Read Online Lesser Gods by Duncan Long - Free Book Online

sudden cringe of terror at the possibility that my computer might this very minute be reporting my drug infraction to the authorities.
    “My virtual lips are sealed. No reports of your sins to the cops from me.”
    “That’s good,” I said, ignoring the hint of sarcasm in the machine’s voice. If the flash updates ever started changing that bit of programming protection, I would be dancing the hokey poky for sure. Meantime, the hack of my MC was one of my get-out-of-jail-free cards.
    The computer spoke, “I’ll monitor your vital signs and call the medics if you should happen to —”
    “Good plan. Just be sure I’m really slipping into the sweet by and by before you call the cavalry. I don’t want a bunch of paperwork to do unless I’m about to kick off.”
    “Understood.”
    “Permit transfers to other SupeR-Gs from the first site in case I have to chase this guy. But make me wait twenty minutes before jumping again — no matter how much I beg you to let me. I don’t want to get locked into a false personality loop.”
    “I’ll wait at least twenty minutes between jumps.”
    Already I was trying to figure out a way to override my last command so I could get maximum use of my jet jolt.
    Once a jethead always a jethead.
    I just hoped my new self that came back wouldn’t outfox the old one now departing at Gate Six for parts unknown.
    I put the VG onto my head and settled into my chair, wiggling a little to be sure I was comfortable and double-checking to be sure I had left my legs uncrossed so I didn’t return to a body with gangrene in one foot.
    I opened the vial and got a whiff of the chemical’s acrid odor. Then I placed a drop of the white liquid on my forefinger and touched it to my tongue. Resealing the container, I carefully laid it to one side before the drug started to take effect.
    “Connect me to the first SupeR-G on the list.” I ordered, lowering the view screen on my VG.
    “Connection established.”
    My world exploded.

Chapter 6

    Louis Berlioz
    I watched helplessly as the hatch to my compartment swung open. Stale air hissed in, with an unpleasant odor I associated with reptiles or something dead. I knew smelling was impossible in my artificial body — I was totally confused. I looked at my hand — it was still mechanical. I was still in my mechanical self. Yet how could I explain the smell. The new Jet perhaps?
    Then I saw it. A nearly transparent tentacle snaked into the compartment and blindly searched the space, tapping here and there as if groping for me.
    I plastered myself against the far wall of my tiny prison, side-stepping to avoid the appendage hunting me. After a few more random attempts, the intruder brushed against my arm, fastening itself to my skin before I could pull away. Its suction cups gripped so tightly I knew they must be damaging my plastic skin.
    The tentacle dragged me, screaming, out of the familiar setting into twilight where my eyes no longer seemed to function properly. I found it impossible to focus on the shapes and forms that shifted around me like ghosts in a high wind, barely visible and even then only from the corner of my eye and vanishing when I looked directly at them.
    The tentacle was real enough, however. And the bat-like creature it belonged to lifted me effortlessly into the thick air. I was dangling below as it dodged and soared through the finger-like crystalline tree branches that appeared without warning ahead of us. Abruptly the stems vanished into the gloom after we passed.
    For what seemed an eternity, my bat-like captor carried me through the night, bringing me to an island of dim light. The creature circled the three glowing obelisks standing beacon-like atop the cliff and then swooped downward, settling onto the ground in front of the objects.
    Its tentacle released me; I landed on the hard rock with a jarring thud. Scrambling to my feet, I stepped away from the bat as it furiously beat its leathery wings, lifting itself into the