I didn’t need to explain the toxic waste comment, Daniel caught the gist of it from my head.
Got it, he said, but then I felt a pulse of worry from him. One more thing… They’ve got mental shields built into their suits, so I can’t get a read on what they’re thinking, but I did learn something. One of them jumped up and tried to grab me. I knew it was coming before he did, but still, I only barely got away. As he got close though, I got a flash of Rook talking about the armor. I heard one word, ‘stasis.’Continue reading Underground Tower: Part 5→
Looking at the group of mechs ahead of me, I had to ask myself the next question, “How?”
I didn’t have a pile of plastique bots and while they’d worked on one guy, they were designed with unmoving objects like walls in mind. I had a few killbots, but the last time I’d fought people in Rook’s armor, the killbots didn’t work. Plus, I didn’t want to kill them anyway.
So, I decided to target their faceplates with boombots, figuring that killing them wasn’t possible, but it’d at least be a distraction. The only problem was that I’d just done it and bearing in mind that I was fighting True, they’d anticipate it. Continue reading Underground Tower: Part 4→
The True didn’t make it easy for me. Even as I swerved toward the far left table in the line, they started running for me—except for the one that was already there and waiting.
The bots hit that one first, exploding and throwing him backward. They hit the other two at almost the same time, whipping around them and shooting them not backward, but forward in a fiery explosion, generally in the opposite direction that I was flying. Continue reading Underground Tower: Part 3→
A look down at the floor below us told me what I need to know, the human-sized tubes had cracked all over, shattering one entirely and the top half of the one next to it. The platform the tubes rested on had also cracked with electronics and wires falling out of it, some of them still smoking from when I hit them with my laser.
Yoselin entered behind me, turning her head around as she entered, likely to make sure people weren’t following us. Seemingly satisfied, she turned her head back toward me, following me in.
It was bigger inside than I expected, not in the sense of being a timelord’s extra-dimensional space, but in the sense that a quarter of a big building’s basement turns out to be a large space anyway. That wasn’t all of it either. Continue reading Holes: Part 10→
Off to my right, I heard a crackling noise. A glance showed Cassie standing on top of a cabinet next to a group of cubicles, using the height to shoot over a big bluish-grey block that my implant labeled as a “dark matter converter” and into the Abominator energy generator.
The Abominator energy generator burned where she hit, throwing glowing bits of whatever material the case was made into the air, some of them hitting the dark matter converter.
Recognizing, now that I had a few years of experience with it, that even wondering what the dark matter converter was would cause a massive download into my brain, I chose not to even try. I could do that later. Continue reading Holes: Part 9→
That put everything into a new light. The crowd of people was moving in that direction to be teleported out. Mechs that looked a lot like the mechs Rook’s henchmen used were coming out of the teleporter room, presumably because this base was worth fighting for—at least for a little while.
Inside the room, more bird-shaped mechs appeared even as I descended toward them. Thinking back to Daniel, I asked, When you drew my attention to the room, what were you hoping I’d do?
I had no plan. I felt that whatever was going on down there was important, Daniel thought back at me. Continue reading Holes: Part 8→
Izzy turned her head to look at me, “You’ve said Abominator technology is based on Artificer technology that corrupts the user. I don’t see a reason to keep any of it.”
Inside the helmet where, unlike anyone else, she still might see it, I smiled, “I… can think of a few, but they mostly amount to ways they could help me understand both species’ tech. I want it, but I think it’s going to be easier to get things done if we break things.”
Daniel nodded, “I feel like it’s going to be harder if we try to preserve the equipment and I don’t need prescience for that.” Continue reading Holes: Part 7→
As we walked toward the stairs, I noticed a message in my HUD. It said, “Connection lost.” Everyone near me still showed as green, but everyone else had gone red including Kayla. That meant that we had no backup or any way to tell anyone we needed help. Plus, everyone back at base was probably freaking out now or would be soon.
“Hey,” I said, “We just lost everybody. I’m going to run back into the room and tell them what’s going on.”
