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)
It takes me a moment to realize what this sun-bleached blue stuff is.
And then, I get it.
It’s spark. Previously harvested spark. Dead spark.
I am sick with want. With longing. I want to go home.
There is no hope of that, though. I see what’s coming now. Because there, in the center of the cage, between the hanging spools of needle-thin wires of flatly-glowing spark, there is a space. An empty space.
About the size and shape of a body.
My body.
“Ahhhh,” Luther sighs, like he’s looking at something beautiful. Then those sickly eyes of his lock onto mine, and he grins. "Time to take you apart, little dolly."
All the little needles come to life. Rising up into the air, reaching for me. Dancing towards me like a down-city whore enticing a customer with the swinging of her hips.
The swaying of needle-threads puts me in a trance, dulling my mind. I watch, helpless as cage comes closer and closer until finally, it’s right up against my face and I hold my breath, hoping against hope.
They attack me all at once. Like an animal.
Stabbing pain, sharp and burning. The wires pierce my skin and snake their way inside me.
And then… they unspool me.
I watch, helpless, as each needle-thin thread—once dead with residual spark—suddenly glows bright blue with my harvest.
24 - TYSE
The fading blackness is a relief I didn’t realize I was waiting for, but with it comes the pain. Everywhere, there is pain. Immediately, my eyes are twitchin’ and flipping through menus in my data display lookin’ for relief. Trying to, at least. Because it’s not workin’.
“Not working, not working,” a sketchy, high-pitched voice says. It’s jittery and wrong, this voice. “You’ll never work again. Never, never, never! Needles and thread, making a puppet!”
What the fuck?
It takes considerable effort to turn my head to the left—not just from the pain, but because it’s strapped down to a table. “What?” I ask. My response groggy, my tone low.
The voice comes from a man. He sits at a desk in front of many screens, chucklin’ and smilin’ as he taps on them, revealin’ a set of spectacularly crooked, yellow teeth. They’re all crowded together, like he’s got twice as many fittin’ in that space as normal people. Or maybe his jaw is just too small. So the teeth look like a cage for his tongue.
“Don’t look at me,” he snarls. “Nothing to see! Luther is nothing to look at!”
Well. I can’t argue with that. He’s definitely nothing to look at. What he is, is crazy. Something’s wrong with him. My words come out as a laugh. “What the hell is goin’ on with your teeth? Do you eat your lady with that mouth? Do you even have one? No.” I continue to laugh. “There’s not enough money in the world to get a whore to open her legs for the likes of you.”
Before I’m even done talkin’, everything about this guy changes. His whole body tenses up, his brow furrows, his jaw clenches. His hands start twitching. Fingertips itching to tap things on those screens.
And his eyes are glowing blue.
Twenty-one, I figure. That’s how old he is. Never seen any action—or if he did, he got someone killed. Ugly fucker, probably augmented in the Medians during one of their defense budget decreases because there’s no way in hell any proper god would raise up this mutant right here to be an augment.
I don’t need a data display to know all this. His reaction to my shit talk is enough.
He’s just… wrong. And even though he’s the one in the position of power here, it wasn’t earned. He’s weak. Stupid to the point of moronic.
And yet, you’re the one strapped down to a fuckin’ table, Tyse.
Right.
They did somethin’ to me. Somethin’ to take me out of the game.
Clara.
That’s how they got me here.
Somehow, they used her as bait.
“We’ll see who laughs last, Saarinen,” the man says, snapping out of the stupor my insults created. His fingers are tappin’ away on that screen, still controlling things. Because while these words of his are comin’ out of his mouth, pain shoots through my whole body. My back arches up off the table—some kind of electric current—
“Stop that right now, Luther!” The words are commanding, and strong, and deliberate. The words are an order. The words of a god.
Immediately, the pain switches off and my back slams back down.
The god sighs. “Thank you.” His voice is softer now, but no less commanding. “You, of all men, Luther, should be able to resist when the enemy provokes you. Have I taught you nothing?”
Luther grumbles, “I don’t like him. He’s a liar. He’s not who he says he is.”
“That’s none of your business, Luther.” Again, the god’s voice is calm. I can’t see him, he’s well out of my peripheral vision. “We’re on a schedule here, remember?”