You Pay to Stay

"You Pay to Stay" (OPEN: MALE/FEMALE)

INTRODUCTION
Your Host: WriteWithMe (aka Tony)

***** " YOU PAY TO STAY " *****
​

The Story:


1. A viral weapon has been unleashed: 80% of humankind is gone.
2. Two dozen "Immunes" have "holed-up" in a storage facility, hoping to survive until ... what ever comes next.
3. Dan Keel, the building's self-proclaimed "Master of the Keep" had intended on using his control over the building and its resources to get what ever he wanted -- and desired -- from those now depending upon him. Sometimes ... things change.
4. And YOU ... need to be here. Create a new Character, or assume an existing one; write your own story, or collaborate with other Writers.

This is an SRP -- Sexual Role Play -- however, if you do not wish to participate in "sexual" story telling, there are Writers and Characters NOT involved in the "S" of SRP as well. KEEP IN MIND: This is Literotica, not Lit-pornia. The easiest way for me to explain what that means is this definition:

The difference between Erotica and Porn:
Erotica is a whole lot of story with a little bit of sex;
Porn is a whole lot of sex with a little bit of story.​

(NOTE FOR ALL: Occasionally I will update this Introduction. I will do so in RED, leave it that way for a period, then revert it back to black.

In addition, this Introduction is a work in progress. Please forgive the amateurish nature of it. (I "fix" it when I have time.)



Christmas will never be thought of the same way after a viral weapon -- later tagged "The Bug" -- was released in a dozen US shopping malls on "Black Friday", the traditional "first day" of Christmas shopping. The Bug spread rapidly; by the end of the year, 80% of humanity had succumbed, and "The Mayhem" that followed continues to take more lives every day.

Dan Keel doesn't know whether he in an "Immune" -- one of the few who show neither effect from nor an ability to simply carry The Bug to others. Dan isolated himself inside SecureStore, a 12 floor storage building before "The Mayhem" began. His only hope was to keep out the world and use the building's "inventory" to survive.

Dan's first contact with the Outside World was New Years Eve, when his "Ex" came beating at the "gates". With Sally and her entourage of Immunes begging for sanctuary, Dan soon found himself "Master of the Keep", ready to provide all the needs of his people ... providing "You Pay to Stay".


Come play your part. To begin:

1. FIRST AND FOREMOST, read a dozen or so of the first posts to see if this is your cup of "bug" juice. Still not sure? Read some more. (Be aware that the first dozen posts or so will contain a great deal of "exposition" and Character background; for more plot and collaboration, see later posts or PM me for a list of interesting post numbers to read. (I am working on that list now, Feb 2011).

2. Then, PM me -- my screen name is "WriteWithMe" -- with any questions or comments you may have. If you have a Character Profile "concept" include it in your PM. DO NOT get too detailed, because there are, and will continue to be, story concepts that your Character must "fall in line with" for continuity.

At this time (Feb 2011), about 2/3 of the Characters were still available and, for the more part, were undefined and ready to be "molded" by your creativity. (Two limitations: the gender gap, 13 male and 12 female characters; and a minimum Character age of 18.)

You may play multiple characters, creating your own self-contained story lines or writing collaboratively with others -- my own personal goal.

3. That's it! Let's get started! You PM me, I reply to you (with important info that might affect your Character Creation), we trade a couple of "revisions" and "updates" ... yadda yadda ... I send you a link to the Character Profile Page; you can often be posting the day we "meet".

The Story
... in even more detail.​

1. The Location and time: PORTLAND, OREGON, maybe this year, maybe next. (There will be a "time jump" around the end of each month to set the current story date to the current "real time" month, but hours and days within the story are fluid, as in most RPs.)

2. The Bug: A virus of (as-of-yet-unknown-to-YOU) "domestic" origins.

3. The Mayhem: A Media-conjured word to describe the aftermath as society broke down, Governments failed, and the fight between anarchy and control began.

4. The Setting: "SecureStore", a 12 floor rental storage locker and inventory storage facility. Dan Keel -- a nobody, a minimum wage, middle-aged man content with watching his life fly by -- secured the building and simply waited to see what would happen next.

5. Sally and The Immunes: She is Dan's "ex-gf" from years earlier, a Doctor contracted to the Medical Facility where the Immunes were being studied and tested upon, for the most, against their will. A desperate Sally connected with Dan, begged for safe haven -- claiming she was caring for a "few" people -- and fought her way though the city to get to the storage building, located alone in a razed industrial zone.

Dan Keel

Introduction

Dan finished the installation on the hidden camera, dismounted the ladder, and stepped back to admire his work.

A light fixture; it looked like nothing more, nothing less than the light fixture he'd hidden it inside.

This particular camera, like the others in the "public" areas -- he'd installed more than a dozen -- monitored a key area of SecureStore's third floor, the floor he was preparing for the others to inhabit. If asked, he would be able to easily explain away the de-energized fixtures; with the collapse of the City's infrastructure, as well as much of the rest of the world's, they were relying upon the roof-mounted solar panels for power, and and these short, cloudy January days, there simply wasn't enough power.

He ventured into one of the nearby storage lockers. It was a "5x8", a mere 40 square feet of floor space; like the rest of SecureStore's lower 6 floors, the ceilings here were 8 feet high. The joke had always been that if you stacked two Smart Cars atop one another, you could still put more junk inside them than inside a "5x8".

Only the lower four floors offered separate storage spaces -- ranging from 40 to 200 square feet -- to individuals. The remaining eight floors were simply open spaces, separated by heavy chain link fences. These upper floors had typically been used as emergency storage by companies with over stock issues, or by those stocking up for imminent mega-sales.

One of SecureStore's many commercial tenants, a regional department chain, had been heading toward bankruptcy for months before The Mayhem began. Dan's boss, a crooked man if ever there had been one, had conspired with the chain's owner, making three whole floors available to him for hiding away inventory he'd planned to auction online under an assumed ID.

Dan looked out to the Floor, looked at the sleeping bags, inflatable mattresses, canned chili, long johns, tooth brushes, ... all in packages sporting the chains familiar Laughing Sun logo. Dan chuckled softly; if there was any justice in the world, both of the crooks had died slow deaths during The Mayhem.

He glanced up high, to where the sections of steel frame met. The camera there -- one of the 14 "private" area units he'd installed -- was no more detectable than out on the Floor.

He could justify the placing of the "bedroom" cameras as only increasing his personal security. After all, he only knew three of these people personally; the world had "ended", people were desperate, and he would be outnumbered by people he neither knew nor trusted.

But, the honest truth was that 3 out of 4 of those awaiting to move into their new "homes" were female, running the age spectrum from "legal" to "mom's age"; and ... well ... Dan was a man of 48 who enjoyed a good peep show.

He had no idea who would move into this particular space. It didn't matter whether it was Sally -- "Sas", his "ex" of many years back -- who had led the others to the safety of SecureStore; or one of the beautiful young women she'd rescued from a military project researching why the "Immunes" were in fact immune; or any of the others Sally had brought to his "tower".

It was time.

He returned to "The Lair", a "10x20" in the corner of the 4th floor. He'd secured and equipped it by taking a sledge hammer to the locks of dozens of lower floor lockers, as well as by combing through the thousands of "laughing sun" crates stored up above.

He panned a 1st floor security camera until he found Sas, sitting with one of the younger women, comforting her.

Dan didn't fully understand what there people had gone through. He had no first hand knowledge of the mayhem that had occurred -- and still was occurring -- out there in the World.

The Alert had gone out on a Friday morning, at the start of his monthly All Weekend Duty Shift. Dan had immediately hung out "closed" signs, secured all the doors, and -- when the magnitude of the virus became known, and the Mayhem began -- he set about with a cutting torch, welding machine, and any materials he could get his hands upon to secure the lower floors against any intrusion.

He'd even gone out at night with a sledge hammer and pry bar, had removed all the signage that gave indication that SecureStore was anything more than another of the many abandoned buildings that had once occupied this section of the waterfront before being demolished.

The enhanced security had worked. The "perimeter" had been tested, by others not fooled by the lack of signage, by those wanting what they assumed would be inside a secured, 12 story facility. With the other security measure he'd instituted -- most stolen from TV and the movies -- he had repelled three separate incursions before the Mayhem took a gripping hold on people's more primal priorities, and he and his building were simply forgotten about.

He'd never killed anyone before those nights; he hoped beyond hope that he would never have to again.

He activated a mike, leaning forward. "Sally?"

Sally looked up and around, searching for the source of the voice.

"Over here," he continued. "Security camera ... to your left."

She looked about, setting her eyes upon the camera. He "waggle-waggled" it with the joy stick, bringing a slight smile to her lips.

"It's ready," he informed her.

He heard an instant buzz through the speaker before him. He zoomed out and saw people exchanging glances; some seemed uncertain, others excited.

Then he saw them rising, one by one, and gathering their belongings. He leaned in again and stated firmly, "Leave your things. Nothing from the outside comes up stairs ... sorry." He thought for a moment, trying to explain what nothing entailed. Instead, he just simply repeated, "Nothing ... comes upstairs."

He saw quick movement; one of the older women stepped up to Sally, with her back to the camera. She listened to the woman, then crossed toward the camera and looked directly into it. "They want to know ..."

She reached up, took the collar of her dirty blouse, raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry ... really." He saw her expression; he knew that expression. "I'm sorry ... really I am. Nothing that can possibly be carrying The Bug comes upstairs."

He could hear the rising grumble, even with the cheap mikes back ground noise. He continued, "Through the door, down the hall ... Employee's Bathroom. Everyone showers! There's disinfectant soap ... towels ... lots of clothes ... brand name, even ... for your fashionably conscious friends down there."

Sally turned away, chatted quietly for a moment with someone out of camera view, shushed them. She looked back into the camera. "Some of our things, Dan ... they're special. They're all we have left of our lives."

"Then stay down there with them," he said coldly, leaning back into his chair, beginning to feel unappreciated.

After listening to the stat-icky uproar for a moment, he silenced the camera's mike. He stood, retrieved a warm bottle of beer, opened it carefully and sucked the little bit of foam that surged up and out of its neck. He went to the small "window" he'd smashed out of the building's concrete wall, covered with a piece of Plexiglas; he stared out upon The World. Even now, nearly a month after the beginning of the end, fires still burned in every direction. Maybe they were new fires, who knew?

He drew from his bottle, turned back to the monitoring station, and re-energized the mike to catch Sally in mid-sentence.

"--if they will be able to get their stuff later. Is that going to be possible ...? Dan ...? Are you still there?" She rolled her eyes, looked away. Reverting back to their earlier days together, she did her best Anthony Daniel's imitation and complained, "How typical."

Dan couldn't help but laugh at that.

Sally looked quickly back to the camera, revealed her surprise at his hearing her, his reaction. She laughed with him.

He was about to tell her he had the entire "Star Wars" collection in The Lair -- as well as all of "Star Trek", "Firefly", the "Bourne" series ... all of her favorites, courtesy of the Laughing Sun man.

"So...?" she asked, interrupting his reverie. "Will be be able to get our stuff ... you know, at a later date."

He considered the question, then "waggle-waggled" the camera playfully up and down.

She smiled. "Thank you. Give me a minute."

Sally turned away and explained the situation to the others. There were several minutes of discussion ... argument. Some refused to leave their stuff behind, at which point Dan heard his former love repeat his offer to let them stay down there with their things ... for ever.

Things finally settled, and -- under Sally's direction -- her people began stacking their possessions in separated piles, adding coats and sweaters, iPods and book bags.

She returned to the camera, looked into it with a concerned expression. "So ... Dan ... how do we ... you know ...?"

"Well, they can all either strip right there as a group ..."

An uproar filled the speaker. Sally turned gestured everyone to settle. "He's joking! Relax!"

When she turned back, he continued, "Girls first, boys first, I don't care how you do it ... as long as everyone showers, and nothing ... leaves that shower room but bodies and the clothes I provided. That's non-negotiable."

"Okay," she said, her tone telling Dan she understood fully, even supported his firm stance.

He depressed a button, and over the speaker he heard the 1st floor security door buzz open.

Sally turned back, gave instructions. The males of the group dropped the remainder of their personals and, one by one, began through the door. She exchanged some more words -- directions, commands, comforts -- with the women, watched the last of the guys pass through the door, and then -- moving so close to the camera that, on zoom, her face filled the whole monitor before Dan -- whispered quietly, "So ... can I assume that ... you have a way of knowing ... you know ... that we're not taking stuff through she shower with us ...?"

Her eyes diverted, away from the lens of the camera to the unit's encasement. She looked back to the lens ... back to Dan ... with a knowing, suspicious glare.

Dan smiled to himself He glanced left to another monitor -- the one hosting the view of the hallway outside the Employees Bathroom -- where the men of the Entourage were stripping, and where soon the females of the group would be doing the same -- then looked back at Sally. He answered by again "waggling" the camera before her up and down.

Sally shook her head, looked away for a moment, then looked back to the camera. She mouthed the last thing she had said to him the night they'd gone their separate ways: You're an ass."

.....

Dan Keel

Moving In

As directed, the male members of the group stripped their bodies of everything -- right down to wrist watches, "ribbon" bracelets, and stud earrings -- and dropped them into tubs in what Dan had designated the "dress down" hall; they entered the "Employees Only" Mens' room, where they showered with disinfectant soaps and shampoos Dan had scrounged upstairs; then they left through the locker room's opposite door, into the "dress up" hallway, where they'd found unopened boxes of tee shirts, sweats, jeans, socks, underwear, and more, courtesy of the "laughing sun" man.

Dan had watched the entire process on three monitors, served by three cameras he'd had installed as part of his "preps" for moving the "Immunes" up to the third floor.

He'd had no personal or erotic reason for watching the men so carefully; he wasn't interested in other men -- not really, anyway.

No ... watching the males of the group strip, shower, and redress today was all about security ... Dan's!

Dan was still uncertain about whether he himself was an "Immune". He'd locked himself away in SecureStore before The Bug had struck the City; Sally's people -- who while "Immunes" were still potentially "carriers" -- represented the first threat of demise to Dan, and he wasn't taking any chances.

To his surprise, none of the men appeared to make any attempts to smuggle any personal possessions beyond the designated zone. There were six of them in all: two were older teens or young 20-somethings, another looked to be high in the 20s, and the last three were almost certainly one each from the 30, 40, and 50's ranges.

Surveying the females, though, turned out to be a bit disappointing, thanks to the Sally's motherly instinct -- or simply her desire to deprive Dan of his "live cam" peep show.

She'd been the first to enter the "dress down" hall -- entering alone -- where she surprised Dan by performing one of her sexy little strip tease routines from their life together all those years ago.

In the locker room, she'd taken her time as well, using the mirror to examine the still-shapely, still-erotic body that, since The Mayhem had begun, had likely seem less primping than normal. She'd showered in a showy fashion as well, turning this way and that, looking up and around, showing all the nice angles of her dark, tan-line free form.

And then ... to his utter dismay, Sally's eyes fixed steadily upon the camera hidden inside the air vent. She smiled that devilish smile he knew so well, retrieved a length of toilet paper from the stall, and hung it over the vent, obscuring most of Dan's view.

She returned to the "dress down" hall and did the same to the camera hidden there between two "I" beams.

His next sighting of her was in the "dress up" hall, dragging the now-opened boxes of clothing one by one into the locker room, away from the only camera that she hadn't been inconspicuously searching for while Dan had been mesmerized by her erotic strip tease act.

Then, for several minutes, she simply disappeared.

Dan's attention jumped about the bank of monitors he'd assembled in The Lair. Some of them had been part of SecureStore's original security system, while others were computer monitors or just digital television he'd scrounged from the lower floors smaller lockers. He'd linked them with dozens of security camera's -- courtesy, once more, of the secret stash of the "laughing sun" man -- as well as with a couple of dozen more digital and analog video cameras -- most of them years and even decades old -- that he'd found amongst the personal items people paid good money to lock away rather than simply toss out.

Finally, the view of the locker room returned. Sally stood atop a stool before the camera there and lifted a piece of card board up before her still bared breasts. In black marker, in her unmistakable handwriting, he read, "That WAS the show, you dirty old man. Buzz the girls in or ..."

Dan read, then waited to see what followed the "or..."

Sally turned the piece of cardboard around, and he finished reading, in angrily written, large block letters: "...we'll leave!!!" The end of the note was followed by Sally's trademark smiley face -- dot eyes, the standard smile, and a very simply drawn hand that predominately feature a raised middle finger.

She moved back to the camera and, just before replacing the tissue to block its view, mouthed the words, "Trust me."

Dan sat there for a long moment, disappointed. Then ... started laughing ... hysterically. He'd been bested by the best. It was the Sally -- the "Sas" -- he remembered from long ago, the woman he'd fallen in lust with, fallen in love with, then unfortunately falling apart from.

He looked back to the monitor showing SecureStore's lobby. The "girls" waited anxiously, some standing, others again sitting. He laughed again, impressed by Sally's little show and ultimatum.

He was a little more than disappointed. Behind the dirt and despair, the dirty and ragged clothes, Dan was sure there was likely to be some beauties in the crowd.

The "females" of the group were dispersed across the ages as well, but with 19 of them, including Sally, it seemed almost as if could have asked, "Who's ...?", tossed out any number, and gotten at least one hand in the air. The youngest looking of Sally's "girls" was wearing one of the local High School's Letterman Jackets, complete with the graduate patch on the shoulder; and the oldest among them -- a very distinguished appearing woman who Dan had noticed carried herself with grace and dignity -- was almost certain into her 50s.

Sally's current age was easy for Dan to remember; 34, almost to the day a decade younger than his own.

Dan's smile faded for a moment as he forgot about the loss of his entertainment and, again, considered his health, his life even.

What choice did he have? He depressed the button, and watched as the buzzer's signal sparked hope in "the girls", and they strode forth to follow behind their fearless -- and far too crafty -- leader, Sas.



Dan's attention shifted from the monitor showing the "males" -- sitting in the 2nd floor stairwell between locked doors -- to the monitors that were supposed to be showing the "dress down" and "dress up" hallways, as well as the locker room between them.

The "dress down" camera showed, of course, nothing but fog as it sent back an excellent, well focused view of the piece of tissue Sally had put over it.

The "dress up" hall camera had been left alone, but -- after Sally had pulled all the boxes of clothing into the locker room -- all he saw here were the women fully dressed, combing each others hair or "modeling" their choices of very simple, often unflattering wardrobe to one another or -- for some of the more emotionally drained, the Mayhem hardened -- simply sitting on the assembled chairs, waiting to move on to the next stage.

Dan had gotten a little lucky when it came to the camera in the locker room, however. Sally had stuffed a piece of toilet paper, and later a larger, heavier paper towel, into the vents of the air duct, then arranged them well to hang down before the camera that she would otherwise have been unable to get her hands upon.

(Dan now realized that he'd made a mistake in tearing out some of the ventilation wiring, which he'd used to wire the dozens of cameras that provided him his views both within and without the SecureStore building. He cringed at the thought that he could have simply turned on the fans at the right moment, blown away Sally's little tissues, and had a superior view of all of the womanhood below him.)

But Physics had never been Sally's strong suit in college, and the circulating air currents resulting from the ever running hot water in the sink and shower had caused the paper towel to waft up and down occasionally, sparking the otherwise solemn Dan into short periods of excitement.

At one point, for several long minutes -- before the hot water ran out and the peep show was again cut off by the settling of the circulating air -- Dan had an exceptional viewing of a young woman Sally had called out to once, a Sonya or Sally or Sophie or something "S" in nature.

Dan hadn't paid too much special attention to her while the Immunes had still been in the lobby, except to notice that she's stayed conspicuously away from the men of the group. Dan remembered wondering whether she'd had an "incident" in the near or distant past; or whether she was simply wary of others in this time of The Mayhem.

She'd been one of those who'd argued with Sally about not being able to keep their personal possessions. Dan now wondered, after getting an eyeful of her, whether there had been anything among her personals that she may, in the future, be willing to get "personal" about, to get those things back.

He smiled, recalling Mel Brook's character in "History of the World" who, as monarch and ruler of all -- all women, that is -- ogled breast after breast and suggestively remarked, "It's good to be King".

Dan was "king" here, Master of the Keep; inside these walls, he controlled all resources, all "borders", all "property rights". Within semi-appropriate behavior, he planned to employ these "powers" to his ... pleasure and satisfaction.

The "S" girl -- he was almost certain it had been Sophie or something close to that -- was just the kind of peasant wench he would have exploited had he been King a thousand years earlier.

She was standing before the full length mirror next to the lockers, the one with the "Are You Ready for Work" sticker that the boss had put up for all to see, prior to greeting our customers at the beginning of our days.

She was ... inspecting herself, Dan thought. She looked a bit thin, not emaciated, but certainly lighter than she likely had been before The Mayhem had begun. Yet, she was still beautiful; well rounded breasts and buttocks, a flat firm belly, dark wavy hair that cascaded to the middle of her back.

Already semi-stimulated, Dan's penis sprang to full size as he watched the girl run her hands over ever inch of her body, including up to and over each gravity-defying breast, and down to her upper thighs and into the dark mass of hair at the "v" where they met.

Someone's yearning for a razor, Dan mused, wondering if, in a previous existence, this beautiful "Sophie" had been a muff-less type of girl. Dan hadn't thought to include razors among the items left in the "dress up" hall; he hadn't shaved his own face since he'd locked SecureStore down, and -- not being a "girl" -- hadn't considered that they might want to shaves some "things" -- legs, armpits ... whatever -- after a month of living in the lobby with no more than a bathroom sink to wash in.

Suddenly Sally was before the camera, talking to the girl.

Dan realized he had been so focused on this one particular "female" that he'd totally lost out on ogling any of the others wandering or standing in the range of the miniature camera. Dan looked about, saw bountiful flesh -- some beautiful, some not so much so -- yet turned his attention back to the two bodies that interested him the most: Sally's, whose he had pleasured -- and be pleasured by -- so many times during those three years together -- and this "Sophies", whose he was already formulating multiple ways of getting close to in the very, very near future.

Dan Keel

A Wonderful View Of Sophie

"The Lair". Dan chuckled at the sound of it. Sounded something like out of Batman and Robin, Superman, The Green Hornet. No ... Batman had the Batcave, Superman the Fortress of Solitude, The Green Hornet the ... the ... well, actually, Dan didn't know anything about the Green Hornet except that they'd remade the movie a few years back, and the best part about that had been a TV commercial in which "Kato" had used a missile to blow up a traffic cam'. (Dan had never actually seen the full movie; life had gotten in the way, and now years later, The Mayhem had as well.)

Traffic cams: Dan had never fully agreed with the concept of cameras being placed just about everywhere ...

And yet, here he was, sitting in "The Lair", his feet up, a can of SlimFast in one hand as he watched a dozen security screens, computer monitors, and television sets, all wired up to cameras to dozens of commercial security cameras, personal digital cameras, and camcorders that provided him an unprecedented view of his "kingdom".

He had a 360 degree view of most of the 200 acres of concrete, gravel, and debris piles surrounding the SecureStore building, as well as of the river, which was less than a hundred yards to the east. The picture quality wasn't the best, and on these short, cloudy winter days -- particularly when it poured -- it was difficult to make out much beyond 60 or 70 yards; but until he could figure out how to use the half dozen Model 9 infrared motion detector/monitoring units he'd found in one of the electronic store's unit, it was the best view he was likely to get.

He also had eyes on the only stairwell he hadn't fully secured with welded metal braces and castle-like cross bars. Dan had made it clear to Sally -- who, he hoped, had made it clear to the others -- that they were restricted to the 3rd floor until he said otherwise; that the elevator cables had been unsecured, making it potentially fatal to attempt to use them; and that the stairwells were all alarmed and any exploring would result in automatic expulsion from the building.

And he had views of the 3rd floor, and more excitedly, 14 of the "5x8s", the small personal storage units SecureStore had once offered for monthly rentals to individuals.

And it was those views he'd selected for this morning's entertainment.

The placement of the cameras had been random, directed more by which units he could easily access from the 4th floor as opposed to where he thought he may get the best, the most enjoyable views of the Immunes.

Two of the group's 6 males had chosen watchable rooms, and two "less attractive" of the 19 women had also ended up in rooms with hidden cameras; three wired rooms still remained empty.

The remainder of the spied-upon rooms were now home to females Dan thought he would be "more than content" to look in on occasionally.

He had been very disappointed when Sally had chosen a room without coverage. He had spied her searching the "5x8's" for cameras even before her people began moving in -- if he had them downstairs, she was likely thinking, wouldn't he have them in here as well -- but she obviously hadn't spotted one, or Dan felt she would never have let any one of the others set their bedrooms up inside.

Of course, the cameras hadn't been all about getting a peep at the 19 women downstairs, despite the fact that most of them ranged on his attractiveness rating scale from "I'd do her ... twice" to "OMFG, look at that bod".

No, it had been about security as well. If the Immunes -- "residents", "occupants", "peasants" ... that one made him giggle -- came to be up to no good at any point, Dan wanted a heads up. That was why he'd left them living downstairs in the building's lobby for the better part of a month ... so he could wire and secure their new "home" ... to allow him to sleep at night without awaking to someone standing over him with a weapon ... or worse, breathing on him.

And as he watched the monitors, sucking on his nutritional supplement drink and pondering whether to make a cup of coffee -- one of the few consumables upstairs that he knew had more than a lifetime's worth of -- he found himself tickled pink that at least one of the monitored rooms had been occupied by someone he could see himself spending hours upon hours watching with great delight ...

... the beautiful and sexy Sophie.

*****

The Bug, The Facility, and the Trek to SecureStore

Portland, Oregon -- the Rose City; it wasn't so "rosy" anymore.

Clackamas Town Center, several miles to the southeast -- and one of the premier destinations for the "Black Friday" Christmas shopping frenzy -- had been the release point of the virus. "The Bug", as the headlines splashed across The Oregonian newspaper had dubbed it, spread rapidly -- through the city, across the Metro area, across the state and into Washington, then Idaho.

Oregonians may have thought they were "ground zero" for some new strain of powerful flu bug, but by the time the press began reporting the growing number of sick, then the dead, the Authorities had already formed a national task force to respond to the "biological attacks" occurring simultaneously in twelve US cities.

Over the next month, the authority of the Center for Disease Control and other Homeland Security departments swelled to new levels as it coordinated a response that encompassed nearly every facet of American life.

It was the "unauthorized" response that concerned Dr. Sally Grimes, however; and she wasn't going to sit idly by as she watched the most basic of human rights be violated by "Authorities" she was sure were working well outside the bounds of both the law and common decency.

Sally, an leading "expert" in viral studies, had been in the Pacific North West on a speaking engagement when The Bug struck. She'd reported immediately to OHSU -- the Oregon Health Sciences University -- in Portland and went to work, attempting to first identify the viral strain, then find a way to stop it. She and her colleagues' efforts were fruitless: there simply was nothing to stop the virus, with the entire of humanity was soon being lumped into two categories, the "Immunes", and the dead. There was no middle ground.

As if this finality of her work wasn't enough, Sally soon began seeing people -- healthy people, Immunes -- taken away for, supposedly, more studies. Sally -- left out of this new "research" -- became disturbed when she saw a trend in the types of people being selected, supposedly at random: most would have been considered the "beautiful" people -- young women and girls; fit, attractive men; older "average" men and women with social skills that would find them "suitable" for service to others.

A little investigation was all it took for Sally to realize the truth: Immunes were being taken away and "auctioned" to the still living rich and powerful as servants -- sexual and otherwise -- and, for the females, "vessels" for child bearing, and the rebuilding of the elite families that had found themselves just as vulnerable to The Bug as the lowest of "commoners".

Sally had to do something about this, and she did. Associates -- doctors, nurses, even orderlies and janitors -- as appalled at the happenings as she was -- helped her formulate a plan for New Years Eve. And, as the medical staff "conspirators" -- all from outside OHSU's normal employee enrollment -- were away for a night of celebration, and the "research" subjects were being watched by only a handful of party eager "guards", Sally put the escape into motion.



The "Immunes" -- "Sally's people" -- spent all of New Years Day winding their way through the city to get from the the Facility to their new "sanctuary". They had started their trek just minutes before the dawning of the New Year, and worked their way down out of the West Hills, through the very heart of Portland's downtown, to the waterfront.

It had been an arduous trek -- a short trek, barely over a mile. Fire engulfed entire city blocks; looters emptied storefronts of anything and everything they could carry; rioters and anarchists were simply destroying anything in their path, attempting to "strike back" at whomever they personally believed to be ultimately responsible for the downfall of humanity.

And bodies. Everywhere, bodies: lying alone in the street, stacked like cord wood along curbs or piled into the backs of flat bed trucks, even burning in "bonfires" in the parks. By the time Sally led the others down from Terwilliger Boulevard, across Interstate-5, to the very edge of the Willamette River Waterfront Light Industrial area, the press was reporting that 80% of America's population -- higher here, possibly 95% -- was infected and either dead or dying.

The day-long walk had whittled Sally's people from the 65 she'd initially freed from their "protective custody" to the 25, including herself, who made it to the SecureStore building itself. She'd lost most of those in the first four hundred yards: some were captured by the Facility's Security -- unidentified "private contract" hooligans, Sally had called them -- while others had simply taken the wrong paths -- literally -- through Terwilliger and Lair Parks and had been separated from the others. She lost more in the city -- attacks from the "crazies" had claimed a dozen lives -- and more again as, while crossing the vast expanse of Interstate-5, an unseen sniper simply started picking them off for no seemingly apparent reason except that he -- or she -- could.

They waited -- the 25 -- until dark to make the final run across three hundred yards of open, uneven concrete and gravel. The building, Sally had explained, was a storage locker business, one of those rent-a-locker-by-the-month places where so many people wasted their good money to hide away all that good-for-nothing crap that some member in the family swore they would need or want to have some time in the future.

Sally had explained that "her friend" had secured the building, that there was food and clothes and a safe place to sleep; she said it would be a fresh start -- away from a dreadful future back at the Facility; a future that few of them had learned the full truth of; a future that Sally certainly knew more about then she was revealing.



"The Tower": SecureStore and Dan Keel

Sally and her people huddled together in the lobby of the SecureStore for 21 days; the CDC had reported 3 weeks to be the "life expectancy" of The Bug outside a susceptible host body. (Everyone knew what the time period for knowing whether you were susceptible or a carrier was: 6 mere hours to symptoms, 6 more to incapacitation, 72 more to death).

Over the course of those three weeks, their unseen host -- they had only been told his name was Dan and that he and Sally had been "friends" years earlier -- used the building's four elevators to deliver blankets, pillows, mattresses, warm clothes, canned and packaged foods, and "consumables" -- toilet paper, disinfectant wipes, and more -- to those down stairs.

They'd found it odd that Dan had used each of the elevators once and one only, running it down to them for emptying, then simply leaving it sit there in the shaft. Then a rumor spread: Dan wasn't certain of his own immunity status; he wasn't letting anything from the outside -- people, clothes, personal possessions -- get anywhere near him for 21 days.

There had even been a story that a single gunshot they'd heard upstairs and a dead cat found later in a back hall had been connected by Dan's fear of exposure. Sally had called that silly, of course; one fact that had come from her otherwise fruitless research at OHSU had been that The Bug had been a purely human ailment.

And they just sat there ... for three weeks ... with little to do but consider the lives they'd lost and the lives -- still full of uncertainty -- that still lay ahead.

They had a few distractions: Dan had provided some dice, several well used decks of cards, a few games, a box of worn books and severely outdated magazines, as well as games -- "Trivial Pursuit", "Monopoly", "Sorry", "Life" (which had been a source of irony, considering the current state of the Outside World).

The food had been basic: new canned goods (beans, vegetables, peaches, and the like); a few boxes of assorted tea bags; boxes of very out-of-date food that had certainly been gleaned from the rental storage lockers above. And coffee; for an unknown reason, lots of coffee. They had access to the "customers" uni-sex bathroom, no more than a sink, a toilet, and a mirror; they were able to clean up and get water, which was plentiful as the New Year had brought a seemingly endless rain storm outside. But there was no electricity, and therefore no lights or heat ... and it was January!

The grumbling and regrets were beginning; Sally's people were questioning about whether she had "freed" them from a secure, safe, warm, clean hospital setting only to dump them into the uncertainty of a cold, dark, gloomy warehouse.

There was talk of leaving, striking out to other opportunities. At one point, riot and rebellion seemed on the brink of reality. The talk ended quickly when, just beyond the building's covered over windows, screaming, fiery burning sounds, and -- from both outside and somewhere above -- gun fire erupted. A walkie-talkie conversation between Sally and the "man upstairs" -- which she had tried but failed to keep between just the two of them -- spoke of "intruders", molotov cocktails, and rifles ... and the lengths at which Dan would go to keep the building's "secrets" secret ... and Sally alive and healthy.

So ... they waited.

And finally, when three weeks had passed, and Sally announced with great relief that their "savior" had created a "home" for them up on the third floor ... life went on ...

OOC -- More to come. Please, feel free to utilize anything here to further your own stories. I have been specific where I needed to be, vague where I needed to be; this should give y'all an ability to come up with some personal stories for your Characters while also keeping "in line" with the general concept of the thread.

Any concerns or questions, please PM me -- PLEASE DON'T POST PMs OR "OOC" REPLIES TO THIS TEXT HERE, ONLY STORYLINE REPLIES. (Feel free to us "flashbacks" or "back dating" to have some fun reflecting on your Character's existence prior to, during, or following the time period above.

I am very pleased with everyone's stories and characters. Can't wait for more.

Dan Keel and Sally

Three days passed before Dan had gotten up the courage to drop down from "The Lair", located in the southwest corner of the fourth floor, to the Immunes' living area, which occupied all but a small section of 3rd floor.

He feared The Bug -- feared death -- but Sally's people had showered, disinfected, donned sanitary clothes, and -- hopefully -- sneaked in nothing that could potential carry the virus into his abode. What was he going to do, just huddle up here forever and continue to use the passenger elevator to deliver supplies to those down below.

He thought about the term "The Immunes". The Press had spawned the description, pulled it from a leaked Military report. It had referenced a program to "take into safe hands" people known to be immune and "study" them. Dan knew from his cell phone conversations with Sally, prior to the wireless systems being hijacked and shut down, that several of her "entourage" had been unwilling members of the study before some event unknown to him had enabled them to escape.

Dan wasn't sure which of the 24 had been involved in the program, but -- to his dismay -- he was almost certain that Sally had played a part. She'd been a medical contractor with the army when the two of them had split up, and her area of expertise had been viral studies.

But ... suspicious or not, he had no intention of asking her about it, He still loved her, still lusted for her, and wasn't about to do anything that might rock the SecureStore boat so early in the game.

Immunes ...

Dan had decided he needed a new word to describe the people living one floor below him. Something ... polite. Like, "neighbors". No. That interfered with his overall goal of maintaining control of "The Keep" -- "Be friendly, but not Friends", a co-worker had once warned Dan concerning his increasing familiarity with a crew of people he'd been supervising. "It's hard to discipline employees you've become friends with, so stop making friends with people who serve you."

The Immunes didn't serve him. Not yet anyway.

He was torn about that concept -- "Friendly, but not friends" -- in relation to the others. He didn't like being alone nor lonely; the month following the outbreak had been bearable only because of the work load, securing the building against potential "invaders", as well as the infected; and the month that the Immunes had huddled together in the lobby had been even worse, because rather than being utterly alone, he was within sight of 25 people he simply could not associate with.

He wanted to spend time getting to know those "living with" him.

But -- and this was a big but -- they were 26 people now living where only one had lived before ... and Dan had done an initial inventory of food and essential supplies, and the outlook didn't look good at all.

Hard decisions were going to have to be made, and Dan was the one -- the only one -- who was going to be making them.

This was not a time to be making friends.


When Dan came onto the 3rd floor, Sally was waiting for him at the opposite end of the hall, just outside what they had begun calling the Lounge. Her face held a wide, happy smile and -- when Dan was close enough to see them -- glazed over eyes ready to spill the flood of the century all across the 3rd floor.

He smiled, nervously -- they'd spoken just twice, three weeks ago, but he hadn't seen her face to face in more than a decade. He was ready to give a greeting when she surged forth, through her arms around him ... and just cried.

Dan stood there, silent, feeling the heart-wrenching twitches of Sally's body against his as she sobbed uncontrollably. Eventually, he raised his arms to her back, patted her lovingly, hugging her softly. He was at a loss for words; shocked; he hadn't expected this level of emotion. And before he knew it, his cheeks were wet with tears -- HIS tears -- and he held her tightly against him in the hopes that the embrace could simply go on forever.

But crying attracts attention, and soon faces were peering out from within the Lounge, bodies were moving out through its doors.

Dan turned Sally enough to hide his own tear-drenched face, whispering nervously, "They're watching."

"It's okay," Sally sobbed. "You've seen me cry before, and so have most of them."

She pulled back, and saw Dan immediately turn his face away, and knew exactly what his true concern had been. She turned to the others. "It's okay. Go back inside. We'll be right there."

Dan waited, still not facing the others.

"Head back inside," Sally was saying behind him. "Get comfy. Dan and I ... we need a moment."

Eventually, he turned back to Sally, shared an embarrassed laugh, wiped tears away, and said in an unsteady voice, "It's good to see you, Sassy."

She returned a happy smile and said, "It's good to be called Sassy."

They hugged one more time, shared a few more words; then Sally took his hand and began leading him -- reluctantly -- toward the Lounge. "Come ... come meet the people whose lives you have saved."

He followed her inside, her last statement bouncing around in his skull like a bowling ball tossed across an alley, not down it. He began to imagine his role here as more than just "Master Exploiter" of the not-quite-masses.

And inside, as she stepped away and gave him a clear view of all , the first face his eyes fell upon was Sophie's ... and suddenly, he his mind was returning to the desires he hoped to fulfill as "Master of the Keep" once more.



The next hour and half proved to be even more difficult than Dan had imagined. There was greetings and introductions and a slew of excited or anxious, even angry, questions; a few of Sally's people rose to shake Dan's hand or give him an appreciative hug, while close to half of the others remained seated and waved politely, or simply ignored him altogether.

To his disappointment, the girl named Sophie was one of the latter.

Sally encouraged the group to save until later their individual stories and allow Dan to discuss the "living situation" they would all have at SecureStore ... referring to it more than once as their "new home."

And here, Dan's mind race while his mouth crawled; just exactly how much about SecureStore -- its construction and layout, its resources and inventory, it's security and weaknesses -- was he supposed to communicate to these 25 people?

He glanced at Sally, thinking "25 people, including you". She had been the love of his life once, but he didn't know her now anymore than he knew the others; how much about HIS world was it in his best interest to depart to her, this early in their "new" relationship.

"We're hungry," someone asked, followed quickly by another question, "Can we get more to eat?"

Dan explained that he was still inventorying food stocks -- he didn't say anything about how much there was or wasn't of what -- and that once he had an accurate number, he'd get back to them.

"Are there more blankets?" and "Can I get something different to wear?" followed soon, with Dan answering "Absolutely", again, as soon as he finished the inventory.

More questions followed, about heating and mattresses and pens and paper and news about the outside and The Bug. Dan did his best to answer them, being specific where he could be and vague where he needed to.

"Can we leave if we want?"

That one threw Dan of guard.

"Of course you can," Sally answered before he'd fully considered the question. "This isn't a prison ... right, Dan?"

"Of course not," he responded, his mind still wrapping itself around what he realized was a totally logical and appropriate thing to know. "Anyone can leave SecureStore anytime they want."

Suddenly, he was glad he had decided to conceal most of the building's detail. Eventually, someone out there was going to want to know what, exactly, was in here, and having a person on the inside -- or who had been on the inside -- was a very fine way of learning such things.

They continued to pepper him with questions, until finally the ones he had hoped to avoid began, making Dan feel uncomfortable ... and outnumbered.

"Can we see the rest of the building?" "Why are we stuck in here?" "What are you hiding?" "Why can't we see what's upstairs?"

"Do you have a gun?"

"That's enough!" Sally snapped at the man who'd asked the last question. "He doesn't need a gun ... because we're all going to get along ... and we're going to work together ... and we're going to do our best to support one another."

She moved slowly to Dan, giving him a smile and laying a hand upon his shoulder. "I brought you all here, but Dan let you in. We owe him a debt of gratitude ... don't you think?"

There were a few enthusiastic "yes's" and "thank you's", followed by a few more reluctant or obligatory ones.

"Okay then, I think we've had enough chit-chat for one day. So --" She slipped her hand down behind Dan's back -- friendly-like, not romantically -- contacted something in the small of it, and gave him a bit of a surprised expression before continuing. "So ... Dan and I are going to talk ..."

The pair of younger "girls" giggled, and a similarly aged "boy" shot me a suggestive gesture, then laughed.

"Knock it off," she laughed, then added, "There's warm chili still ... and chores!"

Sally turned him away from the group, urging him outside. She headed him slowly back the way he had come, saying with a compassionate voice he so easily recognized, "I know that this has been very ... overwhelming for you, Dan."

"I wish I could have answered more of their questions." He glanced back, looking for eavesdroppers. People were exiting the Lounge and dispersing toward their own rooms or to the temporary cooking area at the end in an "8x8" across the hall, but none were close enough to hear his lowered voice. "I ... I just can't tell them ... all of --"

"It's okay," she interrupted, silently giving him permission to "hold back". "You tell us what you can, when you can."

They were approaching the stair well entrance -- the "exit" sign was de-energized, the electricity circulating through its wiring now powering another of his miniature, hidden cameras. Dan glanced back at the sound of two younger people spatting playfully about dirty dishes. He looked to Sally and laughed, "Chores! You've been up here just three days and you already have assigned chores? Since when did you become a mother hen?"

She slid her hand lower down his back, touching the top of wood and steel object under his shirt. "Probably about the same time you started carrying a gun."

Dale Green

Dale Green stood under the shower, he let himself have a small smirk, as he rinsed his hands. Hands that had two days before snapped the neck of the rich banker who thought he'd bought a way to safety. Guy was probably a carrier anyhow!

He had stayed passive as he watched Sally, organising now, she was still good looking but he was well over her - too demanding and straight. She'd tended a wound he had from a fight in the facility he was in and they had ended up having a thing when he got out. Still hadn't been back - then the shit hit. He'd got the gig refitting this dump and spotted Sally talking to some guy, it was easy to get the info from her and he'd promised to be good if she saved him.

The guy - must be in charge, looked a sly one, best stay on his good side. He looked at the other 'inmates' no threats there - none looked like they'd fight for survival - but he guessed each must have some use. The women on the other hand were a good bunch - almost hand picked......

he selected the clothes and dressed, taking an extra toothbrush - you never know....

the place was as he remembered it broadly - but new electronic locks were in place on some doors, new locks on others. As they were directed into the rooms, Dale selected a bed away from most of the others and waited - listening to their thoughts - keeping his own silent

.....

Dan (with Sally)

(OOC: I will not always write such long posts. I can be a little wordy in the beginning of a new story, just to get the message across, but once the story line is more defined, my postings -- at least the collaborative ones -- shorten dramatically. Tony)


At the stair well entrance, below the "exit" sign camera, Dan considered Sally's words -- " about the same time you started carrying a gun " -- and contemplated how, and whether, to tell her what she needed to know, for his safety, her safety, and the safety of all now inside the SecureStore "community".

After all, a deterrent isn't a deterrent if your "adversary" doesn't know it exists.

He'd learned that from the Peter Sellers classic, "Doctor Strangelove". It went something like: a deranged US General launches a nuclear attack on the USSR; the USSR reveals they have a "new" weapon that will kill every person on earth upon the detonation of a single nuke on Soviet soil; the US points out that a deterrent doesn't work if it's hidden; at which point the Russian ambassador shrugs, smiles embarrassed, and says, "We were gonna tell you on Monday. The phone was busy..."

Or ... something like that. It had been over two decades since he'd seen the movie, but the important part had -- known deterrent -- had always stuck with him.

"Come with me," he said softly. "I want to show you something."

He tapped a code into the security panel, opened the door, and led her through it and up to the 4th Floor, where he repeated a similar procedure there.

He walked her about the floor, showing her gas cans and wiring and electronic "gizmos", revealing all to her -- except for what lay behind the most secure door on the level, the Lair.

"So ... what is it all?" she asked when they'd returned to the stairwell door.

"Deterrent," Dan answered bluntly.

She looked at him questioningly for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders. He remembered that gesture from their life together; it was the What the Fuck? shrug.

He pointed to the door, and, in a very-matter-of-fact voice, said, "Should anyone attempt to access this door without a very specific code, one that I change daily, the security system activates a three minute count down.

"Should anyone attempt to come through the floor ... be it sledge hammer or ax or sharpened toothbrush, it doesn't matter ... wires and sensors will pick it up ... and activate the countdown.

"Anything way that you can imagine that a person, other than me, can attempt to do to access this floor or any of the floors above ... I have thought of ... and prepared for." He smiled slightly, a cross between pride and embarrassment. "And they said I'd never learn anything by watching so much television."

Sally's expression had hardened while he talked, and after a moment of uncomfortable silence, she asked the question she knew he knew was coming. "Countdown ... to what?"

"The building burns," he answered bluntly. "Thirty-six gallons of unleaded gasoline, aided by seven cases of flammable cleaners ... courtesy of the "laughing sun" man.

"Not to mention all the crap in this building that will go up like a Christmas tree still standing in February. Oh ... and there's no putting it out, because the water tank on the roof that used to feed the fire control sprinkler system ... all that water is now going to my quarters, the downspout serving your kitchen, and the showers on the first floor."

Sally's eyes widened and her mouth opened in shock. "My god, Dan ... why?"

He was having a hard time keeping his composure. This wasn't him. But, he knew, it had to be.

"Because, Sassy ... it's a different world! People are dying ... everyone is dying ... and everyone left wants what everyone else has --" His voice rose to anger level as he spat out, "And they sure as hell ain't gonna take it from me!"

She flinched at his outburst, taking a half step back. She wasn't scared of him; she was just surprised with him.

Dan turned away quickly, walking a few yards down the passage, stopped, contemplated once more, then turned back to face her. "I'm not like you, Sally. I'm not like them."

She waited for him to finish.

"I'm not immune."

She smiled, then chuckled. "Well of course you are. You're still ali--"

"No!" He drew a deep breath, then continued, "No, Sally. I was never exposed to the Bug. I've been here the whole time. Why do you think I was so serious about you and your people? Why do you think I made you all stay down there for a month ... leave all your things ... disinfect?"

"Well ... I just thought --"

"I'm scared to death, Sassy --" His words broke, cut with emotion, and he turned away from her again for a long moment. Don't let her see you cry again ... not again. Earlier ... that was happy emotion ... but this ... just don't let her see you cry.

He peeled the sweatshirt off over his head, inconspicuously using the cloth to wipe his eyes.

Sally's gaze fell to the objects clipped to his belt: the canister of pepper spray she recognized immediately, because prior to the "dress down" hallway, she'd been carrying three of them herself; but the pistol and the other item -- a knife maybe? -- were to her untrained, "peace-nik" eyes, just a pistol and another "thing".

She looked back up to Dan as he turned; he wore a softer yet still serious expression.

"This ... this building, and what is in it ... it is all that I have left. And I will defend it in anyway that I have to." He started toward her slowly, pointing a finger toward the floor as he continued. "Those people down there ... I let them inside because ... for you ... because ..." He drew another breath, released it. "Because I still care about you."

He tapped at the security pad again, unlocking the door, and gesturing her outside.

They descended the stairwell in silence. At the 3rd Floor door, he reached out to the locking mechanism, then hesitated.

"Everyone will do there part if they want to stay, Sassy. Any one who doesn't ... can leave."

She looked at him questioningly as he punched in the code to unlock the 3rd Floor access. She didn't know what to think -- about what she'd seen, about what he'd said, about Dan himself -- but she decided now was not the time, and reached for the door to return to her people.

"I killed people, Sally."

She looked back to him, concern quickly spreading in her eyes, her mouth. She whispered, "My god, Dan ..."

"They tried to get in. The first week ... Sunday morning, after the ... craziness ... the Mayhem had started." He backed away from her, leaned back against a cold steel I-beam. "They wanted in ... and I told them to go away. They were trying to get the company truck to start, said they were going to drive it through the front and skin me alive if I didn't open up."

She didn't ask him to say more. If he needed to continue, he would; if it was too hard, he would let it go.

Dan needed to tell someone, simply to hear himself say it; and, he realized, he needed to tell Sally, because she needed to know -- they needed to know -- that he would do what he needed to stay alive.

"The truck wouldn't start." He smiled. "I'd drain the gas, of course. But I gave some of it back to them."

She saw his eyes suddenly look far away, as if he was no longer here with her in the stairwell.

"I got in the elevator ... I went to the roof ... "

He pulled the "object" from his belt that Sally hadn't recognized and pressed the switch on the side.

Sally flinched as the six inch blade popped out the heavy, well-made knife.

"I punctured a plastic five gallon can of unleaded ... tore the handle up pretty good. Then ... I tossed it over. It ... just splattered. The flare ... " He chuckled again, amused with his memory. "They were pissin' and moanin' and cursing up at me. They never saw it falling down at them. They just ..."

He drew another deep breath, then made a "blow up" gesture with his hands.

Sally reached to her face and quickly wiped away a tear. She remembered, now, the day they'd arrived at SecureStore; remembered the torched vehicle outside, the burns marks that extended to body-sized splotches on the pavement ... the wayward, blackened shoe. My god ...

He "came back", looking into her eyes with a suddenly hard expression. "The ones I thought wouldn't die ... I shot. Took a while -- shooting down at an angle like that isn't as easy as you would think."

He chuckled, an uncomfortable laugh. "I was going to leave them to the dogs, but ... can you imagine how that would have smelled after a few days."

"That's not funny," Sally mumbled, the story beginning to affect her more than she wanted.

"No, Sally," he said, again hard faced. "It's not."

He finished unlocking the access, sliding open the heavy bolts. "You tell your people what you think they need to know about ... deterrence. I would rather you didn't give too many details, for obvious reasons. I trust your discretion."

He looked through the small, reinforced window, opened the door to a virtually empty main aisle, and in a low voice finished, "Everyone does their part here, Sally. You gave your people chores, yes? I'll have chores for them as well ... soon. There are things that will need to be done if we all want to survive here."

He stepped back from her, his gesture saying, we're done for now.

Sally left the stairwell, took a few steps, then turned to say what she needed to say.

He continued, "Everyone will contribute. Everyone will do their part. Simply ... if you want my hospitality and protection ... you pay to stay."

And .. he closed the door.

Dan (with Sally, Sophie, Dale)

Dan hadn't talked to Sally -- face to face, anyway -- in two days. It hadn't been intentional, this silence between them; they weren't actually avoiding one another. At least ... Dan hoped they weren't. They were still doing "business" as usual over the radio.

Dan was reluctant to make the first approach. He had scared Sally, he was sure, during their last encounter: the weapons, the "deterrent", the murder admission. It had to have been overwhelming for her.

But ... life went on.



"Handy Dan". He'd earned that moniker for his ability to fix things others couldn't, or create new "devices" or processes that made his and others jobs easier, simpler. He'd been working on his latest creation since before Sally and her entourage had come knocking, and it was only now ready to be used.

He'd broken open the case on a "Portable" -- the latest iPad-like device -- bypassed some circuits, replaced some chips, and created a "masterpiece".

Now standing just outside the 3rd Floor stairwell door, he looked at the reassembled Portable, tapped and slid his index finger upon its touch screen, and selected the exit-sign camera looking down the main aisle of the 3rd Floor. The image popped up as clear as if he were on the other side of the door. All clear, no one within 30 feet.

He deactivated the security lock, slid the steel bolts, entered "Broadway", and immediately reactivated the electronic security with the touch of a single button.

"Broadway". Listening in on the microphones he'd inserting through holes in the floor above, Dan had begun hearing unfamiliar words, and soon realized the "tenants" were naming "things" with Outside World names.

The main aisle had become "Broadway", named for the City's downtown drag.

The kitchen had become "Noodles". (The perishable foods inventory had uncovered an abundance of spaghetti, and -- while they were happy to be eating anything at all -- Sally's people were beginning to run out of ways to make pasta exciting.)

A "10x20" filled with brand new exercise equipment, courtesy of, naturally, the "laughing sun" man, became the "Sweat Shop".

Dan's favorite, however, was "Heaven", the new name for the bath and locker room on the 1st Floor that was still being used by all. (Dan had refused Sally's request to remove the camera hidden there until she'd referred to him over the radio as "Big Dan" in front of her "peeps". She'd refused, of course, and went to tear it out herself, only to find out that Dan had removed it long before.)

"Heaven" was aptly named. It was warm, always, brightly illuminated, and clean.

Dan had okayed an always on heater there, knowing that -- as the only bath and toilet facility available to them -- the space was likely to always be occupied by someone. And he'd been right; a recent cold snap that had chilled the rest of the under-heated building sent people scrurrying there often for its perpetually 65 degrees. They'd even moved cushy chairs and a card table there, turning it into a game room during the gender-appropriate hygeine periods Sally had established.

Showers were governed more by Mother Nature than Dan. Sunny days brought more solar power, therefore more hot water; and rainy days brought more clean water, courtesy of the collection system Dan had devised on the roof even before the others arrivals. So, catching the days when you had enough water stored up and enough electricity to heat said water was haphazard at best ... but they were dealing.

Today, Dan was bringing them more sundry items. The "guys" had been asking for razors, deodorant, etc.; the "girls" had requested the same, as well as "ladies needs", Sally had called them. It had been an exhaustive search; the "laughing sun" man had squirreled away mostly high ticket items; tampons and sanitary napkins hadn't been high on his list. But Dan had prevailed, and now -- with a green canvas tent bag thrown over his shoulder like a color blind Santa -- he had come bearing gifts.

Sally was having a quiet conversation with a distraught young woman in what Dan assumed was the younger woman's "apartment" -- yet another word he'd heard the others saying over the mikes. She gave him a sharp look and immediately popped up, crossed to him, and directed him back out onto Broadway. "How long have you been listening?"

"I wasn't listening," he answered. He swung the bag from his shoulder, ready to tell of his discovery.

"We need to have an understanding," she said with a demanding tone as she hustled him into a "5x8" that had gone unclaimed. Without waiting for him to respond in anyway, she continued, "The apartments are personal space. No one goes into anyone apartment without invitation. Not me, not you, not anyone else. We have rules."

Dan wasn't sure how to respond, except to say, "Of course. Sorry."

Sally stared hard at him for a moment, then saw the bag. She softened suddenly ... then blushed. "Crap. You ... brought us presents."

She was thoroughly embarrassed -- he knew that expression well -- and attempted to avoid discussing it by snagging the bag, snagging him, and heading out onto Broadway, where she handed the bag over to one of the older women, instructed her to distribute the "treasure" appropriately, and then turned back to Dan and invited him to stay for dinner.

He declined politely, claiming to have work upstairs.

Sally glanced past him, and her smiling expression faded quickly.

Dan turned and found Dale, a man he'd only briefly chatted with on that first day of introductions, standing in the entrance of the "5x8" nearest the secured stairwell. He was smiling their direction, a devilish, knowing smile, that unnerved Dan. He nodded politely to Dale, then turned back to Sally.

Her expression had only hardened.

Dan glanced back once more, just in time to see Dale non-nonchalantly turn -- his eyes still on the pair -- enter the apartment. He turned back to Sally and asked, "Anything wrong?"

Sally smiled -- a feigned smile, he knew -- and quickly said, "No. Of course not."

She gave him a farewell and a thanks, and turned back to join the others in the disbursement.

Dan hadn't liked the way Sally had responded to his question and snagged her arm, gently turning her back to him. He wanted to tell her that if she ever had any problem with any one down here, he would take care of it for her. But after telling her about the "incident" outside the SecureStore, he decided to postpone such declarations.

Instead, suddenly thinking of his own problems, he said, "Listen ... that guy, Dale right?"

Sally nodded.

"He's gonna have to move," he said firmly. "I ... would prefer that none of the units at that end of the aisle ... of Broadway were occupied."

He waited for her reaction. Would she question his reasoning? ... wonder what his concern was? ... tell him he was being silly ... or paranoid?

"Of course," she said quickly, surprising him. "I'll tell him ... after you're gone. Don't want a confrontation."

Dan was going to ask why she thought there would be a confrontation, but didn't. People were walking on egg shells around him; he liked to jokingly think of himself as "Master of the Keep", but -- while he did everything not to give others that impression -- he was fairly certain there were people who were already feeling that way about him.

So, instead, he just thanked her, told her to continue compiling a "shopping list" for her people, and headed back for the stairwell, casually glancing at people -- and into "apartments" -- as he went.

Halfway down Broadway, he noticed Sophie -- he had in fact learned that was her name -- sitting in her own apartment. She appeared asleep.

Dan looked back toward Sally -- casually, not wanting to appear looking for prying eyes, although he was -- and saw her and just about everyone else involved with his bag of goodies. He looked back into the apartment again.

Sophie stirred a bit, ran a hand down to her thigh, wriggled her fingers; itching, or searching for something, Dan wasn't sure.

He remembered seeing Sophie that day in "Heaven", remembered seeing her beautiful, young feminine form; "Heaven" for an "angel", he mused. She wore an over sized sweat suit now -- and, presumably, a tee shirt and shorts set beneath -- that had come from the boxes Dan had provided that day; they weren't nearly as flattering as her "birthday" suit.

(In another one of his recent storage locker "scavenger hunts", Dan had collected a nice selection of clothes, mens as well as womens. He'd initially tossed them all into big garbage bags with the intent of delivering them in bulk to the 3rd Floor. He had changed his mind. Earn them, he told himself, thinking particularly of the women.

He was just beginning to feel stirrings "down below" when he realized Sophie was staring directly into his eyes, an icy glare that caused him to quickly divert his eyes and then -- not wanting to seem guilty of anything untoward -- looked back to her, and smiled. He moved closer to her door, but -- remembering Sally's lecture about privacy -- stopped short of the door. He squatted and, attempting to exude a confident air, asked, "And who might you be?"

Sophie began to answer, hesitated ... and began a wide mouthed yawn.

If he'd been a more confident man, his first thought wouldn't have been, I'm boring her ... but it was.

"Sufty" she said, still not fully out of her face stretching, neck relaxing yawn.

"Softy?" Dan laughed, buoyed by what he took to be playful humor. "Your name is Softy?"

The icy glare returned, and she turned away.

"Come on," he said, getting no response from her. She was sitting close to the apartment's entrance, just within Dan's reach. Sally's rule had been stay out of the apartments; didn't say I can't reach into one, he thought. He touched a single finger to Sophie's thigh, giving her a little nudge. "I'm just teasing you."

She startled Dan by suddenly spinning to face him, "popping tall", saluting him crisply -- in a flash, he recalled his 6 years as a "Squid" -- and sounded off, "Sophia Giada Moretti-31-Fort Knox, Kentucky, sir!"

Dan laughed, knowing that if he didn't his face was going begin cycling through every cover of red imaginable. He hesitated, searching for a proper way to respond. She doesn't like me. How do you respond to something like this from someone who so obviously doesn't like you?

Lacking any other avenue, he chose humor: he stood tall as well, snapped a return salute and -- not remembering any popular vocalizations from the Navy -- said the first thing that came to his mind: "Oorah!".

Sophie's face suddenly redden -- better yours than mine, he thought relieved -- and she opened her mouth to speak ... but didn't.

Please, please, please ... don't rip me a new one. I just couldn't take that right now.

Sophie glanced past Dan ... and her face filled with relief.

"Dan?" Sally's voice was softly disciplinarian in tone.

Dan quickly turned and stepped away, and she Sally moved closer, he whispered quickly, "I didn't go in."

She ignored his defense, glancing back toward Sophie for a moment, then returning the now empty tent bag to him. "I was told to thank you profusely ..."

He drew a relieved breath, then took the bag.

"... and to ask for something ... anything ... other than spaghetti."

He looked to her, saw her widening smile, and shared it with her.

"I'll see what I can find," he assured her, adding, "We have lots of canned mushrooms ... and coffee, too."

Sally just laughed, then glanced back toward Sophie, raised an eye brow at Dan, and headed off again. Dan glanced toward Sophie -- she had already turned away.

Dan headed off, hoping he hadn't just destroyed a potential ... "friendship".

Nearing the end of Broadway, Dan found Dale back again in the entrance of his apartment, leaning casually against the wall; and as he glanced from Dan back, presumably, toward Sophie's abode, the smile on his face was clear: Strike one!

Dan looked away quickly, continuing on. He reached the door, and as he tapped in his code -- ensuring his body was between Dale and the key pad -- he casually tilted the Portable, hanging from his belt on a clip, until he could again see the view of Broadway from the camera over his head.

Dale hadn't moved, his grinning face still looking toward Dan.

As Dan gently brushed his hand over the smaller revolver in the front of his belt -- just to remind himself that it was there -- Dan deactivated the security lock, moved quickly through the door, and just as quickly closed it behind him. He drew a relieved breath into his trembling body, and began up the stairs.

Dale ... There was something about that man Dan ... just ... didn't ... trust.

deleted

deleted

Back Story

Black Friday -- Last Year

"Look," the Security Guard complained, "I've already gone over this ... at least six times--"

"Not with me, you haven't."

The Guard looked closer at the ID hanging from the breast pocket of the man's suit. "FBI ... Special Agent, o-o-o-o ... aren't we ... special. Get it? Special ... Special Age--"

Suddenly, the Guard found two Gorilla-sized suits lifting him out of his chair by from his arm pits.

"Whoa whoa whoaaa!"

The Gorillas carried away, practically on his tippy toes, led by the Special Agent.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry for Christ's Sake, whadda ya wanna know?"

The Special Agent stopped, hesitated, and turned. After a moment, he glanced between the two Gorillas. They dropped the Guard back down to his feet.


"Jeeez, guys, that was a little uncalled --" He felt the hands under his arm pits again. "Whoa! Okay! I get the point."

As the Special Agent eyes him expectantly, the Guard adjusted his rent-a-cop uniform and searched for his self respect. "I mean ... why the hell are you here? What's the F.B.I.'s interest in a suicide anyway. In a mall? On Black Friday of all days. It's not like he shot his brains out all over a bank teller ... or was straddling the State line when he did it."

"The man was on a terrorist watch list," the Special Agent answered.

"Terrorist?" the Guard asked doubtfully. He glanced over at the body, just as a woman in a Coroner's jacket lifted the sheet to take another look. Even with his head nearly blown apart, it was still easy to see that the dead man was blond, blue eyed, and very fair skinned. "Don't look like no terrorist to me. The guys whiter than Michael Jackson, God rest his perverted soul."

The Guard looked back to the Special Agent, found him not humored by the man's remark.

"Domestic terrorist watch list," he expounded.

The Guard looked to the now covered body again and simply replied, "Oh."

"Listen," the Special Agent began, his voice showing even more annoyance with the man before him. "It's Black Friday. My daughter, who I love more than life itself ... wants a Miss Molly play house. If I don't get her a Miss Molly playhouse before the stores run out, her next choice is a pony. I live in a condo ... no place for a pony."

The Guard's lips began to spread wide in smile.

"So, unless you want me to have my associates--" He glanced again to the Gorillas, who immediately slipped their hands up under the Guards arms "--to take you out to the parking lot and beat the living shit out of you--"

"Whoa," the Guard began excitedly.

"--which, under the new National Security Agency guild lines, I am more than authorized to do--"

"I get it already--"

"--I would start telling me what I want to know."

"Okay--"

"Make it fast ... but complete."

"Okay." The Guard took a deep breath and, as ordered began a rapid explanation of the morning's excitement. "I was called down her from the other end of the mall to see about a guy who'd been handing out bogus coupons, and when I confronted him, he pulled a gun and blew his fuck-- frickin' head off."

He met the Special Agent's unflinching glare for a long moment, and added, "That's it. End of story. There's nothing more to tell."

"When? Give me the times."

"I don't know. Got the call, maybe 4am ... didn't find the guy until almost 5."

"And you opened ...?"

The Guard chuckled. "We never closed! We've been open since yesterday at 6 am."

The Special Agent processed the man's information. "What about the coupons?"

"What about them?" The Guard shrugged, looked about the mall, then pointed to scraps of paper littering the floor, as well as being clutched by a dozen customers standing behind the police line, watching the activities. "They're all over the place."

The Special Agent glanced to a fourth suited man, who -- donning latex gloves -- went to collect some of the coupons from the mall's floor.

A phone rang. The Special Agent pulled a Blackberry from his jacket. "Go ahead."

The Guard waited, the Gorillas still holding him, although more gently, under his arms.

The Special Agent's eyes widened a bit. He lowered the phone, pressed one button, lifted it again to his ear. A moment later, he spoke into the phone, "Get me the Director. And ..." He glanced back at the Guard, then looked away and, in a lower voice, finished: "And get him a line to the White House. He's going to want it

.....

.....

Dan Keel (Sophie)

Dan had made a fool of himself with Sophie. At least ... he felt that way. Oh, well, there are more fish in the sea. Eighteen more of them anyway, he laughed.

Sophie was too young for him anyway, 31 to his 48. Or more correctly, she would probably think he was too old for her. (His last girl friend, back on his birthday, had joked, "Forty-eight?? That's like almost fifty, which almost dead!"

Dan had some "evidence" of how he thought the youngster from Ft. Knox would feel: she'd been hanging out with a mere "boy".

After his embarrassing episode with her -- and with Dale, who'd seen the whole thing and laughed about it -- Dan had gone back up to the Lair, performed a few chores, and ate a little dinner.

(He had felt a little guilty that he was eating canned ham with chantrell mushrooms while those a floor down were, again, enjoying a delicious spaghetti dinner, but he got over it by the time he'd gotten to the French cut green beans and his second glass of Oregon White wine.)

When he returned to the monitors, just to see if everyone was settling down for the night, he couldn't find Sophie. He's been tickled pink to discover she'd selected a "room with a view" -- one of the fourteen "5x8s" that he'd wired with a well hidden miniature camera.

Unfortunately, so far all he'd seen of her in her "apartment" was her entering, laying down to sleep -- fully clothes, as it was the middle of January -- then getting up the next morning and leaving with fresh clothes in her hands. Apparently, Sophie was doing all of her stripping down and redressing in "Heaven", the 1st floor bathroom for Sally's people.

Then he switched one of the monitors over to the Sweat Box, and found her. She was stripped down to her shorts and tee shirt -- now tied in a knot just below her breast, showing a swath of bare skin -- and was working out with a "punk ass kid" Dan was sure he remembered as being Tommy.

(Actually, Dan liked Tommy. They'd chatted very briefly about this and that and, for a ... 19 year old? 20? ... he seemed to be pretty informed.)

But ... he was making moves on Sophie ... and that made him, now, a punk ass kid.

Dan spent an hour or so, glancing back at the monitors, pretending that he didn't care. They spent their time in the Sweat Box, out on Broadway ... some of in the entrance to his apartment where he was using the overhead bar to do pull ups. (It was a smooth move, getting her to the door like that, Dan thought.)

Dan was beginning to really feel any hope of ever "getting to know" Sophie rapidly slip away ...

Then the red head showed up. Thank god, Dan thought.

Dan didn't know her name, but he'd gotten a quick shot of her in "Heaven" that first day. She was fair skinned, tight bodied, petite but with some amazingly firm little tits that Dan had had a hard time getting out of his mind later ... during his "alone" time.

He'd attempted to talk to her on one of his "resupplies" to the 3rd floor. She'd totally blown him off. His first thought had been, ain't getting none of that perfect tail, are ya, Dan?; his second thought had been, don't come looking for favors, you bony little bitch.

Now, however, Dan was tickled with the way things were turning out. From what Dan called the "Fire Cam" -- a hidden camera in the middle of Broadway that looked down from behind a Fire Exit sign -- he could just barely see into Tommy's otherwise non-monitored room.

It was obvious from the body language that Tommy had a thing for Red, and Red had a thing for Tommy ... and Sophie was simply in the way.

Please, please, please, Dan began whispering toward the monitor as he zoomed the camera for a better look of Sophie's reaction. You don't want that punk; give him to Sticks. You want an experienced man ... you want ... me!

Dan had to laugh at his "logic"; drop the young muscular stud who doesn't have an ounce of fat one him, and come sleep with the more-than-half-again-your-age guy who struggles on an elliptical exercise machine an hour a day to work of the ham and chantrelles. Yeah...

Dan began wishing he'd installed more microphones to monitor the 3rd floor, but there simply hadn't been enough time.

And then it happened: Red pushed her way into Tommy's abode, slamming the door in Sophie's face.

Yes!

Dan watched for a moment more. Sophie looked about -- probably for prying eyes -- then moved a bit closer to the closed door. A moment passed ... she smiled ... she began laughing ... and she was gone.

Dan had a suspicion about what was going on, and what Sophie had been listening to. And, once again, Dan wished he'd installed more microphones



Dan slumped forward against the Lair's "Brain" -- yet another "bat cave" name he'd conjured, this one for a large folding table covered by the vast array of monitors, computers, and what-not that comprised the SecureStore's surveillance apparatus.

His forehead was pressed against the table's plastic surface, his slacks were open and down around his knees, his tightly gripped right hand was still around his slowing waning erection ... and he was spent.

Immediately after the incident with Tommy and the Redhead, Sophie had returned to her room. Dan hadn't expect to see anything, of course, but flipped one of the monitors over to the "Sophie Cam" anyway.

There was a distant noise -- possibly an explosion -- off in the City. Dan jumped up to check it out through the "window" he'd created in the concrete wall with some plexi-glas and a sledge hammer, but after seeing nothing particularly interesting, returned a few minutes later.

He heart jumped, and his skin crawled with goose bumps. He quickly grabbed the camera joystick -- then felt his heart drop as he remembered that the "apartment" cams were not zoomable.

Sophie was laid back upon her bed, bare below the waist, her hands between her parted thighs. She was unmistakably masturbating.

Dan moved closer to the monitor, staring.

She had an object in her hands -- Dan couldn't see what -- as she frantically writhed about the bed, burying her face into a pillow at one point.

Without even consciously thinking about it, Dan had unbuckled, unbuttoned, unzipped, and gone to work, imagining, of course, that his was the "object" inside Sophie.

As his own pleasure rapidly rose, he watched her fondle her clit, arch her back, roll this way and that. My god, he thought; she's gonna explode like a canister of TNT! He was finally able to see what she was using to enhance her enjoyment: it appeared to be ... a spoon? Yeah, a wooden or plastic stirring spoon. He probably would have laughed ...

Except that it was then that the ejaculations began, his mind suddenly lost to ecstasy; semen launched from him, splashing -- he was to learn later -- all about the bottom of the "Brain's" table. And ... he collapsed.

When his breathing had returned to him, when his heart had settled enough that he wasn't thinking, I'm having a heart attack, he looked back up to monitor to find Sophie quickly redressing. Dan scanned the other monitors, pressed some buttons; the entirety of Sally's people were leaving their apartments and heading for the Lounge.

Sophie went as well.

Dan took a moment to luxuriate in the aftermath of "having had Sophie" -- he'd "had" her before, but not like this -- and then, as it did sometimes, boldness -- buoyed by stupidity -- set in.



Dan went through his security routine at the stairwell door, entered and headed down Broadway toward the Lounge at the far end. As he went, he carefully looked for prying eyes but saw none; everyone, it seemed, was in the Lounge, and Dan was beginning to be able to her Sally's voice and some scattered laughter as he went.

He stopped outside Sophie's "apartment", hesitated, dashed in, and dashed out. He had a small bag of "things" he'd planned on distributing -- as "cover" for having come down to the 3rd Floor -- but instead turned and quickly left, knowing that no one would ever know he'd even been there.

Back on the 4th, in his bed, naked, with a handful of lotion-covered penis and an image of Sophie before his tightly closed eyes, Dan held the still wet spoon up to his nose ... and was as close to a woman as he'd been in close to a year.

.....

Dan and Sally (about Sophie)

"Government? Whadda ya mean, government?

They were standing on the roof of the SecureStore, under the fire suppression water tank. It was a retro' design, a big round metal tank, painted to look brick-like, standing 8 feet above the roof on a half dozen solid, steel legs. The building owner had put in when he'd been told that the new condo' complex was going to have the same retro feel. He'd hoped this little touch, and others that hadn't yet happened before the Bug struck, might keep the City government from continuing with their "eminent domain" condemnation and removal of the building.

Dan has found some 8 foot wide, dark-colored commercial netting in the 9th Floor space leased by a Nursery. He'd stretched it from one wall of the roof access, out around the water tower's legs, then back; he could now access the room and sit under the tower -- for some fresh air, or a different view of his new life -- without being seen by some "eagle eye" with a telescope, who might see him up here one day and start to wonder ... maybe even make a visit.

Dan called it "the Gazebo" -- it seemed like everything around here was getting names these days -- and he was entertaining Sally with Vienna Sausages, roasted over a propane camp stove, and the rest of yesterday's bottle of wine.

"Have you considered creating a government?" she repeated.

He looked at her with a look of total disbelief. "What the hell do we need a government for?"

"People want answers," she explained. "They want to make choices, make plans ... create things, or do things or --"

"They can do that."

"No, Dan ... they can't."

"Why can't they?"

"Because they have no security!" she said forcefully. She drew and released an exasperated breath, then softer, said, "Listen, Dan. They don't know what there next meal will be. They don't know if they will HAVE a next meal. Most of them are still wearing the same clothes you gave them that first day --"

"There was more," he cut in. "They should have taken --"

"Dan! They went through it all! They took what fitted." She threw her hand up to her chest and grabbed her tits. "For Christ's sake, Dan ... it's like the bra-burning days of the '70s, down there. You didn't give us any bras."

He smiled, then chuckled quietly to himself.

That drew a fierce expression. "Not ... funny."

He laughed, then apologized, then laughed again. He'd found and separated -- as he had with many things he thought may come of value -- at least three or four dozen brassieres in his pillaging of the independently owned units; he'd also found one box labeled "Assorted Mis-sorts" belonging to Second Second, a resale store almost within sight of SecureStore. But ... he liked nipples, and he'd chosen to hold them back for a future day.

He decided to blame it on the crooked business man who'd packed much of the top 3 floors with merchandise he was hiding from the bankruptcy judge. "The 'laughing sun' man didn't squirrel away bras. Sorry."

"What about the little storage rooms," she countered quickly, never one to be called light in common sense.

Dan hesitated for a moment, then said, "I'll go through them more thoroughly ... okay?"

She studied him, trying to decided whether he was just placating her, or making a serious offer. "Fine ... okay."

He pulled a smoking sausage off the end of an unfolded metal clothes hanger with a napkin and offered it to her.

"I really shouldn't."

Dan laughed again. "Why? Watching your weight?"

She glared again and spat out, "Spaghetti, Dan. They're all eating spaghetti down there. What kind of a message am I sending if I come back smelling like--"

"Jesus, Sally," Dan murmured, turning his back and looking out through the netting at the fires still burning in the City -- some new, some almost over two months old. "You made your point, okay!"

"No! No, I didn't, because you still haven't answered my question."

"What frickin' question?"

"Can we form a government?"

Before he realized what he was saying, he exclaimed, "We HAVE a government! It's called a MONARCHY ... and I'M the king!"

A long moment passed in silence. Dan didn't turn for her reaction. In fact, after a minute had past -- with still no sound but the last sausage, unattended, now beginning to crackle as it blackened beyond consumption -- he wasn't even sure she was still standing behind him.

Finally, she said softly, "Sophie wants to talk to you."

Dan spun quickly. Fuck!

She'd seen him! Or ... someone else had and told her. Either way, he was in the dog house ... with the Kentuckian he wanted to "know", and with the Oregonian he'd "know" so often, oh those many years ago.

Cool ... keep cool. Never admit to anything until you see or hear the evidence. Just because the cat has feathers in its mouth, that doesn't mean it ate the canary.

He feigned ignorance. "Sophie? Which one's she?"

Sally raised an eyebrow. "The brunette ...? The army brat with the smart salute ...? The one you accosted in her --"

Dan began to give her an oh, that one expression, then caught the last accusation. "I didn't accost her. I ... asked her a question! In fact, I asked her her name, and she ignored me!"

Sally had been trying to hold it in, but a sly smile slid across her lips. "God, you're so easy."

"Ha ha," he said sarcastically, then returned her smile. Then ... he remembered what he had done and, needing to know whether the jig was up, asked, "Okay ... so, what does she want to talk to me about?"

"Someone was in her room."

He diverted his eyes. Seeing the sausage being charred he pretended to care and lifted it out, examined it. "Who?"

"She doesn't know. All I know is, she' pissed, and she wants to talk to you about it."

"Why me?"

"I told you, Dan ... jeeez, listen for a moment. People are concerned. There's no privacy. No one knows what their rights or privileges are. You ... Dan, you're an absolute mystery ... even to me. Some people think you're a tyrant. You said it yourself ... this is a Monarchy, and you're --"

"I didn't mean that," he cut in quickly. He toyed with the fantasy that he was King, that he could have anything he wanted, any one he wanted; but deep down inside, he knew he just wasn't that way. He believed in rules -- the rule of law -- and rights and equality for all. He just ... well, he was in a position of power -- something he'd never enjoyed in nearly half a century; he wanted to feel it, taste it just a little bit, before someone knocked him off the throne.

"I know you didn't," Sally said almost immediately, sincerely. "Listen ... Dan. There are those who believe you're a tyrant ..."

She moved closer to him, close enough to lay a hand softly upon his arm. She hadn't touched him -- in anyway -- since he'd told her he'd killed people, and was ready to kill more if he had to. It was ... reassuring.

"... but there are also those who believe you are a godsend. You saved these people's lives."

He started to counter her, but she shushed him with a well known gesture from their past. "No ... you saved these people's lives. You may think that all you did was unlocked a gate ... but, Dan ... you opened a door. A door to a future that, whether it's build upon spaghetti or Vienna Sausages --"

Dan laughed, a short embarrassed laugh.

"It's a future," she continued, laying her other hand upon his chest and ending, "And in here, you know you did the right thing ... and you know you can continue to do the right thing."

He turned away, stared out at the City for a moment. He continued, choosing his words. "About the government idea. I think ... you have a good idea there. But ... I need some time ... to think about it."

"That seems fair."

"And ... I will continued inventorying lockers ... and he 'laughing sun' stash. Maybe I'll just ... say to hell with the rationing for one meal ... send down something ... you can taste."

She laughed. "They'll like that, Dan."

He turned back to her, conspicuously ogling her unbridled breasts. She'd worn a coat he'd retrieved for her, but it was unzipped and open; it was unusually warm this January afternoon, but still cold enough to swell her nipples nearly to the size of Hershey kisses. "I'm not sure what the bra problem is, of course."

She laughed again and quickly pulled her lapels together, beginning to zip the jacket up. "You are still a bad man, Dan Keel."

He laughed. "But ... I will see what I can do about getting the girls ..." he saw her raise an eyebrow "... ladies ... some bras."

"That right there is worth living in a monarchy ... almost."

They shared a chuckle, then -- with a devilish smile -- he said suggestively, "Why don't you put all the ... ladies' names down ... then get a list of all their bra sizes for me ... and I'll go --"

She began laughing hysterically. "Yeah ...! That's gonna happen! How about ... you get what ever you can find, and we'll scrounge through it ... find what we need."

They shared a moment, just laughing and studying one another.

Then Dan remembered the other issue ... and suddenly, he saw an opportunity. "And about Sophie. Why don't you tell her ... I will see her. Tomorrow --"

"Today, Dan," Sally cut in firmly. "She's ... very upset."

That was perfectly fine with Dan, of course, but he hesitated as if contemplating before saying, "Sure. I'll come down and get her."

"Get her?" Sally asked curiously.

Oops ... think fast. "Well ... it sounded ... personal. Does she really want to talk about this in front of the others?"

Sally cocked her head at him, knowingly. "Dan ... She's not into you, so don't go there."

"Hey, c'm'on. You're the only girl here for me, Sally, you know that." He lifted the end of the coat hanger up between them; the now charred sausage resembles a briquette more than a morsel. "I don't share my sausage with just anyone."

Smiles spread slowly, the laughter erupted, and they sat back down again to talk about the whole government idea. Dan's mind, however, was squarely set upon one thought and one thought only: sharing his "sausage" with lovely, dark haired Sophia Giada Moretti...

Jane

Sitting in her new 'apartment' Jane thought about the things that had taken place. Now it seemed like such a short amount of time. But when it happened when this all first happened it felt like an eternity. Her thoughts ran wild with her past as she laid there on her 'bed'. She remembered the showers, the hysteria that broke when they found they didn't get to keep their things. She honestly did not care any more. She had nothing left, she had no personal belongings only things that could and would keep her alive.

More images passed her mind. The rooms they had kept her in with numerous of other people. The bright lights, it had always been so bright. The word immune always being used in their presence. Yes that was when she realized she was now living in Hell. Her life had been what she deemed as successful. She loved her job, loved her duty, and had honored it till the end. Until they stopped her. Laying on the bed she sat up and looked around.

She couldn't stand being alone, having no one to talk to like she use to. She hated the few men that were here. The men who well she was sure at this point had one thing on their minds. It disgusted her, sex caused babies, babies needed food, had many needs, and well they were not really equipped for that. She wondered about Dan, wondered if he had medical supplies, things for the common cold, she wondered what all he was truly prepared for.

Although the people had a love hate relationship with him, they depended on him. That thought made her sick. She could not stand not doing anything. So what she had to clean a few times a day that was nothing. She was use to working fourteen plus hour days. She was used to having a life. Now though what was the point any more. What would they really live to see. Would they out live this, this what ever it was or would it out live them.

Shaking her thoughts she stood up. She needed to get out of this room, to get out of her head. Leaving her room she headed off to the sweat-shops. Looking around she shrugged going to the treadmill she began her run. She didn't have in mind how long or far she would run, probably till she couldn't anymore. In all she was 25, this was the time she was suppose to be in her prime.

Dan

It was ironic. Unit 7-14 was one of the last individually owned storage lockers Dan pilfered through because it had so much stuff in it. That didn't seem to make much sense, unless you understood why.

The "10x20s", which 7-14 was one of, had roll up doors, where as the "5x8s" -- which the "tenants" (which, for now, he was thinking of them as) lived in -- had hinged doors, just like your door at home, except that they opened outward, instead on inward.

The problem with 7-14 was that the renters had packed the unit absolutely to the walls, and, apparently, box stacks had tilted or outright collapsed against the door, and Dan simply couldn't get it open. But ... he'd found a solution.

Using a recently discovered come-along and block and tackle, Dan was slowly but surely pulling the big roll up door out away from the unit ... out into the aisle.

And then, it went!

The door, all in one piece, flew off -- he'd expected it to loosen, open a bit, creak and groan -- shooting out into the aisle and crashing to the floor -- and onto Dan.

There was breaking glass and clattering metal, and the sound of marbles or sand or pebbles spreading out all about him.

He laid there for a minute or two, cursing to himself and wondering whether he'd broken anything; then, when he realized blood was spreading across his face, he spent for a few more wriggling and squirming about until he was finally able to escape. He checked his head; he had a laceration just below his hairline, but it'd heal.

He was still a bit woozy when he saw it ... the answer to the Tower's future food problem: the locker was -- or had been before the outer dozen boxes had broken their fall on Dan's head -- full of hydroponic and raised gardening supplies. The "pebble" sound he'd heard were thousands of seeds -- he found peas and corn and beans and squash and things he couldn't even begin to identify -- that had escaped plastic snap lid containers. There were grow lights and pots and stakes and trowels and those cute little plastic identification thingies his grandmother had let him right the plant names on as a child.

He spend the rest of the day scooping and repackaging seeds, sweeping up broken glass, and restocking boxes.

He'd totally forgotten he had planned on meeting with Sophie -- he'd spent that first hour after Sally left digging through womens clothes in an effort to impress her with something nice, and now had totally forgotten to even see her. If she'd been pissed before ...

The only thing missing was soil. Of course, for the hydroponics, they wouldn't need soil; but there were enough seeded here to plant twenty acres out side. And while he had no intentions of going out side to plant a garden -- even if it hadn't been the tail end of January -- he thought that there might be a way to use the roof, if he could figure out how to continued to collect water, too.

He drew an excited breath. Presuming the New Police, or "invaders", or The bug didn't get him before March, Dan and the others were going to experience their first fresh food since Thanksgiving.

Jane

Jane was about twenty minutes in and about 9 miles out when she heard the sound. It sounded like something exploded. Stopping the treadmill she looked around. She had a light sweat her gym shorts thankfully were not sticking to her, but the tank top was clinging to her and driving her nuts.

Shaking her head she went back to her run. She really missed running outside, being able to see the world pass her by while she ran. Shaking her head she sped the treadmill up and pushed herself harder. She would run to exhaustion if she had to. She had come to hate this place, yeah it was haven, it was a safe place, one of the few left. Her instincts still wanted her to fight though. She had enough battle wounds as it was that she honestly didn't need more, but she was proud to have them.

Well most of them. One was the length of her neck went from behind her ear and down to her collar bone. She refused to think about it, to think about him. Shaking the thoughts she went back to her run. Sweat now seemingly pour off her skin as she did. She would be sure to talk to Dan about a boxing bag, something to take the ache away.

People needed ways to vent, some needed friends which would be nice, but most of her men were dead now. If not by the infection then by something worse. Some people wanted to hit things to kill something, which was fine, you just had to know when and where to do this. Others just wanted to scream and cry and fight. Well seeing as they were now all living in close quarters and most people could not stand eating the same thing day in and day out, tensions were running high.

As her thoughts enveloped her, she noticed a few people come into the gym, she really didn't mind. Sometimes the company was nice. Her nature was the sweat and the pain of a longs day work and today she would be damned if she didn't get just that. In all she had been a Marine. Had done so many things, things she couldn't talk about, and had gotten a job most told her she wouldn't. As an MP. That thought made a smile touch her lips.

There were so many things she missed. Shaking the thoughts once more she zoned out and just ran.

Dan (and Jane

Dan awoke with a start and remembered: Sophie! Fuck!

He crawled out of bed, plopped his feet to the cold deck, and just shook his head. He wasn't concerned about having simply missed an opportunity to be alone with the beauty who -- he reminded himself-- had asked to see him! No, his concern was Sally's comment -- "She's very upset" -- and the fact that since he'd blown Sophie off, she wasn't likely to even want to talk to him now, let alone wander off to the upper floors with out Sally, or someone else, escorting her.

He proceeded with his morning routine: coffee and cold cereal (he was getting used to powdered milk); a thorough review of the monitors showing the 360 degree view of the Outside World; and finally, cycling through the interior cameras, for a "hello" peek at the "tenants" of the 3rd floor.

He was searching for someone in particular. Somehow, he hadn't noticed Jane until now, despite her ravishing beauty and sex appeal. (All he could figure was, with the rather unflattering exercise and gym clothes he'd provided that first day, plus the initial "shyness" some had shown not just toward him but to the other men and women, he had just simply not picked up on her.)

He caught sight of her now entering the Sweat Shop. He hurried to finish his tasks, snatched up a small bag -- he found he was better received down stairs if on each trip he brought a few trinkets with him -- and hurried downstairs.



Could you be anymore of an idiot?

He'd made his way from the stairwell, down Broadway, and into the Sweat Shop, where he proceeded to freeze, open mouthed, and ogle.

Jane had just stepped off the treadmill. She seemed to become more beautiful -- erotically so -- every time Dan saw her. She was almost black haired, with a shapely body and deeply tanned skin, despite the current winter period.

Still lacking a brassiere, as nearly all the women were, her sweat-drenched tank top -- of which Dan now wished he'd passed out more of -- clung to her glossy full, still-heaving breasts like a second skin; her dark, exertion-hardened nipples pressing forward as if they themselves desperately needing to be released for a breath of air.

Dan lifted his gaze -- to find her eyes staring back into his. And that was when the first blush flooded through his neck and face. He popped out quickly, "Hi."

She headed for the door, using a hand towel to wipe the sweat from her face ... neck ... chest ... chest.

Dan scooted aside, trying his best to keep his eyes up, up, up.

Jane stopped, their shoulders nearly touching, hesitated, then backed up a step. She gave him a devilish grin. "Were you sizing me up, Dan?"

Oblivious -- and nearly trembling with nervousness -- Dan only managed to respond, "Huh?"

"Were you sizing me up," she repeated, her smile widening. "For a bra?"

Before he knew what he was doing, his eyes dropped for an up close look at her bosom, then quickly diverted. "No. No, no ... I uh, I wasn't ... I didn't."

Jane laughed, almost a belly laugh. "I'm messing with you, Dan."

Again, his face exploded in heat.

"I heard you could get us bras ... maybe some other stuff. More panties would be nice. Nicer ... panties than those gramma panties."

"Oh, sure ... yeah." His heart was pounding. He could smell her, smell that incredible scent that comes from a woman when she exerts herself ... whether pounding her feet onto the belt of a treadmill, or gyrating her naked body over the groin of her lover. "I, um ... What ... what ...?"

He glanced down to her bosom again, then quickly back up. "What size ...you know ..."

He could hardly breath, let alone speak. What the hell is wrong with you? You've been with beautiful women, had beautiful women. Well, okay, not this beautiful ... but relatively close. Sally. Yes! Sally, she's a babe ... a beauty ... a ... a...

Even in his own mind he was a wreck. Stop thinking, say something. He quickly blurted out, "Cup and measurement."

Jane's eyebrow raised, her smile widening again ...

Jane

Jane stood there smiling looking at Dan. He was so easy to toy with, so easy to make him blush. Grinning even wider she gave him a devilish look.

"You tell me Dan..... What size do you think I am.?"

She all but purred to him as she pressed the towel down her chest. Not only to just torment him but also in an attempt to wipe some of the sweat away. Of course that was useless..

"Oh and while you are thinking about that, do you think we could have a bigger room for the sweat-shops. I mean this is great, but there are still some things I am wondering if might be hidden away somewhere. Like a punching bag....and maybe a water fountain of sorts, like those water jugs ya know. Something so people don't dehydrate when the work up...a...very..long..over..due.......sweat."

She smiled looking at him standing there. Taking the towel she pulled all of her hair to one side as she wrapped the towel around in an attempt to dry some of it off. She really had no cares left. He could look at her, it didn't bother her, of course she wouldn't complain if he ever decided to hit the gym with her though either.

Maria

I sat in my bed, legs tangled in a mess of covers, panting softly holding my head in my hands, trying to shake the images that had jolted me from my sleep. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, calming my racing heart as the cloying nightmare finally lossens it's grip on my senses. Lifting my head slowly, I peer around, taking in the small space I had claimed as my own. It was still such an unnerving experience to wake up here. I open my eyes from sleeping and I still expect to see the sun streaming through my bedroom window, luxuriating in the plush sheets and pillows of my own bed. Even after all this time. I laugh softly at my self and the sound of my own voice is at least a little reassuring.

Sighing, I run a hand through my tangled mass of silky black curls, slightly dampened from sweat. Kicking my feet free from my blankets, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and summon the strength to get through one more day. I'm taking it one day at a time now. Nothing is certain, I've learned that the hard way. Standing, I shuffle groggily over to the neatly folded pile of clothes I was given, choose one of the not so flattering sweat suits, grab my toothbrush and a towel and make my way to "Heaven". "Heaven...Ha!", I say to myself with a little sarcastic snort as I make my way out the door. I stop just outside the door to the apartment next to mine. It's Amanda's room...Amanda who has been almost a saving grace to me in these long weeks. She's kept me sane and been kinder to me than I thought possible for anyone to be, considering. I felt so lucky to have at least one person to look to for a comforting hug, and even a laugh now and then. I reach my hand to knock, but stop myself realizing it's still quite early and I appear to be one of the few awake at this hour. I decide to wait until after I've had my shower and found a bit to eat.

I still feel quite nervous around several of the people who've also found haven here, mostly the men..but a few of the women, as well. I try to keep my steps as quiet and inconspicous as possible as i make my way past several apartments, attempting to draw no attention to myself. Finally reaching the bathroom, I push the door in and peer around, quite startled not to find the space occupied at all. Heaven had become a bit of gathering place, though I generally avoided the area unless absolutely neccessary. Most of the reason is shyness, but the overwhelming factor is fear. Almost an irrational fear, because even I am not sure exactly what I'm afraid OF.

Stripping quickly and ducking into the shower, I adjust the water until it's as hot as I can make it. I stand there under the steady stream, closing my eyes, feeling my muscles relax instinctively as the warm water flows through my hair, down my back. Taking advantage of the rare moment of solitude, I take a little longer than usual, letting my fingers wander over my body, a small smile curling my lips as i take myself in, slender legs, honey-hued and glistening under the shower. Working the lather over my breasts, over the taut plane of my tummy, between my thighs. Teeth sinking into my lower lip, I let my fingers linger there, indulging myself in a little much needed stress-relief. Losing myself in the sensation of my own touch, my memories, for several long moments, I'm suddenly brought back to the present time by the sound of muffled voices and soft laughter as a few people enter the room. Blushing, I rinse the remaining lather from my body and reach for my towel. I dry myself quickly and dress, listening to the morning ritual of the two young men who'd invaded my private time. Pulling my hair up into a messy ponytail from the band on my wrist, I walk past the two with a shy smile and a soft "good morning", my blush deepening at their kind responses and approving, yet leering gazes.

Oustside the door I realize I'd been holding my breath and let it out in a rush, once again laughing at my self. I notice a few more people up and moving so I stop again at Amanda's door, but I realize that right now I just want to be alone with own thoughts. Back in my room I make my bed and fling myself atop the covers, laying back, one arm over my eyes as I let loose a long, low sigh of frustration. I mentally chastise myself for the foolishness of my close call. "God, if i'd actually moaned and been heard!!" And I was so, so close to that point, I think to myself with a faint smile. I go over in my head the people i'd met or noticed since being here. Dan, of course. Our "Saviour". He was handsome, quite handsome, with that little glint in his eye. Always so mischevious looking. And Sally...can't forget Sally. I can't bear to think where...or what I'd be with out her. There was Amanda, who'd become almost like a mother to me...or maybe a big sister. I laughed again as I imagined her whapping me one for referring to her as a "mother figure". And there was Sophie, who I'd noticed several times before. She's unable to miss really, so beautiful...but I also detected something else. Not dangerousness really, but something hardened in her eyes. I'd noticed her more than once in what appeared to be quite heated conversation with Sally. She looked like a lady who could really get things done!

Sitting up again, I decide to go see if Amanda is up and about yet. Rapping my fist lightly upon her door, I hear her yell out lightly, "One moment!" and before I know it there she is. Her wide smile brightens her face as she pulls me into one of her exuberant hugs. I wrap my arms around her small frame and squeeze gently, grateful for the contact from another.

"Well come in! I'd offer you a bacon and egg breakfast, but alas I've not been able to make it to market today", she says with playful wink.

"Ughh..no mention of such things! Please!", I say with a laugh, perching on the edge of her bed, watching as she gathers her things to have her morning shower, pushing back errant strands of blonde hair from her face and tucking them behind one ear.

"Well, I see someone is quite the early riser", she says, taking in my wet hair and clean clothes.

"Yeah, I don't know...bad dreams, I guess. But I'll hang out while you have your shower, and then we can find something for breakfast. Hey who knows! Maybe Dan the Miraculous has managed to wrangle up a chicken or two and we can at least have those eggs you so unkindly mentioned!" I say with a chuckle.

Pffttt..Yeah..right!" she says with a roll of her crisp blue eyes, grabbing my hand and pulling me from her room with a giggle, leading me toward Heaven.