The usual disclaimers apply. Don't read this if you are offended by material of a homosexual nature.

This work depicts adult males in sexual situations with underage males. If this offends you do not read this story. All events depicted in this story is purely of a fictional nature and any resemblance to people living or dead is coincidence. If you have enjoyed my story you can contact me at lonewandererlust@hotmail.co.uk I appreciate all feedback and am happy to talk my stories over.

Lone Wanderer and the Survivors

Part Fourteen

'Science flies you to the stars, religion flies you into buildings...'

'Fuck!' I shouted at the same time.

He jumped back, as shocked as I at the sudden appearance of another living human being. It was then I noticed the rather unpleasant looking machine gun hanging from a strap on his shoulder. It was angled toward me, with one hand on the trigger.

'Woah, okay' I raised my arms 'I'm not looking for a fight. I can't believe it...another survivor'

'You ain't from the bunker mate. How'd you stay alive up 'ere?' he spoke with a working class, West London accent.

'Bunker? Well....I just kept moving, avoiding the dogs, looking for others...'

'Dogs?' he asked, looking perplexed.

'Yes. Um, would you mind terribly not pointing that at me? I'm really quite harmless' I motioned toward the gun. He tutted and released it, swinging it over his back.

'All right. Just so we're clear; you try anything and I'll take your fuckin' head off' he sat down on a bolted down lab stool, pushing aside a box of pills and little glass vials containing a blue liquid. I took a seat next to him and watched as he resumed sorting through the various medical supplies.

'You're sick aren't you?' I asked. He stopped, seemingly frozen in time before returning to the pile of boxes.

'Those fuckin' pricks down there' he stabbed a finger at the floor 'kicked me out of the bunker. For quote “seditious acts”. What a load of bollocks! He just wanted me out of the way. Micro dick little weasel! Wants all the birds for himself'.

'So you've been living underground for what, must be about four years since the Collapse?'

'Yeah mate, never been outside of those walls in all that time. That little prick of a bloke runs the thing like a fuckin' little empire. He had my commanding officer shot for dereliction of duty a few weeks after the door was sealed and then took control of the remaining guard force, including me' he stopped, got up and began to stuff boxes and vials into a big duffel bag. When finished, he walked past me and opened up the door 'you comin' with me or what?'.

*

We spent the night in a small solicitors office. I hadn't taken him back to the car. I didn't think him to be any imminent threat but I erred on the side of caution and kept a few cards up my sleeve. I also omitted any references to Daniel. All he needed to know about was me, for now at least.

He was sick. Less than twenty-four hours exposure to fresh air had led to infection. That wasn't concurrent with any known viral vector. Without fresh human bodies to infect, the virus would die off, fried by UV radiation in the air and locked away dormant in certain mineral crystals and bone fragments. It would be possible to avoid a virus. Clearly then, the Hyperflu was nothing of the sort.

'So mate, you been out here, all this time and you ain't found no one else?' he said, sitting on his rough bedding, tending the rations cooking on the gas primer stove.

'No, you're the only one I've seen in over three years. Some people lasted longer than others, struggling on for months with it. But they all died in the end. I moved from place to place. Went all the way up north looking for survivors but I came back as south as I could, to survive the cold winters. I scavenge stuff I need and any fresh food I pick from orchards in the summer time'

'Mate, how are you alive?'

'That's what I came here to find out' I half lied 'I need to know what it is that makes me special. I never fell I'll'

'Listen to me mate coz I need you to hear this. Situation in that bunker, yeah, it's bad. The so called fuckin' prime minister's gone mad, like fucking loony. He thinks only the “strong” should survive so he don't let anyone he thinks is too stupid or ugly or disabled or whatever get any of the women. He thinks he can breed a superman to lead them all back to the surface. Thing is, there aren't a lot of men left. Half my company was women but the other half are almost all dead. Fucker sent them all topside for one reason or another. Ask me, it's some fucked up plan to get rid of the other men so he can get all the pussy'

'The prime minister? But he hung himself in his office. That was the straw that broke the camels back, the last major news before the Collapse'

'Nah not him. The deputy PM, field promoted himself. Never liked the cunt to begin with, even before the fuckin' plague. Now he thinks he's lord and master of all he surveys. He's sent seventy odd men to the surface. No one comes back'

We sat in the semi-dark, illuminated only by the flame of the stove and a few scant ornamental candles that were scattered about the office. I had learned his name was Darren and that he had been a fresh faced twenty year old when he'd been selected to participate in a special programme with a company of soldiers divided into one hundred men and one hundred women. They were to man a recently commissioned bunker that had been adapted from an old Cold War relic under the Houses of Parliament. The bunker was totally self-sufficient. With access to London's aquifer, fresh water was aplenty and a small nuclear reactor with enough fuel for a hundred years allowed them to electrolytically split water to produce oxygen. Food was force-grown in a huge floodlit chamber and replacement parts were well stocked in vast storage rooms. Clearly, the government had been planning for something like this for a long time. An equal ratio of men to women to repopulate when it was all clear.

Darren was twenty-four now and wasn't bad looking at all. He had black hair, recently cropped around the sides and a little longer on top, with blue eyes and skin that had paled considerably from the years of underground dwelling. He had a strong jawline and thick eyebrows. His body was in great shape. He'd taken off his camouflage jacket and just had a tight-fitting tank-top on underneath, showcasing his hard pecs, beefy arms and I imagined, a lean, rock hard stomach. Very sexy, in other words.

'Were you looking for medicine in the lab?' I asked, trying some of the bland, tasteless rations.

'Yeah. Dunno what for though. Didn't help the poor sods who came looking for it during the plague. Dunno what else to do with myself now. Got no home, no woman, no health...nothin''

'Well, you have found someone today. I studied medicine before everything went to hell. I can try my best to do something that might help. I'm not promising miracles, mind you'.

'That's all good mate but you're lacking in some things a man needs if you know what I mean' he laughed 'last time I fucked a bird, fuck I can't even remember. Two, maybe three years ago. My balls are fuckin' blue. That's why I really got kicked out. Lisa Chapman, she was my lieutenant, well nice tits, she finally got bored with no-dick mister prime minister and started flirting with me. Last week she comes to me when I'm doin' stock inventory. Puts her hands down my trousers, mate, right fuckin' down there and I thought “yes! Fuckin' come on” but then one of the civvies, no-dicks little informants catches us before we can get down to it. Long story short, no-dick made up some bullshit and here I am. Still fuckin' horned and now I'll never get any ever again'.

We sat in silence for a while, as the reality of the matter sank in. Other survivors, a whole bunker full of them, under my feet. Suddenly, the world didn't feel as empty any more even though these survivors would be unable to leave their sealed environment. Still though, no matter how mad the leadership was, there were others out there. I suddenly felt a great weight shift off my shoulders, a burden released and I relaxed in the leather office chair, marvelling at the idea of a hidden town under London. Another thought came to mind, something daring but I thought what the hell, why not?

'Darren, you know, I haven't had sex for all that time either, discounting my right hand. It'd be nice to, you know, have a helping hand with stuff' I tried to be nonchalant about it. He had finished eating and was looking at me, mulling over the decision even as I was saying it.

'I'm not gay mate. I got no problem if you are'

'Well, I am but that doesn't mean we can't, you know, help each other get off. Doesn't make you gay at all. You can just lay back and let me do everything'

He rubbed his chin, thinking still but I could already see his trousers tenting. He wanted relief, needed it.

'Go for it mate' he said eventually. I went over, sitting beside him, back to the wall like him. I placed my hand on his hard dick which throbbed insistently. He let his head rest against the wall and closed his eyes as I pulled his fat hard cock out of his underwear. It was about eight inches long and really thick. He was uncut and his balls and pubic area very hairy. I started by wanking him, slowly and he moaned every so slightly, dribbling precum onto my hand. I licked some of it as he watched me. A look of disgust passed across his face but his dick also throbbed harder.

After that warm up, I got down to business, taking the whole of his dick down my throat and playing with his balls. He let out little gasps of 'mate oh mate that's so good mate' which made me even hornier. I concentrated on his cock head, working it with dedication and expert attention, sliding my fist up and down his shaft at the same time.

I went on for only a few minutes before he started to gasp 'oh fuck I'm gonna cum mate I'm gonna cum'. And cum he did. His dick flexed and spasmed and hot squirts of thick, salty cum pumped at the back of my throat. It was too much for me to swallow, though I did try my best. I continued wanking him out onto his flat stomach and licked up the hot spunk as he watched me with a look of total contentment.

When he was spent, he quickly tucked his deflating dick away and zipped up, ashamed that he had allowed another man access to his privates in such a way. I licked my lips, savouring the taste of him. My own dick was hard. I popped my jeans open and slid them down with my boxers and started wanking. He watched out of the corner of his eye, not quite comfortable but not willing to leave the room after the great service I had provided for him. As I began to feel the orgasm build, he did something unexpected. He wrapped a strong hand around my dick and pumped away. I arched my back as I burst, a spray of cum shooting up to splatter my cheek and running down his pumping fist. He kept going, slowing down as my cock stopped jerking. He wiped his hand on some tissue, eager to remove the unappealing man juice. I smiled a thanks as he turned off the stove and walked around the office, blowing out candles.

'I'm goin' to sleep mate. You should too. If you really wanna try and help me we need to get an early start'

'Goodnight' I said, putting my feet up on a desk as I sank back into the leather office chair. He didn't reply, as he turned his back to me and went to sleep.

*

It took almost six hours before the generator finally sputtered into life. It had been damaged in the last days, when rioting was at its worst. Thankfully, Darren turned out to be a proficient field engineer and with a little patching and a great deal of swearing and kicking, convinced the petrol fuelled machine to come back to life. While he was doing his best with the generator, I was hard at work cleaning down the lab. I needed a totally sterile (or as close as possible) environment to work in. After pulling out most of the stainless steel cupboards and racks, I found several packs of strong disinfectant wipes and spent a few hours going over every surface, wiping away congealed blood spots and fine layers of dust.

When the generator kicked in, the lighting flickered on overhead and a hardened laptop woke itself up from a long sleep. At the far end of the lab, in the first trailer attached to the lorry was a bulky transmission electron microscope. With power restored, a series of LED indicators winked green and I checked it to assess any possible damage.

My experience with SEMs was limited to the most basic of operations. I was trained in gross physical anatomy, not the finer details. Still, I was familiar with the basic tenants. Hopefully, I would not have to turn to using the complicated machine. There were two, high power optical 'scopes in the lab and I had already adjusted one of them to suit my needs.

Darren winced as I pricked one of his fingers, drawing out a small drop of blood. I placed it between two slides, slid it into the microscope and peered into the lens.

Red blood cells, phagocytes, platelets, plasma, leukocytes. All the known constituents of blood, present and accounted for but nothing out of the ordinary. I did the same with my blood, staring down the lens for an hour straight, desperate to pick out something that did not conform. It was in no way different from Darren's sample. I knew that virions were not resolvable under ordinary 'scopes because of their incredibly tiny size. Only an electron beam could pick out the scant evidence of viral presence and even then, not tell me a whole lot about it. But I knew deep down that this was not the work of a virus. Something else was at work here but it wasn't about to give up all its secrets just yet.

As a last ditch attempt, I slid Darren's blood back under the lens and tutted to myself as the backlight increased in intensity. I removed the slide but the bulb was burning as brightly as it had done since I switched it on and my fingers had not touched the dimmer. Feeling the rush of an imminent discovery, I alternated back and forth between the two blood slides. My red cells, particularly, were darker. Only half as bright as Darren's.

*

'So what?' he asked as I explained during a break.

'Well, it means my blood, and I would guess, all the cells in my body have some extra material in them. Something that absorbs light in wavelengths usually reflected by haemoglobin. Something has set up shop inside my cells but not yours'

'What does that do to help me?'

'I don't know. Not without trying the SEM. With that, I might just about be able to see whatever it is that's doing this. With that information...well, I never promised a cure but I might stumble across something that could help'

*

My blood ran cold, as though thick with icy slush. My hands trembled quite obviously as I looked away from the screen and walked out of the lab to get a breath of fresh air. Darren, followed after me, eager to learn what I had glimpsed from the SEM.

'What is it?'

'I...it's too wild' I replied, lighting up a stale cigarette, drawing in the smoke with unhurried relief.

'Just fuckin' tell me all right?' he said angrily, tiring of my shell-shocked state.

'Look' I said between puffs 'I said there was something in my cells that was absent in yours, yes?'

'Yeah I got that much mate, wasn't ever good with science stuff'

'Well, I wasn't quite correct in that first assessment. Both our samples contained the foreign matter. Except yours was...was...' I searched for the right word 'dismantled, for lack of a better word'

'What the fuck, dismantled? Mate, try an' explain this so I understand yeah?'

'Oh. I...look' we went back into the lab and I swivelled the LCD monitor so Darren could see it better. I pointed to his blood sample first on the images I had saved. A single white blood cell ballooned to fill half the screen. Next to the cell were platelets and smaller objects resembling microscopic matchsticks. There were hundreds of the matchsticks, some by themselves, others joined three or four together, forming simple, varying shapes. I changed the image set to mine and zoomed in. The small structures were present but were of a highly complex order. Some formed grossly dodecahedral, pyramidal and polygons of wild variety. A few were caught in the act, so to speak, of passing through the membrane of my cells.

'Mate I...'

'Machines!' I shouted 'nano machines. Small enough to pass into and out of a cell to repair or enhance our basic biology. Researchers had been promising breakthroughs in this tech for decades but nothing significant ever came of it. Obviously, someone found a way to make it work' I explained my miraculous healing ability to Darren and although my body was riddled with nanoscale machines working to an unknown agenda, I felt immensely better knowing that there was a logical, scientific explanation for my healing.

'But why are they broken inside me?' he asked, stupefied at the scale of the technology.

'That I do not know. I think they only assembled properly inside me out of pure chance. Who knows how many people were safe from it but didn't know? They may have committed suicide, blown their brains out, which is something I doubt would be able to heal or jumped off a tall building. As for you, these machines are making you ill because they are not working for your body. The building blocks are just floating aimlessly around your bloodstream, clogging up capillaries, damaging lung tissue and goodness knows what else. They give the appearance of influenza, most of the usual symptoms'

'How did they get into me? I didn't eat or drink anything that didn't come with me from the bunker'

'Probably inert in the air until they enter a human body. The base blocks use some of your body mass as construction material but are unable to move beyond that simple stage' I put a hand on his shoulder 'I'm sorry Darren but I don't know how to fix this. The only thing we can do is see that you have the best nutrition we can find and to rest and hope that the machines will eventually form complex structures like they have inside me'

'Fuck!' he shrugged me off and stormed out. I heard him kicking things outside, letting off his pent up frustration. I had just told a man he was about to die and yet all I could think about was Daniel, all alone at home, waiting for me to return to him. I would return to him. First, I had to help Darren get through the next few days.

*

I managed to walk Darren back to the car. He was broken by the realisation of imminent death. He cried and sobbed as I drove us away from Soho and west towards Kensington to find somewhere more comfortable to wait out Darren's final days.

We took up residence in a beautiful four-storey Georgian town house which would have cost in the millions back in the old world. It was furnished with period pieces, their shine and ornate decoration covered in a layer of grey dust. I set Darren up in the drawing room, rearranging a chaise longue, insisting that he try to rest as much as possible. Like most patients though, he was dead set against sitting around and forced his help on me as I unloaded things from the car.

*

On the third day, he began to visibly deteriorate. He was bed-ridden now, temperature soaring and sweating his clothes through. I stripped him and washed him with some of the fresh water I'd brought along. Cooler, he drifted off into a deep sleep from which he mercifully never woke. It was better to die asleep.

I cried for him. For humanity. For me and for Dan.

It was all wrong. The death, the lies, the machines, everything. Humanity had virtually ceased to exist all because of some reckless bastard and their determination to be the first nanotech success story. I cried some more and finally wiped my eyes and carried out the final wishes Darren had made me promise to him before he began to get really bad.

It took me most of the day to break apart enough furniture and drag it out into the courtyard garden. I piled table and chair legs alongside sofas and fabrics, until the funeral pyre was ready. I gently dragged Darren's body out of the house and carefully positioned him atop the assemblage. I sloshed petrol from a cannister all over, ensuring enough for an even, hot burn.

*

I watched the smoke drift up into the clear blue sky from down the street. I didn't want to watch one of the few remaining human beings go up in smoke and Darren had not requested that I stay.

I spent the rest of that day in a similar exquisite town house, trying to think over my next move but instead I raided the house's drink cabinet, falling into an alcohol fuelled stupor and collapsing in the middle of the road as I sang to the crescent moon and star dappled night sky, waving the half-empty bottle of whiskey at my reflection in a car window. I closed my stinging eyes and thought of Daniel and our perfect home as I lay on the day warmed tarmac surface and fell into a dreamless void.

*

'Get up. Get up!'

I blinked away the blackness.

'Get up now'

'What?' I mumbled.

I was manhandled to my feet by several pairs of hands and pushed up against a dirt streaked sports car. Someone slapped me hard across the face and the stinging connection knocked aside my sleepy mental cobwebs as the blurred shapes before me took on definition.

'Who are you?' I asked the three strange men.

'Servants of the One. Your time has come infidel'

Something cracked me across the head and I fell back into the blissful dark.