Disclaimer: If you're under age to read stuff about guys having sex or if you find it offensive, your society finds it offensive or illegal then stop reading now! This story is completelly fictional, as are all the characters.
By the same author: Previously I've written the multipart story "A Different World" which can be found under gay/sciencefiction at nifty.
This part contains some graphic voilence but only what's necessary for the story.
Written by Adam
I opened my eyes and Kenny was standing by my bench. I got up and supported myself on one elbow while I used the other arm to pull Kenny close and kiss him. Our tongues danced around in our mouths for a while but then the gold collar who seemed to be the one to always bring my next clone to life cleared his throat to get our attention.
"Would you go somewhere else to kiss? We need that bench for another clone!" the gold collar said holding on to a tube on a carriage.
I didn't say anything, just smiled and slid off the bench and let Kenny support me as we walked to the clothing department.
"I thought you said you were going to wait in the dressing room" I said.
"I'm glad I didn't, 'cause then I wouldn't have gotten that wonderful kiss from a clone that's never kissed before" Kenny said.
"I would have kissed you in the dressing room" I said.
"I couldn't bear to wait that long!" Kenny said.
"I'm that good, huh?" I said.
"No, better... your memory knows how to kiss, but clone 47589618 hasn't gotten the hang of it yet" Kenny said.
"Hey! Well 78651228 doesn't seem to have had much practice yet either" I said glancing at the back of Kenny's collar to see what the last numbers were.
"This clone isn't much older than yours today and you're the only one I've had reason to kiss so... but you're right we should practice some more!" Kenny said.
"Was it pink trousers and purple shirt or wise versa that you usually asks for?" the guy behind the counter said.
"Doesn't matter, we're not going to work in the brothel today anyway so I was thinking of having something that matches my boyfriend here" I said.
"And if you say anything derogative of homosexuals I'm gonna be very hard on you" Kenny said.
"I'd never do that, I'm gay myself... and you do make a cute couple. You want clothes that matches your boyfriend's looks or his clothes?" the guy said.
"Both if possible, othewise I'll settle for matching clothes" I said.
"Well, let's see... his khaki trousers and black shirt fits his dark hair and brown eyes pretty well, while being rather discreet in a way... a khaki shirt on you would go very well with that and also match your blonde hair and blue-green eyes... and with that a pair of... no, black trousers wouldn't be right for you... I think I should add a little more colour to the mixture while still keep it rather discreet.... no, it won't be discreet but it'll be terrific... red ochra trousers! Suits you much better than the pink ones you used to ask for, trust me!" the guy said while rummaging around under the counter and then placing the clothes on the counter together with the standard issue shoes and underwear.
"I'll try it on and if I don't like it..." I said.
"Don't expect to be able to come back here and change" the guy behind the counter said.
"... if I don't like it I'll ask for something else next time!" I said.
"I'm willing to bet that you'll ask for the same!" the guy said.
"Just don't take it personally when I say that I hope it won't be as often as it was yesterday!" I said as Kenny and I walked towards the dressing room.
"I hope so too for the same reason... and knowing that you're not working in the brothel today I know that we won't be seeing each other as many times today... you'll be fine" the guy called after us as we went through the door.
In the stairwell we stopped by the guys stacking bodies. Today there were only two of them, the foreman and one more, our own age whom I recognised quite quickly. The homophobic cab driver who'd been demoted from gold to silver collar yesterday. Kenny called the foreman with his comm disc.
"Must be hard work for just the two of you? It may please you to know that my boyfriend and I volonteered to help you there today" Kenny said.
"Much appreciated. There will be four more to help us so it'll be a little crowded I think, but it makes us more able to keep up with the work that's arriving.... we might be able to get up to the level of the conveyor today and then we'll get the rest of the day off, since it will take them a full day to move the conveyor up another five floors... Hey, you're boyfriend there, wasn't he executed again this morning? I thought I saw his corpse somewhere here" the foreman said.
"Yes, I was brought to life and had to go emediatly upstairs to be executed... it was pretty quick, no pain first just the execution since it was a minor crime" I said.
"Serves you right, fucking faggot!" the former cab driver was heard saying.
"Hey! One more remark like that and I'll put you up as volonteer for the brothel!" the foreman said.
"And your faggot friend who claimed that he could make me a bronze and then murdered me is going to be a bronze himself soon!" the former cab driver said.
"You can't if I make you a bronze collar first, and I could do that just like that!" the foreman said snapping his fingers.
"I know where you saw my corpse, you put it against the wall over there!" I said and pointed towards where my corpse was propped against the transparency.
"Ah yes, but why did you get those cheap trousers?" the foreman said.
"I knew I was scheduled to be executed and therefore wouldn't need expensive trousers for a body that were bound to end up here in less than an hour" I said.
"Good point" the foreman said.
"We'll go down and get some breakfast and then see you again soon" Kenny said and then we continued down the stairs.
Stopping to pay tribute to the corpses of us holding each other was becoming a tradition for us, as we did the same thing again, holding each other same way as the corpses and patting the transparency over our chests and then we kissed since we were glad to be together and alive. Then we continued down to the cafeteria and joined the others who had indeed saved seats for us and this time without the trouble of yesterday.
"Now that we're all here, I think Kenny would like to hear what happened to the rest of us after he died last night and I think we like to hear what happened to each other after we ran in different directions" Paul said.
"So you did stay out after curfew last night and got yourselves killed, even though I asked you not to?" Mark said while cleaning the next table from us.
"Yes, we did... we figured that Jack would be caught out after curfew sooner or later anyway so we felt that it would be easier on him if he was with us when it happened and how he might try to evade the gangs as long as possible... and that works best in those alleys where we were" Kenny said.
"Yes, I guess being caught and killed after curfew is an inevitable event in a Terran's life and often a recurring event too... when you put it like that, it sounds kinda thoughtful. But you needn't have worried about me, I would never report you for something that might cause you to be demoted no matter how reckless you are... Thought from what I hear this wasn't recklessness, this was just a couple of friends helping an inexperienced Terran to gain some important experiences... and knowing how close you all are to each other I know that you don't want your friend to be seriously harmed or killed in a terrible way" Mark said.
"And we like you too! You seemed a bit overprotective of Jack yesterday but you're really a pretty kewl dude" Kenny said.
"Thanks... but what pleases me most is that Jack has wised up in his choise of colours of his clothes, instead of those hideous pink and purple he used to wear!" Mark said.
"Really? You like these better? Hearing you say that makes me decide to stick with these colours" I said.
"Yes, they're perfect for you. Wait, put your arm around Kenny and your leg over his... oh yes, now you're irresistably cute together... almost so my blood sugar levels rise to dangerous height" Mark said.
"Are you teasing us?" I said.
"A bit of friendly tease but I really mean it too, you do look very good toghether and those close makes the effect even better... so like I said, I'm glad you wised up about the colours" Mark said.
"Thanks, though it wasn't me who picked them out, the guy in the clothes storage did" I said.
"I should have guessed, he has a really good eye for picking out colours that will match a person and often so two guys that are boyfriends get clothes that really match themselves as well as each other... we've been on a few dates actually... in matching clothes ofcourse... sorry, gotta go I have customes to attend to" Mark said.
"That guy keeps surprising me the whole time!" Brian said.
"Me too, but start telling what happened after I died last night and hurry Jack and I are supposed to go to work in the stairwell soon" Kenny said.
"In that case we can finish telling our stories there, since the four of us will be working there too today" Brian said.
"The foreman said there would be four more and somehow I knew it would be you" I said.
"How about if you begin by telling your story since it's the longest and then I can tell the small part about what happened after we separated?" Tim said to me and I nodded.
I told them the story of how we ran around in that maze and bumped into Stan and then found Brian hanging on the wall and then separated and I ran into trouble and shot my mouth of in such a way that I was sent to be executed this morning and finally how I noticed how the balloon could be unscrewed from the bolt and how I watched Tim get shot and then self trigger just before I died. Tim then told us how he ran to the end of that alley and turned left and then right again where he saw two Masters coming towards him and one was raising his gun but didn't get a target lock apparently and then Tim noticed that there were Masters coming from all directions except the one leading down a flight of steps to the sidewalk so he took that route and that's when he ran into me and the Masters holding me. The other masters had stopped well inside the alley seemingly as if they didn't want the Masters on the sidewalk to see them so he suspected that they were from another gang hunting outside their territory so they would probably be punished by the other gang if they were caught and that's also why they didn't shoot Tim though they surely must have had more than one target lock on him.
"What I want to know is how you can know which kind of bullet you've been shot with?" I said.
"It's quite easy, the dissolving bullets starts dissolving you right away and causes a lot of pain that way, while the exploading bullets does nothing except arm themselves five seconds after they hit you and ten seconds before they blow. I've been shot with both kinds so I know" Stan said.
"When were you shot with exploading bullets?" Kenny said.
"Last night... maybe ten minutes after watching Jack and Tim being killed and then running from the other gang as those that got Brian, Jack and Tim left" Stan said.
"You mean that it was the other gang that got Kenny, me and you?" Paul said.
"Yes, they used the exploding bullets exclusively while I happen to know that the gang that the others bumped into never uses them, they specialises in the bolt gun and the dissolving bullets" Stan said.
"That's true... I thought there was something odd about the situation when Kenny was blown to bits... the ones that got me and Jack and Brian are the one gang who gets to hunt in those alleys and they raise hell if they found out some other gang has been hunting there" Tim said.
"Yes, as a matter of fact we do... and we found several bodies that had been shot with exploading amunition last night... we'd like to know if any of you saw the other gang and could describe them to us" K'ch'kt-aa said walking up to our table.
"Excuse me, sir! But this cafeteria is supposed to be a free haven from the Masters, a lot of us Terrans like to have some places where we know we never have to see a Master and this is supposed to be one of them. I can't order you to leave but I will ask you to leave please!" Mark said walking up beside K'ch'kt-aa.
"I know! We're not going to kill anyone here today, not even you 47589618! And we will leave as soon as we get a description of the other gang that hunted in our territory last night... we know that we all look the same to you Terrans and you all look the same to you. But you may be aware that the different gangs usually distinguishes themselves by the clothes they wear and specifically by the arm bands. Did any of you see what the arm they wore looked like?" K'ch'kt-aa said and pointed to his own armband that was red with a white circle and a strange, black symbol inside and the arm band seemed to raise some of those buried memories from the original person that I was cloned from.
"It was light blue with three white wavy lines on it" Tim said.
"Four wavy lines, the top one was dark blue" Stan said.
"Thank you. Don't worry, gold collar, we've got what we wanted so we're leaving now and I promise that I will never return here so this will remain a sanctuary for Terrans" K'ch'kt-aa said and left screaming something about a certain gang that he apparently knew exactly who they were and how they were going to have to pay for this.
"Sorry about that! Please sit a while longer and rest before going to work. An encounter like that takes it's toll on you" Mark said.
"You don't have to apologise, it's not your fault! But we have to go, we're expected to work in the stairwell today stacking bodies and there was only two working when we came down here. Steff will probably call down wondering what happened to us!" Kenny said.
"I'll call him and explain, he'll understand. Now sit here until I tell you you should go to work" Mark said with a smile but a look that said that the last sentence really was an order and then he winked at me before he returned behind the counter and started dialing the number to Steff.
"So why don't you tell us your story next, Stan?" I said.
"Well, while you and Tim ran off towards the ball court Brian, Paul and I ran in the opposite direction, as I believe you saw and the Master that had shot Kenny followed us and as we ran into another alley to our right several bullets came round the corner and hit Paul in the back" Stan said.
"Well I deliberatly stayed at the back so it would be me that he got a target lock on... The few drops of pee that had hit me earlier was dissolving it's way deeper into my shoulder and I wouldn't have been able to keep going much longer so I let myself be hit so Stan and most of all Brian could make it a while longer" Paul said.
"Sensible, but Brian didn't think so and tried to stay with Paul and be blown to bits with him, I had to drag him away from Paul before the bullets exploded and then Brian and I separated so that Brian would be able to get away while I made the Master come after me. Brian ran up a flight of steps and turned left so he crossed the bridge over the alley I ran along and that's the last time I saw him alive that night. I stopped at the next corner to make sure that the Master saw me. He was kicking at the remains of Paul when he noticed me and startet raising his gun but I ran into the alley before he got a target lock and a few seconds later I ran into Tim and Jack kissing... did you say that you only kissed him 'caused he was the only guy in this gang that you hadn't kissed?" Stan said.
"Yes, why?" I said.
"Funny thing to do while running for your life" Stan said.
"Not really, somehow it makes him more human... he simply wanted to keep his mind off the things that were happening to him and his friends and if I had kissed all but one of you guys and found myself alone with that guy I would also take the opportunity to remedy the situation even if I was running for my life at the time" Kenny said.
"Thank you, I knew you would understand" I said.
"Knowing Kenny like I do, I know that it's true he would want to kiss a guy no matter what the circumstances" Tim said.
"And then we ran up those steps like Jack said and found Brian bolted to the wall and that charm boy who was just here approaching while reloading the bolt gun so we ran back down the steps and then separated again just like Jack told you earlier, but before I continue the last part of my story I want to know how Brian ended up on that wall" Stan said.
"Well, it's really not that long a story. I ran over that bridge like you said and turned left where I literally ran into... charm boy as Stan called him and turned around and ran back continuing past the steps I had ran up to the end of that alley where it turned and steps went down to the alley leading to the ball court. As I crossed the bridge the second time I saw the other Master passing just below it, so he didn't see me but then I realised that there was more than one Master and from two different gangs. From the top of those steps I saw Tim and Jack kissing and it seemed to have been going for a while and probably would go on for quite a while more. So I couldn't run down those steps, because then I would lead charm boy straight to you so I turned back again to try to run back to another alley that I had passed just after the bridge but that route was cut off as charm boy had already passed that alley. I stopped and gestured for him to go ahead and kill me and then he shot the bolt into me and as I was dying from that he turned around and started to walk away and as the last of my blood had been poured onto the ground the three of you came up the steps and found me and charm boy turned around and the last thing I saw before I died was him running down the steps after you" Brian said.
"So you weren't dead yet when we found you?" I said.
"No, not quite. I still had a few seconds left" Brian said.
"Sorry to hear that... those few seconds after I ran dry of blood were the worst" I said.
"Yeah they are" Tim said and everybody else around the table nodded in agreement.
"Okay, the end of your story, please!" Tim said.
"I ran past the ball court and on the other side I turned right and ran up a flight of steps just like the one where Brian had been bolted to the wall, only the alley went in the opposite direction and I ran another ten meters and turned left to cross a bridge over the alley where I'd found Tim and Jack kissing..." Stan said.
"Why do you have to keep mentioning that all the time" I said.
"Just teasing. Well I had a vague memory that that particular alley I was running along led to a bridge over to the next block but it turned out to be a dead end with a wire fence to block the alley so no one would run over the edge, since it was quite a drop down to the sidewalk. I thought that Tim and Jack had been following me or at least continued on beyond the steps I had climbed instead of running in the direction I had come from but on the other hand I wasn't really worried since I still thought that there was only one Master stalking us. But now I saw that a whole gang had captured Jack and was preparing to kill him, after making sure that no Master saw me sitting there I stayed and watched as Jack and charm boy talked and how Tim appeared and then how the police car tilted forward and Jack was bolted to it and Tim shot. Then, when they were dead I stood up and started walking through the alleys and managed to duck out of the way of several Masters until finally I turned a corner ending up surrounded by Masters and more or less standing in the remains of Kenny. The leader of this trespassing gang aimed the gun at me and pressed the target lock button and then he lowered it again and told me to run and that I had one minute before he would press the trigger. I ran into the alley that I had seen Jack and Tim run into earlier and made the usual short cut across the ball court and then ran up the steps and stopped by Brian's body, hanging on the wall. I stayed there and patted his cheek and closed his eyes and so on. After a few seconds I heard the Master fire several bullets and I stood with my back against the wall facing the steps and after almost half a minute more I saw the bullets appear at the bottom of the steps and hover there for a few seconds before they got their bearings back and turned and came up and into my belly and soon I felt the clicks as they armed themselves and I told Brian's corpse; 'I will be joining you soon, my friend' and then... I don't think I can describe the feeling of beeing blown to pieces" Stan said.
"I don't think I can either" Paul said.
"Don't try, I'm sure I'll get to experience that too sooner or later" I said.
"It's not an experience I can recommend, it is quite unpleasant, you know... first the feeling of being shot and then to blown to bits added on top of that...." Kenny said.
"And that unpleasantness makes the Masters the more eager to kill us like that. I don't want to experience that, but knowing the Masters I don't think I'll have any choice" I said.
"You've got a point there... sorry, I thought for a moment you might be eager to try it, my mistake, I should know you better than that as your boyfriend" Kenny said.
"Yeah, you should... Kiss me and we're even!" I said. and Kenny leaned over and kissed me.
"How can you kiss that dork?!" a familiar voice said and we turned to see the kid standing there.
"Well, he's indescribably good looking, unlike you and he's a very nice person and kind... unlike you again, asshole!" Kenny said.
"Hey, kid! Did you remember to give that customer your wrist communicater as a souvenir?" Brian said and he and I laughed while the others didn't seem to understand and the kid's face turned bright red.
"He said that his last customer yesterday had wanted a souvenir and that he would give him his wrist communicator. Only later did he find out that the customer wanted a completely different souvenir of him. Well done Paul, I might say" I said.
"So I've lost my dick to that asshole too, big deal! I still don't want to be near you" the kid said.
"I guess you don't have the guts, huh?" I said.
"Fuck you, dork!" the kid said.
"You should speak with more respect to him, he's ten times smarter than you... and if you keep making enemies of everybody, who will help you if you get into really bad trouble?" Mark said, standing right behind the kid.
"My life sucks, so I just make sure nobody else is better off!" the kid said.
"Every Terran's life sucks... being slaves who gets killed over and over again sucks but the rest of us tries to find any bright patch in this darkness, any cause for happiness... like love, and we make friends that we know will help us when things are really grim" Kenny said.
"Fuck you! Now, yesterday somebody told me I can set off my heart charge by myself, and I figured that may be usefull in case I stumble into the hands of some sicko who cuts my dick off and guts me like yesterday so how will I do that?" the kid said.
Nobody said anything and we turned our backs to him and started talking among ourselves.
"This is where it would have been useful to make a few friends instead of enemies" Mark said.
"I didn't expect them to tell me, but why don't you tell me?" the kid said.
"Fuck you! I'm their friend, and anyone who treats them like you do don't deserve to know how to self trigger! Jack, Kenny and the rest of you, Steff is waiting for you" Mark said and walked away.
"I demand to know! How about you, over there, I don't know you at all... please tell me!" the kid said turning to someone at a completely different table.
"Hey kid, there's nobody here that you haven't insulted or been rude to so don't expect any help from us" the person that the kid had turned to said.
We got up and walked back to the stairwell and climbed the stairs back up to the floor just above where the work was being done. There the transparent wall on the bridge to the door out of the stairwell had been removed so we could jump from that small bridge onto the bodies.
"Finally we're getting some help here! I continue working with mister cab driver here and Kenny and Tim who's worked here before can show the others how it's done" Steff said as he and the former cab driver carried a corpse past us and ducking under the little bridge and propped the corpse against the transparency on the other side.
Kenny and Tim started instructing us on how we were supposed to pick som corpses to propp against the transparency in a standing position and to keep them that way indefinatly we were to stack the other bodies lying down behind them to fill out the space between the standing corpses and the concrete wall. But there was more to it than that. We also had to remove all standard issue wrist communicators and datapads that practically every Terran was given with his clothes and these devices were put in boxes that were sent back to the clothing store as soon as they were full. After Kenny's and Tim's instructions we went to work and it turned out to be hard and monotonous and a little disturbing having to spend an entire day taking care of bodies of other Terrans. But the good thing was that we didn't get killed over and over again like yesterday and I found that to my surprise that it took some getting used to being in the same body for almost a full day. Each of us in turn was sent to the clothing store with the box of comm devices and while the former cab driver came back fairly quick Stan and Kenny took quite a long time before they came back and when I asked Steff if I should go and see what was keeping them he told me no with a look that said that he knew exactly what was going on and that he had no intention of stopping it and then both he and Kenny as well as Stan insisted that I should go when the box was filled up again a few hours later. So I went upstairs with it and in the dressing room I went to the other door, further in and tapped the code into the keypad beside the door and then entered. I came in behind the desk where the gold collar boy who had picked out knew colours for me this morning met me and took the box and placed it under the desk.
"So this comm device I'm wearing now was on a corpse' wrist before I got it?" I said.
"Yes, but he was alive when I gave it to him... and there's a good chance that corpse was your previous clone, the one that got executed" the gold collar said.
"I don't really mind that it was on a corpse before, I was just curious" I said.
Then another silver collar with a large stack of shirts and the gold collar told me to wait while he put the shirts into a washing machine and turned it on.
"You know where those shirts came from?" the gold collar said.
"It's the shirts that some of us take off before we're to be executed by detonation of the heart charge... I even recognised the shirt that I wore to the execution and took off before I entered the cell" I said.
"Well, as you saw, I make a point of washing those clothes before I give them to someone else" the gold collar said.
"Good. My boyfriend, Kenny and also Stan before him took a very long time before they returned and then Kenny and Steff insisted that I go next" I said.
"Yes, Kenny said he would so you wouldn't be jelous... oh, and call me Mike, I understand that you are Jack?" Mike said.
"Well, you did mention earlier that you're gay too... so, you're going to seduce me?" I said.
"Only if you want to" Mike said.
"Well, you've had my boyfriend, so why not have me? Yes, I'm Jack!" I said.
"Good, come with me into the back room, and let my intern do the work for a while" Mike said and dragged me into the back room where he made a gesture to a silver collar boy who simply nodded and went over to the counter to wait for the next new clone to walk in naked and as for clothes.
Mike closed the door to the back room and then we kissed, our tongues danced round each other in our mouths and then Mike pulled my shirt off so I we had to break the kissing off while he pulled it over my head and then we went back to kissing for a while longer before we had to break apart againg while I pulled his shirt off. Then we started unbuckling each other's belts while kissing.
I will try to keep this story running parallel with the upcoming Different World spin off. I'm interested in your feedback and suggestions. Is there some story thread that you would like me to explore further or turn into a spin off? ... Write me at my_evil_twin47@yahoo.com and tell me what you think of this story!