Without hesitation, she turns and hammers it into his skull. Instantly, she drops the stone and gasps.
The fragile devil drops to the floor. A pool of blood forms at the base of his forehead.
The baby in the tank breaks the silence with bubbly laughter.
“You’re right,” Rae says. “That was an easier escape than some of the other ones,” she whispers.
She walks over to the ladder, peering down at the city below. She can’t see much. She just knows it’s somewhere different from here.
The fragile devil is dead. The only long-term threat is herself. She has to find a way out of this labyrinth before someone else tries to bring her to synthesis.
What if she explodes? Well, then she brings the last extinction known to the universe. Everything will end as if it never began.
But if she can last for a few more days, she has the chance at giving one last goodbye.
And, if she’s lucky, one last good fuck.
Lucas
On a grassy hilltop, Lucas rests and enjoys the cool breeze. “What does a person do when they face the inevitable?” he asks, arching his head to judge Aiden’s reaction.
Aiden rests, drinking a strange psychotropic blue liquid out of a dark leather pouch. In between thirsty gulps, he says, “They piss themselves.”
He knew he’d answer with something stupid. “I’m serious,” Lucas says.
He chuckles until he chokes on his drink. “Look, when you bastards shot me, I did a lot more than piss myself,” he says.
Lucas laughs, but he wants something real from him. He wants answers. Answers nobody can give him. And the more they ride on their rover, the crueler his jokes feel.
He should have stayed with the pack. That’s rule one of the alpha code. You don’t break the bonds you claim are sacred. Doing so reduces the potency of one’s actions.
It was like something snapped inside him. Suddenly, he couldn’t take it anymore. The more they yearned for utopia, the worse off they became. It was time to shake things up, but trusting Aiden, another trader of the Ouroboros might not have been the best decision.
“Speaking of pissing, I’m about to explode,” Aiden says. “I’ll be back.”
Lucas sighs and keeps a lookout at camp. “Go on.”
At night, there is movement. Lucas surveils the alpha packs roaming the old highways. During the day, it’s relatively safe, but it’s hard to know when a fight might break out. For now, Lucas and Aiden travel like nomads, tent and all.
No high-tech. No holographic maps allowed because of the rolling network disruptions, server attacks, and constant buffering. None of the good stuff.
Lucas couldn’t make this shit up if he tried.
We’re grasping at straws out here. It’s only a matter of time.
Lucas looks back. Aiden is holding his cock, intently looking at his holographic bounty chip. He appears solemn. “I thought you said you were pissing,” Lucas says.
“Huh?” Aiden looks away and pockets the chip. “Don’t mind me. I’m all finished.”
Aiden walks back over and gruffly lowers to the tent entrance.
“Where are we headed? You still haven’t told me,” Lucas says.
There’s more highway up ahead, but they can’t take the open route anymore. Too risky. If they are seen, there is a possibility of violence. There is only two of them, and the planet is home to a billion. Lucas doesn’t like those odds one bit.
“We keep moving south, through the old border of the New Republic,” he states. “See that wall over there? Behind it is Takona, an old border town. Used to be a place of refuge for alphas like us. Home to bounty hunters, slave drivers, and traders of all kinds.”
Lucas sees the wall. Heavily fortified with an electric barrier. An impossible feat to take on. “Got to be at least fifty feet tall,” he says.