XY-N 3 : I Heard a Voice Asking...

Roger Daltrey, “Under a Raging Moon”

Xyn closed his eyes.

The young Psion’s education in the realm of sexual relations had been limited to what all the little Bios in the Facility had studied in class, so all that he knew about was how an XX and an XY made a little one the natural way. Of course, there was in vitro, and cloning as well; Xyn knew about these too, but he didn’t know a thing about what Jayk was doing to him. He knew, from Fragments gleaned from the minds of the few Adults that he had met, that sometimes and XY would have relations with another XY, and XX’s would do the same to other XX’s as well. He’d never been able to get many details, however. Now, the details were literally in his lap. But, being the Innocent that he was, and finding that he so desperately wanted to help Jayk, he didn’t protest. His curiosity had been piqued, and he wanted to see where it went.

His hormones had been piqued as well.

Although the feelings that he was experiencing were totally new to him, as well as distracting, Xyn found that he was still able to think. He shivered as Jayk worked at his hard penis, and he wondered why anyone would want to do that to an XY. He thought about how old Jayk really was. Although the Slow Mutant looked like a little one, he was - in all actuality - a very ancient Soul of a Man trapped in the body of a little one. His mind had aged over the Cycles of Slow growth, but his body hadn’t. Instead, it had been mutilated, violated, and just kept going on and on. Xyn didn’t understand why anyone would want to cut up a little XY and make him into an e-XY, or “eunuch” as some called it. He understood that some of the little Bios at the Facility were used for parts for malfunctioning or deformed Approved little ones, but that was the limit of his knowledge. Perhaps the Dealer who bought Jayk from the Hunter had simply done it to be mean. But there was the lingering thought of Jayk recalling how the Master had said that it had increased his value by so much. As Property, an e-XY was worth a lot more than just an XY.

Xyn moaned reflexively as a shudder of pleasure shot through his small body. It was a strange feeling, and frightened him. But Jayk continued his work, his mouth moving skillfully over Xyn’s genitals. He was moving slowly, as if trying to make whatever he was doing last longer. The Psion thought about what Jayk had said about his life: he’d been a slave for 13 Cycles. He’d been free for 15. That was 28. He’d lived with someone called Tevis for 10, that was 38. Then he remembered being free and roaming the forests for something like 20, give or take. That made almost 60 Cycles of life. But, Jayk had said that Slow Mutants aged only 1 Cycle of growth for every 50 Cycles of real Time. If Jayk had accounted for 60 Cycles, then he would have aged 1 Real Cycle in that period. In all those Cycles, in all that he had told him, Jayk would have to be much older than he let on. 125 was nowhere near close to Jayk’s age in Real Time. Even if he were still 13 or so in estimated Real age, what about the other 12 x 50 Cycles of life? It made no sense to Xyn. To make it to the age of 13 in Slow growth Time, Jayk would have to have been alive for at least 650 Cycles.

Being as intelligent as he was, even without benefit of a Processor in his brain, it took Xyn less than a minute to arrive at this figure. Jayk continued to suck his penis, and Xyn began to shake. His eyes widened as he watched Jayk’s braided and dark head moving in his lap, and thought became more difficult as his body and mind began to give themselves over totally to physical pleasure. What Jayk was doing to him felt good, and Xyn found that he liked it. Still, he struggled with it. He recalled his History class, in which they studied calendars of various Eras. Man once used the term “years.” Cycles, however, weren’t years. Years were 12 months, roughly 30 days each, a day was from sunrise to sunrise next. Cycles were different. Whatever the true age of the Mutant eunuch, Xyn realized that he was very old in mind, if not in body. His thoughts, however, ceased wondering about Jayk’s real age as a tightening began to take place in his crotch. Jayk increased the speed of his actions a bit, and the tightening grew worse.

It felt as if things were getting ready to explode inside of Xyn. He stared in amazement at Jayk, at his own trembling body, and Jayk’s long-fingered hands that began to move over his thighs and up onto his belly. That action sent chills racing up and down his spine. Xyn felt his body stiffen as the impending explosion began. He had tried to keep his Psi out of it, but as the first waves of Xyn’s very first orgasm began to spread within him, his Psi acted on its own. He reached down with his own hands and felt at Jayk’s pointed ears, touched his slender neck, and saw a thousand thousand memories of this self-same act being performed on Jayk’s Master. Then he felt the desires - the need to make the Master feel pleasure, the need to feel pleasure himself. The desires were strong, but the one desire - and perhaps the greatest - was simply not fulfilled by this sexual act.

Jayk wasn’t loved.

Jayk knew that he wasn’t loved.

Jayk knew that he was only a toy, Property to be used, bought and sold.

He heard, somewhere deep in the recesses of Jayk’s tormented mind, a small voice asking, “why can’t I be loved?”

Xyn cried out as his penis jerked and his body spasmed. His hips thrust out at Jayk, but the little eunuch compensated for it as if he knew it were coming. Xyn’s whole body felt as if it were on fire. His muscles contracted, relaxed, and his thoughts ceased. Where there had been curiosity and desire for knowledge, there was now only pleasure. Xyn felt something coming out of his penis, and feared that he had lost his bladder. Jayk, however, seemed unaffected by this and continued his work. Xyn had never felt anything like it before, and as his breathing accelerated and his heart pounded, he felt his body pumping something hot out of him again and again. His body bucked and he cried out, but Jayk was unaffected. Whatever it was, Jayk was keeping it in his mouth, working it over Xyn’s penis as if that were all that mattered.

The Psion cried out once again, and his Psi invaded Jayk’s mind fully.

The waves of raw pleasure that tore at him now tore at Jayk as well. His Psi sifted through Jayk’s memories, and he saw the Master wracked by the same throes of ecstasy. As his hands ran over the pointed ears again, Xyn felt a familiar flash of shame and then, suddenly, a sense of loss and regret that was so enormous and ran so deep that he could hardly believe it. He moaned and gasped again as his body ceased its strange convulsions of pleasure and the feelings began to ebb. He felt his penis softening and his hips stopping their motions. Jayk had slowed again, then finally stopped, and was moving to place himself on the bed next to Xyn.

“You know, that felt odd,” Jayk observed in a hushed tone.

Xyn nodded, unable to speak.

It had been the greatest thing that the young Psion had ever felt, yet it was marred by something else. Xyn realized what it was as his Psi ranged with lightning speed through the new memories of Jayk’s mind that were now wide open to him - Jayk had felt this only once before in his long, strange life. Once - before the Hunter had caught him and the Dealer had cut him up. Jayk had been just on the cusp of Adulthood when they had taken him, his own sexuality just beginning to form. Xyn’s eyes teared up as he realized that Jayk had enjoyed it as much as he had, and that the Slow Mutant, no matter how long he lived, would never be able to feel it again. Was that why they cut his XY parts off? To deny him pleasures, since he was going to be a slave?

But as Jayk lay beside him, licking his deep red lips and taking Xyn in a warm embrace, the Psion saw something else - Jayk COULD feel pleasure. It was strange and certainly not the same, but it WAS pleasure. It took longer to reach the spasms, they came in a different way, but they also lasted longer. In his mind’s eye, Xyn saw the Master mounting Jayk from behind and pushing his enormous penis into Jayk’s ass. Jayk was grimacing, his eyes shut tight, but then his jaw opening and Jayk gasping as he became accustomed to it. His real eyes saw Jayk moving nearer, and he felt those red lips pressed against his own. His eyes locked on to the gleaming fangs. He knew what a kiss was, of course. Mr. Rick had kissed him several times when he had held him, when they were alone. Xyn remembered what it felt like, but this time it was different. This time, it brought the strange pleasure. With Mr. Rick, Xyn had felt love. With Jayk, Xyn felt something new.

As Jayk’s lips pressed tighter onto his own, Xyn felt Jayk’s tongue and his own lips slipped open. The fact that those lips had been, only moments before, wrapped around his penis didn’t bother him. Then his mouth opened as well, and both became lost in the deep kiss. He didn’t worry about Jayk’s razor-sharp looking fangs, for it seemed that the Mutant knew how to be careful of them. Xyn felt his penis throbbing again, becoming erect once more after having gone back down. His Psi saw, once again, the image of the Master and what he had done to Jayk so often. Then Xyn felt Jayk’s hand on his penis again, rubbing something onto him, something that smelled of sweetness and flowers. It was cool and slick, refreshing on his hot body, and Jayk was moving to place himself atop of Xyn. He said nothing as he placed a knee to each side of Xyn’s hips, a calm smile on his face. His hand moved to behind his back, and Xyn gasped as he stared at Jayk’s smooth and empty crotch now hovering above his own XY parts as Jayk rose to his knees and began to descend.

The little eunuch carefully lowered himself onto Xyn’s aching and once more hardened penis, using his hand to guide it towards his ass. As he felt it touch Jayk’s skin, he felt the slipperiness of the oil and felt it on Jayk as well. Jayk sighed deeply as Xyn felt his penis encountering resistance, but the resistance yielded as his penis slipped up and into Jayk’s ass. Jayk moaned softly, and Xyn found his thoughts once again.

“What are you doing?” he almost begged, warily keeping his Psi OFF of what it must have felt like when the Master did this to Jayk.

Jayk shook his head, his eyes closed. “I warned you of this,” he replied in a choked voice, “What came before with my mouth pleasured you. What comes now pleasures us both. Relax, and let me do the deed, Xyn Psion, so that you may understand me better.”

And with that, Jayk began to move himself up and down, forcing Xyn’s erect penis in and out of his ass. Xyn found his astonished thoughts evaporating again, for as Jayk moved - his face betraying the pleasure that he was taking in the act - Xyn felt pleasure as well. He also felt his Psi working harder and harder, trying to reach that door in Jayk’s mind and force it open. There had to be more to this act than pleasure. If only there were some way he could make Jayk feel what he had felt when Mr. Rick had held him, or when he thought back on all the other little Bios at the Facility. True, Xyn had never done ANYTHING like this with them, but he had felt for them. He missed them all. And as Jayk’s smooth skin moved against him, his hands touching here and there, Xyn realized how much he had missed that pure physical touch in only the few days that he had been without it. Oddly, he found his mind very carefully storing and analyzing every detail of how Jayk looked.

For the rest of his life, Xyn would remember those almond shaped eyes beneath the upward sloping black eyebrows and the long, braided hair that hung down Jayk’s back. He would recall in stark clarity the points of the ears, the set of the jaw, and the gleaming whiteness of his sharp fangs as well as the deep red of his lips and the shape of his forever beardless chin. His eyes and mind wandered down the slim neck where there was no bump in the throat like an Adult XY had, down to his slightly barrel-shaped chest where his nipples stood out. He stored the image of the flat and tight stomach and the developing musculature of his legs and arms, which were a bit long for a little one of his age. He watched the slim and also too-long fingers moving here and there, touching, feeling; he noted the missing ring finger of the left hand, and wondered, as he felt the pleasures increasing in his own flesh, how Jayk had lost that finger and how long ago. Xyn took in the lean and long legs, the knees which rubbed at the outsides of his hips.

But foremost, his mind and Psi burned into him the image of Jayk’s crotch, devoid of the things that all XY’s were born with that eventually made them into Men and brought them their own little ones with an XX for a mate. He felt the cruelty, the joy, the elation of the Hunter and Dealer; he had felt, yet felt again, the pleasures of the Master for 13 Cycles of Jayk’s long life. Then, the voice again, asking, “Can’t I have someone for more than a few Cycles? When will it end?”

It was with this image frozen in his mind that Xyn realized something else - Jayk desperately wanted to die. All the Cycles of his strange and unnaturally long life had finally caught up with him, and Xyn began to wonder if it had been curiosity that had drawn him into the forest some nights ago. Perhaps, in some way that he was unaware of, his Psi had locked onto Jayk and drawn them together. His Psi, or something far more powerful.

He moaned softly again as his skin, warm against Jayk’s, added to the shivers of delight that coursed through his own slight body. Jayk was moving himself up and down on the shaft of his hardened penis, his mouth agape and his head tilted back. Xyn could feel the ends of the braids brushing at his legs. Jayk’s skin was smooth and so warm against his, and he couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to be with this strange Mutant.

But how long had it been since Jayk had touched anyone in this way?

Then, intermingled with the visions of the Master, Xyn’s Psi caught a flash of Scot, the blind little one whom Jayk had taken in. He saw Jayk and Scot in bed, the little one blissfully asleep in Jayk’s arms as the Slow Mutant cried silently. The flood of self-loathing was there, and in that vision Xyn’s Psi saw another vision. This one came from ‘that’ Jayk, and Jayk was imagining himself doing THIS to Scot.

Jayk, however, was a eunuch.

Jayk had the desire, but not the ability.

Jayk felt real love for this Defective, it was there - or had been - Xyn could feel it - yet Jayk was horribly ashamed of himself for thinking as he did. Ashamed of where his love had led his thoughts. Ashamed for wanting what he couldn’t have. Yet Xyn felt the love, a fading ember of what had once been a raging fire that had burnt Jayk’s heart almost beyond recognition. The love had been true, and the loss and guilt so great.

But there was more - with the vision of Scot was the image of the door. Xyn’s Psi reached for that door, and it found it. With his mind struggling to do more than feel the pleasures that Jayk was giving them both (for as a Psion, Xyn was feeling Jayk’s pleasure as well), he reached for that door and jerked it open. His Psi brushed the feelings of self-loathing aside, washed away the shame as the rains wash the dust from the roadside flowers, and he threw the door wide open. His Psi was aflame with its full Will, his body was aflame with its full sexual awakening. He felt the orgasm coming again, and his mind resisted it. His Psi felt Jayk approaching his own, so slowly. Very carefully, with all of his Will bent at it, Xyn merged his Psi and his mind into Jayk’s, somewhere behind that door. Jayk’s eyes opened wide as he continued to move on top of Xyn, his ass taking the comparatively small length of Xyn’s penis in and out, over and over. Then Jayk’s eyes went wide.

Again, the voice asked.

And Xyn answered.

“I will be that one,” Xyn assured him in a near-strangled voice, in answer to the question.

Jayk was unable to vocally respond, however, as he continued his movements. He felt the sensations of Xyn’s penis inside of him, moving, stimulating him as his Master had done. Xyn was much smaller, but the feelings were there. Yet somehow, the young Psion had managed to transmit his own sensations to Jayk - the sensations that he had felt only once and then so long ago before the Dealer had cut him up. He stared in amazement at the little one below him, the little one who would soon be a Man. He had come to him, and Jayk had rejected him. But Jayk had brought him here, and for no reason other than the fact that he was full of love to give and all alone in the world, Xyn had proven himself in healing Dan. They had all accepted him, all but Jayk, who had begrudgingly put up with him thinking that he would leave the next day.

But Xyn had stayed, and all trusting and open, had allowed Jayk this act and joined his mind with his own Psi; this was something that Jayk had not even allowed Shar to do, fighting her with all he had in him when she tried. Xyn had healed Dan, and now he was bound and determined to heal Jayk as well, in mind if not body. Jayk felt himself slowly becoming Xyn/Jayk, and he knew in an instant how the Psion must perceive things when looking deep into others. His ass was stimulated by Xyn’s penis as he rode it, yet his nonexistent one was stimulated as well as his phantom balls rose up close to his body, as Xyn’s must be doing. He groaned in the pure ecstacy that he had known that he could never experience again.

Until then.

Feelings of pleasure built and built, and some abstracted part of Xyn watched as Xyn/Jayk became lost in those pleasures with no hint of guilt or regret to mar it. As it came closer, both of them groaned again in anticipation. Jayk’s almond shaped eyes were wet with tears, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Two physical bodies moved on the bed, but only one mind moved between them.

Then it hit him.

It hit them.

Xyn’s Psi grabbed hold of the feeling, amplifying it, and Jayk screamed.

The eunuch’s back arched, pressing his thin mid-section closer to Xyn’s. They both shivered with the feelings of ascending climax, as well as with the feeling of simple skin on skin. Xyn’s Psi amplified that as well. Jayk’s movements changed, and his ass tightened around Xyn’s shaft. As Xyn began to ejaculate, Jayk’s whole body shook violently, the spasms forcing him down on top Xyn. The Psion took him in his arms, their hips still beating against each other as the pleasures tore at them and threatened to rip them open from the groins up. Xyn cried out as Jayk’s arms squeezed his ribs. His red lips were pulled back in a snarl, his fangs gleaming in the light. Then Xyn raised up, rolling Jayk backwards on the bed and taking over the motions of the sexual act. With information that his Psi had taken from Jayk, Xyn thrust his penis in and out of the eunuch. Jayk was shaking his head and his thin body convulsed, wracked by feelings of the mind as well as feelings of the flesh. In affect, he was experiencing his own orgasm as a eunuch, and Xyn’s orgasm as a Man at the same time. Xyn’s hands roamed over the Mutant’s sweat soaked skin as he pumped at his ass, imitating what he had seen in Jayk’s mind, striving to hit the spots that would pleasure him the most.

What one felt, the other felt. What was new to one was a memory to the other.

Still, it continued with no sign of stopping as Xyn’s Psi amplified the waves of orgasm over and over, increasing them exponentially until both were shaking and totally covered in sweat that ran in rivulets to soak the ragged bedding. Xyn was moaning in his own physical ecstacy, but he was violently pulled up out of it by Jayk’s chilling scream as the Mutant’s mind AND body began to overload. The numbers came racing back to him - 650 Cycles - one Cycle of real Time ... how many times had the Master made Jayk do this? How had it felt? 13 Cycles with the Master, hardly a day of slow Time ... and Xyn realized that he had to stop. Jayk was shaking his head, spittle running from the corners of his mouth and his whole body convulsing. His eyes were wide, but he was seeing nothing. His head shook as if to say NO, and he screamed again.

It was simply too much for him.

Very carefully, Xyn pulled back his Psi and shut it down, easing himself out of Jayk - in body and mind - falling onto the sweat-soaked bed beside him. His own body shook with pleasure and his heart pounded as it never had before. With extreme care, he made the amplifications stop. He then took the eunuch in his arms and kissed his pointed ear as the Master had done so often, stroking at his long, braided hair. The smell of sweat and dirt and sex filled his nostrils. He held Jayk close to him, his breathing stabilizing and his convulsions subsiding. Xyn felt the muscles relax as the orgasm died away, quickly, and Jayk became still. His dark eyes had closed. He was, however, smiling, and his arms were clinging to Xyn’s body as if he never intended to let go. Xyn returned that embrace, and gently sent what he felt out to Jayk.

This time, the door was open and Jayk took it.

Xyn felt it going out of him in a hard wrench, his mind shooting - in affect, ejaculating - much as his penis had.

Jayk turned his head and buried it in Xyn’s shoulder. Without warning, as if opening that door had released something long deprived of light and air and sustenance, Jayk began to sob. Again, his small body was wracked by tremors, but these tremors were not the type that threatened to tear him apart in pleasure. These were tremors of release; a release, which Xyn could feel, would heal Jayk - not hurt him.

Jayk cried for a very long time.

Xyn held the eunuch in his arms until the sobbing died down to gentle weeping, and his Psi reached in to sponge away the last few shattered fragments of shame and regret.

He held Jayk until, mentally and physically exhausted, the eunuch fell asleep in his arms.

The Psion soon followed him, and both of them understood.

Several levels below, Shar’s connection to the Network via her Implants broke. She was pulled from the Virtual World by a scream - a scream of the likes which she had never before heard. Then her Psi reached out, thinking a little one in danger, and found something for which she was totally unprepared. She felt Jayk, and Jayk was happy. Jayk was feeling, and he wasn’t projecting that cloud of regret and hatred that hovered over him at all times! She felt Xyn, she felt love, and she herself smiled and sighed. A tear ran down her perfect and unlined cheek as she flipped the long and curled Midnight of her hair from her face. “Oh, finally!” she breathed, “You’ve saved him, Xyn Psion!”

In his new office in the new Facility #32, several leagues to the west of where the old one had burnt, Rick Abrams glanced up sharply from his terminal. Something had pulled him out of his own Network connection and the files and facts on the surviving Bios which he cared for, that danced before his eyes in a Virtual display, disappeared. He heard a familiar voice cross his mind, not his ears, and he knew to whom it belonged. He gasped, his heart skipping a beat as he felt something that he had convinced himself he would never feel again. Somehow, over whatever distance was between them, he felt Xyn. Xyn, the little one he so desperately wanted and couldn’t have. His eyes teared up, at about the same time that Shar went back to her own work, and he stared at the damned document in the center of his desk. “Clone request denied, blood sample XY-n, Facility 32. Waste of Resources.” Mr. Rick, as Xyn used to call him, realized that he was out there somewhere, and he was ALIVE!

Abrams bowed his head, his Processor going into idle mode, as he sobbed.

She had renewed her Network connection and gone back to her Secured communications with the Others. The Others, as only she knew them, that led small groups of hidden Mutants, Orphans, and Runaways like her own. They were scattered all over the Ruins, which were vast. Some were even under the Old City, while a few others were actually IN the Old City and functioning in normal everyday life undetected. It was risky, she knew - and they knew - to engage in such communications. However, she had to keep enough of her Psi free to stand watch over the little ones who guarded the entryways. There were rumors of a Psionic Hunter out there now, brought in from the New Approved Cities to help exterminate the infestation of Mutants who lived below and stole little ones to corrupt. This new Hunter was not only a Psion, but Approved with Implants - and in perfect health. He was one of them, taken by the Approveds and made to hunt down his own kind. He would be a formidable enemy, to say the least.

Shar snorted in disgust at the previous thought. The Newscasts and the Journals made the Public believe such about them. Made them believe that all the Runaways and Outcasts in general were an infestation bent on destroying what Kadens the Unifier had worked so hard to build after the devastation of the BioGenic Wars. The simple truth was that Mutants were feared for their differences in appearances or talents. Defectives were to be wiped out for the good of All, and Runaways ... well, they were open targets for the Hunters and Dealers. They were free Resources for the taking, and with the World in the shape it was in, Resources were not to be wasted. Life was precious, and Shar knew it. That was why she had done it.

That was why she had run away when she did, when the Processor in her brain had overloaded one day in college and the Nanobots had tried to Adapt. She had been studying Nanotechnology, of course, and she had simply pushed herself too far. Her Psi, which she had hidden so well for all of her life, had then taken over. It had somehow merged with the Processor, bringing it back online. But it had been too much for the physical tissues around the Processor, and try as they might, her Nanobots simply couldn’t keep up with the rapidly necrotizing tissues. They had rushed her to Emergency of course, and they had admitted her. Shar had come from a good Approved Family in a New City, and she was not a waste of Resources. Shar had had potential. She would receive care, which she later found out, was to come at the expense of an Unapproved Bio fetus.

She thought of that as she closed her Network connection, having routed a shipment of vacuum sealed meats off of its predetermined course of delivery. Actually, sabotaged would have been a better word; the flyer carrying it would go down right outside the ruins, and they would be ready to raid it. She smiled at the Virtual display; it was all in the programming. Her contact above had been a large help, and her little ones needed more than the scavengings of garbage and the pickings of the forest to survived. Every day was usually a struggle just to survive, but all of that was about to change. Soon the Revolution which had begun years ago with her discovery would come to fruition. The Revolution which had begun in her, when she had found that her life had been saved by the injections of the Unapproved Bio’s carefully filtered and processed cerebral/spinal tissues into her damaged brain.

It was at that point, upon her release, that Shar had given up hiding her Mutant status and become a Runaway.

She sighed as the Virtual display before her eyes vanished. Soon they would come, and she was exhausted. With one last probe of her surroundings, she deemed it safe for the time being and headed for her bed. On that last pass, her Psi slipped over the sleeping minds of Xyn and Jayk. She saw them together, in Jayk’s ragged bed, their arms wrapped about each other and dreaming smiles on their faces. Xyn, she knew, was a little one, hardly 14 Cycles old. Jayk, however, was very old. Very old, indeed; not even Shar was certain of how old. As she found her room and took to her own bed, Shar allowed herself a brief flash of jealousy in the fact that Xyn had penetrated areas of Jayk’s mind that the ancient little one had always kept hidden from her. She decided to let them sleep, as they both needed it; and so did she. But as she drifted off, however, Shar was haunted by the scream that her Psi had heard from Jayk when Xyn had finally gotten through to him. She seemed to hear another scream overlaid on it - no, in it - but, tired as she was, she didn’t pursue it and fell asleep almost immediately. In her dreams, she was pursued by the rumored Psionic Hunter.

He watched the darkness fall over the Old City, the crimson sun painting exaggerated shadows over the landscape. Far off past the flats, which were stained by the sunset and looked like lake of blood, lay the forest. This was the one thing he feared. Being a Hunter - which was, after all, legal - didn’t bother him. What would happen to his prey, as if he cared, didn’t bother him. Working the long hours and having no one to go back to when he was done didn’t bother him. But the forest did.

His thoughts reached back as he checked his weapons, the sun sinking lower and redder. It must have been from when he was a little one, he reasoned. For years he had tried to cope with his irrational fear of nothing but trees, green things, and animals. Dimly, he recalled being lost. He recalled being chased. Something large was after him, but the thought of this made him smile. ‘Is that how you’ll feel, Runaway?’ he mused to himself, his Psi picking up the nervous personality of a scavenger come up out of the Underworld too soon before dark.

He slipped back into the deepening shadows, pressing himself up against a wall. He watched as the nervous one came into view, a little one, but not too little. He estimated his age at 15 Cycles, perhaps. Maybe less. In the waning light, he could not see any outward signs of Mutation, but it didn’t matter. Mutants or Unapproved Bios, they all sold. They all brought money. Just as he had brought money so long ago when the Authorities had taken him in from the Hunter who had captured HIM. He smiled. ‘I was so lucky,’ he thought, remembering how the Leader had had a great idea about a Psion becoming a Hunter. He smiled as the little one moved closer. His Psi probed him, and the Hunter saw that he was no Psion. So much the better. He thought back, remembering how he had grown up in fear, hiding his talent, his Mutation. In the end, it had brought him a high paying career.

But the price had been high.

He watched the little one. For years, they had trained him after he had been taken. He had had little choice in the matter, actually. It was a simple choice - take the position as a trainee Hunter, using his Psi Mutation for the job, or be lobotomized to neutralize his Psi and used for parts for other Approveds. He had taken the job. Fortunately, he had come to enjoy his work. Rounding up Runaways and taking Mutants off of the streets had become his life. He rationalized it often, thinking ‘If I got this life, why not them too?’ The little one moved closer. He began to reach out with his Psi, enticing ... entreating ... calming ... ‘come closer,’ it seemed to say. To the Hunter, it wasn’t a person. Approveds were people, Unapproveds were there for their benefit. And no Unapproved, no matter how dumb, would be out on the streets after sunset without an Identification Beacon. He double checked his readouts, graphical displays that moved inside of his face mask. This was a Runaway, or a Mutant. No Beacon.

‘Come this way,’ he thought.

The little one did that.

He raised his weapon, set for heavy stun, and aimed. Looking at the display at such a small target didn’t bother him in the least. “Damn Unapproveds breed like rats,” he thought, “just making more burdens for a World that can’t handle them anymore.” Of course, HE would never do such a thing. It was not because he didn’t want to. He remembered his own parents, and how good they had been to him when he was a little one. He also remembered how they had tried to hide his Mutation. And he remembered how their lives had all fallen apart when the Hunter had taken him that day. Unconsciously, he shook his head, banishing the idea.

The little one stopped, his eyes suddenly glowing cyan in the fading light. He stepped back into an alleyway, hardly daring to breath. The Hunter felt it. He moved carefully, his Psi telling him that his target was wary. But no one would miss him, no one but his hidden friends somewhere Underground. How many of them were there? No one knew for sure. With one in ten births carrying a Mutation, there could be quite a few. Mutations could be exploited, of that HE was proof, but most were to be exterminated. Or sold. He had grown rich over the years selling them, especially the XY’s. He smiled. This was an XY.

The target moved back out into the clear, and he fired. A thin bolt of energy, hardly more than a millimeter in diameter, lashed out from his weapon and connected with the target’s head. The little one stiffened for a second, then moaned. He fell to the ground without another sound as the shot simply shut down all neural activity in his voluntary systems. His heart would beat, he would breath, but that would be it. The Hunter stepped out of concealment, his Psi feeling the sheer terror rolling off the little one. He smiled, lifting his face mask. The fact that this was someone’s son didn’t bother him at all, for HE had no son. He would never have a son.

One stipulation to his new job, so long ago, was his being identified to the Global D-base as a Mutant. That meant that although he was given Implants and Approved status, he was not allowed to father children, adopt, or be cloned. Enforcing the decree wouldn’t be hard either. His DNA was registered, and the Agency had had him castrated upon his acceptance. He was sure that the Agency WOULD clone him, however, once they saw how affective a Psionic Hunter would be. In his first Cycle of duty in one of the New Cities alone, he had brought in over 500 strays. They were impressed with him. He picked up his prey and slung the stunned XY over his shoulder. The cyan fires in his eyes had gone out, and he could feel the heart hammering against his shoulder as he carried him like a sack of supplies. What was to become of the terrified little XY didn’t matter in the least. Whether he went to the Officials, a Facility, or a Dealer meant nothing to the Hunter.

As he began his walk back to his vehicle to head for the Office to deposit his prey, he mused that he hadn’t been much older than this little one when they had taken him from his family. He hadn’t seen them since, but the Agency assured him that they knew that he was alive and well and Approved now. That was enough.

It had to be.

Other than the money or gold, it was all that there was.

The suit under his protective armor softly hissed, and he became aware that it had just inoculated his body against something. The suit, from a Facility that raised pure Bios for parts, had sold the Agency the suit for a small fortune. Naturally, it had paid itself of in no time. It kept the Hunter in perfect health and made him almost invincible.

“Probably sick,” he muttered, shifting the stunned XY on his shoulder. As if in response, the XY sneezed. Sneezing was not a voluntary action, after all, and he wasn’t surprised. He was halfway to the station when the idea came to him. He had just passed into a well lit part of the City where the 3rd Duty business was going on. It was a full 3 Shift World, and it stopped for no reason. He WAS near a Dealer’s hidden office, he knew, having used it several times in the past. Would it matter if he brought this one in to the Officials? No. He was already over quota for the Term, anyway, and since he was all alone in life, he was driven by money and possessions. He set the XY down to look him over. He clapped his visor down again, the display coming to life.

He was basically unremarkable.

His skin was very pale, and his white hair was cut very close to his scalp. His eyebrows were white as well, and the Hunter recalled the cyan glow to his eyes. He looked deep into those eyes, wide with fear. The pupils were vertical slits, not orbs like a Human’s. His ears were only slightly pointed, almost normal, as were his teeth. He felt to have the beginnings of musculature, and as the Hunter pulled him back into an alley and stripped off his clothing, he saw the first dustings of body hair. It was white as well, and he had to feel at it to be sure. Everything else, including his XY parts, were normal. There wasnt’ a Nanobot in him.

“A Nightstalker,” he whispered, his Psi telling him that the little one was in absolute panic now, his body unable to respond to his frenzied thoughts. He had caught Nightstalkers before, and the Agency had praised him highly on this. It wasn’t easy to catch something that could see in the dark as well as the day and could move with such agility. “Oh don’t worry,” he snapped as he picked him up again, “I’m not going to rape you. I can’t rape you.” He felt the thought, the worrying coming off of the XY, and curiosity.

“Sure, lots of Adults like little XY’s. I’m not one of them, though.” More curiosity. It was impossible to lie in a Psionic chat.

He cursed himself at the frustrations he felt. Sure, he’d take a go at this one if he could. He was lying to the XY and to himself. God knew he wanted to. Or an XX, it didn’t matter. What did matter, though, was the fact that he couldn’t, no matter how bad he wished to. The Agency had castrated him completely, leaving him with nothing at all between his legs except for a small hole through which to urinate. The suit took care of that for him. To exacerbate the problem, the suit that he wore which protected him medically also kept his XY-Balance up to high levels. He was horny as hell, very well built, rounded up stray little XY’s and XX’s for a living, and couldn’t take advantage of it.

The victim must have caught on to it somehow. A rush of arousal, brief and so curious.

“Cut, yes,” the Hunter thought back, “Job requirement.” More fear, anticipation and fear.

“Yes, I’m a Hunter, and I got you.” Feelings of failure.

“No, I’m not taking you to the Officials.” A wave of relief.

“I’m taking you to a Dealer.” A wave of near hysteria. Stunned as he was, however, the victim couldn’t even whimper in protest. “What he does with you is none of my concern. Are you sick?”

He knew that the little one couldn’t answer, but his Psi ‘listened.’ Allergies, it felt. The Hunter smiled. “Those can be cured.” And with that, he hauled the stunned little Mutant into his vehicle and set a new course for the Dealer he knew so well. The night was young yet, and the one he had just taken had unknowingly informed him that were others in the area. It might just get him a vacation.

They were still asleep. Shar had assembled the group in the main room, but Jayk and Xyn were both absent. She asked the others to be patient, and reached out to them with her Psi. They were both still asleep in Jayk’s bed. “Wake up!” she ‘shouted’ at them. She got back a ‘mumbled’ protest from Xyn and she smiled. “Come to the main room,” she stated, and turned back to the others. “If and when Jayk and our newest family member arrive,” she began, “We can go over the plans for the day. All but you, Kefe,” she added, “An up & coming Nightstalker like you who works 3rd Duty wouldn’t do much good falling asleep at the edge of the Ruins and trying to hide from the sun. Besides, we want your eyes to develop the glow.” Kefe smiled, nodded and went in search of his own bed. Shar smiled as she watched him go, moving with that fluid grace that only a Nightstalker Mutant would possess. Before another Cycle passed, Kefe would be a young Man.

When Xyn and Jayk arrived, each dressed as he had been the day before - Xyn in his suit and Jayk in his ragged green tunic - Shar got down to business. “Today we’re going out after a transport of vacuum sealed foods. I’ve been on the Network and we’ve arranged for the robot craft to malfunction and make a forced landing at the edge of the flats. It should come down near the brush line where the Ruins just start to end, so it won’t be a long journey.” She used the screens of the Network machines to show them all plans, explaining every step in great detail. They all paid perfect attention, and Xyn could see nothing wrong with her plan. Except for the amount of stuff the ship contained and how many of them there were. It took a while to get all the details across to some of the younger ones, but in the end, the stage was set.

“Understood then?” Shar concluded her presentation.

They all nodded, as if they all knew what to do. Xyn, however didn’t. He’d never scavenged before in his life. He felt the anticipation, though, and realized it was going to be a lot of work. They would all eat well that night, for certain, and for many a night to come. Then Shar moved towards him. He felt her elation as she put an arm about his small shoulders. “Most of you know Xyn,” she stated, “Jayk took him in. He’ll be staying with us. Xyn is a Runaway from a Facility, and he’s also a Psion, like me. He is, however, pure Bio.” There were some gasps of amazement from the assembled group of Outcasts, many of whom Xyn had not met the first few nights before. He realized that Shar had hidden them from him until it was known whether or not he could be trusted. He smiled at her. Finally, it seemed, he had found somewhere to be and something worthwhile to do. The group disbanded, and Xyn felt their sense of urgency. He felt it from Jayk as well. Then, only the three of them remained.

Shar was looking them both over critically.

“Are you two well rested now?” she asked, her tone amused.

Xyn flushed, and Jayk looked away. “I thought so,” she mused, “You seemed to need the rest. You’ve both slept away a whole day, you know, and a good rainstorm wouldn’t hurt either of you.” Then she touched Xyn’s smooth cheek, raising his perfect face to look into his blue/gray eyes. She noted that his hair that was coming back in was a dark brown color. “Thank you,” she said simply, then to Jayk, “Make sure he’s prepared. The Others will be here within the day.” She then turned to go, and Xyn felt great amounts of anticipation coming from her.

“C’mon, let’s go!” Jayk said excitedly, taking Xyn by the arm.

“What are we doing?” Xyn asked.

“Shar’s been Online. She’s had some friends help her hack a transport’s program and they’re gonna soft-land it outside the Ruins. We go and clean it out, then blow it up. Looks like a program error, a crash, we get food that’ll last us months and months and nobody’s the wiser! We won’t have to got out and scavenge for a LONG time!” Jayk was actually excited, Xyn could feel. He thought about it. It seemed like a good plan to him, now that he knew that the Others were coming.

Once back in Jayk’s room, Jayk went to a trunk at the foot of the bed and opened it. He pulled out some kind of hats, gloves, odd clothing, and a pair of boots. He glanced at Xyn. “You won’t need anything but a hat,” he observed, “since your super suit there will protect you. The flats can be nasty at midday, despite the brush at the edge.” Jayk then began to pull off his tunic. Xyn watched him change, his eyes following the eunuch’s smooth crotch as he moved to dress in the protective garb. He felt a stirring in his own. From what his Psi had gathered, and from what they had done the day before, Xyn understood. He understood it all.

When Jayk had dressed, he turned. “Well?” he asked.

Xyn laughed. Jayk was wearing a hard hat with a wide brim and skin tight, but thick, shirt and pants. The only exposed part of him was his face. He pulled on the boots and flexed his feet. It was clear that he was unaccustomed to wearing shoes. Everything was the color of the brush line, and Xyn realized that if Jayk were to stand still, he would ‘disappear’ into the foliage. It was a good plan. Then he thought of something else.

“Who’s coming to join us?” he asked.

“Another group of Mutants from the other side of the Ruins near the Old City.”

“We’ll need the help,” Xyn said, “and them coming here. This is a good place, I think, and I think they’ll stay here.”

Jayk nodded. “Shar’s been wanting all the Old City gangs to come here to the Ruins for a long time now. Some of them might get sick, but hell, we’ll have enough food and supplies from this transport to keep us all happy for a LONG time. It’s gonna take all day, the others are already on the way, but I think it’s a great idea. No Hunter’s found us since we moved here. The Ruins are too hostile for anyone who’s not a Mutant to survive. An Approved would die of a Remnant in a few days out here.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Xyn agreed.

Then Jayk’s almond-shaped eyes went flat. “They hate us, Xyn. The Officials, the Agencies, they all hate us for being what we are. It was their forefathers, just like them, who started the Wars. They thought that if they drove us Underground, or rounded us up like animals for sale, they’d get rid of us and just have pure Approveds left. It didn’t work though. Mutants are born every day up there. We’re going to get togther, then Shar and the others will find other groups. We’ll all come together and we won’t have to be afraid and sneak around and scavenge just to live anymore. We wont’ be living in fear of our lives, or in fear of being sold to someone ...” Jayk paused, swallowing hard, “...like I was,” he concluded.

Xyn nodded, taking the spare hat from Jayk and plunking it down on his stubbly scalp. Having never had hair before in his life, it felt strange. So did the hat. Jayk looked up at him, and laughed through his anger. “You look absolutely stupid!”

Xyn smiled. “Let’s go rob a transport!” he answered happily, “I’m hungry!”