Genesis Read online

  “Ms. Kalani and Mr. Salek, step into my presence,” Rogers barked.

  Both nervously glanced at each other as they made their way over to him and stood at the stiffest attention. Rogers took a minute as he folded his arms using just his eyes to look them up and down.

  “Ms. Kalani, I don’t have to reiterate Ms. Esposito’s warning to you …do I?”

  “No sir,” she shook her head.

  “Good, because her warning …is my warning … which also goes for you, Mr. Salek.”

  Aashif semi-choked on his swallow as Rogers stared right through at him.

  “Unless it’s a recon mission, I don’t ever want to hear in the middle of a fight what the enemy has unless it’s something you can’t turn into slag in which case you will then need back up. And the last I checked, tank armor is a cake walk for you. The time you took to call out the name of the damn thing, you could have scorched it from the damn Earth. Do not ever, make me have to come over and do your job again.”

  “Sir …it won’t ever happen again,” Aashif apologetically answered while clearing his throat.

  “You’re damn right it won’t,” Rogers slight raised his voice. “There is a reason why this team only has two additional members out of hundreds of applicants. On paper, four of you beat out the rest, and only you two survived your six months under me. Whether you continue to keep the spots you’ve earned is entirely up to you and how you perform during missions, is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir!” They both yelled.

  “Aside from that, you both did some good work out there today,” he nodded. “So, get rid of the other shit, and keep impressing me. Go, get cleaned up and some food in you.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  As they quickly turned and hurried off to get out of the Sergeant’s sight, Adrian with a mischievous smile on his face strolled up to Rogers who greeted him with his trademark dull look.

  “Any assessment of me today Sarge?”

  “Yeah, stop getting shot by tanks.”

  “That’s all you got for me?” Adrian asked as his face switched to one of perplexed.

  “It’s been a weird day,” Rogers answered with narrowed eyes. “Do I need to tell you what to do next?”

  “Shit, shower, and food.”

  Rogers put on his “Out of my face” visage which was Adrian’s hint to take his leave.

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  As the day turned into night,

  Rogers sat leaned back in the chair in his quarters reviewing the debriefing on his tablet that he dictated to Maxine about the Regulator’s latest mission.

  “Sergeant Rogers, Ms. Shareef is at your door waiting to enter.”

  Rogers lowered his head, kneading his brow.

  He knew if he opened the door, Abe was in for a colossal argument he did not wish to have. However, if he did not open the door, he would be in for a massive disagreement the next morning if she didn’t decide to kick it down.

  “Let her in.”

  As the door slid open, she strolled in with her long silver braids tied back wearing a simple green tank top and black tights. Shareef’s face still had a disapproving scowl, as she walked up to him. Rogers looked up from his chair returning fire with a visage of irritation.

  She deflected his gaze as she took the tablet from his hand placing it on his desk, sat in his lap straddling him, cupped his face and began to kiss him deeply.

  The reinforced chair groaned and creaked from the weight of the two Titans as Rogers returned the kiss while sliding his hands down her back to cup her rear. He lifted her into the air, carrying her over to his bed while she wrapped her legs around him and pulled off her top tossing it away.

  She continued to kiss him as he laid her down. He removed his shirt chucking it away as she undid his belt buckle, and pulled down his pants. She leaned back arching her back panting as he kissed her belly while pulling off her tights.

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  Inside the Ranch’s recreation room, Erica and Aashif teamed up in a tag team battle against Adrian and Teuila in the latest Battlefield Wrestling Industries fighting game “Legacy Twelve.” The stage was the “Legacy Twelve” Pay-Per-View with their teams competing in a championship ladder match with the BWI World Tag Team Championship belts hanging over the ring as the prize. Adrian, as usual, controlled Abe Rogers in his BWI persona, while Teuila commanded BWI female wrestler Kira Bristow. Their opponents were Erica manning the first female BWI World Champion Yuku Shiro, while Aashif operated one of Rogers’s arch-rivals Sammy Nyte.

  In the middle of the trash talking and button tapping, Adrian managed to hurl Erica’s character out of the ring for a nasty spill. Teuila’s character ducked at the last moment pulling the ropes as Aashif’s wrestler came in for a clothesline only to end up spilling over the top rope onto the floor of the ring.

  “Dammit!” Aashif cursed.

  “And here we go!” Teuila grinned.

  On her command, her character Kira Bristow broke into the run hitting the opposite ropes and dashed across the ring gaining momentum. With a sequence of taps, her character dived over the top ropes hitting a flying cross body crashing down on top of Aashif’s character.

  “Booyah bitch!” She yelled.

  “Nice one,” Adrian nodded. “Going for the belts!”

  Adrian in control of Abe Rogers scrambled up the ladder toward the hanging BWI World Tag Championship belts.

  “No, you’re not,” Erica smirked.

  Her Yuku Shiro character gripped the ropes pulling them back.

  “Oh shit! Teuila get your ass in the ring now!”

  “I’m trying!”

  “Over my dead body!” Aashif roared.

  His Sammy Nyte character attacked her character Kira Bristow from behind grabbing her legs and yanking her off the apron, he then proceeded to bounce her skull off the ring apron preventing her from entering the ring.

  Erica’s character leaped onto the top rope, and then springboarded off dropkicking the ladder causing it to fall and for Rogers to fly off of it crashing hard to the mat.

  “Son of a bitch!” Adrian stomped.

  “That’s what happens when you mess with the Queen of Queens,” Erica taunted.

  “Miss, Sergeant Rogers, and Sister Shareef will be unavailable for the rest of the evening,” Maxine announced over the audio system.

  “Oh, Dios Mio,” she palmed her face.

  “I feel like a choir boy compared to those two,” Adrian shook his head. “When the hell are they going to come out and just say they’re seeing each other? They gotta know by now they ain’t fooling anyone.”

  “I thought they didn’t like each other?” Aashif interjected.

  “In the beginning, they didn’t,” Teuila answered with a smirk.

  “You guys got to understand, this is awkward and uncomfortable for the both of them,” Erica stepped in explaining. “She is a mature woman in her sexual prime with Titan physiology, taking her literally back to her physical twenties, and Rogers is a mature man who’s been around the block and also knocked back to his sexual prime when he became a Titan. It is the perfect chemistry for boot knocking. I'm surprised they find the restraint to leave their room. The point is, acting like hormone-fueled teenagers can be a bit embarrassing for people their age, especially for Rogers who’s also our team leader.”

  “Well I think it’s cute,” Teuila shrugged. “I grew up seeing my parents like that, and they still paw at each other even to this day.”

  “I'm surprised she’s giving him the business considering what he did,” Erica scoffed while leaning back in her seat.

  Awkwardness stepped into the room as all three looked at each other wondering who tattled on Rogers. They then leered at her with narrowed eyes wondering if she read their minds.

  “You three forgot Maxine was surveying the mission via th
e Tornado?” Erica leered back at them in disbelief. “What I got to ask is how all of you could stand there and let it happen.”

  “No one let anything happen, no one expected him to do what he did,” Adrian answered looking her dead in the eyes. “We’ve all seen the Sarge clip a moving target with your rifles from four miles away. An ISIS terrorist from less than a yard should have been like taking a piss for him. Even Sister Shareef was shocked when it happened.”

  “That’s why she was so pissed at him,” Aashif interjected while shaking his head. “I saw her face when the bomb went off. She was scared …really scared. She took off running before all of us, and didn’t stop until the smoke cleared.”

  Aashif’s revelation blanketed the room with an uncomfortability that put a damper on the gameplay.

  “Maxine, schedule a mandatory psyche evaluation for Sergeant Rogers on both of our calendars,” Erica commanded. “Make sure to put it in bold, and in red with several annoying alarm reminders.”

  “Yes, Miss.”

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  Several hours later,

  Shareef and Abe panted and laughed as they lay entangled in one another drenched in sweat with just a thin sheet covering the lower half of their bodies. Shareef nuzzled against his chest as Rogers wrapped an arm around her holding her close while attempting to catch his breath.

  “I think … we broke our record … again,” he choked.

  “At least … it wasn’t the bed … again,” she chuckled.

  “Yeah, I don’t think I could handle Erica looking at me with those eyes of disgust while I’m lying to her face,” he shook his head.

  “‘I tripped and fell’ is a stupid excuse,” she giggled, “Especially when you couldn’t explain on what you tripped on.”

  “My mind went blank, especially when I saw you running out of the room wrapped in my sheets.”

  “Everyone was coming!”

  “But you just threw me off of you and left me sitting there on a broken bed butt ass naked trying to figure out how I was going to explain myself. And all I could think of was you running through the halls of a base that has cameras everywhere.”

  She paused for a second thinking about it. She blushed as her forehead fell on Rogers’s chest.

  “Yeah, that was stupid too.”

  The two of them burst into more boisterous laughter over the memory. Sister Shareef quickly wiped her eyes as it brought her close to tears.

  “Why do you think anyone hasn’t said anything yet?” She asked while clearing her throat.

  “Probably too scared to ask,” He shrugged.

  “Speaking of scared.”

  She raised her head a bit making eye contact with him, as the humor fell from her face. He slowly removed his own respecting her new demeanor that was still not very happy with him.

  “You need to explain to me what happened out there today;” she demanded to know with a stern tone. “And I swear to Allah if you don’t answer or deflect with some off-color joke I will …”

  Rogers took her hand into his own holding it as he kept eye contact with her. The simple act made her eyes glassy as she finally revealed how much he had frightened her that morning.

  “I have been shot by almost every known armament that has ever been created to kill,” he began to explain. “I lost count of how many bullets have hit me. I survived one of Oliver’s supernova blasts. I’ve totaled cars that slammed right into me and stopped a truck attempting to run me over with my bare hands. I jump out of planes from high velocities like I’m jumping into a pool. And last week …I get a call from my daughter-in-law that my eldest son accidentally broke his arm after falling off a ladder from cleaning his gutters. His birthday is a month from now, and he’s two years from forty.”

  Shareef bowed her head now understanding what happened.

  “A parent is not supposed to bury their children. Being like this …barring an insane event like Peace or a group like the Zombie Nation has sealed my fate for what is most likely in store for me.” Rogers said as his lower jaw shifted while he attempted to cage his emotions. “Erica’s analysis says the virus has added a hundred …maybe even two hundred years to my lifespan. I already had to bury my wife; I don’t think I can handle burying all of my kids …and possibly my grandkids.”

  “You’re not feeling suicidal …are you?” She asked with concern.

  “No!” He snapped at her while sitting up and wearing his angry face. “That was me using a psychological tactic to end a damn conflict! I’ve been hit by far worse than the rig that son of a bitch was wearing today. No one wants to continue fighting someone you can’t kill.”

  “There are far better ways to get that point across then getting blown up Abe,” she retorted while sitting up on her knees on the bed.

  Shareef grabbed the sheet wrapping it around her body before she took a seat next to him. She took one of his textured cinderblock hands caressing the back and the knuckles while gazing into his eyes.

  “As you very well know, I have a son and daughter who I am estranged from because of what I did. I have been gone for so long, my daughter who was a borderline infant when I went in has problems both being around me and relating to me, especially now that I am superhuman.” Shareef exhaled. “While my son wants nothing to do with me because I killed his father, I don’t know what is worse …him telling me I should have been the one to die or the fact that he is a dedicated Republican.”

  Shareef threw on a bright smile as her tears began to run.

  “Allah has been merciful to me,” she continued with a scratchy voice. “Because despite me, my son went on to make something of himself; a House Rep for Austin, a beautiful wife who I want to desperately believe has a brain rattling around that skull of hers and three lovely grandchildren that I still have not seen. And I too have to come to the realization just like you, that one day …I may be the one burying them.”

  Rogers reached out with his other hand wiping away the tears from her cheeks with his thumb.

  “But the future is not written in stone,” Shareef sternly pressed while placing a hand on the left cheek of his face, “If someone like Captain Omega can bite the farm, there’s a headstone in the future for both you and me. Being who I am now, affords me two advantages …time to fix what I broke all those years ago, and a chance to create a world that is safe for them to live. If it is my lot in life to bury my children, let it be of natural causes where they are surrounded by their children, and hopefully their grandchildren … I can live with that.”

  She leaned in closer nuzzling her nose against his.

  “Your children don’t want you thinking about their possible deaths, they want you in the moment with them enjoying life for however long it carries. Not to mention, there are far more productive things you could be doing than getting yourself blown up.”

  “What’s that?” He chuckled.

  “Breaking records,” she sensually whispered.

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  On the other side of the base, Oliver and Rosann sat within his living quarters half staring at one another. They had not spoken since their return, they did not even bother to eat with one another after they got cleaned up.

  Oliver went to his quarters after dinner, while Rosann retired to the shooting range.

  Two hours later she was at his door. She didn’t say a word to him as she barged in wearing his tank top and boxers. She made her way to his bed plopping down on it and grabbed his game controller picking up from her spot on the video game Overwatch. He went back to the comic books on his tablet that he downloaded.

  An ominous silence choked the room until Rosann became frustrated over a level she could not clear, and Oliver ran out of books to read. He decided to be the one to break it first.

  “So, is the honeymoon over, or is this something else?”

  “I
told you when we’re on missions just to leave me be,” she said with a dry tone. “I can’t afford for you to be in my head, and you don’t need to be thinking about me either.”

  “All I was doing was sitting across from you, and I saving your ass today proved my head is always in the game.”

  Rosann glared at him as he folded his arms wearing a Teflon demeanor to deflect her dagger-like stares.

  “What are we doing Rose?” He softened a bit while rubbing the ridge of his nose. “Do you not want to be with me anymore?”

  “That’s not it,” she said while lowering her head.

  “Then what it is?”

  Rosann raised her head locking eyes with him.

  “Eight months ago, I stood over your body, and there was no heartbeat. You were dead cold. And you walk around and act like it didn’t happen.”

  A sliver of irritation appeared on Oliver’s face, but he held his peace wanting her to finish.

  “That image is forever carved into my skull,” She said with a scowl on her face. “It wakes me up out of my sleep. And when I lay next to you, I sometimes check if you’re still breathing. I don’t ever want to see that image again. So, every time we go out there and face people whose sole intention is to kill us by any means necessary, I turn into a callous, cold-hearted bitch before each of our missions to make sure that I can do everything within my power to ensure we all make it home. And I’m sorry but sometimes it feels like you’re still playing hero instead of being a soldier, and it pisses me the fuck off.”

  “Are you finished?” He asked with a low growl in his voice.

  Oliver paused a minute to ensure that his anger remained in check.

  “First of all …how dare you. You don’t think I don’t know I was dead? I was the one with that bitch’s hand around my throat. I was the one who felt his life slipping away while she was taking it away from me. You’re checking to see if I’m breathing? How many countless nights have I jumped out of my sleep in cold sweats screaming my head off, clutching my chest searching for a heartbeat? But I refuse to let what Peace did cripple me. I get up every day on a mission to make sure she did not beat me by being just me. And I don’t need my girlfriend treating me like shit because I’m not some dark brooding anti-hero!”