Mark 2.0: Book 4: Love by Prax Venter

Author:Prax Venter [Venter, Prax]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-11T22:00:00+00:00

- 14 -

Mark watched Jezebel and Angel float separate ways against the periwinkle sky then turned to face the portal he was holding open back to their home dimension. He nodded and Abby activated her mind cloud as she hopped through and began her own simultaneous scouting mission.

The green woman stayed low, her black boots making only slight crunching noises as she crept around what looked like a mix between greenhouse and a science lab, but it’d been gutted.

Her mind whispered back a sense of abandoned quiet.

If Sasha was right, this one rift out of the thousands around the area would land them in within a building of the Centaur Technocracy. And of course, she was right. Mark had also been right about what would happen a week after they’d yanked out its power source. The place called Arclight Zone had no purpose once the lights were shut off.

He panned his cheating eye around the mostly sterile marble and chrome walls to find nothing jumping out at him. Then, his normal eye scanned the huge central trough filled with black hoses that had to be for cultivating trees. Above them were mostly unbroken panes of black glass they came out on about the third floor of some research building.

Based on what Abby was feeling about stillness, the location would indeed be a great fallback point. Having Princess Verrelle and Learis… even Amina with them caused Mark to stop and think through every choice. And this new choice became possible when he pivoted the viewpoint portal so that the distant Orb Fortress aligned perfectly with the black sphere at the center of this strange magnetized platform. If this whole centaur city were abandoned, he’d found a whole alternate route. They did already cheat their way through this area before… but in reverse.

Angel pulsed out a growing pressure of distress, so Mark pulled back to focus on the Lagos scouting mission. Jezebel felt this change through him, and the tiny dots above converged overhead. A moment later, his bonded druid broadcast that they were returning.

“She’s in pain,” Abby whispered as she slipped back through the portal. Angel did have an unusual wince in her pixelated eyes, but he could tell she was experiencing discomfort rather than serious pain.

Mark let the flap of reality drop closed behind her and focused on what the scouts had found out.

“The Centaur Technocracy research building linked to this point appears abandoned,” Abby said quickly as she moved close enough to wrap her tentacle through Angel’s metal fingers. “Now, what is harming you?”

“A strong magnetic field permeates the area, controlling this nickel and iron alloy. There is a 97% chance that what is projecting it is also responsible for the depot network corruption. Robotic Lagomorph constructs similar to my design patrol in repeating patterns. I believe they are manufactured within the central sphere.”

“Lagomorph constructs,” Learis repeated. “Are they hostile?”

“Unknown. 78% probability, yet given historical precedent, the technology may not be hostile toward indigenous biology. They are heavily armored. I would recommend caution.

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