《Deeper Darker 》Chapter 6: Getting Away
Advertisement
Epsilon-416
Collection Zone E4-J
Professional scavs. Why today of all days? Ubik had no desire to fight them and no chance of winning if he did. Their equipment looked top notch. Goggles with full spectrum vision. Adjustable face masks with built-in oxygen packs. Augmented braces on their arms and legs to allow them to move quicker and stronger. They were decked out more like a military unit.
All brand new, the latest design. Ubik could tell from a glance that nothing was very likely to break from age or overuse. His only hope was that the software was so new it might crash. New gear always suffered from unoptimised software until the second or third update patch.
Ubik ran. He had the home ground advantage, but they had every other advantage. All of them.
What did they want? There was plenty to share. It wasn’t like Ubik was the type to keep everything for himself. They were welcome to help themselves. But their focus was decidedly on him.
He had the communicators, and he hadn’t even taken all of them. He’d picked up a couple of fuel cells, but they were common as muck. No way that was what they were after.
Did they just plan to teach him a lesson? Release a little tension by beating the snot out of a competitor? His childhood on the streets of Epsilon City had taught him that big men liked to prove their power by stamping on the faces of anyone who was smaller than them. They usually received applause for the display of prowess, and if they were on the police force, a regular wage.
Ubik could have gone that way, used his skills to power his revenge. Big men looked a lot smaller when faced with the true power of technology. Organics could turn anyone into a beast. Electronics could too, if they were used right.
These yahoos were kitted out in the finest electronics currently available (obsolete in three to six months). It would be their undoing.
Advertisement
He could hear them whoop and holler as they gave chase. This was fun to them, their morning’s entertainment. No sign of any drones, which meant this was a sanctioned group, here on official business. To pick up something that shouldn’t have been thrown out, perhaps, or something that was smuggled out via a junk ship, to be collected when no one was looking. Could the devices in his bag be what they were looking for? He could dump them and hope it gave him the chance to escape, but he didn’t have time to mess around.
They might be pros, but he was a goddam genius.
Ubik made it to the top of a small mountain of crumpled robot legs. He had no idea what they had come from, robots that now had brand new legs, presumably. The gradient slowed his escape so his hunters were able to catch up. They would have caught him anyway, he was merely making it quicker for them. They wouldn’t stop to think why he would do that, they would assume he was an idiot and that they were the geniuses. Wrong.
Ubik turned and threw a handful of shiny discs down at his pursuers. They were busy fighting with each other in an attempt to get to him first. They probably had a bet going to see who could make the kill, just to make things interesting for themselves. When the discs struck them, they paused, mildly alarmed.
“Identify,” shouted one.
“Nothing,” said another. “Shows as brass. He’s throwing buttons at us.”
The kind of gear they were employing was very accurate and able to identify the composition of an object in less than a standard second. What it was less good at was being able to understand how a seemingly inert substance might react when combined with another seemingly inert object.
Mixing two properties to find a third was a lost art these days.
Sodium was explosive when exposed to water. Chlorine was highly toxic. Put them together and you got table salt. It worked the other way around, too.
Advertisement
Ubik stuck the red rod in the top of the mound and flipped the lid. The buttons he’d thrown all popped. The electronics around them went dead.
Brass had an unusual property that not many people knew about. It was an old metal amalgam that no one used these days, except maybe for buttons on fancy military outfits. When vibrated at the correct frequency, it powered down fuel cells. Not all types, just the modern ones that were currently the most popular. The brass absorbed the energy, and then it exploded.
The explosion wasn’t dangerous, just a toy pop gun loud. The loss of power could be fatal.
“No power,” shouted one of the scavs.
“Dead tronics,” called out another.
Two were on the ground, unable to move. Their implants had been fitted directly into their muscles, leaving them crippled, at least until they found a way to recharge.
But one scav remained standing. He didn’t look affected at all. In fact, he looked stronger now than he had a second ago. His body looked bigger and his hair was standing on end from some kind of static discharge.
An organic. Why would anyone send an organic to a junkyard? Didn’t they have something better to do with their time?
Ubik decided it would be impolite to ask and ran down the other side of Mount Rubbish.
He heard the footsteps crunching metal into scrap behind him. It was obviously a strength-type organic, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have additional augmentations. Flying, telepathy, firing eye-lasers… if you’re going to send an organic to pick up junk, why not send a military grade assassin?
It made no sense, but that was because Ubik wasn’t familiar with the ways of modern society. He was more of a stay at home type.
Downhill was quicker if you allowed gravity to do the work for you. Ubik had the cloth out and dived onto it. He skidded towards the rusted remains of a boat, half-sticking out like it was in the middle of capsizing.
Ubik jumped, leaving his cloth to carry on without him. It was a useful tool that he’d had for a while, but needless emotional attachments would only get you killed. Repair and recycle, yes. Cling beyond reason, no.
He landed in the middle of the boat’s rotting skeleton and ran, barely keeping his balance. There was a deep shaft here, one he hadn’t explored completely yet. Now seemed as good a time as any. He jumped into the hole without checking for obstructions.
The shaft was a vertical drop but wide enough for Ubik to touch the sides with hands and feet. It enabled him to slow his fall. He looked down to see if he was about to impale himself. Then he looked up and saw red goggle-lenses bearing down on him. The goggles weren’t working anymore, so the red glow had to be coming from his eyes.
The scav had jumped in head-first and was dropping free-fall. Gravity had taken sides, and it wasn’t on Ubik’s.
Ubik pulled in his arms and legs and plummeted.
“I don’t know what you want,” Ubik shouted up. “I don’t have anything. Here, have this explosive device.” He threw a ball towards the red-eyed pursuer.
Ubik didn’t have any explosive devices, but the scav didn’t know that. He twisted and slammed against the shaft walls in panic.
The ball didn’t shoot past him, of course, it fell at the same rate he did. It had green numbers counting down on it. Ubik had found people considered numbers counting down to be very upsetting, especially if you shouted, “Bomb!” first.
While the scav slammed and smashed to a stop, clinging to the walls, letting the ball fall away, Ubik looked down and waited to see where he was going to end up.
Advertisement
Heir to the Throne
All his life Corvus thought he was simple and ordinary person.He thought he had no more family.How wrong he was. His grandfather is, for all intents and purposes, a god. A god who had 8 wives, 24 concubines and 256 grandchildren, counting Corvus.Now Corvus has had his peaceful ordinary life snatched from him as he and all his cousins are thrown into a contest to determine the one true heir. Mature tag is checked so I can write without censoring myself. I think I've hit or approached language, gore, and sexual content at this point so... yeah.
8 166The Second Divine
if you could do anything you want to, will you even have anything you that want to have? this story follows a young boy who through various events got the power of an almighty god, only to find out that immortality and endless power isnt all its cracked up to be. will he become the saviour of everything or its ender? will he warp reality or let it be? what is reality to begin with? join him in his philosphical search for answers and adventures far beyond your wildest dreams because everything is possible, especially when you control everything. Note : This is my first novel written ages ago and i have matured since then (back then i only read light novels) Its not edited cause honestly i cant bring myself to read something i already know whats gonna happen in, so yeah alot of typosThe chapters are long as hell so yeah treat them as multiples (i mean by the end of chapter 3 its 10k words)
8 138In Z Finite
This is the story of Zarco, a young guy with a magic stone and not much else, and Caelum, a wingless "angel". "Caelum-That's stupid... Zarco-Eh, it is..." Ahem, anyway, a lot of action & adventure awaits them, as they are forced together on a journey in search of some magic stones of legendary power. "Zarco-Liar! We're currently doing a lot more of "trying to survive" than rock picking around here! Caelum-Yeah, that is pretty misleading." Ok, screw this, I am out, if nobody read this story it will be your fault. "Zarco-The hell are you talking about, you're the one who wrote this... Caelum-Since our writer is unreliable, I will finish this. This story at its core is just a fun rump, focused on action, adventure, and a lot of comedic dialogue and exchanges. If you had at least a chuckle reading this then you will probably enjoy the story. Zarco-Yo, thanks for reading till this point, we will meet again at the pages."
8 87Pentagram
Melanie Donald was born in 2000: a less than average, ordinary girl struggling through school and stumbling through life as a square peg in a round hole.Blaze Thompson was born in 2008: a girl of immeasurable talent, who surpasses everyone around her and conquers every challenge set before her. In 2016, the city in which they lived was destroyed, and Melanie was killed. It is now 2024. Blaze is as old as Melanie was when she died, and attends a private school that was once a naval academy. She seeks answers about the true nature of the disaster she survived.What caused it? How could it destroy an entire city? How can this school, of all places, be so important? And if Melanie is dead, how can she be here? Of course, her search for answers grows just a little more complicated when a secret society makes the first move in its hunt for the two girls. A work in progress. This is only a first draft of a final story, and it'll be refined before it's finally released. Thanks for your patience. Updates: Later.
8 69•complicated• (Enhypen Mgl)
Ахлах сургуулийн сурагчдын бодолд юу оршдог бол?
8 128deal [M. ATSUMU]
in which atsumu miya made a deal with you to be his fake girlfriend.warning:- strong language- mild sexual content- possible manga spoilersmiya atsumu x female readerfanart on cover: _v_mo on twitter
8 157