The Protagonist System

We ended up staying for two months at the hotel, just because it was a great room. We also celebrated my birthday with a rigorous bout of 69 that Sandra thoroughly enjoyed. Surprisingly, this did not open the door for it to keep happening on a regular basis. She had a lot more self control than that and we regressed back to only heavy petting and assisted masturbation.

Sandra's excuse that it was only for special occasions was flimsy at best, because I had heard her muttering a few times that she had to fight hard to not give in to her urges completely and go all the way with me. I wouldn't have objected if she did give in; but, I knew that she didn't want me to push her, so I didn't. I could wait for as long as she wanted me to in order for us to be together.

It was the dead of winter when we finally left the hotel and the horses were raring to go. We hadn't kept them inside the entire time and did take them for occasional runs through safer areas. They also had access to safe untainted grass inside the back area of the hotel where the sport courts were. They had overgrown with no one taking care of them for years and the horses enjoyed the variety and different flavors.

We followed the routes marked on the maps we found at the college and carefully made our way across Colorado towards the state of Utah. Since we didn't have to stick to the roads, it was both safer and more dangerous, only for different reasons than it was when using a vehicle on the roads. The horses loved finally being out and stretching their legs properly, too.

It was several weeks later when we finally reached the coordinates that the resistance maps pointed out as their current base. At least, we assumed it was their current base. There were a lot of people milling around and they had more than a few well maintained vehicles. It wasn't the huge compound I thought it should have been, however.

As we watched what was supposed to be the main command of the Fireflies come and go from the facility, as if the world wasn't suffering through a viral apocalypse, it sparked a memory I had from the last world I was in. I had gone to Washington DC and infiltrated the new seat of the self-proclaimed government and found out all the atrocities they were committing in the name of the new regime.

We retreated several miles before we found an abandoned farmhouse to camp in and I spent several days convincing Sandra that I needed to leave her side briefly as I investigated the facility. I even told her my worries about it all being a sham about finding a cure.

It wasn't until I told her that they might only want for the people in charge to have it and not to give it to everyone if they make one, because there would only be a limited amount from the very small sample source. Namely, me. I only had so much blood inside myself, after all.

Sandra eventually gave in after I promised her that I would protect her from everything and I would leave the bunny suit with her, just so no one else could take it from me. That earned me several kisses before she wished me luck and hid inside the house with the two horses.

I also covered the area with wards, hiding spells, and an illusion covering the old farmhouse to show that it was a burned out ruin and not still intact like it actually was. You could never be too careful in times like these or have too much protection.

I carefully made my way back to the facility and slipped inside, only to find a similar setup as the command centre in the last world. That did not give me high hopes for this setup to be successful, either. Did the people in charge always have to be incompetent or did they always let their perceived power go to their heads? It just seemed to be a common theme in worlds that suffered through an apocalypse.

Over the next few hours, I went into offices, checked and copied paperwork, entered labs to check their work, and even found the head of the research facility. He was alone in his office and there were no cameras, so I petrified him briefly and gave him three drops of truth serum to start asking him questions about their procedures.

I did not like the answers at all. Apparently, they needed to harvest a special subject they knew of that was immune to the fungus infection and that Merle had told them all about me, the bastard. So, I asked the smart thing about building up fresh blood donations for weeks and could have several litres of it available. Would it mitigate anything?

The man replied that the blood would only be wasted, because they needed to dig out all of the bone marrow in the subject's small body and they had to dissect certain parts of the brain tissue to figure out the effects of the antibodies. They needed that information in order to synthesize a small amount of the vaccine that they could then use on themselves to ensure their own survival first.

After that, they would either search for or try to recreate other immune people to harvest their bone marrow and could construct a more general and weaker vaccine that they could sell or trade to the government for better rights and territory concessions.

Let me tell you, I cursed and ranted for several minutes after hearing that. It was mostly because I had found a near identical situation as in the last world. Again, I had the option of sacrificing my life for a chance to save people, except it was for both a limited number and I couldn't choose who they were.

It was disheartening to have that realization and there still wasn't a guarantee that it would work. I could die, have them harvest all of my genetic material, and they could still fail to produce even a small amount of vaccine. That would make my sacrifice worthless and pointless.

Unlike the last time, I seriously considered not blowing the place up. It was the resistance's main compound and had a lot of people that ran everything and coordinated with the various resistance cells across the country through couriers, packages, and secret messages. Then again, they were specifically looking for me, so now I had a difficult choice to make.

Well, I say difficult when I really meant it was going to be a pain in the ass, because I would have to go back through the facility to copy out their messaging procedure and then I had to arrange to send out missives that the alert was a false alarm. There was no one of interest with my name and description and no reward would be offered for information or for turning me in.

Four hours later, I succeeded by using a few Imperio curses and a bunch of couriers were sent out on a mission to deliver the message and I resisted the urge to have them deliver bombs as well. It was really tempting, though. I couldn't even cackle madly as my plan to free myself actually worked.

After the couriers left, I knocked everyone out in the base with stunning spells and brought them into the largest room they had in the main building. It was a lecture and surgery room in the shape of an amphitheatre and was fully decked out with the proper supplies for an extensive medical procedure.

I did not miss the irony of setting up the explosives to kill them all in the room they would have killed me in. It was just too bad that I wouldn't be harvesting them for their bone marrow to make medicine. That would have been truly ironic, in my opinion. Physician, heal thyself!

I chuckled at my thoughts and set the timer, then ran to the garage and hopped into one of their newest cargo trucks. I drove out of the compound with the back loaded to the ceiling with various supplies and foodstuffs. It was from a huge storehouse that was to feed a large amount of people for a very long time, so Sandra and I could live on it for even longer, possibly years, even if we visited Jackson and her friends there to give them some of it.

I also had all the information they had on their operations against the FEDRA forces, including their manufacturing facilities and gas production. I didn't really need it for myself, though. With magic, I could expand and duplicate items and food to make them last for a very long time, as long as I still had the original. For some reason, you couldn't copy a copy of food.

Magic was weird and had arbitrary rules that didn't really make sense, and that was okay. I wouldn't give it up for anything because it was just too useful to not use it as much as possible. For the times that I couldn't use it after I had been hurt, had been some of the worst times of my life.

Sandra freaked out when I approached the old farm house in the FEDRA cargo truck and her gun went off several times. Nothing hit the large truck, which meant I needed to give her more lessons on aiming properly. I stopped a good distance away to not be too threatening and climbed out onto the roof of the cargo truck, took out a bright pink plush bunny toy to identify myself, and waved it at the house.

I could hear her cursing from this far away and I held in my laugh. I really should have left her with a walkie-talkie to stay in contact with me; but, I had no way to explain where they came from. Now I could claim that I appropriated them from the resistance base and she wouldn't question me about it.

“Get your dumb ass in here and out of sight, goddammit!” Sandra shouted. “And hide that truck!”

“Yes, dear! Right away!” I shouted back and climbed back into the truck's cab and drove it around the old farmhouse and parked out out of sight from the road and inside the illusion. I had to go back around the house and smoothed over the tire tracks in the snow with a conjured tree branch covered in leaves and then had to do the driveway and part of the road.

Once I was out of sight of the house, I used my wand to make the tracks continue on down the road and extended them for a few hundred feet before I let them fade away. With that important job done, I went back to the house and Sandra yelled and berated me for scaring the hell out of her and making her think a FEDRA patrol had found her without me there to protect her like I promised.

I dropped to my knees to apologize to her and held out the plush toy and a pair of walkie-talkies on their own set frequency. I said I was sorry and then explained I had a few long distance CB radios as well and we could set one up at the hotel, since it was one of the highest buildings in town.

She didn't calm down until I told her that the first time we visited Jackson to see her friends, we could give them one and they could build a small tower as well, because the walkie-talkies were short range and wouldn't work that far away from each other without piggybacking on the stronger signal, which I could also set up for her.

Sandra was appeased and only smacked me a few times as she cuddled both the toy and one of the walkie-talkies. She tried it after I gave her a brief rundown on how to work it, then she was chattering on it like it was a cell phone and she was a teenage girl talking to her friends. Honestly, she was just too cute when she acted like that. I didn't realize I had said that out loud until I received another smack on the head and then she kissed me.

We stayed there at the farmhouse for another day, just in case any of the couriers or anyone else like a patrol showed up, then we left in the truck. The horses had a great time running full out beside us and Sandra was giggling as she reached out the window to pet the female horse, whom neighed happily at her for the attention.

We made it back to the hotel in Colorado in record time and parked the truck inside the hotel's parking area. It was actually the basketball court at the back of the building and I parked it beside the back door for easy access. I showed Sandra what was inside and she squealed almost as loudly as when she first saw me in my pink bunny costume.

Oh, and I was wearing it again, too. Sandra insisted that it was punishment and I just laughed at her. She wanted her cuddly bunny and I was more than happy to be that for her. We settled back into our penthouse suite for a rest and then I would get to work building and setting up what we needed for the CB radio.

*

It was spring already and Tammy was out feeding the chickens. It had been 5 months since Sandra and Eli walked out of Jackson on foot with two old horses that were barely walking behind them. She had been thinking a lot about them, more and more as the days wore on, and she wondered if they had died right away or were now one of the monsters that the fungus had taken over.

There had been no word from them and no one that went out scouting had seen traces of them anywhere. They also had the occasional patrols come through on a regular basis, usually every couple of months, and the two times they had visited, the soldiers had asked about Eli. By name. That had been a worrying thing for all of them.

The appointed spokesperson, that wasn't Marius, clearly stated what had happened with Eli's trial. They had kicked him out of town months ago because they knew people would be looking for him and didn't want the trouble. The unhappy troops left after they were told that no one had any idea where Eli went or why, and that was the truth. He had only asked for a map before he left.

The surprise for Tammy had come when the next courier showed up just a few weeks ago and delivered a message to the entire town. Eli Williams was no longer a person of interest and they would no longer offer to buy or trade for information on him or his whereabouts.

That was what really had Tammy worried. They had either caught him and dealt with him already, or he had joined up with either the resistance or the FEDRA troops and was now considered 'off limits' by both factions. That could be both good and bad, especially after the way the trial had treated him. Would he bring their little settlement to everyone's attention, which would do exactly what they specifically kicked him out to prevent?

A loud whistle from the front gate broke Tammy out of her thoughts. She was aware of the normal schedule for deliveries and shipments, and today was not one of those days. She dumped out the bucket of feed instead of spreading it around with her hand and left the pen at a fast walk.

The normal group of greeters quickly gathered on horseback behind the large doors and had their rifles at the ready, then there were two short whistles that signalled 'all clear'.

“Who's on the door today?” Tammy asked as she approached the greeters.

“Jenkins.” One of the men said and slung his rifle over his shoulder.

“He wouldn't call the first warning if it was someone he knew...” Tammy started to postulate as the smaller door opened instead of the two large ones. She caught her breath when a massive horse, the size of a Clydesdale, trotted in through the opening. It barely fit and it chuffed at the closeness.

“Relax, Hermes. They're not going to open the main doors just for you and Aphrodite.” A familiar voice said.

“ELI!” Tammy gasped and stared at the young man sitting on top of the huge horse.

“Oh! You do remember me?” Eli asked with a huge smile. “I was worried you forgot about me.”

As if that was ever possible. Tammy thought and had to smile back. “Who are you again?”

Eli laughed and moved the horse over to allow a second horse to enter. “I'm the friendly delivery man.” He said and motioned to the other horse that was almost as big as the first one.

“Hi, Tammy. It's been a while.” Sandra greeted her.

Tammy smiled warmly. “It has, and you idiots really had me worried.”

Sandra waved at Eli. “It's his fault. We had to go all the way to the middle of goddamn Utah before he decided we needed to head back to Colorado.”

“Hey, it wasn't my fault! I couldn't get my wanted status revoked without going right to the top.” Eli defended himself. “At least the feds only wanted me because the resistance did. With that gone, they lost interest, too.”

Tammy just stared at him and didn't know what to say. How the hell did he manage that?

“Anyways.” Sandra said with a roll of her eyes, letting everyone know it was a familiar argument between them. “We're here to trade for a few supplies and we've also brought a present.”

“What's that?” Jenkins asked as he closed and secured the door. He had someone else take over his duty because his friend Eli was there and he wanted to talk to him. Just like Tammy, he had missed the charismatic young man, even after only knowing him for a few short days.

“It's a long distance CB radio and instructions to build a communications tower to let you run walkie-talkies through it.” Eli said and everyone was shocked. “I'm really starting to enjoy seeing that look on people's faces.”

Sandra laughed and swatted him on the arm. “Get off Hermes and start unloading his saddlebags. You know he hates the extra burden that slows him down.”

“Fine, fine.” Eli said and slid off of the saddle and landed on the dirt. He patted Hermes on the shoulder. “There's a trail and access road across the hydroelectric dam that's a few miles long. I'll show it to you later and you can really let loose and have a bit of fun.”

Hermes neighed happily and nodded.

“Did... did your horse... just nod acceptance?” Tammy asked, her eyes wide.

Eli chuckled and went to the left saddlebag hanging behind the saddle. It was fairly large and looked like it did encumber the horse when it ran. “He can do a lot more than that.”

“Like what?” Jenkins asked and petted Hermes on his flank and within his sight. You should never try to touch a horse where it can't see you. That was just asking to be kicked or trampled.

“Like claiming territory by crapping all over it.” Sandra said with a shake of her head. “How he figured that was supposed to work is beyond me.”

Jenkins laughed. “He's not claiming territory, Sandra. He's leaving stud piles.”

“Huh?” Sandra and Eli asked at the same time and in the same tone of voice.

Tammy barely held back her laugh at how in sync they were. She also managed to not feel envy that she and Marius had never had that happen and they had been together for years.

“He's claiming his mare and marking the area to keep his pheromones fresh and the smell pungent.” Jenkins explained and patted the horse's shoulder. “Where did you get these fine specimens, Eli? I've only seen pictures of horses this big and never personally seen a Clydesdale.”

“I worked hard to get them to this size and spent a lot of time and effort making sure they developed properly and didn't max out certain traits too early as they ignored others.” Eli said and gave Hermes a glare.

The horse snorted and looked away with guilt on its face. Everyone around them stared at the interaction, because none of them had ever seen a horse looking guilty before.

“Here's the main console.” Eli said and handed Jenkins the large cardboard box that none of the people around realized should not have fit inside the saddlebag. “We'll have to assemble the dish it needs and the tower, too. It should only take a couple of days.”

“I thought you said you brought instructions to build the tower ourselves?” Tammy asked.

“We did.” Sandra said and slid off of her horse's saddle on the left side, just like Eli had, and landed on her feet. It was only then that a few people noticed the expensive boots. “We also brought the materials.”

“Like I said, a day or two.” Eli added and reached into the saddlebag and pulled out a huge coil of wiring that must have weighed a hundred pounds. “Where can we start putting these things?”

Tammy waved at the community centre and Eli nodded. With a central location chosen to put all the parts he had brought, the work could get started as soon as he had everything unpacked.