effort. It was completely illegal for women of any race to terminate the child of a Black superior. Typically resulting in death for the mother or a very lengthy sentence in a production mill. If the woman had complied, the King may not have chosen to report her. In this instance, It'd become a death sentence regardless.

“Anyway, If I’m ever hear from either of ya again you're goin’ in a dumpster like she did, a’ight?” Eve took his cock out of her throat long enough to thank him for his consideration before sliding it back down so she could lick his balls.

Carmine moaned as she turned over on the cot, spreading her legs to present the thick, sloppy mess of her pussy to Eve. She rubbed gingerly at her clit as she waited for Eve to make her way between her legs. “Heh, you snowbunnies are somethin’ else… get off my dick ‘fore I remove you, bitch. I got places to be an’ havin’ your stank on me all day put me in a mood.” Eve finally relented and extracted herself from his crotch. She thanked him for his attention once more and he turned to leave the compartment, lazily bringing his pants back up around his waist.

“Sorry, darlin’.” Carmine breathed the apology around an orgasm, a small spurt of cum burbling out of her abused cunt as Eve crawled up and began to eagerly eat her out. “I prom-oh shit-promise you'll get the next.” Even just moaned into the sopping-wet slit as she carried on. “We've got maybe-mmhhmmm-an hour before we're intercepted. What's this about meeting up with a whiteboi?”

Eve broke away from her meal and rose between Carmine's legs to share a passionate kiss with the android. “Well, seeing as someone stole a big, fat nut from me, I figured we could go stomp a couple of small, white nuts to make up for it. I told it to invite its “wife” since I'm sure she wouldn't mind sharing in the… fun.”

Carmine smiled, “Are you sure you wouldn't rather go on the prowl for another man? I'm sure a few are looking to blow off some steam…”

Eve just shook her head, “Nah, I feel like hurting something now, besides, we need to keep our heads in the game if we're going to be fending off Wanderers. What better way to get amped up for a fight than a little whiteboi beatdown?” Given the choice, Eve honestly would have preferred getting laid, but she knew heading into a fight with a ruined pussy would only distract her.

Black-on-white violence had been one of the main topics of pre-Race War discourse. Many in the “white faction” had argued that a disproportionate amount of violence was being committed against them, and that something needed to be done to quell the tide of bodies turning up on the streets. What always amused Eve about that fact, was that it had all been proven true in hindsight. All of the propaganda, all the statistics, it had all been true.

What amused her further, was that time after time, some of the loudest voices in the white faction calling out for an end to the “unjustified” violence were women who were inevitably exposed as partaking in those beatdowns. Prominent senators, judges, lawmakers, and teachers were outed as having reveled in the destruction of their race by either consuming, spreading, or producing content involving violence against whites.

The largest, most well-remembered instance of this was Senator Christy Mezlené. Something of a folk hero among snowbunnies and a champion of the Black Supremacy movement which inevitably snowballed into the BNWO. She sat in one of the most powerful seats one could hold in the pre-war continent and, for the longest time, was seen as a glimmering ray of hope for the white supremacists. On several occasions, she had single-handedly struck down bills designed to empower people of color and enable more equal footing for minorities across the board. She had been heralded as the savior of the white race.

And then an image surfaced on what was once called the “internet” of Senator Christy seemingly servicing a hung Black man. A prominent Queen of Spades symbol imprinted across her left cheek as she stared back into the camera with a devilish grin on her face. At first, the image was circulated among the niche online communities as a fake, a forgery meant to discredit her standing and sexualize her in a derogatory way. It would have been nothing more than a blip on the radar, except… Christy came forward, unprompted, to verify that the image was, in fact, genuine.

The event would come to be known as Spade-Gate. And would mark a turning point in history, as the world suddenly came to understand just how pervasive the BNWO was becoming. Christy doubled down on her admission, sharing every sordid detail of her promiscuous lifestyle, going so far as to publicly humiliate her then-husband by bringing one of her lovers to a Gala along with him in an internationally televised act of cuckolding. By that time the floodgates had opened and women the world over began to declare their allegiances. Firm lines were drawn in the sand and the momentum of the white faction was crushed into near non-existence.

From then on, anytime Christy attended any sort of major social event she would ensure her cuck was with her. She would make a point of showcasing all of the bruises, cuts, bumps, and burns that she and her lovers had inflicted as a means to encourage the behavior of others. Over one short year, she had gone from the most dangerous woman on earth to people of color, to being their greatest ally. The number of reported fatalities from Black-on-white violence plummeted to record lows, not because they had stopped happening, but because almost every woman across the continent had simply stopped reporting them.

In fact, because of Senator Christy’s brazen acceptance of the BNWO, Black on white violence was redoubled and it wasn't long before corporations started to smell money. A vast and previously unseen market of men and women had suddenly opened up to the mainstream, and capitalizing on the surge in popularity was in the best interest of the money-hungry entrepreneurs. Apparel, accessories, programs, self-help books, shows, and movies, the late 2090s saw a boom in BNWO content the likes of which hadn't been seen prior.

The most popular tattoo design in 2095 was the iconic spade symbol, which then went on to retain its place at the top of the list for 12 years straight before inevitably being supplanted by the more common “jack of spades”. Eve thought fondly of Christy for enabling the conditions in which unprompted violence against whites was not only allowed but celebrated. If the woman hadn't been long dead, Eve would have been thrilled to shake her hand or kneel at her feet. Carmine sighed, “Alright, get dressed, slut. We don't have long.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Eve and Carmine stepped out of the whitebois room, checking the soles of their boots for blood. “I… what the fuck was that?” Carmine let the disbelief in her voice linger in the air between them.

“Yeah… that's was… wow…” Eve lit a Tellmin's, nearly in disbelief of what had just taken place in that small compartment. “I mean… she said it was her first time, right? She said that to us… right?” She took a long drag, hoping the cherry smoke would help drain some of the adrenaline pouring through her veins.

“Yep… she said she'd never beaten a whiteboi.” Carmine mimicked Eve's motions as she reached for her pack of smokes.

“I think… Carmine, I think she might be a monster. Like… what she did to its eyes… I just…”

Carmine picked up her train of thought, “I know… it was like she was… dissecting it. With her hands.” A cool chill crept along Eve's spine as she subconsciously put distance between herself and the door. It wasn't often she met someone with an even greater affinity for inflicting pain on Whitebois than her but when she did it was always exhilarating. Like stumbling across a wild cryptid.

“Why do you think she even married it? That kind of hatred would make it nearly impossible to stomach the sight of it, wouldn't it? I mean, I dry heaved just speaking to it. How could she possibly stand being in the same train car as them? Fucking insane…”

Carmine hummed as she drew in a breath of her cigarette, “I can't say, it seems like her mind is operating on some incredibly unique metric that we can't quite comprehend. Based on how much… fun… she was having in there, maybe she gets some sort of pleasure out of being around them…?” Her uncertainty was evident in her voice and Eve resolved to let the matter drop. While it had been fun she didn't quite get the kick out of it that she was hoping for.

“Whatever, how's our mischievous gang of Raiders looking?” There was an observation platform on the upper part of each of the cars, and Eve motioned to the steep set of stairs leading up to it. Carmine fell in behind her as they climbed up to take a peek out the small murder holes periodically punctured into the thick steel armor of the train car.

“I would say we should see the first signs of them any minute now. Just over the crest of that far dune next to the -N-OUT sign.” The sign sat half-buried in the sand, some of its lettering obscured. Eve imagined it was from some version of a diner or restaurant; she would come across similar signs in the possession of wealthy collectors, or long-forgotten apartments used by squatters. Most signs with that shape and coloring tended to be related to food.

Her eyesight was fantastic for a human, and coupled with her commtag implants it could be modified further, but in the end, they were still just regular, human eyes. “Yeah, that's, like, way too far for me to make anything out; that sign musta been huge, though.” Carmine nodded in agreement and they both fell into a comfortable silence as they smoked their cigarettes.

“Heh, kinda feels like we're in a movie, huh babe?” Carmine broke the small moment with her musings.

“Yeah? Is it one where the heroine beats all the baddies and gets the girl at the end? Maybe they ride off into the sunset together after a long hard mission? Whaddya think? Am I main character material?” Eve wrapped her arm around Carmine's waist and the android chuckled.

“Oh hell no! You're, like, maybe a supporting role! Do you honestly believe I wouldn't be the star of the show?! Babe look at me, I'm like, at least a fifteen out of ten, you're… well you're just a ten. You had, like, no hope.” Eve grumped and pinched the android's ass. Honestly, she was fine playing second fiddle to Carmine if that's how it was supposed to be. She wasn't cut out for being the main character of anything.

“Well then does that mean I'm the girl you get at the end? You gonna sweep me off my feet and carry me into the great ever-after?”

Carmine pinched her back and placed her chin on the top of Eve's head. “Bitch, this story ain't even over! It's not like I'm clairvoyant! But now that you bring it up, I always wanted a harem of hot chicks to travel around with… how's that sound?”

Even just closed her eyes and took another puff of her smoke, “Not a fucking chance. Not unless you wanted me to slowly make them disappear, anyway.” Eve imagined what that would be like, watching Carmine fall into the arms of another woman, directing her attention elsewhere, praising and spoiling other women besides her. It hurt, deeply. After the betrayal she suffered from Mason, Eve wasn't sure she could survive another like it.

It'd taken just about every ounce of willpower she'd had to overcome the heartbreak at that moment, and she knew that she still wasn't anywhere near done processing the pain and loss of that relationship. But Carmine had given her something to cling to in a very turbulent time, and if that final life raft fell out from under her…

“I'm just teasing, Eve. For as long as you live, you will be my one and only. Come hell or high water, you will always be enough for me, and one day in the hopefully-not-too-distant future, we'll settle down and live out our days peacefully. That's my true desire.” Eve let those words wash through her mind, flooding out all the negative thoughts that had been swirling around it.

Carmine's affection was likely the single greatest thing that had happened to her in the past 30 years of her life. Even given the somewhat manipulative way in which they'd come together and the mild terror she felt when Carmine did something potentially apocalyptic, such as dump billions upon billions of credits into their accounts. She still couldn't shake the undeniable feeling that Carmine was it. The one. Her true love.

Eve had stopped caring about whether or not Carmine's love was the result of true emotions or simply an output of 1’s and 0’s. The Turing test was a cute puzzle for infants compared to Carmine and so ultimately it didn't matter what was generating her regard for Eve. The result was the same either way and so long as that continued to be the case, Eve was content to let it be.

“Well, it was nice while it lasted, I guess. Looks like our welcome party is rolling up.” Eve opened her eyes at Carmine's words and spotted the long trail of dust rising from behind the dune. Alarms began to wail and harsh red lights sprung to life along the ceiling, replacing the sterile white of the normal ones. An automated announcement came over the loudspeakers instructing civilians to head for their designated panic rooms.

The lead dune-cruiser of the warband crested the dune and Eve marveled at its bulk. Massive tracks clawed through the sand, shooting up a spray behind the ship as it sped towards the tracks ahead of them. The remaining three cruisers crested the dune in a wedge formation and began to let off pock-shots at the train. Eve could see the muzzle flashes even under the harsh glare of the sun. The two land yachts tucked in behind the wedge for cover as the Warband began to turn parallel to the tracks.

The amount of bullets pinging off the side of the train car increased and Eve decided to descend back down to the lower level to avoid catching a lucky shot through the murder holes. Guards raced past the bottom of the stairs, headed for various defense points and gunfire began to sound from the forward cars. “I guess the rich folk get the pick of the litter when it comes to security.” In all likelihood, the rear cars would be left completely unguarded to ensure the safety of the wealthy front cars.

“Where are you calculating their breach point?” Eve began to make her way towards the front but Carmine stopped her.

“It's a feint, they'd have already latched if they were targeting the front. Looks like-yep, there they go.” The train rocked as the breaching hooks lanced through the protective sides of the train cars at the rear. “We're headed this way, baby!” Carmine grabbed hold of Eve's hand and began the race to the rear compartments, unlocking connecting doors as they went. They had 13 cars to navigate and by the time they reached the puncture sites, the warband would already be inside and volatile.

Eve drew her Deckland and prepared herself for the melee. After fighting in the cramped halls of the apartment, and again in the water treatment plant, Eve was getting sick of close-quarters engagements. “Sure wish Cassidy were here, I'd just chuck her in the car and wait for the screams to stop!”

Carmine chuckled at Eve's lamentation, “Nah! If Cas were here she'd have already jumped onto their yachts!”

The Wanderers had been a natural consequence of the developing Free Cities. After the bombs had fallen, and throughout the long centuries of humanity being uplifted by the strong and courageous Black Race, some dissenters fled the influence of the BNWO. Either because they feared persecution for their beliefs, or desired the freedom to plot against the newly forming law of the land. With the ever-increasing influence of the Cities, those seeking refuge from their oversight were pushed deeper and deeper into the dead wastes of the continent.

The lack of resources and extremely harsh conditions had led to an incredibly severe regression among the bands of humans that chose to make the wind-blasted dunes their home. They became nomads, roaming great distances in search of food and water, supplies and tools, and most importantly, other humans. To keep their warbands alive, they needed bodies, and because of the inferiority of their genetics, coupled with the rarity of resources, producing enough offspring to maintain their scarce way of life was next to impossible.

This naturally resulted in most warbands kidnapping as many people as they could in their raids. Introducing new breeding stock to their bloodlines was an important factor in keeping their genetic lineage from degrading further, and in the worst of times, the extra souls could be expended as sustenance. These cannibalistic practices had brought many to believe that the Wanderers had finally diverged entirely from humanity. Eve would catch a news blurb every few months about another raid happening somewhere on the continent but had never experienced one herself.

Rumors of the Wanderers were as varied as rumors got; from there being hidden cities deep beneath the sand to wonderous oases dotted throughout the desert. Everyone had their idea of what the Wanderers were, and with nothing available to debunk any of the rumors, they were allowed to spread like wildfire. Not one person had ever been recovered from a Wanderer raid, and those who came forward to claim they'd found their way back to a City after being taken had all been proven to be lying.

As Eve and Carmine crashed through the final door leading to the breached compartment, Eve finally realized that the rumors of the Wanderers were woefully short of accurately describing them. The massive lance that had pierced the side of the train car served two purposes, the first was to latch the land yacht to the car, and the second was to allow raider access. The tip of the lance was completely hollow, and Wanderers scrambled out of it and into the car like cockroaches. The rancid stink that filled the narrow compartment hit Eve like a slap in the face.

Her eyes burned as she tried to keep herself from retching just beyond the doorway. Either they'd released some kind of gas into the compartment as a breaching maneuver, or they just naturally stank like that, Eve didn't know and didn't care. The first raider to spot Eve turned in her direction and howled a great, ear-piercing screech the likes of which Eve had never heard. It was a feral, shrill, berserk scream of incomprehensible rage, the sort of sound no true human could replicate. And it worked; Eve was bolted in place as her instinctual fear of the monster overrode her consciousness.

It was swathed head to toe in filthy scraps of fabric and leather, stitched together in a patchwork bodysuit of thick linens and skin. Blood and other fluids stained the fabric in a pattern that made it look like a molting animal. Its face was covered by a strange bone mask with incredibly narrow eye slits. The mouth curled up in a bizarre and uncanny simulacrum of a smile that caused the hair on the back of Eve's neck to stand painfully on end. Its movements were spastic and frenetic, as though the energy in its body was too much for it to control. This wasn't just ‘not human’, this was a monster, a horrendous demon in the form of a human.

Any semblance of human traits had long since left this creature behind on the evolutionary scale. There would be no reasoning, there would be no dialogue, and there would be no compassion or empathy or even understanding. Carmine stepped in front of Eve and removed the creature's head from its body with a flick of her War-wire. The two daggers it held clattered to the floor as its body lost cohesive contact with its brain stem. Eve's eyes trailed to the floor where the blades skittered to her feet. The handles were very distinctly the ends of femurs from human thighs.

“EVE! SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT!” Carmine bellowed as she kicked shut an open door that was jutting into the hallway. Two more of the creatures whipped their heads around to investigate the source of the bang. One of them dropped a lifeless child to the floor and snatched a set of daggers from its belt as it turned to charge. Eve mechanically raised her Deckland and fired at it but the creature leapt and twisted unnaturally through the air to avoid the shot. The second beast snarled and let out another blood-curdling screech that momentarily deafened Eve.

Even having just come out of a life-or-death battle with a God hadn't prepared her for the level of inhumanity she was witnessing. The sound of muffled gunfire rattled through the connecting door to the train car on the other side of the Wanderers. Carmine intercepted the one sailing through the air and slammed it into the steel floor panels with such force that they buckled under the hellspawn. Its head exploded from the impact and the second Wanderer drew something from its waistband. Eve thought it looked like some kind of metal pipe, but then the creature raised it like a gun.

Every instinct in her body screamed at her to dodge and she barely managed to throw herself against the wall as a hunk of lead was thrown from the end of its weapon. The projectile punched a hole through the door behind her the size of her palm and she suddenly snapped back into the moment. She raised her gun and began to return fire as the abomination attempted the same uncanny acrobatics as the last one. Eve was ready for it and managed to peg it with several shots as it spun through the air.

Its body slammed gracelessly into the floor and gurgled as she stepped up and put two more rounds into the back of its skull. Screams erupted from the next compartment and Eve locked eyes with Carmine as they charged towards the door. Carmine set her boot into the handle so hard that the slab of steel bent in on itself as it swung into the next car. One of the Wanderers had been directly behind it, and as a result, ended up plastered all over the wall where the door had pancaked it. Eve caught a glimpse of a woman being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the end of the lance that had come through the wall.

She was missing an eye and a cut across her body from the struggle. She made eye contact with Eve in the second before her head disappeared down the tip of the lance. “FUCK! CARMINE, GET HER!” Eve began to lay down suppressing fire on the group of three wanderers huddled around the door on the opposite side of the car. They scattered like startled animals and Eve could see the breaching charge they'd planted on the door. Two of them ducked into an open doorway on the right side of the hall and the third lunged for Carmine as she came to the tip of the lance. With a flick of her wrist, the monster lost both its arms and wailed as it flailed its stumps wildly.

Carmine dove down the tub and Eve continued to pin the other two wanderers in their room with periodic shots as they poked their heads out. A loud beeping began to emit from the device they'd stuck to the door and Eve twirled behind an open door to her left just before it exploded. Shards of metal sprayed down the hall and pinged harmlessly off the door. The concussive blast further served to damage her hearing and Eve was certain that she'd just lost her right eardrum. She didn't bother checking the ammo count in her magazine before replacing it with a new one; she stuck the gun into the hall, fired two shots, and then poked her head out to inspect the scene.

The blast had torn the door off its hinges and through the smoke Eve could see the faces of terrified passengers huddling on the floor of the train car. There were dozens of them desperately trying to swarm over one another to get to the safe end of the car. It had likely been one of the designated safe cars, which explained why the Wanderers needed to blow the door open instead of just batter it down. Carmine emerged from the end of the lance carrying an unconscious woman, she turned back and pointed her hand down the tube before her wrist unhinged and revealed a barrel.

With a meaty ‘thump’ a small orb was ejected from her wrist and she brought the woman towards Eve. There was a hiss as the projectile Carmine launched began to discharge gas into the lance. One of the two trapped Wanderers tried its luck and dove for the newly opened doorway at the end of the car. Eve plugged it with two shots and as it hit the floor she followed up with another four. “She alive?” Eve glanced at the woman draped under Carmine's arm.

“Yep, gonna need a new eye and probably a new hand, but she'll live.” Carmine dumped the woman to the floor and turned to face the far end of the train car. “I think they'll be detaching soon, based on the chatter I'm hearing the Wanderers are facing some pretty heavy losses compared to their gains. The second yacht is five cars down from us and across several safe-cars so we won't be interfering with that fight.”

Eve grimaced, “how many have they taken?”

Carmine entered her fugue state for a brief moment, likely to review the external camera feeds. “It looks like they managed to snag 13 people. We got the light raid compared to the other side, once they're all said and done the Wanderers will have lost 15 by my count.”

Eve kept one eye on the doorway where the remaining raider was biding its time. “That includes the monster in there, right?” Carmine nodded and Eve gestured at the people in the other car to continue moving back. She stepped forward tentatively, edging herself closer and closer to the doorway with her pistol raised. She had three shots left and needed to make them count. She took a deep breath and gathered what little courage she had to make the final step around the edge of the doorway.

But just as she started lifting her foot there was a massive ‘thunk’ that rocked the car. The Wanderer trapped in the room exploded out the door and hurled itself at the opening of the lance. Eve had just enough time to put a single shot into the back of its thigh before the 4 huge barbs holding the lance in place began to retract into the lance. With a final, prolonged screech of steel, the lance slid from the open side of the train and tumbled through the desert as it was retracted towards the retreating yacht. Eve threw a shoulder against the gaping hole and aimed the receding vehicle. She could see figures moving about on its exposed deck, hauling things to an open grate that led below the deck.

Some of those things they were hauling looked an awful lot like people, and so she fired. Partly in the hopes of pegging a few of the Wanderers, but mainly in the hopes of hitting the civilians; if she could spare even one of them from the fate that awaited them, it would be worth it. But she had no way to tell if any of her shots landed; in all likelihood, it had been an entirely fruitless waste of ammunition. But she had tried, and the people in the next train car began to cheer and applaud both her and Carmine's efforts to save them. They threw praise at her feet, bowed, clasped their hands, and cried as they began to emerge from the cramped car.

Eve felt nothing but disgust for the creatures. They'd huddled in their shelter like a bunch of trapped rats; every last one of them was white and Eve had absolutely no doubt in her mind that the ones being thrown through the grate on the yacht had been the few valor Black Kings and Queens who'd stepped up to protect the train. Her rage built as she considered the plight of the poor souls now doomed to an unfathomable existence among the Warband that had kidnapped them. She turned from the crowd and spent the last few bullets she had made sure the Wanderers bleeding out on the floor were truly dead.

Carmine caught up and fell in beside her as they walked, “One day we'll need to go after them, too. The Wanderers are a threat that cannot be allowed to exist.” Eve agreed with her but said nothing. “Did you get a look at their faces? I checked under one of those masks and… I don't think those things are human anymore…” Eve didn't particularly care what they were; human or not the result would be the same either way.

“I'm tired… Carmine. So very, deeply tired. It hasn't even been a day since our last near-death experience. I don't know how much I can take if things keep up this pace.” They passed by the corpse of the child; there was a gaping bite wound in its neck. “How long till we get to Cartafell now?”

Carmine closed her eyes as she calculated, “The train didn't stop, but it did slow down after it was hooked. It looks like two and a half hours, give or take.”

Eve nodded at that. “Let me sleep until we arrive. I just… I don't want to be awake, right now, ok?”

Carmine pulled her in for a tight hug and kissed the side of her head, “As you wish, darlin’.”

Eve slept fitfully. None of the dreams she had made any sense and ultimately only served to disquiet her. Instead of being restful, the short two-hour nap simply made her cranky when Carmine finally came to wake her up. “I need to get off this fucking train or I'm going to lose my damn mind. And where'd you put my fucking bra?! WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY FUCKING BRA?!”

Carmine didn't have an answer for that, even after having scrubbed through the interior footage, and her memories, she couldn't piece together what had happened to it. One moment it was tucked in neatly with Eve's other clothing and the next it was gone. Carmine hadn't detected any tampering with her memory, or the video feeds from inside the train, so she had chalked it up to corrupted data. Eve dug around for a smoke and lit it, “It has to be targeted at this point. Do you have any idea how many fucking bras I've lost?! Normal people just wear them out, or outgrow them! But not me… ohhhh no, not me! I LOSE THEM!”

She angrily pulled on her cigarette, “I swear, Carmine, if I ever catch the fucker responsible for my lost bras you won't be able to count the number of war crimes I commit!”

Carmine giggled cutely at her rabid assertion before beckoning her to her feet. “Alright, well, potential war crimes aside, we need to do a little shopping before we head to the condo anyway. You'll have the chance to pick up as many bras as you want.” Carmine waggled her hands, indicating Eve needed to take them and Eve huffed before allowing herself to be pulled to her feet.

“Hold up, what condo? What did you mean by ‘our’ condo?” Eve buckled up her chest holster and threw her overcoat on as Carmine began to explain.

“I bought us a cheap condo in the slums. It's a real pile of shit but should be the perfect location for staging our little coup. Seriously, the building is about ten years away from being demolished but oh my god the drapes are so cute!” Carmine excitedly shared the listing photos with Eve via her commtag and Eve just shook her head.

“I hope the bed is halfway decent, even if the mattress is made of literal straw it'll be better than this bullshit.” She tilted her head to indicate the cots and made to open the door, only for a knock to sound from the other side. Puzzled, she opened the door and was met with a nervous-looking concierge. The small whiteboi stared up at her, a bruise was forming over its right eye and angry red lines streaked across its cheeks and throat from where it had been scratched.

“G-good afternoon, m-mistress! I've come to-HUURRNNKKK” The whiteboi was interrupted by Eve's knee impacting its crotch. The pathetic whelp crumpled to the floor, wheezing as it clutched at its sad excuse for genitals.

“Anyway, what about… whats-her-name, the chick we're supposed to meet up with? I know Cassidy mentioned it but I was so fucking out of it I completely missed it.” Eve stepped over the gasping faggot and into the narrow hall, Carmine gave the whiteboi a cursory kick on her way out as well.

“It was Lexa, darlin’, and yes, I've been in contact with her. Her lines were tapped and she was being actively monitored and followed. Luckily, I caught her when I did because she'd have been long dead before we stepped into the city. I managed to get her squirreled away in our condo after some rather intense guidance and she's been holed up ever since. The Hunters Guild has been incredibly curious as to how Lexa managed to ditch all their sophisticated tracking, but seem to have rated her a lower priority than getting the ball moving on arranging more sacrifices.”

Eve blew out a pink cloud of smoke from her nose as she came to the exit, “More fucking rituals? Ughhhh… What's their progress on this one? And please don't tell me we're going to have another all-nighter, I think I would just die immediately.”

Carmine stepped up next to her and gave Eve's ass a firm slap, “What?! You mean being awake for forty-eight hours isn't your definition of a good time?!”

Eve snapped back at her, “Watch it, woman! You're about two ill-planned words away from me charging the Guild HQ solo!”

Carmine rolled her eyes, “So testy… it's almost like you slept on a steel plate for a few hours after having your shit rocked for an entire night… No, baby, we aren't going to need to pull an all-nighter. They haven't located any decent candidates for the implantation process in this city. They have their eyes on a few hopefuls but haven't pulled the trigger. We've got time to work this one out at our pace.”

Eve's mood spun on a dime, “You mean… I'll get to sleep in a bed tonight?! FOR THE WHOLE NIGHT?!” Her glee at the idea was rapidly banishing the majority of the negative thoughts she'd been having.

Carmine laughed and bumped her shoulder, “Who said anything about sleeping? Maybe I had other plans for you?!” Eve broke into a grin and pulled the door leading from the train car open. The brightness of the sun was intense and the air was incredibly hot on her face. It had a dusty, ozone scent that she wasn't accustomed to. Shielding her eyes, Eve stepped out onto the platform and briefly scanned the location. It was unnaturally clean, for a station platform; the one they'd departed from in Helion had been riddled with gunshots, empty bottles, graffiti, vagrants, and three separate drug peddlers.

She'd been propositioned for sex twice and had nearly missed their departure time due to being wedged between two Black men after the second. Cartafell was a different beast; the floors were clear of trash, the folk milling about the platform were mostly keeping to themselves, and most of the graffiti had been recently painted over. Eve was impressed, if not somewhat apprehensive about the state of the platform. With almost 40 million people calling Cartafell home, the care and attention to its infrastructure struck Eve as… superfluous. Sure, moderate maintenance was a necessary part of life, but waging an indignant war against vandalism that would only ever result in expending more capital than it would save was… an interesting use of taxes.

Eve mused as she drew on her cigarette, “Kinda seems like maybe they're… expecting someone, huh?” It was the only thing that made sense to her; why bother putting lipstick on a pig when it'd just wallow in mud minutes later? No, Cartafell was anticipating a stupendously important guest, or guests, that had to be it. “Don't suppose you've heard any juicy rumblings on the subnet? Is Cartafell expecting royalty or the like?”

Carmine shook her head with a rather helpless shrug, “Not a single peep. That being said, I'm not entirely shocked; correspondence is so easy to intercept these days that high-level communications have mostly reverted to pen-and-paper transmission.”

Eve understood that; cryptography had long since reached the point where even rudimentary A. I could crack the strongest cipher in minutes. If you didn't want your secrets being aired, you wrote them down and sent them with armed couriers. But that didn't stop people from snooping, eavesdropping, or in some cases, abducting couriers. “Well something big is going down in Cartafell, and soon. If we don't hustle we're going to get caught up in whatever it is when we drop the power grid.”

The last thing Eve wanted was to commit the largest terrorist attack in recent memory while a gaggle of royalty was in town Shakin's hands. The City Guard along with The Hunters Guild would be on high alert and they'd be forced to run and gun their way out of the city, assuming they weren't immediately caught and executed. “Keep an ear out for gossip among low-class cleaners and bitchbois. If there's a big function going down where big players will be rubbing shoulders, it'll be well-staffed. Scum like that loves to chatter, even on the subnet.”

They strolled along the elevated station and Eve took in what little of the city she could see. The outdoor train dock was almost entirely made of sun-bleached concrete. Hints of graffiti could be seen under the thin coat of white paint that had been hastily applied to almost every surface. The gantry holding the roof over the platform reminded Eve of a gazebo. The steel girders holding the thick panes of tinted glass were similarly painted and it served to make the platform feel more like a picnic area than a bustling metro zone.

Over the railing was a sheer drop of almost 200 feet to the city streets below. Peering over, Eve could barely make out the dim lights of passing cars. The roads below were suspended in perpetual darkness due to the surrounding highrise apartments and the large railway that cut through them. Near the end of the platform, a large gateway led down to the City Bound Train or CBT. Helion had its own CBT but Cartafell's tracks seemed to be more extensive than the ones Eve was accustomed to.

The city was split into four quadrants, each with its subdivisions. Quad-One was the northwest corner Quad-Two the Northeast and so on. Each quadrant pivoted around a central nodule housing the City Core. A massive ring-road looped around it and in the center stood a gargantuan spire of steel and glass. It could be seen from just about every point of the city, and could, theoretically see every part of the city. It reminded Eve of a massive panopticon and she shuddered; if it weren't for Carmine masking their presence they'd have been gunned down on the platform by now.

The weather in Cartafell was far milder than in Helion, being closer to the equator and further from the Dunloria Mountain Range. There was hardly ever any rain, and the Melton River that had once flowed through the city had long since dried up. The concrete aqueduct that had carried it through Quad One and Quad Two was now a barren, gray scar that cut a line across the city and served as a permanent reminder of what once was. As a result of the weather, the majority of the whites living in Cartafell were heavily tanned.

It was a natural consequence of the sun exposure, and most whites wore the darkened skin with an air of pride. But they were also careful not to tan too deeply; If they were suspected to be encroaching on imitating the sacred skin of their Black superiors they would be Flayed alive. Tourists stood out among the crowd with their fair skin, Eve and Carmine looked like ghosts compared to the locals and it would make it harder to remain anonymous for long.

Carmine hummed melodically as she leaned on the railing, “Feels pretty tropical, huh? It's too bad the ocean is another day's train ride away. I'd have liked to have seen it.” The Atlantic sat directly west another thousand miles and had been slowly receding for hundreds of years. After the ice caps had thawed the waters had crept inland, robbing countries of shoreline and people of homes. But in the years after the Race War, the waters had begun to shrink back from the coasts. Ruins and treasures were left behind and the Cities were always quick to lay claim to valuable new land.

Eve sighed as she finished her smoke, “we'll go, one day. Who knows, maybe we'll find some treasure like the rest of those bloody pirates I'm always reading about.” They headed for the CBT gate and boarded the Quad Two line. The interior of the monorail cars had all been sanitized and the scent of bleach stung Eve's nose. “There isn't a single used condom on this entire car. Honestly, they're putting in some effort; I'm impressed!”

Back in Helion, it wasn't unusual to accidentally sit on someone's fresh cumstain. Most of the handrails or roof loops had used condoms tied to them or discarded haphazardly across the floor. Eve could think of only two occasions where she hadn't been used by a Black man while riding the train cars, and in both instances, it had been because they were interrupted by a fight. There was no such thing as “public indecency” laws in the Free Cities for Black folk. Nothing they did could ever be seen as indecent and because consent didn't apply to whites in the age of majority, anything was fair game.

Eve had lost more than one suspect by trying to follow them onto the train. She'd inevitably end up sandwiched between three or four black men and the perp would get away while she was stuck servicing them. It was one of the main deciding factors in her picking up the Percheron. Sitting on the freshly bleached seat, she had a pang of regret for leaving it behind in Helion, but there were no roads between the cities, and the next cargo train that could accommodate it wouldn't depart for another week.

Eve leaned her head into Carmine's shoulder and groused, “Can’t we get a car? Hell, I'd even take an auto taxi over this! I just got off a train and now I'm back on one.”

Carmine chuckled and stroked her hair. “There's a dealership about three steps from the first station on this line; don't you worry your pretty little head, we'll have our freedom back soon.”

Eve was both elated and mildly concerned at just how easily that problem had solved itself. If she wasn't careful she'd become a useless woman by constantly calling on Carmine to resolve her problems. The train wasn't that big of an inconvenience for her, in the grand scheme it would be a few minutes of her life stuck in a metal tube. But to have that minor gripe be resolved so effortlessly and without any pushback struck her as enabling.

But that was fine, wasn't it? She could be a little greedy when she wanted, right? Considering all she'd been through, and all she had left to go through, wasn't it only fair that she be spoiled on occasion? It wasn't like she was asking Carmine to light her cigarettes or put her pants on for her. She hadn't gotten to the point of indolence yet, so it was fine, right?

Their car was slowly filling up with other people coming off the maglev, some of the people smiled and gave Eve and Carmine appreciative nods or waves in recognition of their heroics and Eve winced. “Honestly, the sooner we can ditch the crowds, the better. What dealership is it? Like, an actual dealership, or one of those greasy used car joints?”

Carmine patted the top of her head, “Babe if you complain about the dealership or the car we get, I'm going to string you up to the ceiling of our condo by your nipples and force-feed you laxatives.”

Eve blinked owlishly as she craned her head to make eye contact with the android. “That's… wildly specific. Carmine, have you been thinking about that for a while?” The blonde failed to reply, but Eve could interpret the silence to mean she would likely end up tied to the ceiling in some capacity in her near future. “You know… I don't think the dealership matters much after all… I'm grateful that you found one so quickly and would go out of your way to oblige my request…”

Eve was fishing for a life preserver but the android remained stoic in the face of her appreciation. “OK, but… you're going to use nipple clamps, right? It's not going to be alligator clips, right?”

Carmine shook her head, “See, I think it's about time I start taking a little more agency in this relationship. I've been pumping the brakes, what with the whole ‘Cult’ thing going on, but I believe I should take a more active role in how things happen. I can see now that I've been a little too lenient with you, catering to far too many whims.”

Dread crept up Eve's spine as her lover spoke. “It won't be nipple clamps or alligator clips. Those are far too… removable… for my needs. I think the correct thing to do in this situation is to have your nipples pierced so I may install all sorts of fun things!”

Eve Blanche, “Wha- b-but you can't just-”

Carmine interrupted, “Oh but I can, and I will. You're a cunt, my love. A desperate little pussy with no real authority or self-respect; you have been since I met you. Your past relationships outside of fucking every Black man you come across are nothing but a string of throwing yourself between the legs of women who think they're better than you.” Carmine demonstrated her point by cupping one of Eve's breasts.

“You were waiting to be claimed, patiently letting yourself be leashed by anyone with a stronger sense of self than you. It's almost as though your need to be dominated is fucking instinctual because even when you try to stand up for yourself, you still come across as a pathetic bitch.” Eve started to wonder if maybe she should be earnestly afraid of what might happen to her at the hands of Carmine.

“But it's fine, you see? Because I'm here now and I happen to love pathetic women like you. I adore them, my skin prickles every single time you avert your eyes, apologize, or try to appeal to me when you know you've fucked up. I love it so much it makes me want to…” The android paused briefly before continuing, “Well, anyway, I'll be taking responsibility for your body moving forward. If you have any complaints about that, I strongly urge you to keep them to yourself because they'll only end up making things worse for you. Am I clear?”

Eve swallowed. She desperately wanted to know what Carmine was going to say before she changed tracks. Makes her want to… what?! And was it so bad that it was better left unsaid?! Carmine was smiling down at her as though she were a saint smiling at a reclaimed sinner. There was only one answer Eve could give that wouldn't lead directly to her being tortured for hours and she was almost too afraid to give it.

“Yes, mistress, I understand. Your will is my pleasure and my body, your toy. Please love on me as you desire.” Ever wondered at what other modifications would be made to her? Nipple piercings seemed like the least of her worries if the android was willing to push her control this far. But Eve had made her choice, it was Carmine or nothing, and given another thousand chances to make that same choice, Eve knew she'd chose Carmine every single time.

“Ohhhhh I'm so fucking happy to hear that! I promise you'll love it. Honestly, baby, I'm going to treat you so fucking good; you have no idea!” And just like that, Carmine was back to her air-headed self. Eve still hadn't gotten a handle on the abrupt switches in demeanor, the A. I could go from clinical seriousness to bubbly, brain-dead bimbo in the blink of an eye. It made it incredibly difficult to gauge just how serious the situation was at any given moment and regularly caused Eve a great deal of anxiety.

“So, wait, does that mean I'm still getting strung up to the ceiling by my nipples? I didn't even complain about the dealership! Carmine! Why are you smiling like that?!”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The dealership did turn out to be one of the scuzzy used vehicle vendors. It occupied the bottom floor of a mini-mall in a relatively low-income portion of Quad Two. The interior was falling apart and the manager was an aging Black man with no front teeth and enough rings to almost completely cover his fingers. He looked like the kind of man who could have potentially run for a City Council position about 40 years ago, but never made it. His suit was cheap and he reeked of Slix and alcohol. Eve had pegged his intoxication within his first four words but by the time she had his cock in her mouth, most of the negotiations were already done.

The man had perked up when they'd offered to purchase a vehicle outright; apparently, opportunities like the one they'd presented to him didn't come by often. Eve listened in as she bobbed her head up and down the man's shaft, mentally reviewing the available cars he had in stock. Nothing stood out to her, and ultimately she decided that the best thing they'd be walking away with would likely be the man's cum.

Carmine haggled back and forth with the man until they eventually settled on a fair price for an old 2135, Buchanan Navarch. The four-door SUV had originally set the standard for rolling luxury while maintaining almost unparalleled offroad capabilities. The interior was far more spacious than Eve's Percheron would ever be, and back when the vehicles had first rolled out of production, they had boasted some of the most high-end seat functions on the market. But things had changed quite a bit since the heyday of the Navarch, and it was now considered something of a middling town car.

Eve's Percheron was an antique, a true classic, a priceless relic of a time long since passed. The Navarch was… well it was a vehicle. The offroad functionality was utterly useless to the average citizen, who only ventured out of the city walls to either die or as some form of punishment. The marketing surrounding the vehicle had made its rugged design part of its defining characteristics, “weather any sea”, they had said. But it was mass-produced for one reason, and one reason only: private military contractors.

Fully kitted, the Navarch could be one of the most versatile and deadly mobile combat platforms on the streets. Its low, wide stance made it capable of handling high-speed maneuvering, the ample space and segmented carapace made modifying the body structure so simple just about anyone with a wrench could do it. Mounting heavy weapons or extending the cab for troop transport was simple and didn't compromise the performance of the vehicle.

But time had eroded its purpose and the Navarch had lost its place as the favored child among private security firms. These days just about anyone could purchase actual military surplus which meant the Navarch was a glorified shopping cart. The man blew his load down the back of Eve's throat as he and Carmine shook hands, closing the deal. After collecting the keys the man brought them to the garage and unlocked the storage unit containing the Navarch.

Eve and Carmine had declined the perfunctory wash offered by the dealership to remove the thick coat of dust that had settled on it. The man had shrugged and wished them the best before turning and opening the garage door, through which they left. Eve immediately hated the vehicle; being so high off the ground gave her the uncanny feeling of floating.

The tires and shocks cushioned the passengers from anything but the most severe bumps and so it left her feeling disconnected from the road. Everything about the Navarch simply drove her to yearn for her Percheron even more. But she knew better than to express those feelings, lest she incite more… thorough wrath from Carmine. Instead, she opted to scroll the subnet, huddled uncomfortably in the oversized passenger seat.

Eventually, the car dipped into an underground parking garage and Carmine pulled into a parking space ringed in a neon-green holo-projection indicating it was their designated spot. Eve looked over at Carmine quizzically, “I thought I was getting my nipples pierced?”

Carmine smiled and shook her head, “Unfortunately that particular bit of business is a way down our priority list, baby. It'll happen soon, but we should check in with our new roommate and establish some level of rapport before wandering the city like a couple of tourists.” Eve had forgotten about Lexa. As she climbed from the Navarch she wondered what kind of woman she was. They'd probably be awakening her child at some point as well and the thought caused Eve to grow anxious.

“I wonder which God she's carrying the seed of?” Though it was more rhetorical than an actual question. There was no way to know until her colors manifested, and even then, it might be so arbitrary as to not make any clear connection. They had just assumed Jasper had gotten the child of the Blind God since she lost her vision, hell, even Eve failed to see the link between her colors and the Mournful God.

For all they knew, Lexa could just self-destruct and take the apartment down around them. Carmine started making her way towards the elevator leading to their condo, “We'll see, either way, we're going to have to play nice otherwise we'll
be back to square one with no one to turn to.” Eve swallowed and fell in behind her lover. A lot was riding on this meeting and she had a bad habit of fucking things up.