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)
“Don’t move, Clara,” Tyse whispers. “Just stay right where you are.”
Which is a pretty awkward position because my nose is actually touching the glass. But I’m not gonna argue because I’m fairly certain that the man outside is an augment and even though I’m only familiar with one very specific augment, it doesn’t take a very active imagination to understand that augments aren’t anything I want to meet up with in a dark tunnel in any dimension.
Tyse is on his feet, one hand pressed towards the man outside, palm forward. “We’re just passin’ through. Whatever this is, whoever you are, we’re just passin’ through.” He talks in a normal voice, but it’s clear that the other augment can hear him because he cocks his head as he takes a few steps forward.
The man says, “There is no ‘just passing through’” as his eyes flash bright blue. “Don’t care where you’re going. Don’t care where you’re coming from, either. This section of the line belongs to Epsilon. If you come in, you owe. If you wanna leave, you pay.”
“What the hell is happening,” I whisper.
Tyse doesn’t respond, but I do catch him tensing up when I speak. He wants me to stay quiet. But it’s too late, because the augment’s glowing blue eyes lock with mine and the resulting smile that creeps up his face as he takes me in is enough to send shivers sliding down my spine.
The augment takes a step forward and, in this moment, everything changes.
Weapons are drawn and fired before any human could’ve made a decision to do it. Then Tyse grabs me by the arm and drags me to the back of the train car. Everywhere around me, there are explosions. Weapons being fired by more than just one man.
Tyse is yelling, talking to me, I think, but I can’t be sure because my ears are ringing, and I can’t understand him. All sound is coming at me like I’m underwater—muddled, distorted, echoing. The next thing I know, there’s silence, and darkness, and I’m gasping for breath. Wheezing as I choke on the air filling my lungs. I look up, see Tyse’s panicked face, then, underwater again. But I’m not wet, so it’s not water. Still, when we come out of it, it’s like a resurfacing because I gasp, sucking in air. And this time, it’s something I actually breathe.
“Holy fuck,” Tyse is saying. “Holy fuck. Holy fuck!” Over and over again. “Are you OK? Can you breathe?”
I can, but when I try to talk, I just start coughing. He kneels down, pulling me up into a sitting position and claps me on the back like I’m choking on food.
My hand comes up, grabbing his arm. “I’m OK,” I croak. I’m not sure that I am, but I say it anyway. “I can breathe now. It’s just…” I pause to gasp a little. “I couldn’t. There was something wrong with the air.”
“Yeah,” Tyse says, relaxing just a bit. “I took us to the wrong dimension, I guess.”
I blink up at him. “What?”
“Yeah. To get away from the augment ambush. There were dozens of them, not just the one.”
“Oh, that explains all the explosions!” I wheeze these words out.
“I guess there’s a gang of them? They run this territory and we were passin’ through it.”
“How did they know we were on the train?”
Tyse thinks for a minute. Then he huffs. “It was the workers. The bots at the last station. They must be hacked. Those augments must have access to their vision sensors.”
“That’s why they looked at us funny.”
Tyse nods. “Yeah. I suppose.”
“Well, what do we do?” My breathing is mostly back under control now, but I let out a long sigh just to steady myself one last time.
“We’ll try and get past them in this dimension?” he says. Seeing my confusion, he clarifies. “I hopped us into the first frequency I saw, but it was… I dunno. Somethin’ wrong with it. Ya couldn’t breathe.”
“That’s why I was choking. Wait. Could you breathe?”
Tyse nods. “Yeah, I was fine. But… I’m not human, remember? So I hopped us into this one.” He exhales loudly, raising his gaze to look around.
I look around as well. There’s no train here. No train tracks, but luckily, there is a tunnel. A terrible thought occurs to me. “What if there was no tunnel here?”
Tyse meets my gaze, wincing. “Yeah. We’d be dead. I was very careless. It won’t happen again. It’s just… new. And I needed to get us out of there before you got hit. Every single one of ‘em had a Versi.”
My eyes drop to his weapon, then rise back up to watch his expression. “So… what are we up against? And what do we do?”
“Up against,” he sighs. Looking away. “I’d say… a small army?” He looks back at me. “But it’s OK. We’re gonna stay here, in this dimension, and make our way down the train line until we get past them.”