Read Online A Game of Universe by Eric Nylund - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Eric Nylund
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best behaved of all my personas, because she never wore my flesh too long. She stayed only to kill, then departed, unable to understand any other aspect of consciousness.
There were probably more of Olivia’s men around, so I ran.
A dozen twists and turns, and I found a passage that doubled back under itself, back under the runway and out to the hanger where I hoped my escape waited. Stenciled over the entrance were the words: ABANDONED #A-11. DO NOT ENTER.
I ignored the sign, entered, and sank knee-deep into foul smelling sewer.
It was familiar terrain. After the death of my Master, it was in the sewers I hid. A shadow of guilt entered my mind, which I banished before the psychologist had a chance to dissect it. Unfortunately, like the smells rising from these murky waters, the incident would not go away.
Excellent, cried the psychologist. Such a rare pleasure to examine your early memories. Continue, please.
Sixteen years ago, my Master died by my hand. He was a popular man with powerful friends, so no expense would be spared to locate his murderer. I had to flee.
There were two options: leave the planet, which cost more money than I had, or go underground, literally. Only meters of stone would block the divinations and probes the police used to locate criminals such as myself. The logical decision was the sewers. I had the ocular enhancer to see in the dark, and if I could stand the smell, I might have a chance.
The sewer was a maze of tunnels, drains, concrete, and earth that mingled with pungent urine and excrement. I wandered there for ten weeks, all that time afraid of the police finding me, and afraid of my Master’s spirit rising from the water to avenge his death. But those things never happened. The only phantoms that roamed the wormholes were my own feelings of guilt.
That didn’t mean I was alone.
The sewer was alive with predator and prey. There were insects with white bodies, long antennae, and stingers. There were leeches to suck the blood from my legs. There were floating colonies of microbes that glowed faintly red, and dissolved any organic matter they happened upon. Also here were mole-like creatures, no eyes, with whiskers longer than their body, inoffensive, except for their taste. They were hunted by the king of the underground, the lermix.
Lermix swam and slithered faster than I ran. It wasn’t a worm, nor a reptile, but something of both with a translucent segmented body that stretched for a dozen meters. Tiny mouths covered the creatures’ tentacles, that touched, tasted, and dragged them through the darkness. And they stank, stank like nothing else in the damp rotting place, of rotten eggs and month-old milk. I learned to run whenever I caught that odor.
I might have stayed there forever, forgetting my life on the surface, had not Fifty-five crossed my path. Most of the time, I didn’t need to see. I heard everything I needed to amidst the continual dripping of water, and that’s how I detected him. His heavy strides and rhythmic sloshings echoed ahead of him.
I backed away from the source of that noise, and released my ocular enhancer.
The sloshing stopped.
With the veil of darkness lifted from my eyes, I saw a man, ten meters away, wearing green phosphorescent bug-eyed goggles. He turned that unnatural gaze my way, grinned, then started toward me, sending a wave of filth in my direction.
He must be the police. In a way, I was relieved to see him. At last, I’d have a chance to explain what I did and why—explain that it was an accident. But he didn’t look like a policeman, no uniform, no partner … although he did have a gun strapped on his shoulder.
I ran.
Plowing through the waist-high water, I heard him laugh behind me.
I sprinted, given new energy from my fear.
Usually, I took care not to run. It stirred up the stuff that had settled on the bottom. I gagged on the stench—ammonia, vomit, and rancid table scraps—coughing while I struggled to keep ahead of
There were probably more of Olivia’s men around, so I ran.
A dozen twists and turns, and I found a passage that doubled back under itself, back under the runway and out to the hanger where I hoped my escape waited. Stenciled over the entrance were the words: ABANDONED #A-11. DO NOT ENTER.
I ignored the sign, entered, and sank knee-deep into foul smelling sewer.
It was familiar terrain. After the death of my Master, it was in the sewers I hid. A shadow of guilt entered my mind, which I banished before the psychologist had a chance to dissect it. Unfortunately, like the smells rising from these murky waters, the incident would not go away.
Excellent, cried the psychologist. Such a rare pleasure to examine your early memories. Continue, please.
Sixteen years ago, my Master died by my hand. He was a popular man with powerful friends, so no expense would be spared to locate his murderer. I had to flee.
There were two options: leave the planet, which cost more money than I had, or go underground, literally. Only meters of stone would block the divinations and probes the police used to locate criminals such as myself. The logical decision was the sewers. I had the ocular enhancer to see in the dark, and if I could stand the smell, I might have a chance.
The sewer was a maze of tunnels, drains, concrete, and earth that mingled with pungent urine and excrement. I wandered there for ten weeks, all that time afraid of the police finding me, and afraid of my Master’s spirit rising from the water to avenge his death. But those things never happened. The only phantoms that roamed the wormholes were my own feelings of guilt.
That didn’t mean I was alone.
The sewer was alive with predator and prey. There were insects with white bodies, long antennae, and stingers. There were leeches to suck the blood from my legs. There were floating colonies of microbes that glowed faintly red, and dissolved any organic matter they happened upon. Also here were mole-like creatures, no eyes, with whiskers longer than their body, inoffensive, except for their taste. They were hunted by the king of the underground, the lermix.
Lermix swam and slithered faster than I ran. It wasn’t a worm, nor a reptile, but something of both with a translucent segmented body that stretched for a dozen meters. Tiny mouths covered the creatures’ tentacles, that touched, tasted, and dragged them through the darkness. And they stank, stank like nothing else in the damp rotting place, of rotten eggs and month-old milk. I learned to run whenever I caught that odor.
I might have stayed there forever, forgetting my life on the surface, had not Fifty-five crossed my path. Most of the time, I didn’t need to see. I heard everything I needed to amidst the continual dripping of water, and that’s how I detected him. His heavy strides and rhythmic sloshings echoed ahead of him.
I backed away from the source of that noise, and released my ocular enhancer.
The sloshing stopped.
With the veil of darkness lifted from my eyes, I saw a man, ten meters away, wearing green phosphorescent bug-eyed goggles. He turned that unnatural gaze my way, grinned, then started toward me, sending a wave of filth in my direction.
He must be the police. In a way, I was relieved to see him. At last, I’d have a chance to explain what I did and why—explain that it was an accident. But he didn’t look like a policeman, no uniform, no partner … although he did have a gun strapped on his shoulder.
I ran.
Plowing through the waist-high water, I heard him laugh behind me.
I sprinted, given new energy from my fear.
Usually, I took care not to run. It stirred up the stuff that had settled on the bottom. I gagged on the stench—ammonia, vomit, and rancid table scraps—coughing while I struggled to keep ahead of
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