Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
I pick her ruck up off the floor, sliding it up her arms and on to her shoulders. Then I strap on my rucks, and we leave the way we came—just in another dimension.
Everythin’ looks the same as we retrace our steps. But from the moment we enter the main tunnel, there’s no way to miss that this is not home. It’s very bright, for one, not dark. Because there are lights lining the entire ceiling, from end to end, as far as our eyes can see. Which, admittedly, isn’t that far—maybe a couple hundred yards in each direction—because the tunnel isn’t straight, it curves. But it’s made even brighter by the glossy white tiles lining every inch of the interior walls.
It’s quiet—much quieter than Delta City. There’s a low hum permeatin’ everythin’, but even this far down the line, we could hear signs of life back home.
“Are there people here?” Clara asks. Pickin’ up on the silence.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your overlay say?”
Oddly enough, it’s the only one on screen now. There’s no competition between worlds to be seen. Not sure what that means—probably something horrible—but there’s no point thinkin’ about it now. Too many other, more pressin’, questions.
“It’s not pickin’ up any signs of life. Or spark, for that matter.”
“Do we need spark?”
“No. But it’s your world, Clara. Shouldn’t there be spark?”
“I guess, but we didn’t know there were train tunnels below the city. I mean, we did. But they were supposed to be ancient ruins. Not anything like this. And since spark lives inside people, and there are no people in the tunnel, then it makes sense that there’s no spark.”
But before I can reply, we hear a clatterin’ up ahead. Clara and I look at each other. I put a finger to my lips, telling her to be quiet. Then I push her behind me and start walkin’ up the tunnel towards the noise. I’ve got the Versi at high ready and I’m slowly veering to the left until I’m shadowin’ the side of the tunnel as it curves.
I peek out, looking just past the bend, and can’t stop my reaction. “No fuckin’ way.”
“What?” Clara whispers. “What is it?” Pushing herself against me, she peeks out too. “Oh, my god.” A hand goes over her heart in a gesture of shock. “What the hell is that?”
I tear my gaze away from the scene on the train platform and look down at her shocked eyes. “They’re bots.” Just saying that word out loud kinda makes me sick.
“What the hell is a bot?” she hisses back.
“It’s a… a fake human. They move like us—like humans.” Which neither of us are, but that’s beside the point. Minutia like that can be sorted out later. “They think like us. But they’re fake, Clara. They’re like… mini gods with real bodies, but not like Anneeta. Not flesh. I can’t really explain them because they’ve been illegal for so long, I’ve never actually seen one before today. Not even the Omega Outlands had bots.”
“Well, what the hell are they doing here?”
I watch for a few moments, tryin’ to sort it out. There’s a train at the station. Just a single car. It’s bullet-shaped, streamlined, and gleaming white—just like the tunnel. And there’s a group of bots removing crates out of the train car and taking them through a door. “Workin’, I think.”
Clara looks too, pressed up against me so we’re still mostly hidden from their view by the curvature of the tunnel wall. “What do we do now?”
“Wait until they’re gone and then get past this station as fast as we can without being seen.”
I feel her head nodding in agreement against my chest. “OK.”
Whatever the bots are doin’, it takes a while. Clara and I don’t relax, but we do lean against the white-tiled wall, propin’ ourselves up a bit.
I feel like it’s been a long day but when I check the time in my overlay, it’s only late afternoon. It’s not even dinnertime of the same day we left.
Don’t know how that’s possible.
It’s been stressful.
“I think they’re done,” Clara whispers. Her neck stretching, holding me at arm’s length, as she takes a peek around the bend. Her eyes meet mine. “Should we go?”
The sigh comes out of me unbidden, but I cover it with a smile. “Sure. Yeah. I’ll go first. You stay right behind me. And no talkin’ just in case they’ve got—” But I don’t finish. If they’ve got any kind of sound surveillance, we’re fucked. Because no one has sound without visual and there’s just no way past the station without crossing in front of it.
Clara doesn’t even ask me to finish my sentence, which is tellin’. She’s as tired as I am. Hell, she’s got to be exhausted after that ordeal this morning, even though she did get pumped back up with spark.