Underground Read online

  Just a bit, thankfully. Meaning she covered with a smile, not meaning it.

  Nero counted twice, then peeled a single green and peach bill off and handed it to her.

  “A thousand forty-seven, all told. You get ten percent, of course. I’ll make change for the four-seventy? Or I can log it into the book, if you want?” The man didn’t try to lead her, one way or the other.

  Glancing down she realized that she had a fairly crisp hundred in her hand. That was good, considering the target had been nearly random. Most men going to a hooker didn’t carry that much with them. It was enough she could feel good about the night, she decided.

  “Put it in the book?” That wasn’t exactly a bank account, but it would let her buy things from some of the others, if she needed it. Mainly little things that they made from odds and ends, or for services, like cooking special treats for her or cleaning up her living space. Not that she let anyone in there.

  It was tidy, so no one should care about that part of things.

  Still, even if she more or less liked her friends there, some of them weren’t her pals, strictly speaking. It wasn’t some kind of bad prison movie, with rapes in the showers or shankings in the common areas, but out of the hundred and twenty odd people there, about half of them would take your stuff, if you didn’t protect it. They had locks on the doors, but doors couldn’t stop everyone.

  There had even been attempts to rob the central bank, even if all of that money was meant to feed and clothe everyone there, equally. That was insane, of course. They needed over six hundred and fifty dollars just to feed everyone that lived there each day. More than that, since about a third of them needed to eat two or three times what regular people did.

  What she’d gotten from her non-sex having older gentleman friend was just about enough to make sure everyone got to eat the next day. Normally she brought in about half that much, on a good day. Sometimes she got almost nothing at all.

  Really, they had to have about fifty thousand a month to keep it all going. She brought in part of that, each month. About twenty thousand or so, if they were lucky, since she couldn’t go out every day. Not unless she really wanted to move to turning tricks. So far, she’d managed not to do that kind of thing. Some of the men had been cute enough and nice seeming, but the truth was she found anyone willing to go to a girl on the street for sex kind of sketchy. Even if she understood why they were doing it.

  The night man smiled at her again, his bright teeth shining. He was hot, she realized, not for the first time. Lean and hard, but also exotic enough to be interesting. Not that she was planning on hitting on the guy that night. Getting involved with anyone, more than she had, would be asking for trouble. It was bad enough she had to hang with the group she did.

  She waved at Nero, who did it back, moving through the door behind him into the front office. The whole thing looked to be made of perfectly smooth stone and seemed a bit like a shop, instead of one of the apartments. Her place was further in, of course.

  It was kind of like a house, build into the outer wall of the Underground. Most of the furnishings were built in, since people had trouble moving sofas and beds down there. Small things could be brought in, but most people used their allotment each month to either make things or for knickknacks from the over world.

  She thought that she heard someone, probably Nero, say goodbye to her, as she headed back toward her place. It was a good seven-minute walk for her, given she was in heels. Most of the central spaces had little businesses in them, instead of living quarters. Places that sold and traded goods and services. Not all of those were normal, but some were, more or less.

  She had to pass the thrift shop, for instance. That was run by Birdy, who was a dead ringer for Big Bird from Sesame Street. Except he was an attractive green, not yellow. Otherwise there would be some serious copyright infringement going on there, if people from the street ever caught sight of the man. Inside the large shop were shelves of things brought in from above. Mainly from other thrift shops or better, from their donation bins, since no one really bothered to hunt you down for stealing from those and it was free, since theft normally was.

  Pam-Pam provided cash, mainly, but when things were needed badly enough, she tried to make a point to get them for whoever needed, or wanted, it. That meant doing real shopping, with her own money, for the most part. The numbers in the book she got in return were fine, and helped other people out, but not as useful for a lot of things.

  Then, as long as she had food and clothing and didn’t end up raped or going to prison, Pam-Pam was fine helping others. It was rewarding, seeing them react to her like she wouldn’t help anyone but herself. Even if that was practically all she did each day. She was a bit abrasive, true but not lacking empathy at all. She even kind of felt bad for the old man that she’d robbed earlier. Not enough to give the money back, but it was there, buried, deep inside of her.

  After passing a bunch of businesses, most of them closed, since people kept to daylight hours for the most part there, she hit the outer wall and simply walked through the beige door she found there. There were others, all around the outer edges. This particular one was marked with a big, poorly painted, yellow sunflower.

  Pam-Pam was silent as she did it, but found everyone else inside, awake.

  That got her to smile. After all, it wasn’t like they had television down there. Just the radio, though they did have the internet as well. The line was slow though, so streaming was out. They could look up news and, very painfully, see pictures from the world above. She didn’t know how it worked, but she didn’t use it for her porn habit very often. Not that she needed that kind of thing.

  Sitting on the built in sofas, which formed a ring, were Pod, who looked like her normal Martha self at the moment, C. C., Gift, Clover and Dan the Slave.

  Most of them had managed to seem pretty normal looking, at the moment. Pod was in her fifties or looked that way and seemed easily normal enough to go above without anyone thinking twice about it. Her hair was a bit gray, and her face a little long, but other than that she was even passably cute.

  C. C. was actually adorable, but not allowed to leave the Underground, due to her powers. Her first mode was the big problem though, not her looks. She simply couldn’t lie. The girl was so honest that she’d walk up to people, innocently, looking like a teen girl begging to be sexually taken advantage of and then tell whoever she met about her ability to make precious gems on demand. It was useful, or could be but even with her being hidden from the greedy mother fuckers of the world, they had to keep the use of her powers under wraps. It was hard to hide where millions of dollars of gems came from, after all. It would have been better if she could work in gold or silver, but that wasn’t what she did.

  That meant Carrot Cake had to spend almost all her time inside. It wasn’t fair, but then, life wasn’t, for most people. The slightly round-faced girl, who had blonde hair, despite her orangey sounding name, grinned.

  “Hah! I knew you’d be back.”

  To explain that statement, Clover took a deep breath and shrugged his massive shoulders. He was good looking, in a fantasy creature kind of way. He had the upper body of a man, the lower body of a goat, if they could walk on two legs and a broad nose with very thick lips. Slitted yellow eyes and two massive horns on his head. In short, he was a Satyr, if one that didn’t get all rapey on them, in the course of a normal day. Not that he hadn’t hinted about getting some sex off of them, a time or two.

  Pam had to admit that the idea was tempting. It wasn’t like she had a boyfriend and the guy was nice. Even to her. That was hard for most to manage, though all the guys in her group were good that way.

  His voice was a mid-tone tenor, even if he was over seven-six, standing up.

  “I was a bit worried, after we had words, earlier. That you might not come back? Sorry.” The man looked down, clearly filled with real shame. As if he’d done anything wrong.

  Pam-Pam rolled her eyes at it.

&n
bsp; “Don’t worry. I was being a cunt. You know that I can’t really help it.” There had been donuts, but Clover needed to eat a lot, so had finished them, not realizing that she hadn’t had any that day. She didn’t really need that kind of thing, since her hips were wide enough, but she’d sort of yelled at him anyway.

  For his part he’d apologized and felt bad, since that was his thing. Which, honestly, allowed them to stay friends when that might not have worked with everyone in the world. Some people there couldn’t stand her after all and vice-versa.

  Everyone there was fine that way, though.

  Gift waved at her, the slightly round man, his bald head shining, not saying anything at the moment. He had gold rimmed glasses on, and was dressed in a track suit at the moment. Because he was ready for bed. Still, he’d waited for her to get in. They weren’t even banging, though she probably should be better that way, she knew. At least one of the women should be seeing to that.

  The same was true of Clover and Dan. It was her or Martha, since C. C. was too young. At least she thought that was the case. They’d never talked about it. Infected people sometimes looked younger, or older, than their actual ages. So far Pam didn’t have that going on. She looked her age.

  The last man looked perfectly normal, of course. He had brown hair, white skin and his first mode, if he had one, was incredibly mild. He even had kind green eyes and a friendly smile for her.

  “Hey! Did everything go well tonight?”

  She nodded back, managing a smile. After all, the man wasn’t offensive, even if she felt a bit like growling at him for asking such a stupid question. If she came back without any new bruises, it was a good night. Sometimes she pulled things off even if she’d been hit. Once or twice at least.

  That hadn’t happened in a while, since she was getting better at taking money from people. Most of the time she used some kind of lure, to make sure she wasn’t taking someone’s rent money. The thing with the Johns worked well that way.

  Sometimes she just hung around at the track, and approached people that had won money. That took more finesse though and she couldn’t use it too often, since that sort of person would tell the cops on her. The idea of needing a new way to make money soon came to her. There had to be better ways to take things from people than to dress up like a whore. Not that she wasn’t keeping the clothing. She looked hot in them, after all. Even Dan was checking her out, which was rare.

  “It went well. Over a thousand for one job, which means I get a hundred take home. We can get you some new shoes, C. C. I’ll need to know what you want.” She could also just take her to the store to buy them, if they were careful.

  That would mean going with at least one other responsible person though, so that one of them could be with her all the time, in case she needed to be steered away from talking to a stranger. The thing there was that, if the cute kid walked up to most people and started talking about how she was Infected, could make gems and lived in a magical kingdom under Portland, most of them wouldn’t have a problem with it.

  Oh, they might think she was slow, or handicapped, but they wouldn’t run off to the cops over it. In fact, most people, even if they understood her to be telling the truth wouldn’t be a problem. There was a risk to letting her be above ground, but it wasn’t that great of one, most days. Not as long as they didn’t let her chat to the wrong people too often.

  The trick would be finding the right person to go with her. It would probably be Pod, of course. The woman was mousy, in both looks and behavior, and her power sucked in a fight, since she was incredibly vulnerable when using it, but her ability to blend in with normies was nearly perfect. Dan could manage it, but his power wasn’t great, in the upper world.

  He was, more or less, a slave.

  If you asked him to clean the room, just casually, he’d jump to do it, instantly. That was probably, in part, his first mode, but his power tied into it almost perfectly, if that was the case. It was hard to see, depending on what you asked of him, but he not only would do what you’d ask, he’d get it done even if it wasn’t strictly possible. There were limits, but if you asked him to build you a bicycle, he’d go and collect the parts and make it happen, even if he knew nothing about how to do it. He was fast, too. He knew where things were, for instance. Also how to get them. Only when asked to do something, though.

  Everyone there knew not to tell him to go fuck himself or anything like that. He’d do it, but could hurt himself in the process, depending on how he interpreted the goal of the moment.

  So he tended not to get to go on the field trips above too often.

  In a way, Gift was even worse. The man looked pretty average, and was sweet, as a rule. Once a day though, if you held his hand, or touched him anywhere else, he could grant a wish. That could be a lot of things. Nothing that impacted him, directly, for some reason. She’d tried wishing for him to be thinner once and nothing had happened at all. It didn’t even use up the wish for the day. The same with him having hair, being better looking or not being Infected any longer. Oddly, other things did work on him. If she wished for her to have the power to make people grow hair, then he would respond to it. It was a strange set of rules that way.

  All of those things could work on other people or objects though. C. C. had been made to look like a thirty-year-old actress once, about three months before. That effect had lasted twenty-three hours, then vanished, as if it had never taken place at all.

  Pam-Pam had been given x-ray vision that way once and a million dollars the next day. Every time it vanished though, after the time ran out. It wasn’t always the same, either, running from as little as nineteen hours to a full twenty-four. Meaning that the man could produce almost anything, but in the end it wasn’t real at all.

  Which was why, in the end, he was there with the rest of them. Pod could read minds, sort of, after she changed. She could project what was going to happen as well, like a fortune teller, only way more accurate. Pam-Pam was a good provider and wouldn’t let anyone fuck with her friends too much and Clover was a great fighter. Anyone trying to harm one of the others would end up facing three hundred and fifty pounds of bullet proof, super humanly strong and fast goat man for their trouble.

  Thankfully that hadn’t really come up, so far.

  Pam-Pam winked at Dan, since he was nice enough and being a jerk to him was rude, then waved at the door to her room.

  “I’m off to bed. See you all in the morning?” She nearly winced, since saying that to Dan meant that he’d be forced to be there when she got up. She didn’t comment on it, just fixing it so he wouldn’t have to stay up all night to get that done. “You should catch some sleep first and rest well, everyone.”

  He just got up and left the room, going to find his own bed, instantly. She hated that part, but it was made a bit better when Gift stood, stretched and then smiled at her.

  “Pleasant dreams then, Pam. See you in the morning.” He clearly meant well and was covering for her gaff with Dan.

  She nearly cursed at him, but nodded and kept her mouth shut, instead.

  Chapter two- Gift

  Carlton stretched before laying down for the night. His body was thick through both the middle and the thighs in a way that left most people assuming he had a great love of sweets. Which was true enough, if not the reason why he wore that particular shape. While it was hard to be absolutely certain, he figured that he held about fifty pounds of organic energy projection devices under his skin. They were, of course, biological in nature, but he didn’t have a better terminology for what they did.

  As strange as it sounded, or would if he were to speak of it to anyone, he was actually a fairly slender fellow, otherwise. Anyone touching him would realize in short order that he didn’t actually have much by the way of body fat at all. Still, the padding, even if it was part of his powers and needed for that, got in the way as he attempted to bend in half. He did the work daily and could fall directly into the side and front splits, but touching his toes l
eft him gasping, due to the pressure on his middle.

  He imagined it was how in-shape pregnant women felt. Only with the knowledge that it wasn’t going to go away after nine months.

  Still, he worked each joint, including his wrists, shoulders and fingers, carefully, pushing them to the limit of what was possible without popping them out of joint. There was no real reason for it, he’d simply decided one day in his late teens to work on his flexibility and had, from that point onward. That had been well before he’d popped Infected. That hadn’t taken place until nearly ten years later, after he’d gotten married, opened a law practice with his father and gotten married.

  Thankfully they hadn’t been successful having kids, since Meredith had taken one look at his bulging stomach and lack of hair on the top of his head when he’d come home from the hospital and packed a bag without saying anything at all. Not until she got to the door. He recalled her words when she’d left, as he finished the slightly painful stretching for the night.

  It isn’t that you’re Infected. I just don’t find you attractive, anymore.

  On the good side, he’d still been a lawyer back then, so hadn’t lost everything in court. Without kids and leaving him for being Infected, at least in the eyes of the judge, meant that Meredith had walked away with half of what he’d owned, but only that. He would have been fine, if his father hadn’t found out about his power.

  That, in the end, had meant he’d needed to go on the run. After all, his dad had talked to the military and they’d realized that he could, on command, even against his will, do incredible amounts of damage. Things that could be controlled by whoever touched him at the right time. They needed him alive for that to work, and couldn’t be too far from him, but a pair of handcuffs and a soldier who was willing to produce a powerful force field and death rays from his hands meant that thousands had died in the last war, thanks to him.

  Carlton knew that he’d have still been there, in the Middle East, if not for an IED killing his escort by accident one day, just before his minder and slave master, Captain Renner, had powered up for the day. It had killed the man, the driver of their armored vehicle, the A-driver and their spotter, leaving Carl with shrapnel in his middle. At least he thought they were all dead. The truth was, he didn’t really check, at the time.