It is the 24th century and the human population has died out. All that is left is The Counsel, a computer uploaded with the brains of 100 geniuses before last of humanity died out from wars, biohazards and sterility. These same geniuses invented a time machine that allowed them the ability to choose insignificant people throughout history that if they were to disappear would have no significant impact on history and change how everything had played out. They chose 20,000 people (half males and half females) going as far back as prehistoric times and as recently as the 20th century. All 20,000 people are between the ages of 18 and 26 years. They have been tested to show they are all fertile. They kept these 20,000 people in biostasis until the earth had healed from all the damage that humanity had inflicted on it. They had created robots to help the process of healing of the climate and land and sea. It took about 140 years but The Counsel was finally satisfied with Earth’s healing and were ready for the repopulation to begin. They divided the 20,000 people into 200 settlements of 100 people each (again half male and half female). They made sure each community had as diverse a gene pool as possible. They set up settlements near the ruins of major cities. This story takes place in the Clinton settlement which is southeast of the ruins of Kansas City. The one hundred people in this settlement include William Booker, a 25 year old high school math teacher from 1996 from right where this settlement was constructed. He will discover he is the only person from this area and from the most modern time period of any of the other 99 inhabitants. The Counsel will be communicating with the new inhabitants with holographic heads that change each time they are summoned or need to intervene. The story starts as the new inhabitants are awakened from their biostasis chambers. They have all been implanted with a device that interprets all languages into their own. All awaken naked and are promptly showered to clean off the goo that has helped keep them alive. The only clothing provided to them are very form fitting shorts (basically briefs) that leave nothing to the imagination and form fitting tank tops. They are all led into a large chamber that looks like an open gymnasium where The Counsel represented by a holographic head explains what happened to Earth and how they were selected to repopulate it. They are told that the clothes they are wearing are all the clothes they

Chapter 3: The Hunters' Rage

Elara followed Kaelen into their pod, the door sighing shut behind her, sealing them in the humming silence. He stood with his back to her, having already removed his own tank top, the lean, sinewy cords of his shoulders taut with fury, the smell of woodsmoke and cold sweat clinging to his skin. “Look at me,” she demanded, her voice low like stone grinding on stone, and when he turned, his eyes were black pits reflecting the dome’s sterile gloom. She closed the distance, not with a touch but with a challenge, her calloused fingers snatching the leather cord from his hair, letting the black strands fall across his sharp face. He caught her wrist, his grip a brutal question, and she answered by wrenching free and slamming her mouth against his in a kiss that was all teeth and shared, furious breath.

The taste of him was foreign, of bitter roots and steppe dust, and she bit his lip until she felt the warm copper tang of his blood bloom between them. He grunted, a sound of pure animal acknowledgement, and his hands tore at the woven fabric of her tank top, the material splitting with a rough, ripping sigh. "This is not a binding," she spat against his mouth, her own fingers clawing at his briefs, "this is a fight." He shoved her backward, her bare shoulders slamming against the cool, curved wall of the dome, and drove his knee between her thighs, forcing them apart.

His hand clamped over the waistband of her briefs, the simple cotton the only thing left on her. With a sharp, grunting pull, he ripped her panties off of her, the fabric tearing with a sound like a gasp. The cool air of the dome hit her exposed skin, a sudden vulnerability that vanished as he crushed his mouth to hers again. "Fight me then," he growled against her lips, his free hand groping between her legs, his fingers pushing inside her with a ruthless, claiming thrust. She cried out, a raw sound swallowed by his kiss, and bit down hard on his invading tongue.

He recoiled with a animal snarl of pain, iron flooding their joined mouths. “Good,” she panted, wiping his blood from her chin with the back of her hand, her pale eyes gleaming in the low light. He spun her around to face the wall, his arm hooking around her throat, not to choke but to bind her against him. His other hand guided his cock, and he drove into her from behind in one brutal, shearing thrust, burying himself to the hilt in her tight, unresisting heat. The impact jarred her teeth, and her gasped curse was less a protest than a acknowledgement of the ruthless fit.

He set a punishing rhythm, each slam of his hips a brutal answer to the counsel’s sterile decree, the wet, slapping sounds of their meeting flesh obscene in the quiet dome. "You are… my herd now?" he grunted, the words torn from him, his breath scorching the back of her neck as his fingers dug bruises into her hips. "I am no one's fucking property," she snarled back, shoving her ass harder against him, taking him deeper, forcing a ragged groan from his throat. Her own climax tore through her, a silent, shuddering convulsion that milked his cock, and he spilled into her with a final, furious thrust, his release a hot flood inside her. They slumped against the wall, still joined, gasping like landed fish, the taste of blood and sweat and something like shattered pride thick between them.

He slid out of her, the sudden absence a cold shock, and the wet sound of his seed dripping down her thigh was grossly loud in the quiet. She shuddered, the cold curve of the wall biting into her cheek as she listened to him stumble back, his breathing still ragged. "A fine fucking start," she muttered, pushing herself upright, her muscles protesting. He didn’t answer, just snatched the rough blanket from their sleeping platform and tossed it at her feet, his eyes avoiding the mess they’d made. "Clean yourself," he said, his voice hollow, turning to stare out at the dark settlement beyond the glass.

Elara let the blanket lie, ignoring his command as she turned to face him. “Your seed on the floor means nothing,” she said, her voice a low rasp as she wiped her thigh with her bare hand. She studied the slick residue on her fingers, then met his rigid back with a brittle laugh. “The wall outside does not care if we fuck or fight.” He finally turned, his expression carved from something harder than the dome’s glass, and crossed the space in three swift strides. His hand shot out, but instead of striking her, he gripped her jaw, forcing her to look at the mess between them.

“See what your defiance makes,” he hissed, his thumb smearing the wetness across her lower lip. She licked it slowly, her eyes never leaving his, the taste bitter and salt. “It makes nothing but a mess on the floor,” she said, her voice a flat rasp. “Just like your courage, once the shouting is done.” He released her as if burned, the ghost of her spit on his skin colder than any steppe wind.

She turned her back on him, a deliberate dismissal, and walked naked to the cleansing alcove, the water activating with a hiss at her approach. She stepped under the stream without shutting the translucent door, the water sluicing the sweat and the sticky evidence of his release from her skin in grey rivulets. He watched the defiant set of her shoulders, the water plastering her wild red hair to the strong curve of her spine, and a different heat uncoiled in his gut—not fury, but a raw, clawing hunger for the fierce spirit housed in that sturdy, capable form.

He moved silently, entering the alcove as the steam curled around them, and placed his palms flat against the slick muscles of her back. She jolted at the contact, spinning under the water to face him, her expression wary and ready to fight, but she stilled when she saw his eyes. His gaze was not flat and angry but dark with a pure, consuming want, tracing the water beading on her freckled breasts and the strong swell of her hips as if seeing her for the first true time. A matching hunger flared in her own pale eyes, her earlier defiance melting into something hotter and more collaborative, and she reached for him, her wet hand finding the hard length of his cock already straining between them.

Her grip was firm and knowing, pumping his shaft with a rhythm that drew a ragged groan from his throat. “This is different,” she whispered, her mouth finding his ear, her teeth grazing the lobe. “No wall at my back.” He answered by lifting her, her thighs locking around his hips as he pinned her against the wet, cool wall. He entered her in one slow, devastating thrust, her body yielding to his with a gasp that was part pain, part profound relief. They moved together in the steaming water, a chaotic, grinding rhythm that was less a fight and more a desperate, wordless treaty written on straining muscle and slick skin.

He fucked her with a deep, claiming pace now, the water sluicing between their joined bodies, her choked cries echoing off the narrow walls. "Don't stop," she begged, her voice shattered, her forehead pressed to his shoulder, every nerve alight. Their climax hit them together, a brutal, shared convulsion that ripped through the steam, his roar buried in the wet tangles of her hair as he emptied himself inside her once more. They sank to the floor of the alcove, spent and shaking, the water beating down on them like rain. In the heavy, breathing silence that followed, he spoke against her temple, his voice rough with a truth neither could ignore. "The fight is not done," he murmured. "But the enemy is not you."

Elara slid from his lap, her body peeling away from his with a wet, parting sound, and leaned her head back against the wall, letting the water cascade over her closed eyes. “The enemy is a voice from the air that gives orders,” she said, her voice hoarse from shouting, now stripped bare. He stood, water sluicing down the lean cut of his hips, and offered her a hand up—a gesture as unfamiliar to him as the settled walls around them. She took it, her calloused grip firm, and they stepped out onto the cool floor of the dome, dripping and silent in the humming dark. “Tomorrow, you will show me the forest that is too loud,” she stated, not asking, and reached for one of the coarse blankets to begin drying her limbs with a pragmatic efficiency.