Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
I sneak down the river a ways, moving through what remains of the rushes, and then into the city proper. I go up fire stairs and onto the roofs of the nearby buildings. I have to be careful here, because there’s a lot of academy surveillance around. The more I move away from the castle and the academy and into the more commercial areas of town, the safer I feel.
I like to think I blend in with the locals in a way most academy students don’t. A lot of the time they go in wearing their uniforms, because they’re proud of them. And half the time, even if they’re in casual dress, you can still pick them out a mile away because of their short haircuts.
My hair hasn’t been cut short; it sits asymmetrically around shoulder length. They let me get away with that because I can tie it up. Because I’ve been sneaking into the city since I was about seven years old, I’ve developed a sense of style, kind of a mish-mash of various street trends. I don’t want to be too easily identifiable as one thing or another. I also want to be able to get away quickly if I need to, and I need something that hides my weapons.
That means I’m wearing tactical pants, which are not uncommon in Eclipse. Everybody here needs a lot of pockets, including some long enough to put an entire bottle of wine in. Ask me how I know.
I’m also wearing an oversized jacket with a hood that extends far enough out to hide my face from surveillance drones and hardwired cameras. Eclipse City rule #1: Don’t Look Up.
Unless you want to be immediately fed into a network of machines and databases that will track your every move, of course.
My favorite thing to do in the city is steal. That sounds bad, but everybody does it, and it’s pretty much a pastime at this point. Nile drones deliver cargo throughout Eclipse. If they don’t get to their delivery target on time, or at all, the customer gets a full refund and a re-delivery. So people don’t even mind when the drones are attacked.
The Nile Corporation minds quite a lot, of course. That’s why their delivery drones are now always flanked with armored offensive drones.
I spot a small airborne contingent of three. One decent-sized delivery drone, and two guard drones. They’re traveling low over the city, and they haven’t spotted me. I guess there haven’t been too many raids on the drones lately. It costs a lot more to have deliveries escorted. Anyway. Their mistake.
I pull my sidearm. Contraband at the academy, but mandatory for self-defense in the city. It’s a purple electric bolt unit with the capacity to drop a grown man, and completely fry the circuitry of any given drone.
I snug my mask up over my face, take aim, and fire.
The satisfaction of seeing a drone lose control and slam into a city building is honestly impossible to describe. The way they sort of cartwheel across the top of the concrete roofs, spitting bits of plastic and circuitry as they go, and dropping packages everywhere is great.
This time, though, I’ve fucked things up a bit. Instead of the drone crashing on the roof, it loses altitude a little too fast and smashes into the wall of the building, showering the ground below with all kinds of goodies. Looks like it was carrying a whole bunch of snacks. Delicious.
I poke my head over the edge of the building and watch as down below, a bunch of people without homes, or ways to get homes, scrabble for the contents of the drone.
It’s very hero coded, really. Very Robin Hood. Very stealing from the monolith and giving to the masses. I’m proud of myself.
‘Target Acquired’
A bolt shoots past my head as one of the two guard drones that was with the packages locks onto me. I let out a little squeal of excitement and start running. I’d almost forgotten about this part of the game. The part where the Nile is actually authorized to kill me now because theft and looting are punishable by death.
I’m not worried. Drones are actually easy to lose because there are all sorts of limitations on where they can go. They can’t go into private residences, and they don’t operate well in confined spaces. Their rotors get all messed up by the air currents and they have a tendency to crash.
I rush for the fire escape and half-tumble, half-slide down it, looking for an interior window that’s open.
Pew! Pew!
The glass next to my head smashes, giving me the opening I was looking for. I throw myself into what proves to be someone’s kitchen.
A woman screams.
“Log a support ticket!” I cry out. “It’s a Nile drone!”
More fire is being sprayed through the window, smashing cups and saucers and various other homewares. The AI should know not to open fire in enclosed domestic spaces, but drones are fucking stupid.