Andrew Roller Presents THE FADING UNIVERSE CHAPTER SIX Marvin regained consciousness amidst a mass of I.V. lines, suction tubes, and monitoring equipment. A plastic face mask covered his mouth. He could feel a catheter running down his trachea. A boy who looked about 11 peered over him, directed the beam of an ophthalmoscope into his eyes, and then gently removed the oxygen mask and pulled out the Teflon breathing pipe. "If you're playing doctor, you're quite good at it," Marvin commented. "I've been 'playing doctor' for a thousand years," the boy replied stiffly. He turned away and walked over to the next hospital bed, which held Frankie. "I'm going to have to give you a rectal exam," he told the dwarf. "Oh, how delightful!" Frankie squealed. "May Harrigan have one too?" ### Marvin sat on a chaise lounge, on a veranda that overlooked a peaceful hamlet. Golden-haired children ran and played amidst giant sycamores, laughing and tumbling over each other. In the distance rolling meadows sloped up hills that tried to touch the glass skylight that soared high above the glen; its panes obscured by fluffy clouds that meandered overhead. "Beautiful place," Marvin commented. "Charming inhabitants," Perry added, sprawled in a chair with three semi-nude, sleepy little girls. "I suppose you've been having the time of your life," Marvin said. "How'd you ever guess?" "Tell me, Perry," Marvin asked. "Is every one of these children really ten centuries old?" "Not a day less," Perry said. "Why?" "Who knows?" Perry said. "Some kind of an immortality experiment that went awry. The drug worked alright, prolonging their lives, but it didn't allow them to grow up first." "So they'll never become adults?" Marvin asked in amazement. "Never," Perry smiled. "Food of the gods!" Flaherty crowed, stepping out onto the porch, his hands clutching half a dozen little cakes. A girl in a saffron tunic followed behind him, carrying a tray stacked with pastry. "Would you like some?" the 10-year-old asked Marvin and Perry. "Uh, Gee, I thought you brought those out for me," Flaherty said to the attendant. "Flaherty's still a hog, I see," Perry sneered. "Get your own serving girl," Flaherty bridled. "Look, you've got three lying in your lap. If they weren't so exhausted from all your screwing they could get you THREE trays." "At least the hand in my pants isn't my own," Perry retorted. "I've got a surprise for you," the comely waitress said to Marvin. Elsa walked out onto the lanai. ### Evening settled upon the dale, hurrying the happy children homeward. A pair of adumbrations stood in a condominium amidst the gathering dusk. Marvin unbuttoned Elsa's cotton blouse, baring her milk white breasts. His tongue snaked from her earlobe down her neck to a tremulous nipple. His palm squeezed together her twin mounds of firm flesh. Elsa's fingers slipped beneath the fabric of Marvin's gold tunic (for his clothes, festering with disease, had all been burned) and loosened his cloth undergarment. They clasped each other. Their mouths pressed together, tongues intertwined, saliva mingled. Elsa wrapped her supple arms about Marvin's neck. She caressed his broad shoulders, dared to graze his mutilated stump. A minute later Marvin reared before her stark naked, his clothes thoughtlessly discarded. Elsa dropped her gossamer panties to her ankles and gracefully stepped out of them. For a moment they just stared in awe at each other. Marvin swept Elsa off her feet and, cradling her in his left arm, carried her across the room to a rippling waterbed. Together they tumbled onto the bearskin cover. "Do it to me hard," Elsa breathed as her wide eyes looked up at him. Marvin just kissed her slowly, his hand holding her wrists tightly on the pillow above her head. With a moan, Elsa thrust her buttocks upward, straining to capture the head of Marvin's erect penis between the lips of her vagina. Finally, Marvin mounted the girl. He plunged his cock into the wetness of her snug interior. His body undulated above her with measured strokes. Suddenly his semen spurted into her uterus, and Elsa climaxed beneath him. ### Early morning sunlight filtered through the skylight, casting long shadows beneath the tall oaks. To Marvin, raised in the stark glare of the ghetto's neon lamps and the hushed twilight of the abandoned tunnels, the diurnal cycle in the realm of the millennium children was unsettling. "Is something wrong with your lights?" Marvin asked the girl who yesterday had played Flaherty's retainer. "No," Sylvie giggled. "They're made that way, to imitate sunlight." "What kind of light?" Marvin asked. "Sunshine, silly." "Well, it seems pretty unnatural to me," Marvin said. "You're probably still disoriented from that horrible disease," Sylvie said. "How did you find us, anyway," Marvin asked. "I only remember locating a Door, struggling inside, then landing in two dozen deserted locations in a vain search for medical treatment." "Our sophisticated network of computers allows us to scan travellers passing through our sector," Sylvie explained. "We literally heard your screams of agony as you stopped along the border of our commune. Normally we have nothing to do with strangers, but we always assist anyone whose life is in peril." The pebbled path that Marvin and Sylvie were following skirted a glade. A dozen children crouched in a circle on the silken grass. Several glared at Marvin as he passed. "Don't mind them, they're just hot-headed radicals," Sylvie said. "I think someday they'll all go the way of Dakkar." "Who?" Marvin asked. "Some boy we had to ostracize a century ago," Sylvie said. "He became too powerful in the assembly. And what's more, he used his political power ruthlessly. He wasn't satisfied with being a demagogue. Tried to set himself up as a tyrant." "So he's banished forever?" "No," Sylvie said. "In fifty years he'll be allowed to petition the assembly for the privilege to return." "So who are these radicals?" Marvin asked. "Well, our little refuge from the universe has been suffering incursions lately from a host of malefactors: thieves, beggars, even insects. I'm afraid our presence is becoming common knowledge among the nearby populations. The Radicals fear that the neighboring cities might launch an attack; steal our wealth and sell us into slavery. The most extreme elements in the Radicals feel that we must dispense with our tradition of pacifism and seize the universe, then inculcate in it by degrees our superior values and ethics." "So do you go along with them?" Marvin asked. "Of course not," Sylvie said. "If the adjacent states do gain solid knowledge of our valley, we ought to simply negotiate with them." "I don't know, it's a pretty rough world out there," Marvin said. Sylvie laughed. "You hardly need trouble yourself about it," she said. "When you and your friends leave here you won't be able to tell a single tale about us." "Oh, you're going to make us drink out of a tributary of the river Lethe?" Marvin asked. "Something like that," she smiled. "How's Elsa?" "Beautiful," Marvin breathed. "There's not a scratch on her. I was afraid, well, you know..." Sylvie stopped and looked at him very seriously. "There's something I must tell you," she said. "What?" Marvin asked. "They told me not to mention it, but I'm sure you'd find out eventually anyway. 'Elsa' is an android." Marvin reeled backward. His face turned pale. "What? You mean she's not real?" "No," Sylvie said. "We constructed her using your memories." Marvin gasped. "But I thought, I thought," he broke into tears. Sylvie just stood there, gazing at him, absorbing his every reaction. ### "Marrvin, Marrvin," small voices called from the abyss of sleep. A throng of bloody South Haven pupils advanced through a dreamy haze, their mutilated limbs outstretched. Marvin awoke with a start. He lay staring at the stucco ceiling. Marvin felt a presence in the room. He sat bolt upright. A semicircle of millennium children surrounded the bed upon which he and the robot Elsa were sleeping. The youngsters' eyes glowed fiercely. Sylvie stood in front of the group. "Don't tell me you're all afraid of sleeping alone in the dark," Marvin quipped. Sylvie bristled. "You vile filth, my Radicals and I are going to make an example of you and your mates," she said slowly. "I'm sorry, I take it back!" Marvin apologized. He held out his palm. "Here, give me your hand and I'll take you to the bathroom." A laser blast seared Marvin's skin as it shot past his arm and punched a hole in the head of the bed. Marvin's gaze shifted to a surly boy beside Sylvie who held a smoking gun. "I had planned to execute you in public, before the gaping eyes of all the gentle citizens of this naive little valley," Sylvie said. "However, if you persist in making snide remarks I shall have to be satisfied with a display of your dead corpse." Elsa awoke and lay trembling beside Marvin, her arms circling his waist, her head pressed against his side. Marvin glared at Sylvie. "Alright, what's all this about?" Marvin asked bluntly. "I'm an adjutant in the Radicals," Sylvie said proudly, revealing her true identity. Marvin appeared unfazed. "Who's you're commander?" Marvin asked. "Never mind that," Sylvie said. "If he's ordered my death, I want to talk to him," Marvin insisted. "You have talked to him," Sylvie muttered, growing impatient with the argument. "Anyway, he's already left the valley." Marvin's mind raced. Instinctively, he knew he had to buy as much time as possible. "Keep talking," he told himself. His mind recalled an ancient story Perry had related to him once, about an army slaughtered like cattle in a place called the Teutoberg Forest. "A sense of security is the commonest prelude to disaster," had been the moral of the tale. Marvin wished he had acquainted himself more fully with that particular aphorism. "Why this sudden hatred?" Marvin asked Sylvie. "The universe is a violent and brutal place," Sylvie said. "Most of the silly children in this valley don't understand that. If they don't learn soon, our pleasant little fairyland is going to be overrun with barbarians. "Do you Radicals intend to give us a trial before you butcher us?" "Ha! Butcher you?" Sylvie laughed. "You and your friends were selected for execution because you slaughtered 300 elementary school students, and now you have the audacity to term your appointment with lawful restitution 'butchery'?" Marvin's eyes drifted to the Door that stood in the wall. If he and Elsa could reach it, they could fire their bodies across the universe. Freedom was only 10 feet away. Marvin surveyed the Radicals as Sylvie continued talking. He could only see one laser rifle, in the hands of the boy beside Sylvie. Why hadn't the kids brought more guns? "Perhaps it's illegal to possess firearms in the land of the millennium children," Marvin thought. That would make sense. Suddenly there was a commotion at the back of the room and Perry, Frankie, and Harrigan were hauled inside. "We got 'em, Sylvie," a girl called. "Piece of cake." ### Marvin's breath came in gasps as he sat on an aluminum floor with his back propped against the wall of a hallway. Elsa lay outstretched beside him. Thin wires poked out of a hole where her little finger should have been attached to her hand. Marvin clutched the severed member, crying softly. Perry, Frankie, and Harrigan sat nearby. Flaherty came stumbling down the hall. "Boy, am I glad I found you guys," Flaherty exclaimed. "Sheesh! I nearly got killed back there!" "So did we," Frankie said. "Marvin saved us," Harrigan smiled. "Flaherty," Marvin mumbled. "Glad to see you." "So tell me," Flaherty said excitedly. "How did you escape?" "It was quite an adventure," Harrigan said. "This boy had a laser rifle, see, and Marvin wrested it from him. Just what you'd expect." "You're forgetting the most important element," Perry admonished Harrigan. "Oh, yes, Perry had an epileptic seizure," Harrigan said. "Without which no distraction would have occurred, allowing Marvin to grab the boy's gun," Perry added. "So, anyway, we battled our way to the Door in Marvin's bedroom, but it didn't work," Harrigan explained. "The lousy bastards had disconnected it," Frankie told Flaherty. "So then we had to blast our way out into the hall and down an outdoor fire escape. As we descended we ran into a second group of Radicals. They swarmed all over us, and one boy grabbed the rifle away from Marvin." "Ha, ha!" Frankie chuckled. "Why are you laughing?" Flaherty asked the dwarf. "Marvin just pushed that kid over the railing, shotgun and all," Frankie chortled. "Yes indeed, Flaherty, the boy plummeted 20 stories to his death," Harrigan commented. "I saw him hit the pavement. Quite a mess." "I'm sure you can deduce the rest of the story, Flaherty," Perry said irritably. "We fought our way into an apartment and escaped through its Door," Harrigan concluded. "Perry doesn't like it that Marvin had to beat a path through the onrush of children with a brass lamp stand," Frankie grinned. "A lot of little girls got their skulls smashed." "Oh, I wondered why Marvin was covered with blood," Flaherty said. "So how did you get out of that horrible place?" Harrigan asked Flaherty. "Ho, you'll never believe it," Flaherty exclaimed, launching into his story. ----------------------- Dreamgirls! ----------------------- -Free Dreamgirls e-mail subscriptions: send (18 or up) age statement to: roller666@aol.com -My ftp site is: members.aol.com/roller666 -Back issues at Usenet newsgroup: alt.poop? -or send e-mail to: file.archives@backdrop.com -Free minicomics: send a stamped, self-addressed envelope & age statement to: Jim Corrigan, P.O. Box 3663, Phenix City, AL 36868 U.S.A. -Naughty Naked Dreamgirls (Library of Congress ISSN: 1070-1427) is copyright 1996 and a trademark of Andrew Roller. -NEW small Usenet newsgroup: uw.alt.sex.stories -END OF ftp EMISSION