18.
 In the dark, dozens of sheets made a single sound as their occupants shifted suddenly.
In the silence, feet tramped down the main aisle of the dormitory.
“Quick.” Moira pushed on Taxi’s forehead, and Taxi slid down under the covers. “Be real still. It won’t take long. They usually only come once.” Moira pulled the covers over Taxi’s head and rested her arm over Taxi’s head.
Taxi lay with her heart beating rapidly, her breath a little short, her face buried in Moira’s naked solar plexus, which was soft as down.
The tramping of feet drew near. Did they still have their assault rifles? Taxi wondered. Light beams stabbed this way and that, visible through the sheets and blankets. A slice of light slid up and down the covers. In its light, Moira’s breasts looked pale, her nipples ghostly, the long curves of her slender body like a moonlit landscape.
Minutes later, all was still.
Taxi popped up like a person coming up from underwater, drawing a deep breath of fresh air. Moira lay very still, a smile visible in the lamplight. Taxi listened to the snores from all around. Taxi lay back, relaxing.
Moira’s hand wandered across Taxi’s belly.
Taxi knew — had known all along — what was coming. She’d slept here and there in her life, usually with men, sometimes when the circumstances dictated, with a woman. Her only real concern was about diseases. Some nasty saddam-stuff still going around sexually. Keeping it between herself and Sam alone made it safe. She didn’t suppose these lily white maidens in here had any serious crotch rot or anything. She wasn’t worried about two girls breathing hard. She was worried about what Moira had said. She had a sense that Moira was going to be a puppy. A pain in the ass. No way was she taking the girl with her. Then again, what to do? Suppose she said no and Moira got pissed and turned her in? Then what? She already knew too much — they’d never let her out alive. Plus — “Moira?”
“Hmnn?”
“Do you realize I have some cat genes in me?”
“I figured as much. I’m intrigued. Maybe because you are a forbidden fruit, and we are all so starved in here.”
“What would they do if they caught me?”
Moira sighed. “It wouldn’t be too bad. There is a special compound where they keep the Wrong Turns.”
“What’s that?”
“Wrong Turns are people who, for one reason or another, aren’t genetically pure. It’s rare, but sometimes a spore gets in here, and a woman conceives wrong. They send those to the other compound. They’d send you there.”
“Oh land of hope.”
“You are funny.”
“Not half as funny as my man out there, holding off mountain lions by himself. I expect to hear the tommy gun any second.”
“I will help you,” Moira said. “And maybe you can help me.”
“I’m not taking you with me.”
“You’d better.”
“Is this some kind of sinister threat? If I don’t take you with me, you’ll turn me in? Girl, I’m saying for your sake, stay here. I could take you easy, assuming you can run a few miles, jump over a fence, fight with killer crabs, jump another fence, and only then welcome to the real world, thanks, where everyone and everything wants to either fuck you or eat you or just kill you for fun, or all of what I just said.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You’re not. I’m afraid for you.”
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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