Jennifer Miller
Stories
10
Chapters
2,335
Words
302.3 K
Comments
0
Reading
1 d, 1 h
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Enide stared at the canopy tent at the end of the convey; she hunched over on a wooden box and a bottle of beer hand. Within that tent was Erec. She’d seen him that morning, ensuring he was still hanging on. Now that they were dozens of miles from Muerte, they were at least out of the danger of lizards chopping their heads off and hanging them around like ‘Mis decorations. She was still feeling the terror of the dip of the inbetween she’d taken—but dragging around Erec there, this time, was a bit…-
126 •
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As the Silver Fire burst alive within Erec and exploded into the world around him, He reached an understanding. Responsibility wasn’t fair. One didn’t pick and choose what life gave them to handle. Were it Erec’s choice, he certainly wouldn’t have been here, offering up his life to end the last vestiges of a grand corporate tragedy that dragged from a dead world into this one. But being a Knight, one with power, was beyond fairness. A true Knight looked not at the things they wished for, but the…
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126 •
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Erec charged at the convulsing Dan on the bed with an overhanded axe and the full intent to kill the old bastard before anything else could happen. It should have been easy, to slaughter a man on his deathbed. He’d killed giant monsters, murdered lizards by the dozens, and even ended the life of a Cataclysm-level threat. So surely, this act of mercy would be swift and decisive. MOLLY had other plans. Despite pulling on Fury and charging with as much speed as he could muster, by the time he reached Dan,…
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126 •
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The world twisted into a distortion of lights and colors around Erec; for an instant, he felt like he was being sucked through a straw and stretched down the entire tube. His body stretched into a thread and threatened to fray apart and loosen into a thousand different strings. His awareness centered on one point—where a woman held onto his hand. Enide. Her hand was firm with his, the grip tightened, and then, all at once, they merged, wrapping around one another and twisting in the middle of nothing.…
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126 •
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Enide’s Uncle twitched like a drugged-up Vega street rat in the middle of the hallway. Though he’d only seen a couple, the sight had left an impression, and out there, sans being completely nude, this guy would fit right in. The man’s skin was pale. The type of pale that only the people in the deepest part of the Caverns got; those that never had time to see a sun hall and spent their entire life in dim light. It was only an instant before Enide broke from the group, along with Rochester. The two…
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126 •
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“Let me get this straight: you have a piece of ‘Vortex Industries,’ technology in you. You’ve had this forbidden old-world tech since our trip to Worth, and it’s the reason why you’ve been able to navigate this place. And now, it’s telling you where the secondary core of this ‘AI’ is housed. A place, it has assured you, that is swarming with test subjects, some of which are Pendragons.” Boldwick repeated, standing away from the bleeding and wounded Pendragons and Knights. The Master…
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126 •
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Erec sunk to his knees, breath coming out in short and painful gasps. His body wasn’t bleeding; the silver fire saw to that. But his connection to that body was frayed; at any moment, the tether connecting to him threatened to snap. He had a sense if he did if he lost track of that mortal coil, he would be abandoned to drift in a void for eternity. “Well done, hero,” Enide said, sinking beside him. He tried to adjust to see her—but the servos of the Armor sparked and failed. If he wanted to…
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126 •
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The war started with more of those machines; they began to pop out of hallways at random. If anything, its control over the machines increased. They popped up with higher frequency for their assaults on the group. But the ambushes fell flat for one surprising reason. Enide somehow managed to shout a warning before they appeared. First, it was a half-second before they opened, and even that was vital to prepare for an oncoming attack. That time only increased, and that precognition expanded to a full…
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126 •
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Any time Erec walked in range of working speakers, he was filled with a fresh wave of annoyance. For awhile, after they turned around, the rogue AI interpreted it as complying with its demands. That they’d actually given in and accepted their fates and wanted to conduct science. And somehow, that conclusion it’d reached was infinitely worse than its assumption they were rowdy test subjects. When they kept going down that same hallway for another twenty feet… And when they took a left turn at the…
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126 •
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In three minutes, after killing the robots, they were left with a dead Pendragon and two of the Pack convulsing on the ground and foaming at the mouth. Not to mention the other injuries inflicted by those things in the brief scuffle. Olivia went into triage mode, abandoning the two injected with the mysterious concoction, and focused on those who would live if the bleeding stopped. Erec panted above the second one he’d helped kill—the one Enide and Rochester laid into. It didn’t have syringes but…
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126 •
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