Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
And I am back in the sparkstone cave.
Alone.
For a moment I think, That’s it. It’s over. I’ve lost her.
But before I’m even done thinkin’ that, I’m yellin’, “No!” And I’m back, watching. But this time, that man, the augment, he’s waitin’ for me. Smiling. Offering me a hand. Except, it’s not his hand.
It’s Clara’s.
“Come on,” he says, again enunciating so I can read his lips. “Come back, Tyse. Because this is the last offer you’re gonna get and if you refuse, she’s mine by default and you will never see her again.”
Without thinking, I reach through the veil and take Clara’s hand.
The next thing I know, a fist comes at my face.
It connects and everything goes black.
Here’s the weird thing that happens next…
I’m outside my body. Floatin’ above a large… stadium, I guess? That’s what it looks like. Not something modern and sleek, like the sportsball stadium in Tau City, or even some of the smaller venues. But something… old. Ancient, maybe. Not like pre-Sweep ancient, just something crumblin’ and dilapidated. Somethin’ left over.
But it’s not abandoned. It’s full of fuckin’ men. And from this perch above it all, lookin’ down, I see that every single one of them is an augment. Their glowin’ blue eyes watching me—real me—as my unconscious body is carried through the crowd on a rail. I sag over the rail, my stomach pressing into the rough, splintered wood, arms wrenched behind me, legs dangling on either side like dead weight.
Rope bites into my wrists and ankles beneath the beam, keeping me lashed in place as the augments hauling me shift under my weight, their shoulders braced against the wood.
My head lolls forward, blood dripping from my mouth in slow, red strands.
The augments watch me like hungry wolves as I’m carried toward a stage.
When they get me there, they cut the ropes and I tumble off the side of the rail like a sack of meat.
I can’t feel anything when I hit the floor because I’m not in there. My body is vacant right now because I’m up here, above it all. Watchin’.
But when I wake up—do I wake up? If I wake up?—either way, that shit’s gonna hurt.
And I’m gonna be pissed.
A man walks out on the stage and all the augments go wild. Yelling, screaming, cheering.
At first, I can’t make it out. Then… words form.
It goes on?
No—it goes… wrong?
Let’s get on?
The voices churn together, thick and distorted, twisting through my brain as I try to sort it out.
Eck goes on?
Ep-go-zon?
Suddenly, the sound sharpens, syllables snapping into place. And even up here, as some sort of specter—some kind of ghost—I can feel it.
Fear. Crawling through my belly. Making my heart thump. Chest constricting. Because they’re saying Epsilon.
That’s what they’re chanting. “Epsilon! Epsilon! Epsilon!”
Which is a very bad thing for me indeed.
Because Epsilon isn’t just a city or a factory on the train line.
He’s a god.
A god who doesn’t even exist in the world I come from. Epsilon City is a godless place, just like Tau City. But unlike Tau City, the god wasn’t killed hundreds of years ago.
He went missing just two decades back.
The whole city shut down. Spark gone. I mean, it’s back now, but if you live in a god’s city, that god provides for you. And if one day he goes missing, he’s no longer doin’ that.
Everyone blamed the Alphas. All the Median cities—self-righteous bunch of fucks they are—were so sure the Alpha’s did something to the god Epsilon, they nearly started a war over it. This coming from people who saw themselves as above it all. They were properly angry, they were.
I was way too young to give a fuck about some missin’ god. All I was thinking about was my approaching augmentation day and my new life in the Sweep Army.
But I sure as hell give a fuck right now. Because whatever this place is—it’s his. And not only am I his prisoner, but he’s got my Clara.
As I’m thinking this, I feel the pull of my body below. A calling to me, like a god summoning his servants. And that’s exactly what it feels like when suddenly, I am sucked back into my battered and bleeding body. Writhing in pain as the augments cheer, “Epsilon! Epsilon! Epsilon!”
Someone kicks me in the ribs, and from the way it doubles me over, this isn’t the first time. My data display enters Health Critical mode, flashin’ on the back of my eyelids, and it’s confirmin’ what I thought. The list is longer than I’d like. Two broken ribs, partially dislocated wrist along with rope burns and lacerations, cracked collarbone, split lip from the initial punch, and lack of blood circulation in my hands from being tied to the rail.
It hurts to breathe, my left arm is shaking uncontrollably, and my head feels like someone took an ax to it.