Author's Note:
Here we go, chapter five already!
I've come to the realization that the story is becoming quite complicated with the amount of sub-stories and characters. I'm working on a solution even as I type this (well actually, I'm in the middle of answering questions for my youtube video).
Enjoy!

"I can't believe I'm even saying this, but I can't hold it in any more. I want you," purred the chocolate beauty seductively, allowing the slip of a night dress fall from her body, revealing her buxom breasts and black panties. Her tongued probed her bottom lip slowly, a bead of sweat making its way down her cleavage in agonising slowness, trapping his entire attention in that one moment.
Slipping a finger inside the waistband, she drew it out a few inches, then let it snap back audibly, winking at him as she began to walk towards him. "I want you here, right now. Hold out your hands, big boy."

Holding out his shaking hands, he felt Adrienne's firm breasts press into his hands, their warmth and fullness making him open and close his mouth like a fish on water. But she didn't stop there. Adrienne took him by his elbows and leaned in, bringing her lips to his neck while her leg moved up close to his manhood, the warmth of her thigh driving him absolutely crazy.

"Please… please… please," he begged, his eyes closing. He longed to feel her body up against his, for the two to become one.

A jolt woke him out of his dream, and Jorge Orwell nearly flipped out from the noise.

Having awoken to the sounds of alarms and flashing red lights, Jorge tried to cover the violent light and sound from his sensitive senses as he struggled to pull his blankets off. Shaking his head, his shock of black hair now having grown to what he deemed an unreasonable length, he stared blearily around the long warehouse
"What's going on?" wondered Jorge, his head only beginning to come out of his wonderful dream. A short, olive-skinned young woman with long, curly black hair wearing a gypsy scarf threw a small package at him. Flashing her very dark eyes in annoyance at his lack of movement, Zohharrah's bangles jingled as she quickly strode towards the bunk bed and pulled the sleepy Jorge up. "Get up, get up! Something has gone wrong; we've got to get to Elevator Eleven as soon as possible."

Pulling up a pair of technician overalls he had picked up while staying in the Resistance's warehouse, identical to Zohharrah's own, Jorge dressed quickly and tore open the package, revealing an old but sturdy service revolver. Grasping the weapon with awe, he jumped as a flying holster smacked him square on the forehead.
"Hurry up, we don't have much time, the others are in trouble."

Zohharrah pulled Jorge into a run, explaining the situation while they raced out of the warehouse and pelted down the corridor to where Elevator Eleven connected to their floor. "Someone screwed up somewhere; the guards were far more ready than we thought. Adrienne and Timothy got in a damn fire-fight with a bunch of the guards; I heard it over the receiver. Neither Havian nor Aimee was mentioned, so they should be coming shortly as far as I can tell."

"So what are we going to do?"

Zohharrah looked at him pointedly, her lips tight with worry. At first Jorge hadn't trusted the gypsy girl, having listened carefully in his history classes now and then. He had been fed stories on how the end of the world had been caused by the Romani and the Jewish people, each child being told to loathe the memory of each of the 'Destroyer' races, but Aimee had sat him down during their third evening in the Resistance and enlightened him on the error of his ways. It was only after that did Jorge finally start paying attention to Zohharrah, and learnt that gypsies were far different to the baby-sacrificing cultists the Council had made them out to be. Zohharrah's great-grandfather had been a prominent rom baro leading a large clan of gypsies that operated in California. The rom baro had conned a rich American businessman out of his family's reserved home in Undercity, and had quickly moved himself, his wife and their single son into the facility.

While neither of the 'Destroyer' races had many representatives, the Council didn't feel the need to entirely quash the remainder as long as they kept their culture hidden from the public eye. No one really knew why, least of all Zohharrah's family, but rumour had it that it was the same rom baro that had also uncovered each of the security codes to Undercity's precious generators and air cycling units, and that if the Council ever dared to make a move against the gypsies, then they would effectively take out the rest of the population with them.

As it turned out, the rumours were true; Zohharrah had laughed about them when she had been interrogated and even began to recite a few codes from memory.

Clearing his head, Jorge stared dumbly at the firearm in his hand and he ran as fast as he could to keep up with the agile gypsy girl, her bangles and bracelets barely making a noise as she almost seemed to fly down the corridor. Nearing the lift, Zohharrah fumbled with a small pouch which she had been carrying on her back, pulling out two welder's shades. Handing one to Jorge, she pulled off her scarf, freeing her long curls before pulling the welder's shade on while Jorge followed suit. Now they both looked just like any technician, going home from a day of work.

"Slip the gun into your pocket, if we get there too late we don't want to be caught," ordered Zohharrah, doing the same with her own pistol. Neither one was trained at firearms, but at the very least they could provide a distraction if need be. "Floor Twelve is likely to be buzzing with activity right now, and to be honest I doubt none of us will be injured, or even killed."
Kneeling down next to the elevator doors, Zohharrah stared thoughtfully at the wall for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth between various spots on the wall, as if she expected it to fall away and reveal its secrets to her very thoughts. At last she stood, then lined one of her steel-toed boots with the wall. Giving it an almighty kick, Jorge was surprised to see the metal simply flake away, as if it was just plaster. "Fake wall," explained Zohharrah, not even looking at Jorge. "Each elevator has them; they were built so that the technicians can access the surveillance in each lift. You're supposed to just dig into the side of a panel with a knife and slide it to the side, but time is of the essence."

Peering into the wall cavity, Jorge watched as Zohharrah deftly brushed aside a sea of cables and tapped in a series of numbers into a glowing keypad. Immediately a green light flashed, and a small archaic monitor descended slowly into the cavity. While much of the tech in Undercity have been upgraded, or at least improved in some way, it seemed this was one gadget that never was. The black screen was empty except for a small, blinking green bar.

"A command line?" Jorge asked incredulously. "Even the computers in the school are more sophisticated that this." Zohharrah didn't bother to answer, so Jorge kept silent as the gypsy punched in a series of commands, her fingers dancing over the keys while line after line of code was entered and activated, sending more and more lights and letters cascading down the screen in a bright mash, but Zohharrah seemed to know exactly what she was doing. Within just a few seconds, the alarm lights flashing down the corridors, as well as the klaxons themselves, were turned off. A second later the screen jumped to life again, this time displaying a rudimentary map of what appeared to be Floor Twelve.

Hitting a few more keys, a series of red dots started to blink slowly down the corridors, some moving faster then others. Another set of commands then made the map display several blue dots; two moving side-by-side down the longest corridor to Elevator Eleven while the other two were already at the elevator doors. "I hacked the cameras," explained Zohharrah to an amazed Jorge. "We don't have much time; those two at the elevator can't head down without the other two; the elevator takes too long getting back up."

Jorge studied the map intently, recognising specific intersections from the planning session in the Resistance's headquarters as well as his own reconnaissance of the area made previously. "Why don't they go take Elevator Fourteen from Floor Thirteen first up to Floor Twenty-three, then drop down to Floor Seven on Elevator Three? From there we can just drop down one level through a chute and that's it. Won't that keep the guards from finding our trail?"

"It was an idea Adrienne and I had bounced around previously, but it left too much for chance. If the elevators were not already at the floors, and if there were guards patrolling each corridor already just in case, then…" Zohharrah trailed off, blinking as a full four red dots disappeared savagely, before shaking her head and turning to Jorge. "You head up to Floor Twelve and help out the guys, tell them the new plan. I'm going to hit Floor Twenty-three and make sure that elevator is waiting for them. Hopefully as long as we stay one step ahead the guards will find it too difficult to track us."

Zohhrrah stood, and grabbed Jorge's wrist for a moment before letting go. "Good luck," she murmured, before breaking her grip and pelting away.

Standing up, Jorge hit the button on the elevator while Zohharrah ran down the corridor towards the next set of elevators.

A few floors above them, the situation was quickly escalating into a possible bloodbath as countless guards began to give chase to the Runner and her cargo. The guards had first come driving their small caddies, zooming down the corridors towards the running pair but they were easily taken out; a popped tire at high-speeds meant incapacitation and serious injury to everyone aboard as the caddies would roll over and over until erupting into flames. Then they came on foot, hiding behind the burning wreckage as they sought cover from the precise death Havian would bring to them. Sprays of lead and fire peppered the walls of the corridors like the storms of Armageddon itself as the blonde-haired Havian jumped behind a steel garbage bin, shots ringing off the metal surface as he sank down onto one knee, pulling the balaclava off his face and bringing the scope of his M1 to his right eye.

Aiming down the sight, he saw his next target; a portly guard who had ducked inside a doorway to one of the homes along the corridor. The poor guard had made a inaccurate estimate of his own body size and more then a little of his belly was sticking out of cover, as well as his left foot. At a distance of fifty feet, it wasn't a difficult shot at all.

"Hey princess, can you please make a fucking move on already, I'm getting tired all this," Havian shouted, not even waiting to see if his shot took the guard in his exposed foot or not. Turning around, he ran after Aimee and the trolley whose progress had been far too slow for Havian's liking.

"Stop calling me that! I'm moving as fast as I can, give me a break!" Aimee's violet eyes flashed in annoyance as she turned to scream over the guard's returning volley of fire at Havian, who began to chuckle as his long legs quickly brought him back up close to the trolley. "This stuff weighs a ton and I've been pushing it for a while now, its so far to the elevators."

"Learn to shoot and next time I'll push the damn trolley," Havian smirked, unhooking a small cylinder from his belt and spinning a dial on it. Rolling it on the ground towards the guards, Havian laughed out loud as the home-made grenade exploded between them and the guards, bringing both Aimee and him down to their knees as the ground shook in anger. "That was a bloody beauty! Maybe not as nice as you, hot-stuff, but nice all the same!"

"Can you just shut the hell up, lecher? We're running for our lives here and all you can do is chat away!"

"Oooh, is the little princess getting angry? I love them when they're feisty," winked Havian,

"This is not the time, Havian!" Aimee screamed, the metal floor crying out in pain as bullets flew by and ricocheted off it, only to spin harmlessly upwards. It was if it were a symphony and each shot was a new note in a dazzling orchestra of flying death. The guards couldn't shoot too accurately at such a distance; their standard-issue weapons were just too cheap and not suitable at all for these kinds of pursuits. Ruger MK IIs were the most readily pistols for the guards as ammunition was plentiful, but even the MGV-176 sub-machine guns that was given to guards in emergency situations weren't anywhere near as accurate or powerful as the old M1 Garand Havian had pinched from the Council's private vault, all they had was a far higher rate-of-fire. It wasn't that the Council didn't have firearms that were more suitable, in fact they had at least one copy of every weapon made between the early 1950s to the late 2010s but when ammunition usage was factored in, the Council found that .22 Long Rifle chambered weapons were the most suitable for the guards.

Throwing another makeshift grenade behind him, Havian shook his head, trying to empty out the sounds of gunfire as he ran. Aimee was almost out of breath but the sight of the elevator, barely eighty yards away was a welcome sight. Gritting her teeth in determination, Aimee pushed the trolley with all her might, willing herself to get there faster. Throwing his rifle back over his shoulder by the strap, Havian added his own strength. Immediately the trolley sped up, almost flying as they hurtled at the elevator doors. Never before had the sleek grey walls and familiar tubular design been more welcome to either of the rebels before.

"Almost there, princess. Just a little more and we'll be sipping ice-cold water together down in the utility room," Havian puffed, flashing a smile as he ran. In all honesty he knew that this would be the Killing Ground now; the elevator would take time to reach them and by then it'll be likely that only bullet-riddled corpses would be waiting as the doors popped open. There was little he could do to prevent that, except maybe make himself useful to the cause just one last time. Taking off his belt of make-shift grenades, Havian readied himself.

The guards, seeing as their prey were about to escape opened fire again, not even bothering to stop as their disc-fed magazines pumped thousands of bullets into the air. The sound of bullets whizzing past their ears became a whirlwind of noise, even blocking out the sound of their footsteps. Pain blossomed in Havian's legs and arms as he took the final steps to the elevator. Hot agony tore through him, a guttural cry of anguish escaping his body even as he threw himself behind Aimee, turning to face the oncoming storm. Havian knew that he stood no hope against such a torrent but this was his only opportunity. Using the last reserves of strength, Havian flung the bandoleer as far as he could. He smiled gently, the adrenaline pumping through his body vanishing with the realisation of what was to come. The bandoleer exploded, taking out part of the corridor's columns and collapsing part of the ceiling, screams erupting from the floor above. Water mains that ran between the floors burst, leaking a great torrent of water down onto the floor so that it spread out further and further. Havian sighed once more before collapsing onto the ground in a bloody pile, blood bubbling on his lips while the expanding pool of water began surround him.

Behind them, the elevator doors slowly opened, revealing Jorge standing in a dark jumpsuit. Taking a few steps out of the elevator, he took in the scene around him in a single glance. Nodding to Aimee, he gestured for her to move behind him even as the remaining guards peeked out from behind the rubble created from the explosion and readied their guns. In that single moment Jorge seemed like a giant to Aimee; standing tall and proud in front of the elevator, absolutely sure of himself as the guard's fire peppered the inside of the lift. In one movement he pulled out a revolver from his hip holster and pumped a few shots down the corridor, causing the guards in pursuit to duck into cover. Aimee pushed the trolley once more until it let out an almighty clang as it made contact with the back of the elevator. Turning, she gasped in horror at the sight of Havian.

Taking the full brunt of a bullet storm meant even body armour would be next to worthless in this situation, and Havian only wore a padded vest which barely blunted the impact of the small .22 rounds. Dozens of bloody wounds peppered him all over, having shredded his jumpsuit until it was barely pieces of ragged cloth. Shards of bone poked through the skin on his left elbow and right shin; the shattered remains of his elbow especially horrific as it seems to drip and fall apart with every gurgling breath Havian took. Aimee could barely stand to watch him struggle just to bring oxygen into his punctured lungs, his eyes full of pain and woe as looked back at her. One especially gruesome hit had opened up the side of his face; ripping his cheek open like a fishmonger guts his produce. Blood quickly pooled up in the hole, filling his mouth with blood so that the poor man had to weakly spit out blood while trying to swallow in air. It tore her heart to shreds just to see Havian like that. From all the people at the Resistance whom Aimee had met and tried to socialise with, Havian had been the one to show her around and who ended up hounding her every footstep. Adrienne had laughed her head off when Aimee had come to her with concerns about his behaviour, waving aside Aimee's worries and telling her to just chill out.

"Y-Y-You're g-gonna be alright... just hang on, we'll get you back to base," Aimee promised as her eyes began to tear up, dropping one knee into the growing pool of blood and holding onto one of Havian's bloody hands, the pinky digit shot clean off.

Jorge placed one hand on Aimee's right shoulder, lightly pulling her away. "Come on Aimee, we've got to get the fuck out of here. Those guards aren't going to stay quiet for much longer."

"We're not leaving him!"

Jorge looked down at Havian's glassy eyes, the stubborn bastard refusing to give up. Jorge had to hand it to him though; Havian certainly knew how to take a bullet for his friends.

"Alright then, we'll take him with us. I'll drag him up and onto the trolley, you try and get some bandages and painkillers. Least we can do is try and stabilise him for now," Jorge stated, hissing as one of the guards pulled out their pistol and shot at him, only missing by a few inches. "Let's go, now!"

Picking up Havian by his arms, Jorge grimaced as the man groaned in pain as he was pulled into the elevator while Aimee frantically opened several boxes on the trolley, pulling out bits and pieces as she went. Smacking the elevator controls with one hand, Jorge dumped Havian on the trolley and got to work immediately with Aimee; ripping off Havian's jumpsuit and wrapping each oozing wound with as many bandages as they could. Tearing off the plastic packaging on a dozen syringes, Jorge whooped with joy when he finally found the right one.

"Here, we go; just give him a little stab in the heart and he should be all set for now!"

"Aren't you being a little too cheerful?" Aimee asked, peering curiously at the syringe. The elevator grinded into movement; the single light flickering as the ancient mechanical unit began to slow ascent. With each passing second they gained a precious head-start on any pursuers but it also brought Havian one more step closer to death. They didn't have much time left until he began to bleed out so Jorge had to take an insane risk. Gripping the syringe carefully just above where he hoped Havian's slowly-dying heart was, Jorge raised the syringe above his shoulder and slammed it back down, piercing straight through the thin fabric of the jumpsuit and into flesh. Immediately Havian's entire body twitched from head-to-toe, his eyes briefly opened before closing again while his hands began to spasm into fists and back again.

"What was that?" Aimee screamed, holding down Havian's arms while looking closely at his face. "What the hell did you inject him with?"

"Something Zohharrah and I talked about during the week. Adrienne thought I should know all the details about that magical liquid, just in case something went wrong during this operation. Dangerous, but works in these situations; a mix of morphine, adrenaline, recombinant erythropoietin and seriac-" The elevator's mechanisms hiccuped, causing Jorge to stop talking and check the monitors above the controls.

"But what does it all mean..." demanded Aimee, but the elevator shuddered to a stop after moving only a single floor.

"What's going on, why'd the elevator stop so soon? Havian's injured!" Aimee jumped towards the controls, but Jorge blocked the way; his build completely blocking any access to the controls.

"We can't go straight down, the guards are definitely tracking this elevator. Zohharrah said we're gonna have to make a few detours first; we're gonna take an elevator up to Floor Twenty-three before heading down again. Zohharrah's waiting for us up there, getting the elevator ready for us."

"Wait, what about Adrienne and Tim? They're stuck without us," Aimee demanded, pointing at the ground beneath them, as if to illustrate her point. At the speed that the elevators ran, it would take far too long for Adrienne and Tim to wait for a lift and meet them.

"We don't have a choice; if we take this back down then we'll be caught by the guards. If we don't, then Adrienne and Tim will have to wait for the elevator to be called back to them," Jorge sprayed a millilitre of morphine into the air before injecting it into Havian's neck, the deathly man sighing as the pain-killing drugs immediately got to work. "We've got to accept the fact that Adrienne has been in these sorts of situations before and probably knows more about what to do then we do. You trust her, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll do what I say and come with me. We've got to get this stuff back to base as soon as possible, but first we need to make sure we're not going to be followed."

Aimee huffed in anger but didn't say anything; she didn't like being treated like a kid, especially by Jorge who wasn't that much older then her, but he did have a point. They had their duty and would perform it; worrying about Adrienne and Tim would just distract them. Not only that; Havian was going to die at this rate and if they stopped or went back then he'd definitely expire before any real attention can be given to him and Aimee couldn't let that happen. She'd noticed how Havian had stepped in front of her, shielding her from the guard's fire and the thoughts that it had provoked inside her were making her head spin.

Jorge noticed the grim look on Aimee's face but said no more; instead he tried to stop his hands from shaking while he reloaded his revolver. In truth he had prepared himself when coming up to meet with Aimee and Havian; whispering words of encouragement, drawing and holstering the revolver quickly and even practising the painful pistol-whip. He'd been hoping Adrienne would have been there to see him, so that she'd think that he was brave or especially tough as he'd calmly walked out of the elevator and casually fired at the guards pinning them. He'd done it, but instead of Adrienne only Aimee and an unconscious Havian had been present and Aimee had been far too preoccupied with Havian's injuries.

Looking down at the rifle lying on the floor, Jorge bent over and picked it up before offering it to Aimee. "Which would you prefer: revolver or rifle?"

Aimee glanced from one gun to the other, before stopping on Havian. "I... don't think I can. I don't want to kill anyone."

"But the guards are going to shoot at you whether or not you have a weapon any way. You may as well arm yourself just in case." Jorge tried to press the revolver into her hand, but Aimee just pulled away.

"It's fine, Jorge. I'll just push the trolley and Havian; you can cover us and do what you've got to do."

Jorge nodded, unclipping a few magazines from Havian's bullet-riddled belt and attaching them to his own. Turning to Aimee, she nodded twice and braced herself to start moving the trolley. Counting down on his hands from the count of five, Jorge pressed the button to open the doors.

The sight of emergency crews and worried civilians met them; the loud noises of shouting and drilling surprising them. A small horde of mechanics had been called to the floor to fix the broken pipe mains with whatever tools they had scrounged up on their way. It wasn't often that so many pipes had to be fixed in one go and the loss of so much water so quickly was especially damaging to the Undercity's infrastructure. Not only did it mean water being cut off from certain areas but it also posed a hazard to those people on the floor below; at the current rate of water gushing out of the pipes and falling below, the entire floor could be flooded with at least five inches of water. If people shut the bulkheads on their doors and if the market area shut down the main entrance, the water could rise even higher. Current estimates stated that the eastern section could have up to two feet of water if doors were being sealed.

Signalling to Aimee to start moving as the first of the mechanics turned to regard the occupants of the elevator, Jorge ran out and turned the rifle on each of the mechanics in turn, sending them into a panic until they broke, running away as fast as they could. Those who had been standing closer to him began to whimper and sat on the floor; their oil-streaked faces begging Jorge not to shoot. Jorge had known some of these people before; he'd stolen their manuals when he was younger and had even bumped into one or two of them during his brief stint working as Adrienne's assistant. Aimee hurtled past them with Havian balanced precariously on the boxes. Jorge waited a minute before running after her, waving back to the mechanics who blew a sigh of relief before radioing the guards and getting back to work. Jorge didn't give a damn about the mechanics; the guards would have a hell of a time trying to catch them now, chasing them from floor-to-floor but would never expect them to go up and up before going all the way to Floor Seven. They were safe.

Nearly an hour of running and threatening had passed before Jorge, Aimee, Zohharrah and the unconscious Havian had all-but flown the now-rickety trolley into the base, blood, tears and sweat pouring from each one respectively. It had been a breeze for the younger pair to meet up with Zohharrah at Floor Twenty-one; only one guard ever bumped into them and at the sight of the M1 in Jorge's hands, he had turned tail and fled as fast as his short legs would carry him. They occasionally heard passing remarks and radio reports about a skirmish in progress down in the lower floors; the news had fed them hope and spirit, each update reminding them that Adrienne and Tim were still fighting back. It had been a tough operation for them and adapting to the new plan had taken a lot out of all of them. Havian had to be dealt with; his condition worsening progressively as they made their way back home.

Rolling the trolley through the warehouse's main doors, Zohharrah whipped her head around, looking around while Jorge levered the door back into its locked position using the hand-crank.

"Where the fuck is Jeremiah?" Zohharrah demanded, her every word dripping with rage. "How the hell am I supposed to operate on this arse unless someone plays nurse for me."

"Maybe he's gone to work or something; the Medi-staff would be calling an emergency meeting after the break-in so he's probably over with them," offered Aimee, leaning over to check Havian's wounds. Probing the bloodied bandages, she peeled back to reveal the wound on his left arm. "And it looks like his bleeding has either slowed down or stopped."

Jorge ran over to her and looked down at the deathly-pale gunman, checking his pulse against the cracked clock on the wall closest to them. "His heart is pumping the blood too slowly, its at a pretty dangerous level now. Zohharrah, how much longer does he have?"

"No idea. The formula you gave him earlier helped him stay alive this long but I really don't know how we're going to deal with this; he's lost far too much blood and judging by the wounds on his chest its fair to say most of his organs have been pierced." Zohharrah sighed, then gestured to Jorge to help her. Pale as bone, Havian was carted into the infirmary by Jorge and Zohharrah, the latter immediately donning an almost-white coat and rubber gloves.

Jorge threw down his weapons and put on his own pair of gloves before waving Aimee away from the partitioned-off area of the warehouse. "We've got to work quickly and stabilise him somehow; can you stand watch near the front and wait until Adrienne or someone else comes along?"

"I guess..." Aimee said, her face downcast. Havian could die at any second now and there was nothing she could do. Nothing at all.

"Is he going to be okay?"

"I did the best I could but I don't really think it'll make a difference in the end, miss. He's to die in any case. Ain't like the NCR to forgive criminals; he'll be strung up and left for the geckos."

Ears? Check. Two ears still working, as far as he could tell.

"He isn't a criminal! It was a set-up, right from the start; the mine had to be blown to get rid of the raiders that the Dear Johns were supplying," the first voice replied indignantly. That was Rain's voice and she didn't sound pleased at all.

Brain? Check. If he could still recognise people and access memories then his brain was working. Or at least partially working.

"Not according to the President. But anyway, I'm just a surgeon. I've no interest in politics or the such," the second voice answered. Opening his eyes, Wreythe saw a tall man with spidery fingers and a white beard putting away a pair of pliers and a roll of bandages.

Eyes? Check. Focus was still a bit off but it was good enough for now.

Fingers? Still attached; all ten of them reporting no damage.

Legs?

Dyson Wreythe sat up quickly, throwing aside the rough-spun blanket and throwing his legs over the side of the bed then stood up, slightly shaking as he did so. Looking around him, he realised he was in hospital room; heart and pulse monitors beeped happily along while moans could be heard from outside the private room. The spidery doctor took no notice of Wreythe and left the room promptly, his white lab coat disappearing behind him. Rain barely stopped herself from squealing as she jumped at him, throwing them both back onto the bed.

"Ow. Ow. Ow!" Wreythe weakly thrashed against Rain as her body pressed down onto his bruised and battered flesh, but she grew even more insistent, mashing her lips against his in a lust-filled fury. Wreythe was momentarily blinded by her thick, red hair as it blocked his vision like a blanket of scarlet. "I still hurt everywhere," Wreythe complained as Rain broke for air, an excited grin on her face.

"Stop whining, we've got so much to do and so little time to do it!" Rain once again began to make-out with the poor man, his brain unable to cope with the sheer pain he felt from his numerous injuries but the fantastic feeling of the Rain's moderately-sized breasts on his naked chest. She changed her clothes at some point and only wore a pale red dress that beautifully matched her hair. Kicking off the pair of scuffed heels she wore, Rain straddled Wreythe's body, sitting on him like one would a horse before continuing.

"Tandi's sentenced you to death, the mob wants to finish you off and Colonel Meyes is ordering a door-to-door search for you. By sunset you'll be dead unless we do something, and do it quickly. I don't mean that!" Rain slapped Wreythe's hands away from her hips. "We've got to get out of here."

Wreythe leaned his head back, his hands behind his head as they rested on the pillow. "Out of Shady Sands? Yes. Out of the NCR? Not yet. I didn't come all the way from East Coast just to be killed or kicked out immediately; got to find something."

"What's that?"

"Tax invoices. Remember that tape that Ulysses and I were searching for and found just before Tandi kicked us out of the NCR last time? Well, after you'd be ordered to report on everything that had happened while you'd travelled with us, a few of your boys brought Ulysses and I to Beverly Hills. They'd shown us to this broken-down manor; its walls barely standing and almost all of the furniture gone. We'd started searching through the rubble until I found this videotape and a letter. Uhhh..." Wreythe paused, seeing the confused look in Rain's eyes. "It's like a disc; it holds images and videos but at a quality that degrades quickly over time unless it's kept safe. Luckily it was inside a sealed safe so we hoped it was still viewable. Turned out it was but I had to go find a compatible playback device. Found one all the way in the east after chasing up rumours. Incredible stuff on it; that's why I had to get back over here so damned quickly."

"Why's that?"

"Because Ulysses disappeared awfully quickly after we checked out the manor and I think he's got something that was packaged together with the letter and video tape. A key-card or the like; a security clearance that would enable him access to the facility." Wreythe's eyes hardened, full of an iron-hard intensity. "He's got the key, I've got the lock. I need to find him and get the key before he finds me first. Otherwise I need to get back to that manor and find whatever invoices haven't been eroded by time and see if I can find out where the makers of the key-card and video tape had been based. Hopefully there will be back-up copies and similar items over there."

Rain pulled away then laid on Wreythe with her left elbow on his chest, supporting her chin as she thought. "So we're going for another adventure then?"

"Guess so, baby-doll. Now, we're all my gear? Can't go escaping from Shady Sands with nothing but my cock in my hands."

"Or my hands," Rain added, sticking out her tongue at Wreythe before jumping off him. Walking to the other side of the room, Rain kicked open a metal chest, revealing Wreythe's clothes, weapons, ammunition packs and other goods. "Now, tell me everything you know about this facility."