On the Road to Aya
Cael becomes the Amazon’s Unorthodox Global Diplomat
In 16 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ►Podcast at Connected.
For me, the diplomacy revolved around Delilah and Virginia, I had already fallen on my knees and begged Odette to let me go see Aya 'alone'. A few sexual-charged hours later, she agreed. That left four choices for the role of my two agents. They wanted to go 'as is'. Rachel informed them they would be murdered in-flight and their bodies tossed out over a convenient body of water.
Rachel felt that the only reasonable course of action was for them to not come. That way the two could live a few more weeks. However, she would settle for stripping them down, doing a full body scan and then sealing them naked in airtight coffins (with a suitable amount of oxygen) for the journey. I suspected they might still slip out the baggage compartment somewhere between takeoff and landing.
I cut through the clash of egos and made the final decision. Delilah and Virginia would be stripped and thoroughly examined. Initially I had the chore. Rachel was deeply suspicious of my true intentions. Freed of any electronic devices and with their weaponry in my keeping during the trip, they would be blindfolded as we made it to Aya without bloodshed.
They applauded my wisdom by roundly refusing my decision. Pamela was of no help. Ten minutes into it, I informed them I was going alone, completely alone. They laughed, snorted and chuckled. Rachel reminded me that I didn't know where to go. I lied and told her that Katrina had given me the coordinates for the super-secret juvenile, all-feline [yes, I meant cats], survival training school.
Fine, they would just keep me under constant surveillance. I responded by assuring them that despite my lack of spy-like abilities, I would escape and get to relive my Summer Camp experience with the only woman who respected my Demigod-like combat status. Their laughter hurt my feelings. Pamela stepped up and told the room they could either respect my compromise, or she would help me evade them.
It was even more depressing to see the room full of women who had previously been mocking me suddenly 'snap to' and quickly agree to my earlier suggestions.
"It is okay," Pamela told me softly as the actual mechanics of my vacation were figured out by others. "I didn't want to play Bill Munny to your Ben Logan."
Pamela's eyes flared brighter than any phoenix's rebirth. She'd stumped me.
"The Unforgiven, my Son," she patted my cheek. "It is a western made in 1992 starring Clint Eastwood, recast masterfully by 'Yours Truly' and, we need to work on you making a convincing Morgan Freeman."
"Doesn't Freeman end up in a pinewood box in the first third of the movie?" Virginia mused.
"I didn't want to dishearten him," Pamela grinned. To me. "He ran off alone and got himself killed."
"I was what, not even a year old when that movie came out," I responded with indignation.
"You've never heard of Block Busters, Netflix, Redbox, Dish, Hulu, or late night, Spanish language television?" Pamela snickered.
"I only watch Univision for their sports coverage," I countered.
"You mean for those sexy female sports announcers," Delilah chuckled. That earned her a 'well duh' look from all the other women.
"Before I consent to the strip search and inevitable follow-up anal probe, are we really going to be in a situation that requires us to fight this time?" Virginia asked.
"We should be perfectly safe," Rachel responded.
"Check, bring extra ammo," Virginia nodded.
"Good for you, Ms. Maddox," Pamela winked. "One day there is hope your life will have some meaning to me."
"Great," Special Agent Maddox muttered, "now I have to think of what to get her for Christmas." We all laughed. Christmas was such a long way away.
We packed up, rode to a private airfield near Doebridge, learned that SD was smarter than the rest of us, boarded our flight, and then finally entered US airspace from there. Around Ohio, a thought occurred to Maddox.
"If we were somehow forced to land and have the plane searched, how bad would it be?" she requested of Rachel.
"Bad enough that we have a better chance of fighting our way free than seeing freedom before dying in prison," Rachel answered calmly.
"Hmmm, Rachel, if something like that happened, how many parachutes do we have?" Delilah joined in.
"Enough. Mona rides down with Cael because he's a virgin," Rachel stated.
"Oh! Come on Rachel," I fell down on my knees. "Can't I bungee jump it?"
"Luv," Delilah snorted. "If the drop didn't kill ya, the bounce back would snap you in two."
"Cáel, we are at thirty thousand feet," Tiger Lily giggled. "You are more likely to end as a streamer than a pancake." An Amazon giggle, a most joyous noise.
"Rachel, I have been unkind," Virginia confessed. "Cáel is so personable and so dead set on getting himself killed. I had no idea your assignment was so herculean."
"Acknowledged," Rachel said, "and we don't use 'that' word." Hercules was Greek too.
"We have it worse," Delilah patted Maddox on her shoulder. "We must obey some sort of legal code that doesn't allow us to preemptively save him."
"We must too," Rachel gave a depressive sigh. "Her," she pointed at Pamela.
"Hey," Pamela pouted. "I'm more a force for vigilante justice than a team player. I ride alone."
"Alone?" I took a quick headcount and added our Amazon pilot. "I count ten, Lone Phaser."
"Am I included in that count?" Miyako yawned from under her blanket. "This jet lag is killing me."
"Where did she come from?" Virginia hopped up.
"She was here when we boarded," I told her. "I searched her, I swear."
"Yes he did," Miyako gave a sleepy, Hello Kitty smile. She'd 'searched' me too.
"I bet you did," Rachel glared at me, then Pamela, then me again since I was the titular boss.
Thankfully we all 'bought a vowel', played a card in Clue, and shared an Inspector Clouseau moment. The gang settled down for a nap. Sleeping was not complicated. Rachel, as my bodyguard, slept beside me. The airplane's touchdown was so flawless I had to be shaken to alertness. Did I fall asleep? More on that later.
It would have been better if Virginia hadn't figured out our pilot had violated numerous FAA regulations, like dropping below radar at one remote airport then sailing along for an unknown number of kilometers at nape of the Earth until we reached our final destination (This is great in date flicks, btw. It convinces the girl that we should 'live in the moment'/screw as much as possible.)
We weren't there yet, of course. That level of un-convoluted thinking would have been an Amazon indicator of senility. Being a male Amazon, I was immune to such considerations, that meant I was always nuts in their regard, but they chose to humor me. Our plane had to park in a camouflaged hangar before we were allowed to disembark.
I concluded we must be getting close to our desert gulag/re-education center as the sharp glare of sunlight was accompanied by an equally heartless glare of hostility rolling forth from our waiting all-terrain vehicle caravan. Thank goodness Rachel had the foresight to bring sunscreen for the passel of us. I swallowed the bitter realization I'd lost a $1000 bet concerning our landing zone with Virginia (a Temperate Rainforest) and Delilah (the American Southwest). In retrospect, betting on the site of 'Camp Rock' wasn't my smartest wager.
The Brit made off with $2000 of our money and she wanted to be paid in Euros. That's €778 from me, you offspring of those who didn't have the courage to cross the Atlantic 100 years ago. Neither Virginia nor I really cared. With the level of violence about to escalate, it was all looking like 'funny' money to us. I didn't share my misery. Our Welcome Wagon ladies hardly looked sympathetic, or all that opposed to utilizing scalping as a valid debating tool.
They didn't view this moment as just a bad thing, me showing up. My arrival was apocalyptic: #1, a man. #2, with a member of another secret society. #3, #2 was a professional assassin. #4 and #5, two more outsider women. #6, an unscheduled visit, as in 'the camp guardians hadn't been given six months to plan out all contingencies'. And you think your daycare takes its security seriously?
"Cáel Ishara," the curt, mega-harsh bitch addressed me in English. As the other seven women dismounted from the four Jeep Wranglers (Delilah enlightened us), it was obvious they were well armed and armored, right and ready to provide some extra-curricular para-military fun. "Welcome," and 'oh please tear out one or two of my fingernails you Ginormous Pain in my ass' she greeted the exalted me. We spoke in Hittite;
"I am”, then I used a phrase which I hoped meant 'I had shed blood in battle with sister Aya'. "No other name means more to me right now." Ah, the lovely jerk that full-blooded Amazons gave the first time they heard a male speak their tongue. The slot machine of her intellect kicked into high gear. No arm grasp was coming my way. I almost forgot.
"The outsiders are to remain armed as guests of House Ishara." That command was crucial. When/if I got my way with my first request, I was going to be rendered 'one of the girls'.
"If that is your wish. (Evil grin) Grab your bags and make it snappy," the woman ordered. "I don't like any extended activity at this airfield."
"Ladies, let's hurry up and get our bags," Pamela barked in English. "You too, you hairless ape." That would be me, if there was any question. The Super-friendly camp counselors, with their slung FN P90's, didn't lift a finger to help us. Miyako flounced around without a care in the world. Pamela, eh, there were only eight of them. Three of my SD group were cautious while the pilot was already effecting her refueling and departure.
Rachel shot one of the guardians a look I perceived to be friendly. A double-take elucidated things. She was Rachel's younger sister and had already been updated on my bona fides. Then in Hittite;
"Male, you are agreeable to the eye," Rachel's sister fired off. Three whole seconds.
"Why thank you. I run faster than you would think, thankfully heal even faster and have the venerated outdoor skills of Bigfoot," I smiled.
The seven other ladies weren't sure what to make of that jocularity.
"A very, very young Bigfoot," Rachel corrected.
"There is nothing wrong with the size of his feet," Tiger Lily added to the fun. And then all the homicidal fanatics chuckled.
Pamela's whispered translation brought a subdued, yet similar reaction from the non-Amazon contingent. Sure, the new group knew about the New Directive, my fun encounters which I equated to my life and death struggle in those earlier days, my rise to house leadership, Constanza's blinding, the grenade launcher episode and the totality of my last confrontation with Hayden. Amazons are some hard-ass bitches.
As we were loading up the jeeps, the leader tapped me on the shoulder with some force, in the same way a teacher catches an unruly student's attention.
"What was sex with an augur like? My name is Caprica Mielikki."
"Out of respect for your authority, I will answer this personal question that is really none of your business," I looked down a good ten centimeters at her. No fear.
"It was beautiful, like every other woman I have had the treasured pleasure to have sex with," I continued. My reply's undercurrent was simple: I am not a House Head while I'm here. I am an Amazon, not a slave, or outsider male.
"Did you suffer stigmata?"
"Yes. To be fair, I was also having intercourse with her personal guardian at the same time. I'm not sure where to lay the blame, or importance," I inhaled her rugged fragrance.
"Both?" a different camp counselor questioned.
"As I told you, he has a really big and craftily-wielded foot," Tiger Lily teased, then Pamela said in Hittite;
"And he is banned from having sex with any Amazon women for fifty more days," Pamela reminded them. Miyako, Delilah and Maddox weren't involved so were left uninformed of that detail. That bludgeoning innuendo dealt with, off to camp we went. Our journey was a pleasant diversion, punctuated by our trail, or lack thereof.
The jeeps split up once we hit the aerial cover of the desert pines. At that point, every rock, shrub, tree and loose bit of debris revealed its God-given mission in life was to kill us. I kept telling myself that surely our Amazon driver abhorred suicide as much as I frowned on vehicular manslaughter as a means of me dying.
Failing to believe that left me with tuck, duck and roll and that death-defying move would leave me lost and waterless, somewhere. I would have thought 'somewhere without cell reception', but none of our mobile devices had made the trip, despite a valiant effort at skullduggery by Special Agent Maddox and some highly creative types back at the Hoover Building.
See, after we dutifully packed all our gear, the troupe got to watch Rachel's team toss everything into a cargo bin set to be loaded onto a flight to, the ticket said Banjul, Gambia. Woot! My ten ton armored long coat was going to Africa without me. It would have undoubtedly have tried to kill me in this heat. I was lured into acceptance by hoping this was going to be a 'birthday suit' flight.
Yay! (Sarcasm) We got all new undies, shirts, shoes, pants, shorts, jackets, ponchos (I was beginning to suspect duplicity on that one), and a variety of other gear, including guns. They were nice enough to replace our weapons with the exact same production models. The sole exceptions were my trusty axes and I trembled at the scrutiny they must have endured.
Meanwhile, back to my archaic, misogynistic inspiration that women shouldn't be allowed to drive: after the third skirting of what must have been a ten meter drop, I realized I was looking at this journey in the wrong light. I raised my hands over my head and began screaming like a fool. I was on the best rollercoaster ride ever!!
The hobnail boot was on the other foot. My driver really wanted to know what the fuck I was up to, but couldn't take her concentration off the terrain. One massive lurch planted us in an arroyo (that's a dry riverbed for those of us who aren't freaked out every time it rains). Rachel and I were sitting in the back. Turning around in the front seat, Pamela grinned at me.
"I dare you to surf the hood," she laughed. Sweet Mother Ishara, that was the best mixing of 'you must be a redneck'/'immortal high schooler madness' I'd ever heard. I unbuckled milliseconds before Rachel could stop me. Her look said it all. 'Please, you Moron, don't do this to me. I've been a good little guardian and really don't deserve this, now do I?'
I gave her a deep French kiss. She moaned, just not in a sexual manner. One of these days Rachel was going to start running around with a needle and fast acting sedative to keep me safe from myself. Understand, my driver was racing down this dirt, well, "pathway" was being generous. Her first warning that something wasn't right was me hand-standing on the roll bar and flipping onto the dashboard.
Considering I was up against a 70 kilometer headwind, I felt I pulled off that maneuver rather well. She grabbed my closest ankle with one hand while keeping the other on the wheel. Our eyes were masked with goggles, but my smile said it all. No, I hadn't been thrown forward, and no, I wasn't running away from something in the back seat.
I shook free, stepped over the windshield, braced my right heel against its base and leaned into the torrent of air. I was surfing a jeep. Then I was flying above the jeep, but only for a second. We'd hit a rock the size of an armadillo, or maybe it was an actual armadillo. I wasn't looking back to check. Why was I doing this? It was a tad complex. I gave Psych 101 a shot.
My life was not where I had envisioned it would be when I kissed Dr. Kimberly Geisler, and my last two Bolingbrook girlfriends, who had been unaware of each other until that moment, good-bye before leaving college forever. I proudly considered myself amoral. No social contract would keep me from some good cunt, and since I found all cunt to be good if you worked at it, I slept with every girl I could, married, committed, bored, desperate, I didn't care.
I held no relationship sacred. I had already proved I could do any girl's mother, daughter, aunt, roommate, childhood friend and total stranger. I hadn't cared. I knew I was going to cause multiple women emotional pain and I did it anyway. Sure, I regretted the agony I left in my wake.
I never considered myself a sadist, but I had been a pretty horrible person by ignoring the inevitable consequences of my actions. Then Havenstone. Suddenly people were doing bad stuff to people I didn't know and it mattered to me. I was talking to women without the end goal being a sexual encounter.
Hell, I had been honest to women without them using pain, or the threat of pain, on me. I didn't stop being me. I nailed four women at Loraine's, Europa's and Aya's school. I nailed Nicole while waiting for Trent to toss me his social table scraps, Libra. A whole army of women engaged in murder, slavery and infanticide on a regular basis, and I cared for them.
I cared for them in a way that confronted damnation, not sexual adventurism. I had graduated from 'Dude, don't do that to the lady' at some bar to 'do this and I'll have you killed' and meaning it, and making it happen. I hadn't learned my lesson. I'd gone on to kill Hayden and Goddess-knows how many other women who Hayden had placed on that list.
Yep, dead, dead, dead and it was all on me. Worse, I would do it all over again because deep down, tearing up my insides, was morality. To me that boiled down to caring about someone else without reward. And all that led me to surfing the hood of a jeep on my way to meet my lodestone of this transformation, Aya.
My laughter was drowned out by the noises of the engine, tires, rocks, wind and sand. It resonated all the more. The driver didn't slow down. I sincerely doubted she understood my lunacy. That was okay. Pamela did and Aya would. She'd want to go jeep surfing too. Man, for a jackass and dastardly betrayer, I was accumulating a sizable heart-load of people I could honestly say I loved.
Kimberly had once told me that the pain of knowledge is never being able to forget it. Good, or bad, it is an affliction for which there is no cure. That was where I was, pained by the creeping advancement of my soul and unable to turn back now that the door to familial affection had been opened.
My thoughts of Dad dying and of a thunderstorm burst in my noggin weren't being terribly helpful to my mental state either. The horn blew and I snuck a quick peek back. The driver was making a sharp, forward jabbing motion with her right hand, then thrusting to the left. We were getting ready to exit the arroyo and that probably required some hellish footwork far beyond my ability.
I made a hasty, less dignified, yet safer return to my seat. Rachel quickly buckled me in before a rapid turn up and over the bank of the river bed had us heading for another forested area.
"What was that all about?" Rachel asked once we were back into the tree cover. She'd have asked earlier but she was too busy clenching and unclenching her jaw in frustration.
"I am trapped in an existence that is a repudiation of what I held dear, at any moment my mind may cease to be my own, and I don't know why it hurts me so much to care about any of you," I shouted over the sounds of the jeep crashing through the brush.
"I don't understand," Rachel replied.
"I want to hold you, Rachel. I want to make love to you. I want to hold up our first daughter the moment she is born so you can see what beauty we have created, and I want to put a gun to your temple and blow your brains out because you are a cancer that feasts on sane, normal reality," I said as softly as possible into her ear. "I want it both ways and that is what is tearing my spirit apart."
Rachel had no instant comeback to that. My words ran contrary to her belief system. She was SD and leader of my personal security team. Life growing up as an Amazon had not prepared her for me. Amazons weren't robots; they were indoctrinated to a certain way of thinking. The problem at hand was whenever you put up barriers to certain ways of thinking, you limit your ability to understand and empathize with those ideas.
Cooperation, duty and loyalty were childhood virtues Rachel was immersed in. I wasn't blathering to her about being angry, or feeling caught up in a feud. This was a fusion of what she endorsed and an alien philosophy. I wanted to cleave to her, create and raise children with her. I was also driven by a belief system that repudiated her lifestyle.
Confidence collided with adaptability. Generalization refused to conform to experience. Rachel had no doubt I would risk my life for hers. I held her as my equal and for the first time, and beyond her expectations, she was fine with that. Every aspect she expected from any of her sisters, I exhibited. All that made my mystic affliction all the more troubling.
I was not sane according to the Amazon metric, but I was utterly reliable in my bravery, honesty (when it mattered), and modesty. 'A' did not equate to 'B'. She would take me into battle. I wanted to help her bring the next generation of Amazon young into the world, and I felt letting her live was a moral failing on my part.
All of that cumulated in me beating up our driver once the jeep was safely parked in a large space carved out of the base of a mesa that sheltered the Amazon camp. See, Rachel was mentally hammering a square peg into a triangular hole at that moment. Pamela corralled her because my life path dictated Rachel's loyalty being more important than a few scratches to my flesh.
The fight was pure Amazon. I dismounted over the side of our ride. The camp counselor stepped out of the driver's side and launched a savage spinning kick at my left knee, aiming to unsettle my balance, bounce me off the jeep and result with me going to the ground, most likely on my knees.
Her motivation was my unwarranted, asinine stunt being something 'one of the girls' wouldn't do. Give me a blistering reprimand? Oh no, not in this woman's army. They went straight to the 'you are going to regret that' disciplinary stage. An Amazon-Amazon wouldn't have been treated this way, but then an A-A wouldn't have acted like a cretin either. She attacked.
Flash back four days and me being on enforced sick leave from my internship. I diluted my frustration, depression and frantic energy by working out. Sounds pretty normal until I noted how much I was exercising, twelve hours a day, counting multiple encounters on the sparring mats.
Pamela hit the nail on the head, I was cultivating my frighteningly extensive muscle memory. My basal ganglia had gone from an unicyclist to a motocross daredevil. That might sound cool right up until you find yourself in conversation with Wiesława of House Živa while strapping on a pair of hip holstered Smith & Wesson Model 29s you can't even recall picking up in the armory.
"You are an American cowboy?" she asked as she gave the underside of my chin a sexy fingernail scrape.
"What?" I blinked. I looked down and, low and behold, I was packing two leg-irons, Joel McCrea-style. Historical shootists would never wear the kind of rig I had put on, much less real cowboys. Naomi came up.
"What are you doing?" she scolded me.
"This!" I declared. I drew and fired both guns, quick-draw/rapid-fire.
Had I torn out the head, or heart, of the target it would have been a slice of sweet for the bitter aftertaste in my mouth, you know, the 'doing a task without a clue what you are doing' feeling.
I did manage to hit the paper with eleven bullets, nine scored points and two were possibly fatal. Had I foregone my normal lethal accoutrements? No. My body was okay with lugging four pistols, a Personal Defense weapon and a combat shotgun around, Oh, four tomahawks and two knives as well. Yeah, anyone who knew me could tell something was wrong.
In a normal society, a man feeling it natural to carry enough hardware to equip a microscopic guerilla army gets committed. In urban Amazonia? How did I balance the weight? Could I swim with that ironmongery? They tossed me in the pool, and after a few seconds of indecision, I decided on dropping the UMP-40, struggled out of my body armor then retrieved the USAS-12 before it hit bottom. (With the 'US' in the name, it just had to be made in South Korea).
I did it because swimming with two 'bigger than a pistol' sized weapons is a real bitch, plus I had my armored jacket on, which turned swimming with weights on into trying to tread water in pudding. I was polite enough to admit that my downward progress when they dumped me off the diving board, the 7.5 meter one, they claimed to be looking for authenticity, was halted by hitting the bottom of the pool, not buoyancy.
Since that was so much fun, we, I mean the SD training staff, decided on a few more near suicidal tests to subject me to. I didn't die. After 37 straight hours of activity at home and Havenstone, I was back in New Jersey. The hospital's specialists had good news. My brain cyclones were developing definitive patterns.
To top that off, my 'me' brain patterns were increasing their activity. The experts hedged their bets, but did suggest that my brain was counter-acting some of the alternate neuro-electrical surges. Plus they now had both a baseline and advanced model to work with. The rest was bad. The 'good' was also 'bad'. The last thing my cerebellum need was an escalating brain race.
My 'native' activity increasing was heaping scorn on the basic neural activity that made me 'normal'. The other two patterns: worse news. They were organizing, re-mapping old areas and mapping new ones. My temperature was acceptably elevated, my brain wasn't oozing out of my ears and, due to general hygiene, I didn't have a zombie odor.
On the third day they stumbled upon a bizarreness to add to the menagerie at the top floor. There was a submerged fourth pattern they hadn't spotted before. How had this escaped their hawk-like scrutiny? Pattern four put sections of my brain to sleep. By using micro-regulation, it was tapping the hypothalamus to keep me cool as well.
To make sure no single pathway over-extended its chemical stockpiles, large sections shut down for short, but intense breaks and I kept cruising along okay. The down side being this fourth active agent could possible cause me to lose the ability to speak. Or shoot a gun, or even stand-up, walk, or crawl. Their best theory was that pattern four was finally emerging from the backfield for that very reason, it was figuring out what functions were necessary given certain stimuli.
So, if I lay down in a dark room and shut my eyes, in theory it would learn to shut down my optic and visual memory sections of the brain. They still wanted to cut open my head. I kept on refusing. Back to me and my pissed off driver; languages weren't the only things I was picking up.
My fighting styles were increasing in detail and depth. I wasn't going to make Pamela tap out anytime soon, but my knowledge of martial movements was increasing. I still couldn't pull off the moves, but my brain was screaming the directions and my muscles were trying, to remember things they'd never done before.
I compared it to learning the foxtrot, then not putting a foot on the dance floor for thirty years. I was being called on to sway to the music once more and my body was struggling to meet the challenge it should have already mastered once. So, when the Amazon began winding up her kick, my brain began kicking into overdrive.
Boxing really isn't the martial arts style for dealing with kicks. Brazilian jujutsu is good, but there are others that do it even better. Added to that, I had been working against the unique Amazon martial art for a while. Every factor, but one, was working against her. Her sole advantage was initiative and she threw that away at the start.
She looked furious at me and that meant only two things, a slap, or a kick. I couldn't stop her from kicking me. I could block it and launch my counterattack. My left leg came up, bent at the knee and leaned into the kick, stopping it before she could building up enough force to really hurt. My right hand lashed down, not out. Her arms were prepared to divert torso and head blows.
My hand gripped her raised, right thigh and used that to throw her to the ground with me on top. Amazon striking power was primarily in the legs. The arms were more for blocks, locks and diversions. Upper body strength became critical. She couldn't keep me at bay. I grappled, twisted her left arm behind her back then began beating her head against the hard packed dirt floor.
Situational awareness caused me to summersault off her, twisting back to my feet facing what had been coming up behind me, Caprica and two of her buddies. The woman I had just thrashed pushed up onto all fours, shaking her scattered wits into some cohesive instrument.
"What happened here?" Caprica menaced.
"We, "
"Shut up!" Caprica snarled at me. "I wasn't talking to you." The other woman didn't respond until she was back on her feet. Her forehead was bruised, but not bleeding.
"This jackalope climbed onto the hood of our jeep and stood there for nearly two minutes, while I was driving," her gaze travelled from her leader to me.
"Why?" Caprica was clearly addressing me. She'd already stolen her one honest answer for this trip. She shouldn't have been so greedy.
"It seemed like a fun thing to try," I grinned.
"You could have been badly injured, or killed," Caprica's eyes narrowed.
"That's what made it fun," I kept up the positive vibes. Pause.
"What you did was wrong," Caprica glared. Hierarchy versus democratic discourse. Had she behaved more like an impartial leader and less like a biased vice principle, I would have found it easier to kowtow.
"Why?" I beamed mischievous joy. "You didn't tell me not to do it. In fact, you've been about as useful as a stuffed moose head in a bazooka fight. Your pompous presumptiveness may resonate with the locals here, but we independent-minded women are less than impressed." That meant I was an Amazon, but not one that worked for her. Status: guest.
Had Caprica accepted my place, allowed me to explain my actions instead of jumping on the side of one of her own, she wouldn't be facing a showdown now. Had she ask me to pitch in; say 'take this 20 cm stick and go out and locate some landmines', off I would have gone. Amazons were team players.
I was an unassigned Amazon and it was her right as a higher ranking member to give me a task I had some chance of completing, no matter how slim the odds. The proper Amazon way was to ask who swung at who first. Since the driver and I were equals, she didn't have the right to discipline me. She attacked without good reason and I had defended myself.
I hadn't endangered her life, or that of her other passengers and none of them were complaining. No, the driver lashed out first because I was a guy. The leader backed her because I was a guy. Problem was, I didn't want to be treated as a guy. I wanted to be treated as an Amazon. Amazons do not walk around hitting other Amazons.
That way lies madness, as Caprica was about to figure out. Caprica putting her FN P90 aside so she and I could fight was not okay. I hadn't been charged with an infraction, given an opportunity to explain myself before Caprica rendered her judgment. In theory, I could appeal. That would have labeled me as a crybaby Jerk though.
The closest two 'Campies' joining in was a colossal mistake. It was the whole Amazon gang up thing and in their heart of hearts, they saw me as nothing but a male. Caprica should have come at me alone; that would have been acceptable. By ganging up on me, all bets were off. Three on one odds looked good to the Camp crowd. Three on two was a disaster.
Why? That loyalty bonding went both ways and I hadn't come alone. Pamela took pride in her role as an educator. She felt obliged to let Caprica get my measure as a warrior. But, if someone was going to get an embarrassing beat down, it wasn't going to be me. Pamela believed it to be so and hers was the mind that mattered most.
I was pretty sure the first back up dancer didn't even know what hit her. Pamela was very sneaky and silent. Caprica was busy matching me blow for counterblow; driving me back. She had more experience, was better trained, accustomed to the dry heat and used to fighting on rough, uneven surfaces. I was bigger and faster (by a smidge).
She would have had a better time of it if, fifteen seconds into the fight, she hadn't heard Pamela taunting the second back-up opponent behind Caprica's back.
"Squeal you little bitch," Pamela mocked. "Squeal, or you're going to have a miserable summer walking around with your shoulders dislocated." Next.
There was a 'thump' followed by the sound of a body going down and something metallic hitting the ground.
"You cunts need to learn to count. Most unwise," Rachel threatened someone out of sight. Pop-pop and a woman screaming in agony.
"I warned you, Dumbass," Pamela chortled over the screams of her victim. "Cáel, let's put this pig to bed. I'm hankering for an early dinner." Pig meant Caprica. Caprica pivoted to keep us both in her line-of-sight. The woman who had started it all was back on the ground, rubbing her temple.
"What is your stake in this fight?" she addressed Pamela.
"You are a humiliation to our People," Pamela grew deathly quiet. "Cáel's stupid action should have been dealt with by you, his superior, not by your underling. She attacked him first. End of story. That should have been your only consideration as a leader. You failed.
You compounded that failing by attacking the wronged party. That you would consider us a burden, not as guests, is an even worse insult. You know our superiors in the Host have given us over to you as charges well within your capabilities to accommodate, so why are you presenting us with something far beneath any perceptible level of hospitality?" Pamela seethed.
"It is okay, Pamela," I sighed. "They hit like some casteless anyway." Which in Amazon was the status a young Amazon held before joining a caste, aka 'little girls'. Pamela laughed.
"A League of their Own," she countered.
"Amelia"," I snickered back.
"Ouch! That's hitting below the belt," Pamela pouted.
"Excuse me," Caprica simmered. "We are still fighting here."
"Are we still fighting these swine?" Pamela asked me.
"I'm willing to call it a draw. I'm kind of thirsty. You?"
"Sunshine and applesauce," Pamela nodded. "I'd kill for a cocoanut smoothie. I mean that; I'd really kill somebody for a cocoanut smoothie."
"Oh, no," Rachel groaned.
"Alright you two, cut out the shenanigans," Rachel asserted herself in a loud, authoritative voice, "grab your bags and let's find out where we are sleeping tonight, then food. Hop to it!"
"Wait!" Caprica turned on Rachel. "We are not done here."
"Yes we are," sighed Rachel.
"I'm stomping out a campfire before those two turn it into a raging inferno that burns this place to the ground. Trust me, you can't win. None of us can. The best we can hope for is that they play nice in whatever corner of the room we can herd them into and pray they stay there."
"Jawohl, mein Sturmscharführer!" Pamela and I Nazi-saluted as one. I swear, we do not rehearse these thing, the thought appears and we blab it.
For the morbidly curious, we showed our respect for Rachel by referring to her as 'Sarge' (actually Sergeant Major because we both adored her) as well as backhanding the pernicious, poisonous Amazon racism/sexism we were blatantly facing by likening it to that of the Waffen-SS's Aryan Supremist doctrine based on blasphemous pseudo-science. We exaggerated that slightly, but not by much.
Caprica could have smacked me a good one as I walked past her, but what would have been the point? Pamela was right. By continuing to fight, all Caprica could have done was prove Pamela more right. Miyako glided our way, retrieved the 2 cm metal ball she'd pinged off of my driver's forehead, the reason the driver had fallen down the second time.
"Heinamachefrau?" Pamela suggested, indicating Miyako as we yanked our duffel bags free of the jeep. Whoa, my little closet ninja in a French maid's outfit, yum, yum, yum, yum.
"Let's not press our luck anymore today, Sundance," I faux-whispered.
"Got it Butch, oh, very clever," my mentor beamed.
"You are a butch Butch in lesbian country," Pamela gasped delightedly. "I love you. You are the best grandson I've ever had." Hey, I had to get her back for 'Unforgiven'.
"I accept that with all the sincerity that was intended," I bumped her.
"Pamela?" Rachel called out.
Her eyes went from Pamela, to the whimpering woman with the two dislocated shoulder.
"Damn it, Jim! I'm an unflappable pedagogue of dubious distinction, not a saw-bones," Pamela protested. I could hear DeForest Kelley rolling in his grave, or maybe that was a rockslide. We were close to the base of a mesa.
"Cáel," Rachel appealed.
"Fine, fine," I groaned. To Pamela, "I'll hold the Horta down, Bones. You apply the healing goop." Despite no goop being needed, my command made limited sense.
(Grumble) "Sixty-three years at the Academy down the drain. I've been reduced from a once-promising Cadet to a Freemason," Pamela hammed it up. I finally knew Pamela's age, maybe.
I had to wonder what poor Virginia and Delilah were going through. They were ratcheting down their reflexes from near-brawl fest to hearing us cracking jokes. They were nervously snickering at the word play, that no one else seemed to get and the spookiness was getting to them.
Despite the jocularity, Pamela took to her medical task with a purpose. She gave the poor woman the hilt of her own knife to bite on while cautioning her before fixing each limb. It was a rather calm, proficient and relatively gentle procedure. Pamela and I helped the Amazon stand, Pamela relayed some useful advice to ease the pain and off we went, beat-down at the shed still unresolved.
Domiciles were either caves carved carefully (so as not to project any telltale shadows, yep, paranoia) out of the mesa walls, or horizontal mine-like tunnels in the debris slopes at the base of the mesa, for things like the vehicle shelters. The caves dwellings housed four to twelve people depending on size and had indoor access to at least one 'chimney', vertical escape ways.
Large mine shafts housed our rides (ATV's, motorbikes and horses along with our jeeps), an armory, sewage tanks (they collected their waste products then trucked them to different dumping points), supply depots and fuel storage (the farthest away from the main encampment). We changed from long-sleeves to short- sleeves and shorts. Copious amounts of suntan lotion and bug repellent were applied as well.
Each of us was shown a 'chimney' with handholds that led to the top of the mesa if necessary, plus a secondary route, should the primary be blocked/under fire. The same went for trails to the natural springs and underwater caverns and four different paths down to the flatlands. You only walked from the water sources to the flatlands in case of an emergency.
Everything had a designation, either a native plant, or animal. My primary chimney route was 'greasewood', rumor had it being a curative for headaches and arthritis. My main water route was 'javelina', that was a small, local, bristly, pugnacious pig-like creature. They offered to let me bow hunt one. My exit route to the flatlands was Arizona Alligator Lizard (AAL for short, I was still grappling with there being alligators of any stripe in the Southwest Desert).
We were also shown the places not to go, where the pitfalls, dead-drops, tripwires and 'blast zones' were. Blast zones were pre-prepared areas with an underground sprinkler system that would douse the field with some sort of flammable substance, then ignited in such a way as to surround and choke/incinerate those boxed up in the trap. They were cunningly placed to minimize fuel expenditure while maximizing carnage.
I was liking this place better and better. I loudly suggested to Pamela that dusting off our Klan robes and taking a midnight jog through Harlem would help us recapture this quaint 'Great Outdoors' experience when we returned home. Pamela amended my proposal. We should keep the hoods while streaking, to add some extra incentive to keep up a good pace. Virginia was beginning to crack.
"So, where do you live when you are not here?" Virginia asked one of our escorts. The woman gave her best deadeye stare.
"Do you speak English?" I prodded the woman.
"Yes," she grudgingly admitted. She was definitely from South of the Border.
My money was on a Spanish/German/Italian/Amerindian mix. Chile, or Argentina, maybe.
"Come on," I teased her. "Unless you live in the Vatican City, telling Virginia your nation of origin isn't giving anything away."
"My birth-hold is in Chile," the Amazon admitted.
"Hi, I'm Virginia Maddox. I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee," Virginia persisted in her attempts at conversation. "I had a high school boyfriend. He joined the Air Force, that is the United States Air Force. Do you have a boyfriend?" The Amazon gave me a nasty look. I was forcing the hospitality due any guest. She should have given it willingly and she resented it.
If a stranger walked up to an Amazon hold, they would be interrogated. The women's concerns were the mission of the person and the likelihood of others following. If your trespass was innocuous and you were traveling with no set purpose, they let you go. Despite my language, Amazons were not psychotic, or homicidal. They killed for a reason.
They didn't want outsiders to threaten them, to take their possessions, or endanger their children. Within those guidelines, they were passable hosts and decent neighbors, reference the early Swiss. In the same way they failed to empathize with other women, they knew not every man was on today's Hit List. If you were Greek, you were fucked, man, or woman.
If they offered you the safety of their home, welcome to the Old World. They felt obliged to feed, shelter and protect you. Why? Recall, through most of their history, small groups of Amazons traveled from their homesteads to Council meetings, or to bear the summons for said meeting. By extending courtesy, they hoped to receive it.
The concept behind karma is as old as mankind. In Amazon philosophy, wrath, revenge, curses and vendettas had their opposites, kindness, toleration, blessings and hospitality. Within their anti-social nature, the Amazons attempted that karmic balance. Boyfriends.
"My name is Priya Guerrero, of House Andraste," the Amazon answered.
"I have mated on multiple occasions. I have no daughters yet." Pause. "Who was Maddox?"
"What do you mean?" Virginia studied Priya.
"Virginia, Andraste is her true family name, the name of her first ancestor, and the name of the matron deity of her House. As a divinity, Andraste is the Celtic Goddess of Victory."
"Does she, do you believe you are the descendent of a goddess?" Agent Maddox started with me, then turned to Priya.
"No," Priya snorted. "That is a silly notion. She is my guiding deity. My first Mother was as mortal as you, or I. Are you a Christian?"
"Yes, I am."
"Ha," Priya smirked. "My goddess would never let herself be captured by men, much less judged and then crucified." At that moment, Virginia truly understood she was at the mercy of killer cultists. Sure, she'd read the reports. Staring into Priya's eyes revealed the true nature of the beast.
"Christianity is about toleration and forgiveness of sins, especially the sins of your enemies," the federal cop countered.
"Of all the resurrection cults, we find Buddhism to be the least abhorrent. Even that suggests that divinity is merely a trick of the mind," Priya stated with conviction.
"Unlike you and your blind acceptance that weakness is strength, the very existence of my goddess stands before us right now," she continued.
"You?" Virginia grumbled. That offended Priya.
"No, him," Priya pointed at me. Virginia glared at me. I held up my hands to protest my innocence.
"Is there a woman around here you haven't fucked?" she snapped.
"I, no, wait," I stammered.
"I have not mated with Cáel Ishara," Priya shook her head. "Fifty more days," she smiled at me. "What I meant was this, how many male Amazons have you heard of?"
"None," Virginia was expecting some sort of trick.
"What is he then?" Priya motioned my way. Virginia groaned.
"This is too bizarre," Virginia conceded. "Maddox means 'Son of Madoc'. It can also mean 'fortunate one'."
"The second meaning is more accurate," Priya nodded. "After all, you are here walking around and talking, thus fortunate to be alive."
"You would kill us if we showed up without Cáel?" Delilah tossed us her input.
"Without a doubt. I am an Amazon, (sigh). That means I've trained for over a decade in as many lethal arts as possible. It is why I carry weapons."
"Is it true you carry guns around without planning to use them?" Priya inquired.
"If you mean 'do I carry a gun as part of my job as a federal law enforcement agent', then the answer is yes," Virginia stated with trepidation. It was that 'old Martian' feeling, as if you were talking to a rational, intelligent person from another planet.
"Is it true that if you say 'freeze' and I stop moving, you will close to personal combat range instead of shooting me?" Priya appeared to actually be engaged in the conversation.
"Yes. It is part of 'due process' and not being 'judge, jury and executioner'," Virginia verbally tip toed forward. She felt she was making progress while speaking to an ESL, meaning ‘English as a Second Language’ individual. Priya glanced at Delilah.
"Oh, not me Luv," the Brit exaggerated her accent. "If I think I can get away with it, I put two rounds, center mass, and another in the head." The rest of the discussion was cut short by,
"CÁEL!" a feminine teenage voice shrieked. Someone was sprinting right at me. Quick reaction time, stop Delilah then stop Rachel. In the midst of that, Loraine leapt on me.
I was knocked back when she rocketed into me, wrapping her bare legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. Somehow I managed to keep my feet. I was hampered in this endeavor by teenage kisses lavishing my face with underage fervor. I had to wedge one hand between us while resisting my instincts to get a free, oh-so-wrong, booby feel.
"I heard you were coming, but I didn't believe it," Loraine, Aya's eldest sister and Katrina's 16 year old niece, panted with far more passion than fatigue. "Aya wouldn't give up on you."
"This is a counselor?" Virginia questioned.
"No, she's a senior, casted student; Loraine Epona," Priya informed the crowd.
"Now we can be back to 'us'," Loraine purred. That was the sound of the prison dimension of Tartarus opening beneath my feet.
"There is no us!" I vociferously articulated. "There is no us!" Then the pack of mid- to older teens closed in as well.
"Oh! Loraine, is this your male?" "He looks so sexy in those shorts." "You are going to share him, right?" Another camper asked, in Hittite.
"Bubba, you've got some explaining to do," Pamela chortled.
"I swear on my desire to not end up in a Canadian landfill, or an unmarked grave, that Loraine and I have a purely platonic, and fully clothed, non-erogenous zone touching relationship," I pleaded. Loraine started laughing.
"Calm down, sisters," she giggled. "I'm teasing him. He is no one's male. He is my friend and a pillar of iron-will, I know. I've tested him."
"Testing in a purely educational, non-touchy way," I clarified. I swear, women keep looking for ways to torment me.
"If that is so, why did you just mug this man?" Virginia rallied.
"I want him, but he's incredibly evasive," Loraine grinned. "You are an outsider. Where are you from?"
"I'm Special Agent of the FBI Virginia Maddox," the fed glared. "Care to dismount the man I was having a conversation with?"
"Have you created your first born daughter yet?" a precocious brown-haired teen asked suggestively, in Hittite.
"English," I insisted. "For the sake of our guests, I would ask my sisters to use English."
"To clarify for my young sisters," Priya addressed the gathering of twenty some 'girls' and four instructor/safari guides.
"This is Cáel Ishara, sister of House Ishara from Havenstone HQ," she enlightened them. Amazon etiquette placed me in 'a simple member of the Host' category. There was one slight flaw in the plan, caste, or my lack of one, kinda/sorta.
"What do, " another girl, this one cocoa-colored with thick, kinky hair said in Hittite as she smiled up at me.
"Oh, Cáel, what do you do?" she corrected herself.
"I teach Aztec Calligraphy to the color-blind," I answered with convincing seriousness, "as well as plotting terrestrial asymmetric numerology as exhibited by Imperial Penguin breeding pairs."
"Hold on," Pamela insisted. "Hold on. No one say anything. I have to write that one down."
"That sounds fascinating," several voices murmured. I could 'feel' Virginia's eyes roll back in her head in a silent display of disgust, with me, teenage fan-girls, or both. I wasn't sure.
"Wait," Delilah stepped up. "Let me try this. Okay, okay. Cáel is a replicon Mephistophelian moppet facilitating a fascinus-based solar illumination system to replace current quantum logic clock technology."
No one knew what to make of that. Even my twisted, labyrinthine thought processes were hard pressed to understand everything she said in the proper context. Pamela and I took a step back on either side of her. We held our arms up high, then bowed at the waist in worship to Delilah.
"We are not worthy," me and my mentor chanted and bowed three times.
"You three, promise to stop it right now, or the beatings will commence," Rachel menaced.
"As you wish, Buttercup," I bowed to Rachel.
"I was always partial to, " Pamela stopped because Rachel really did look prepared to dispense some violence.
"But what does it mean?" Mona broke down before the chat petered out.
"It means you lot, Havenstone, are planning to use this young man's cunningly constructed tireless cock as a Sundial, Luv," Delilah smiled.
"Oh, I think we can find a better use for that piece of manly equipment than what you are suggesting," Loraine got one final tease in.
"Stop it," Rachel's voice slithered forth with a chthonic chill. Next stop, a major case of weapon malfunction/multiple people ending up in the infirmary. Thankfully for all concerned, it was approaching chow time and all the little groups began returning to the central camp area. Rachel sent Tiger Lily and Charlotte off to bed, now that we all knew basic security procedures.
Two events intruded between me and my rendezvous with Aya. First, I discovered everyone had on a series of patches. Being a Summer Camp, the girls had on a bunch more than the counselors. Still, one patch shown above all others: 'Camp Sahka Torchlight'. If you found yourself thinking of an Afro-American Jazz-themed playground, join the club.
Sahka isn't any part African. The Sahka are an aboriginal people. Since you are in North America, you would think Native Americans, and you would be wrong. There are tons of cool tribal names in the Americas, but apparently they'd all be rejected for a Turkish nomadic people who inhabit Northeastern, Siberia.
Torchlight? Rumor had it they ripped off some part of an Isis reincarnation ritual that had priestesses leaving a dark cellar/tomb/'not-even-associated-with-Torchwood' bearing torches they extinguished with the dawn. The Campies did it on special occasions, like orgies, or so was insinuated.
Camp? Well, one out of three ain't bad. Camp made sense which was an oddity in, and of, itself. What was Camp Sahka Torchlight? It was a scholarship camp for young ladies in the Lower-48 States Foster Care System. Okay, I couldn't find fault with that idea. Considering the chaotic jumble of neglected promises that is our childcare safety net, it was rather clever.
Have you tried to find anybody trapped in foster care? It isn't impossible, but it is a bureaucratic nightmare. For starters, why are you making your Freedom of Information Request, you get the picture. Havenstone cycled a never-ending stream of false girls and vacant foster homes through the government apparatus.
The foster care system paid the non-existent caregivers for their non-existent charges and always refunded the money. It wasn't even fraud. Virginia was having a tough time of it, blatant criminality being discusses without reproach. She was assured they didn't 'hack the network'. That was too difficult since no three state systems had the same software.
No, they broke in and manually entered the data after hours. A vein along Virginia's hairline was beginning to throb dangerously. 48 felonies a year? No. They had to break in every three months to update the files. That made it 192. The FBI had taken down whole Mafia families charged with far less numerous crimes.
Pamela handed her a mason jar of something most likely toxic and alcoholic and Virginia drank it like water. First Virginia fell down and gasped in agony. A jar and a half later, she was 'my buddy'. I had beautiful eyes and she had peeked under my sheets when I was in a coma and stroked my cock, then she had kissed it, but she had gone no farther.
Delilah seemed pleased with my 'don't bang the plastered chic' rule and, with Mona's help, draped Virginia's limp arms over their shoulders and took her to bed, a torturous mission I had yet to endure. Virginia told Mona that she'd never been attracted to a girl, but she suddenly found the Amazon 'seductively dominant yet feminine'. By that point her speech was so slurred, we weren't 100% sure that was what she meant. Delilah bitched about not having a recording device for future leverage.
Why weren't the Amazons worried about telling a FBI Special Agent this? Where were her badge and authorized firearm? Goddess knows what blackmail they were generating against her if a serious case of character assassination was ever needed. Even Rhode Island had more than one Children's Services office and there was no timetable for the break-ins and no names to begin a back-search with.
And then I saw Aya.
Hers was one of the last groups to come in. The councilors were extra tough on the younger crowd. Every scrape, bruise and dress down increased their students' chance of surviving their 12th year test, life and death.
Unlike Loraine's group, Aya's band was under tighter discipline. This wasn't 'standing at attention'. The Amazons didn't do that. Instead, this was a kind of 'stand easy', allowing some movement of the upper body and head. The leader's growling began, lowering her voice as she criticized and belittled her wards. I got angry. As I said earlier, I would make a lousy soldier.
I drew up and discarded my choices. Bum-rushing my sister Amazons? Inexcusable. Ignoring them and greeting Aya? How would I feel if the roles were reversed? Wait patiently? This is me I was thinking about!
'Love more than hate'. 'Above even those, I adore humor, '
Off I strolled. Miyako was kind enough to let me spot her tagging along. Rachel and Pamela were giving me more space. A secondary Amazon teacher glanced my way so I gave her a friendly smile. Her look was one of mild confusion. My muscles were coiling up, yet she didn't feel threatened. She was right.
About three meters out, somewhat behind the leader and facing the group of Camp sprouts, I eye-balled a patch of earth and bent down until my hands touched dirt. My body folded up, the weight went forward and them I unfolded into a handstand. Acrobatic stunts are fun, both amusing and erotic. As fun as they were to learn, for charity, they were even more fun to teach.
Without a doubt, naked aerobics have their own special place in my heart. I wasn't aiming for eroticism this time around. I was clowning around. My actions were a distraction yet not out of bounds. There was no camp regulation forbidding laughter, or eliciting laughter. A different councilor glanced my way then nudged the boss.
"What?" the leader half-turned to look me over.
"I'm in love," I sighed lustily. Blinking all around.
"That is fascinating, Cáel Ishara, but not relevant to my instructions," she explained.
"I'll be quiet," I pledged while going to a one handed handstand. By then, all the councilors had turned toward me, plus several different age groups had migrated down from the open-air Dining Hall.
"The absence of sound does not lessen your impact, Ishara," the woman continued. I had to tilt my head to a painful angle so that I could make eye contact as I smiled at her. I hopped from my left hand to my right, almost toppling over at the end. That almost-accident added to my appeal. Nothing is quite as interesting as someone else's near failure.
"He is Cáel," Priya spoke up. She'd hung back until now. That clarified my 'one of the girls' societal position.
"Oh?" the leader grinned. "I am Sophia. Come here." Hey, I had shed my hierarchical buffer to reduce the quantity of ruffled feather so over I went. "You could have used your legs."
"I miss my days viewing life as a Leprechaun," I spread a thick dose of Irish-green honeyed brogue over that bizarre fallacy. The pint-sized crowd giggled. Much to my relief, the adult Amazons chose snickers over scowls. Sophia circled and squatted in front of my elbow, then tapped my right flank. I took that as a cue to hand-turn around so instead of having my back to her and having to crane my neck, we could look face to face, with one of us being upside down. The young audience had suspended breathing in order to better overhear our exchange.
"He can't have sex with any of us for fifty days," Priya added. Ah, visible disappoint.
"Go get something to eat," Sophia commanded. She still had work to do.
"I am in the presence of my," then I used a Hittite string of words. My Old Kingdom Hittite patchwork term of affection was more than a mouthful. As far as the Amazon tongue goes, it was also clearly invented by me.
"Daddy!" Aya squeaked. It had slipped out and she'd tried to squelch it, but only been partially successful. Her happiness was evident to all.
"What you said make no sense," Sophia chided me in Hittite. I was really warming up to her after an initial bad impression.
"I am 'oath-honored', Aya is 'daughter of my brother' and 'he died in battle'," I explained in English. It didn't make too much more sense even then.
"I didn't know you had a brother?" Sophia tapped my abdomen. I took that to be a 'request' for me to stand up, so I did. "Exactly when and where did he die in battle?" She stood to match me.
"Well, ah, he sort of died a few generations back, about a 120 of them," I looked somewhat evasive. "You know how bad the Postal Service can get around Christmas. The news was a little late getting to me."
"Fine," Sophia studied me. "The 'Christmas Scam' takes care of the last 100 generations. What about the first twenty?"
"The message was written on a ten ton stele and addressed to my nom de guerre, "Cabbage Head'," I elaborated. "It was also written in Harappan ideograms. You know how bad that can be to decipher, really, does a stork look all that different from an Ibis?"
"I see the root of the problem," Sophia took on a scholarly aura. "Harappan's used script, not ideograms, nor did they have an Ibis in any way, shape, or form."
"Ibis, they must have meant 'Flamingo'. Those are native to Western India and the Persian Gulf," I kept the word-play going.
"Wait," Sophia held up her hand. "Does anyone know if there is now, or ever has been, a flamingo species native to Pakistan?" she addressed the crowd.
"Yes," a mocha skin beauty resembling Rhada volunteered. "It is the Greater Flamingo."
"Not as great as your l, colorful recounting of events," Sophia narrowed her eyes playfully.
"How about I sit here nice and quiet while you finish your duties?" I offered.
"Capital idea," Sophia nodded. She turned back to her troop and the tongue-lashings resumed.
The sole twinkle in the eyes that mattered to me was Aya's. Even after amassing a Cáel-level dose of failure assessment, she didn't crack. Sophia had barely initiated her dismissing gesture when Aya charged me.
"I knew you would make it!" she yipped. She leapt into my arms.
"I missed you so much," I laughed as I pulled her up into the air, sent her flying then caught her petite, giggling form. The personal honorific 'boon-companion' was pure Amazon. Size and age differences aside, it was one of the most truthful things in my life, with Aya at my side when things looked bleakest, nothing would ever seem impossible.
I was the oddity. My antics had only enhanced my allure, especially to the pre-twelve group that stood closest, nineteen pairs of little eyes looking at me expectantly. I swept the crowd with a polite, somewhat shy smile. For the girls from the freeholds, I was most likely a contradiction to everything they'd been taught, or experienced, before now.
The ghastly nightmare slinking around the bright sunshine Aya fanned into radiance by her proximity to my heart was that the male percentage in the Amazon world was plummeting rapidly. Mass executions will do that to a population. We were being efficiently and mercilessly put down and not replaced by the 'normal' means anymore. Every week there were fewer of us around for the children to notice.
Adding to their confusion was that Amazon girls were actively discouraged from forming bonds with any males they did encounter, especially the few still walking around the holds. From what I had gathered from my casual inquiries, the old Amazon male slave population was dwindling to zero fast.
Cultural ruthlessness married to a creeping racial insanity had led to them burning their old lifestyle down before a new one had been raised up. To these little girls, it meant that men were regarded in one of two ways: In their own microcosm, the girls were taught that males were the equivalent of a plow horse they saw wandering about, but they were denied the opportunity to interact with, a lumbering, yet relatively harmless animal.
To girls living an urban lifestyle, there was the constant watchfulness of their family guardians that taught them men were not to be trusted. Men were not some evil that needed to be destroyed. It was more that if they knew about the culture the girls grew up in, the males would crush their elders and steal them away into their chauvinistic malignancy.
Outsider women were viewed the same way because they would rather sleep contentedly in their male-created fantasy of equality than face the reality that life was a constant state of warfare, only things paid for in blood and sweat had value. Outsiders of both genders, by refusing to grasp that truism, were essentially parasites. You didn't kill all leeches. You only dispatched the ones threatening you and yours.
And then there was me. I had to face facts. I had a penis. Even tucked snugly in my cup and shorts, it was the beacon of our differences. That was the starting point of every encounter with a Full-blood Amazon, I wasn't one of them and they had been told to never see my 'kind' in a beneficial emotional context. Amazons were not supposed to have those kinds of relationships with men.
To be continued.
By FinalStand, for Literotica