Apocalypse Slaves Pt. 05

Caine clamped his hand over her mouth. "I wonder if ball gags still exist these days?" he asked rhetorically and was shocked when her eyes rolled back into her head, she let out a deep moan, and then whimpered in the affirmative. He arched his eyebrow. "You like this?" He asked. Another moan in the affirmative.

He kept his hand clamped over her mouth as he fucked her, looking down into her green eyes. She looked right back at him with want, desire, and passion in her eyes as she was forced to remain silent. Jessica then shivered and bucked against him. He could see the strain in her eyes and figured that she was holding back, just for him.

"Cum." He told her.

Letting out another deep, throaty groan, Jessica did just that as her body found its erotic release. Her pussy squeezed his cock from its base to its tip every time he drove into her. He couldn't stand it anymore and it let loose its torrent of seed into her, pumping thick white ropes of his cum deep into her womb. He joined her in grunting and groaning until his cock finally went still inside of her. He collapsed down on top of her, both of their bodies covered in sweat, resting his head upon her breast.

"Like I said, Master," she said breathlessly, "I haven't had a night or morning like this in a long time."

"Expect more of them." He grunted. "Now let's go see if the shower works around here."

*

The shower worked and they bathed together although Caine couldn't help but pinning her up against the wall and fucking her nice and hard again. Jessica was more than happy to oblige him. She left the master suite first while he dressed and by the time that he was downstairs she already had a simple breakfast of eggs and potatoes ready for them both. "Damn, this is good," he muttered as he tore into them. He then looked at her. "I'm going to be gone all day. I'm going over to Corning to take a look-see over there. Don't wait up for me for Lunch or Dinner, okay?"

Jessica's fork clattered as she lost her grip on it. She looked up at him in fright. "C-Corning? Master?" Caine stopped eating and saw that she was visibly shaking. "Please... be careful."

"You know of the place?"

"Everyone knows about it." Jessica whispered. "M-My husband... he threatened to sell me there at one time when I disobeyed him once."

"Tell me about this place." Caine said. "Please, anything at all. It'll help me take down more bad men like your Ex."

Jessica took such a deep breath that Caine couldn't help but notice the rise and fall of her breasts as she did it. Then he forced himself to focus on her story. She looked down at her lap as she collected her thoughts. Caine waited patiently, not saying anything, to allow her to compose herself. Once she was finally ready, she took another deep breath and spoke. "Corning is THE slave market to go to. Their raiders go out of their way to collect slaves from all over the place to sell to wealthy patrons. Mainly, they prey on those who are either in the smaller settlements that are all over the place or they take the quarterly exiles from the cities."

"I remember hearing something about that when I was in K.C." Caine said, searching his memory. "They called it a lottery?"

"Yes," Jessica nodded. "I never had to worry about it because of my husband... because of his political and economic connections." She gave him a half-shrug. "Not that it matters now that I'm out here in the wastes. The Corning Crusaders were my husband's biggest customers. He supplied them with weapons, medical supplies, and certain women that they were in need for. In return he got a steady stream of slaves to work for him in his offices for his executives as well as raw material that he needed to make things."

"Fucking arms trade right here in the middle of the United States..."

Jessica cocked her head. "You know of the old American Empire?" she asked.

Caine waved it off. "Never mind that now," he had to stay on track. "Corning. Who's their leader?"

"They have three, based off of America's old system." Jessica said. "I... I don't know their names except what they're known by; The Judge, The Lawman, and The President." She saw Caine roll his eyes. "You know them?"

"No, but I can infer what they're up to based on their titles." Caine said. He started to get up and then paused. Slowly, he sat back down as a thought hit him. "A racket like that would not disappear simply because I took out Gatling..." he muttered out loud. Then he focused on Jessica. "Who would be in line to take over Gatling Industries?"

She shuddered. "Since our son is dead, that'd be his chief of security; Gary Wells. My husband gathered people around him who were just like him."

"And so the beat goes on..." Caine said, shaking his head. "Fuck."

"Master," Jessica looked at him and had a plea in her eyes and her voice. "Please be careful and be sure to come back to me."

He eyed her. "I still find it odd that you're that willing to stay with me just like that after I drove a katana through your husband's chest."

"You're the first man to ever treat me even halfway decent and its not like I loved Richard or anything silly like that." She said matter-of-fact with another half shrug. "Why would I want that to go away?"

Caine sighed. "Fair enough," he conceded. The more he learned about the future the more he figured out that he had a lot to learn.

*

"Are you feeling any better today?" Henry asked Lauren as she came into his office early the next day. Lauren, back in her maid's uniform, nodded morosely. She'd cried herself to sleep last night after being fired. Henry merely told her to go to bed and sleep it off once she'd got back to the manor. He helped her into a chair and then went back to his side of his desk to look her over. Her hair was still disheveled and her eyes were bloodshot and poufy from the constant crying. "I talked things over with Martin and you will still have a job at the brothel should you still want it."

"Really?" Lauren said, surprised. "T-Thank you, sir!"

He smiled. "You're welcome. And, for the most part, I am sorry."

She hadn't been expecting that. "Sorry? Why?"

"Well, for trying to play Yenta, for one." When he saw her perplexed look on her face, he chuckled. "It's an old theatre reference. I was trying to play the part of a matchmaker and get you and Caine together. I figured that between your infatuation with him and his loneliness, you two might have hit it off. It seems like I was in error on that and it has caused you both even more pain."

"Mister Bailey," Lauren said hesitantly. "It's not that I don't like Caine. I do like him. I like being his friend. I like sharing his bed. But... well... Its... I lost my last person I remotely considered loving. I don't know if I can go through that again."

"Yes, I remember you telling me," Henry nodded. "And he has lost his last girlfriend, and his parents, and everything that he ever knew." Henry held up a hand to stop her protest. "And, like it or not, he IS Caine."

"He's not even the REAL Caine!" she shouted out anyway. "He said that YOU were the Caine that I know of!" she pointed an accusing finger at him.

"Yes... he is the real Caine." Henry replied calmly. "I created the Caine that you know of from HIS visage. I used all of HIS clothes, weapons, transportation, and tools and took HIS name. I acted just like he's acting now; rash, impulsive, passionate. He's a defender of the people. I created the whole legend to give everyone something to believe in. As fate would have it, he's now back from the dead and able to rightly continue the work that I'm sure he would've done regardless." He explained. "Everything that I am today, I owe to him.

He then sighed and regarded her. "You know, without even thinking twice about it, and without any kind of prior planning, once he found out about what Richard Gatling had done to you he was on his motorcycle and in K.C. to carry out his hit. He turned his own family against him, walked straight into Gatling Industries, and killed the man in his own office... for YOU. This came in by our couriers today." He picked up a paper and handed it to her. It was a newspaper from the Kansas City Hab that had Gatling's assassination by Caine all over the cover.

Lauren picked it up, skimming the front page. "Why? Why does he even care about me? We just met."

"Part of it is because that's who he is. Another part of it was that a similar situation occurred to his mother back before the Flare. It changed his life from that day on because that's when his family started becoming Preppers." There was another confused look on her face, and so Henry elaborated. "They were people who operated outside of what was considered 'normal' back then. They constantly trained and 'prepared' for the coming apocalypse and they were the people who were best suited to survival. And, for a time, they did alright until the rise of the raider gangs."

"What happened to his mother?"

Henry shook his head. "No. That's not my story to tell. When he's ready, he'll tell you." his phone rang and he picked it up. He listened for a minute. "Okay, send him in, please. Thank you." he set the phone down. "Go back to your duties. Use the side door to leave. Think about what I said and we'll talk again later. Okay?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Lauren stood, curtsied, and hustled off.

A moment later there was a knock at the front door and Henry bid them to enter. Caine walked in wearing his 'Caine Uniform' as people have been starting to call it and loaded for bear. His blades hung in their scabbards on his back, his assault rifle was slung back over one shoulder, and Henry could see his pistol strapped to his right thigh. "Well, don't you look like you're ready for another day at the office?" Henry quipped.

"Ha Ha..." Caine said mockingly as he sat down. "Anyway, you said to come by before I did anything 'stupid'" he said, putting his hands up in quotation marks at that last word.

"I did. And you're looking better. Well rested. Like you've been pitching and not catching."

"Thank you, Deadpool." Caine remarked, flipping him off.

Henry spread his hands in askance. "Hey, you know how long it's been since I've been able to use a reference like that AND have people get it?" he asked. "Anyway, you wanted to go after Corning. Still want to do that?"

"As well as do some cleanup work back in K.C." Caine nodded. "Jessica tells me that Gatling's second-in-command, Gary Wells, would've taken over."

"He did," Henry pointed at the newspaper that Lauren had looked at. "He vows to contact his allies in the wastelands, conduct investigations, and bring to justice whoever committed this 'atrocity'." Henry rolled his eyes and laughed. "I should've told you more about Gatling Industries so you would've taken Wells out too. He's as much to blame for Lauren's situation as Gatling was."

Caine winced. "Let's not talk about her, okay?"

"No, let's do talk about her." Henry folded his hands and leaned forward on his desk. "She was just in here before you and I apologized to her just as I'm now apologizing to you."

Caine arched an eyebrow. "What for?"

"Lauren was involved with a young lad down in K.C. On Gatling's orders, Wells followed Lauren around to make sure she wasn't sleeping with anyone that Gatling didn't approve of."

"Fucking bastard... I wish I could've made him suffer more."

"Take it out on Wells, then." Henry said in a hard voice. "They captured her boyfriend, forced her to perform sexual acts on them both, and threw her boyfriend out the window. Not sure if it was all in that order since Lauren doesn't like to talk about it but you get the gist of what happened." He pointed to one photo in the paper where Wells was talking to a crowd of people. "He will more than likely continue where Gatling left off at and even use the assassination to gain more political power and favor in K.C."

Henry opened up a drawer in his desk and pulled a file out. "And that brings us back to our neighbors; the Corning Crusaders." He said, handing the folder over to Caine. "They're led by three men..."

"The Judge, Lawman, and President." Caine nodded, finding each of their photos clipped to papers with their names on them. "Jessica was telling me about them at breakfast. You have quite the file on them here."

"We see them at least once a month. I always have a social event for the people here in the manor and the Crusaders like to crash it. We have a... understanding... of sorts. They keep out of the Lincoln-Omaha area and we stay out of Iowa for the most part. Occasionally they come here to trade for mining or farming equipment that we produce in exchange for women that we promptly free from bondage. The last run-in we've had with them involved them chasing down a group of slaves that had stolen a truck and got away from them. We're the logical place that they'd search."

"What happened to them?"

"We put all but two of them to work. The two masterminds behind the escape continued westward. I haven't heard from them since."

"What's this 'Congress' that I keep seeing reference to in here?" Caine asked as he continued to flip through the pages.

"Think of them as a bunch of 'Yes-Men' who'd be on the fast track to a leadership position if something ever happened to the Big Three." Henry smirked. "You got an idea forming in your head?"

"Yeah... but it's going to take me some time to scout it out."

"Take whoever you want and whatever you want." Henry said. "I've been biding my time, waiting for a golden opportunity to take them all down at once but never found it. You, on the other hand, are far more devious and cunning in a firefight than I am."

"I'm not THAT good."

"Says the man who wiped out an entire paintball team when he was on his own." Henry guffawed at the memory. "Who also topped the leaderboards constantly in first person shooters. You're better than you think."

"Well, let's get started, then." Caine said. He then looked at the side door. "So, uh, what did Lauren say about me?"

"She likes you. Just give her time to come around, man."

***

CHAPTER 47: Another Hit.

It was a week before Caine got the opportunity to do some damage between Corning and Kansas City. He'd been watching Gary Well's comings and goings between the two places, shadowing him, making notes, tracking movements, and paying attention to whatever propaganda came out of both places. It was dusk when Caine jumped him at an old college town called St. Joseph along the Missouri River.

Caine was perched up on top of a still standing overpass that stretched across the old I-29 as Well's armored car was coming down the road. He'd taken the liberty of putting other run down vehicles in a chokepoint and laying down spike strips in the gaps.

Wells stopped right before the trap, looked up at Caine on top of the overpass, and gave him the middle finger. His look clearly conveying the message: What, do you think I am stupid or something?

Smiling, Caine lifted a single index finger up to indicate that Wells should wait for his next trip. Reaching down behind him, Caine made a show of rummaging for something. As his dad once taught him; the best traps are not ones that take you by surprise. The best traps are the ones that make you curious. He hadn't truly expected Wells to hit the spike strips. If Wells HAD been that stupid, that would've been shocking.

Caine came up with a shoulder mounted portable bazooka. He extended the tube, shouldered it, and aimed. Through the targeting reticle he saw Wells' eyes go wide as he scrambled to throw his car in reverse. Caine fired, not directly at the car but just behind and to the side. Right as the car moved backwards, the rocket hit the ground, flipping the car easily onto its roof.

Part One; Complete.

Caine threw the one-shot bazooka down, and hopped on his bike. He was down beside Wells' car in seconds just as the man was crawling out with a bleeding head wound. He looked up just as Caine stepped up to him and Caine promptly knocked him out with the butt of his assault rifle.

*

Wells came to looking at nothingness. Well, almost nothing as he saw a lot of the horizon as the sun dipped down below it and a lot of space between him and the ground. He screamed and thrashed in the ropes that were now tied tightly around his body. "AHHHHH! HELP ME! HELP ME!"

"Shaddup..." Caine said from the side. They were on top of the clock tower of the Missouri Western State University in the middle of campus that happened to be right next to the overpass that Caine had setup his ambush. Over the years, the clock tower had been built up around the original tower so that it was roughly the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa... just without the tilt. The old tower had miraculously survived all these years. While Wells was out, Caine tied him up and hoisted him to the top of the tower where now only a single rope kept him from falling all the way over the edge.

Caine was slicing into an apple, eating the chunks right off of the blade of his knife. "Tell me, are you familiar with the works of Shan-Yu?" he asked between bites.

Wells blinked at him in confusion. "W-What?" he asked. "Cut me down, you bastard!"

"All in good time, my friend."

"Who are you?"

"I'm the guy responsible for your promotion. You said that you'd find him and so here I am." Caine said.

Wells' eyes widened. "Caine!"

Caine pointed a 'bingo' finger at him. "Now, are you familiar with the works of Shan-Yu? Not that I expect you to be a literary genius or anything," or one that follows old pop culture for that matter, Caine added to himself. "The short hand is if you live with a man for forty years, share his house and his meals, and talk with him on every subject. You won't know who he is. Then you take him, tie him up, and hold him over the volcano's edge. And on THAT day, you will finally meet the man."

He walked up to him and pointed the knife at his prey. "Today, Mister Wells, we're going to meet the real you."

Wells studied Caine's intent look, trying to decide if Caine was bluffing or not. Caine stared right back, his expression hidden behind shades that covered his eyes and a hard glower. Wells glanced downward at the concrete that was six stories down. The way he was dangling at an angle off the walkway's wall, he didn't think that he could survive such a fall. He looked back at Caine. "Look... I'm sure we can come to a deal." Caine arched an eyebrow and cocked his head inquisitively. Wells took it as a sign of interest and launched into his spiel.

By the time Wells had offered him well over a million tabs, a harem of women, controlling stock in Gatling Industries, Richard Gatling's old estate, and a host of other things, Caine was getting bored. "I have no need for those things." he said sharply. He stood up and placed the knife on the single rope that held Wells in place.

"WAIT!" Wells cried out in a near panic. "I got information! You want information? I can give you information!" and so he proceeded to spill his guts on a variety of plots, schemes, blackmail, and other things. This intrigued Caine and earned Wells a stay of execution. An hour later, Caine was sitting back up against the wall still taking notes and asking questions here and there. "While this is all, very, very, interesting and will certainly keep me occupied for a while, I'm afraid that it's just not cutting it." He stood up and placed the knife against the rope again.

"WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT?" Wells shrieked.

"I want you to confess your sins, son! Confession is good for the soul!" Caine proclaimed in his best Southern Baptist Minister impression although saying it out loud came out more like Foghorn Leghorn. "You must cleanse your soul of the foul corruption that has taken root! You must be purified! You do know what it means to be freed from the eternal damnation of hell, do you not? You know what it is like to be forgiven and accepted into the kingdom of heaven?" He was walking back and forth as he preached like he was in Constantine. Then he spun and pointed at Wells. "REPENT!" He then turned his hand over as if he were reaching for Well's soul. "And ye shall... be saved..." he told the man, finishing up like he was on Ace Ventura.