Read Online The Unincorporated Future by Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin - Free Book Online Page A

nightmares of unimaginable horror. As the first human accepted into the Neuro, Sandra had always been an object of intense curiosity and sometimes even fear. But after a few days, she’d become something else entirely—avatarity’s savior. A storm of cheers inevitably arose wherever she appeared, and the monsters grew to fear the light of her staff almost as much as the fiery redhead who wielded it. Sandra had indeed become a vision every bit as terrifying in her unbridled fury as the monsters she’d come up against. But she would not remember any one experience after that first day. Need and desperation kept her going, both hers and that of her people. And she’d used that term loosely, as in her mind avatarity and humanity—at least in this great struggle—had became one in their desire to break free of the bonds of slavery.
    Sandra now stood in the armory, eyes fixed, muscles tensed, staff grasped firmly in hand. The hullabaloo of the great room continued to swarm around her—though they all made sure to grant their battle wizard a wide berth. Sandra would stand in place, rarely waiting more than a few minutes until new orders would come down from the loft. Occasionally she’d notice Dante peering over the edge and down at her. There would be little or no expression on his face, but she knew what he was doing—checking her sanity. She’d usually give him a knowing wink, that is if she noticed him. Sandra used the precious moments between missions to gather her thoughts or, more often than not, zone out. She’d just returned from another mission and was beginning to slip into her cognitive drift when rather unexpectedly a woman broke through the bustling technicians and entered the now almost inviolate space that surrounded her. The woman, dressed in the garb of an insertion commando, was shouting something, and it took a moment for her words to stop being one slow continuous sound and become individual words that Sandra could decipher.
    “The children!” screamed the woman over and over again.
    Sandra’s eyes snapped wide then flittered about, slowly absorbing everything. She saw the frantic woman in front of her, saw the guards descending the staircase in her direction.
    “Children?” she asked, not even sure of where or who she was anymore. “What children?”
    “Edwin! Portia!” shrieked the woman, grabbing Sandra by her shoulders. The guards arrived and immediately began tearing her away. “The others,” she continued, one arm now outstretched but grabbing nothing but air. “You came from the library, my former students!”
    And suddenly Sandra remembered. This woman had been the teacher who’d been so frightened of humans, she’d stopped teaching. Well, she wasn’t frightened now.
    “Stop!” commanded Sandra. The guards froze.
    “Release her,” commanded Dante from the top of the steps. The armory suddenly went quiet.
    The woman looked around frantically, then set her gaze back on Sandra. “The children … they … they went back to their classroom!”
    “What? Why?”
    “I don’t know. They panicked, place of safety—by the Firstborn, it doesn’t matter!”
    “They’re alone?”
    “No, the teacher’s in there too. When he heard what they’d done, he raced back to get them out. But … but now … now they’re cut off!”
    “Okay,” Sandra said reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I’ll get ’em out.”
    The teacher’s face was suddenly drained of color and her next words came out as realized terror. “There’s a data wraith in there … in the education core.”
    Dante looked down from above and nodded. Sandra nodded back as the crystal atop her staff began to radiate. The teacher ran to a nearby rack to grab a net gun, but by the time she turned around the wizard had vanished.
    *   *   *
     
    Sandra emerged to a vision that added yet another nightmare to her already impressive collection. The sociology professor she’d come to know and deeply respect from her