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Left Behind

Chapter 4

-Tanis-

Mathias had believed me, or at the very least gave a strong impression that he did as he marked down payment onto his various sheets of plexi. I didn't ask how much time was being knocked off my debt because I knew that Mathias was good on his word. If he said he was going to pay or do something, he did it. As much as I hated the weasel for his threats of adding time, I had to begrudge him his integrity.

Tobie, luckily kept his mouth shut the entire time, though at times he looked like he was going to pop with pressure. The badger got some credit as well, which put him in a good and a particularly good mood. Also a bit of a frisky one as well and I admit, I was in a good mood and felt no shame when I took him to my bed that night.

The next few days were business as usual. There were a few jobs here and there. I got to finish installing the shielding to the generator I had been working on and geiger readings showed it was working as intended.

It was about a week later that, in much a similar fashion as the net job, I was working on a small project to fix some construction tools for the local construction gang when Tobie came in. At first, I thought that he had come in hoping for another night with me and I would probably had obliged him, but the look he gave me put an end to that idea.

He was wringing his paws together and his eyes were kept low as he came up behind me. "T-Tanis," he managed to say in a much more meek fashion than what I was used to hearing from the already skittish badger.

"Tobie? What is it?" I said and approached the badger, who took a step back. I paused and placed my paws on my hips. "What happened?" I said in a sterner voice. A little authority did a lot when it came to Tobie.

"Well, Mathias was being nice and he had been giving me good jobs," he started mumbling, eyeing the exit as if he was going to just tuck tail and run. "Then he started asking questions and I tried not to say anything, but you weren't there to answer them for me and he was insistent."

My heart pounded in my ears. Anger was building as I already began to guess what had occurred. "Spit it out, damn it."

Tobie froze for a moment and his eyes watered a little. "I told him about the guy who fell out of tunnel four." It was barely a whisper, but might as well been a shout.

If there was ever time where I thought I would kill someone, it was right then and there. I couldn't though. First, it was a terrible thought. The idea of murder made me sick to the stomach and as much of a spineless worm he was, Tobie was in a way, friend. I fucked him more regularly than others after all.

"Don't hate me," he cried. "I- he was nice to me and so insistent." He began to come up with all kinds of excuses, though I really just wanted him to shut up at that moment to let me think.

After several long moments of not listening to him ramble, I held up a paw. He quieted down quickly.

"Mathias wants to talk to me, right?" I asked the simple question and when he opened up his mouth, I quickly cut him off. "Just a yes or no will do."

Tobie nodded his head and then quickly added, "he's on his way here now."

For most people, hearing that your administrator was coming to see you in person was a nightmare, but not with Mathias. He detested violence more than me and would never come here if he was going to go for a more capital punishment. No, he hurt people with paperwork and swift strokes of his pen in his little paw. I could already see him marching down the street with a stack of documents in a binder.

He comes exactly as imagined. I had sent Tobie away, a miserable mess of his own guilt and though I felt betrayed, I knew that I would go find him later to try and cheer him up.

"It's dissapointing," Mathias said. He looked tired. Bags hung under his eyes and his fur hung off of him loosely as if he hadn't been brushing at all for a few days. He looks up at at after he sets his binders down. "You were one of my favorites."

I don't say anything. I wait patiently for him to get everything ready. Watch as he pulls out sheet after sheet of plexi, some he stacks off to the side on one of my work tables, some he slips back into the binder.

"There's other administrators who want to banish you for this, smuggling in an outsider. Some are even saying you should be cast into the trench." He gets all of his files settled and pulls one of my chairs to sit on. I remain standing. "But, I'm not like that. No this requires a sure brush stroke."

"How many years?" I ask plainly. Knowing that none of the sever punishments was my destiny put me at ease. I didn't like the idea of more debt, I had worked hard to get where I was, but it was all very much a temporary set back and I could live with that.

"Three," Mathias answered just as plainly as my question. "But there's some caveats as well. Ways to make that go away."

My ears perked at that and I stop myself from taking a half step forward.

Mathias notices that and smiles. He had barely said anything and he knew that he had me. Getting rid of my debt had always been my main purpose in life. He knew this and so, he knew how to play me like a fiddle. I hated him for that, for being so clever and just plain brutal with it... a true weasel.

"I've already had a short talk with Doctor Badat," he said and then adds, "but I haven't seen the human yet. I can't until I scrounge up the necessary paperwork for this kind of thing. Not sure there is any. I've never heard of someone falling from a tunnel and surviving and then getting smuggled in. I'll have to write new documents and get those drafted and approved by committee. It'll be a few weeks before I'm ready to meet him face to face, but I did learn a few things from the doctor."

I listened in. Mathias liked to hear himself talk. I think it was just how he got his nervous energy out. He always did talk relentlessly whenever something was bothering him. This mustve been keeping him up at night, an administrative nightmare.

"He has a gun, a working gun. Those are rare enough, but if he's proficient enough, he may be quite useful. I'm quite ashamed that you did not just bring him to me from the offset."

"I didn't know," I cut in for a moment. "Didn't search him when I saw that he was hurt. Just brought him to Doctor Badat."

Mathias looked at me and then shrugged before continuing. "If he knows how to use it, then he may know more about manufacturing guns or ammunition. Either way, it's long since time for Sanctum to be able to create effective weapons against the Beasts. Sanctum has been overcrowded for a long time now and the only ways to control this is either to start evicting people or to expand into the Waste."

There was more talking, but it all culminating to be signing on for a job that if I succeeded, would remove the three years I had just earned myself. Of course, there was no guarantee that I would succeed, there was actually a great chance of my dying and that terrified me as Mathias left with his binders filled with my signature and new contract.

There was, two days hike from Sanctum, a building that was believed to have been some kind of library. A few expeditions had been made in the past when guns were more plentiful, but as those became scarce, it became to dangerous to go out to it. Now, it was deemed urgent enough for a new expedition to made, but by a small group, two individuals to be exact.

I had a few weeks to prepare and so I went to work. I was also not to go back to Badat's clinic during that time. It wasn't for any sinister reason or because Mathias was afraid I take the human and run, but because he was afraid of the paperwork that it would create.

Beasts were terrible creatures, said to be spawn of what used to be ordinary feral creatures, but twisted and mutated by generations of exposure to chemicals that dripped from above and radiation. They were mutants of all shapes and sizes and all were capable of killing any would be traveler. They feared light since their eyes were adapted to the pitch blackness of the wastes, but hunger could overcome that base fear, so simply making a bright torch wouldn't be enough. I used every favor I had to get materials.

I fashioned vests from kevlar pads and chain mail meant for the foundries and bought with the promise to inspect and repair every piece of equipment at the foundry. I had enough engine parts to fashion together a blade with a saw running along its edge. It was heavy, but I knew that it would be deadly after shredding a set of tires as a test run.

I had Tobie, as a way of apologizing to me, go and fetch me light bulbs because bright ass lights were a necessity. I used those to make head lamps and hand held torches that could penetrate the darkness for a few dozen feet. That led to the thought that there was no reason to hit something with a stick if I could hit it from afar, so I also built sort of a crossbow that fired rebar that lost all accuracy beyond the reach of the lights I had built.

I put all of this together in the weeks that I was given and eventually Tobie came back with a message, to bring everything I had done to prepare to the main bridge over the trench the next morning to set out on my quest.

Tobie was still a but of a mess at that point when he delivered the message and since there was a decent chance of me dying in the coming days, I didn't want to go out with a lay, so I led him back into my shack where I had stored all of my new creations and set him on the bed.

"Does this mean you forgive me?" Tobie said as he laid back on the stack of dirty mattresses and sheets I called a bed. He was naked before me and I stood over him just as naked with a hunger in my eyes.

"I told you a while ago that it was okay," I said as I gazed down at the chubby badger before me. He had all the standard marking of any other badger, mostly white with bands of black that stretched down his body. His sheath was a small thing, nestled comfortably between thighs and atop a plump set of balls and I knew that it was a point of shame for Tobie. I, however, didn't care if it was small or large. What mattered was the moment and the passion of the act.

I fell to my knees, never breaking eye contact with Tobie, who was trying to hide an embarrassed smile behind his paws that he had brought up over his muzzle.

I lifted up on his legs and he obeyed, bringing them up closer to his chest, grabbing his knees with his paws, revealing his tight pucker.

Now, clean water was rationed and soap was the same, but when I told Tobie to make he stayed clean down there, he did exactly that. So, as I leaned in and gave a cautious sniff, I was met with a faint chemical smell of the soap he managed to get.

"Good boy," I whispered and then pressed forwards.

I heard Tobie gasp as I licked from the base of his tail all the way up to his sack, which tensed and pulled tight to his body. I then busied with lapping at teasing his hole, drawing circles with my tongue or pushing at its center a but and pulling back. All of it made Tobie squirm.

As I did this, I lightly tended to myself, guiding myself out of my sheath with one paw and casually stroked myself, letting the hunger build up inside of me and influence how aggressively I went at Tobie's back side.

"I- I can't wait any longer," the badger pleaded and gasped. His paws were raking against the bed sheets, his raised foot-paws kicking the air as he struggled to keep them aloft.

I grinned to myself. Perhaps I have teased him enough.

With a final long lick mirroring the first, I stood up and loomed over Tobie. If this was to be my last night to enjoy the warmth of another body, then by all means I would enjoy them.

Tobie gulped when he saw how I was looking at him.

Tobie was still asleep when I left my shack. He'd be asleep for a while longer. I admit that I went a bit longer and harder than I originally intended, but the end result was quite satisfactory for both of us.

I left a note for him to watch over my things and found Ira as well. The little puma was all to happy to take on another job for me to help Tobie. Told him he could just help himself to the bit of food I left behind in my ice box. Best not to leg it go to waste.

I hefted the heavy bag over my shoulder and walked out towards the Trench and whatever awaited me out in the wasteland beyond.