Rebuild World: Volume 3 Part One [Complete] by Nahuse

Author:Nahuse
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

The main force of relic hunters rode in the desert bus.

“I shouldn’t have to remind you that your next payment’s almost due, Guba,” snapped Kolbe—the group’s leader and supervisor—at the commander of the work team.

“I know,” Guba replied with an irritated scowl.

“You’d better. I hope you also know that the relics in that truck won’t cover it.”

“I know! Now shut up!” Guba shouted, losing his cool.

Kolbe seemed unfazed by the outburst, but he ended the conversation with a curt nod.

Guba and the rest of the hunters doing grunt work with him were deep in debt. To pay it off, they’d been forced to search for relics in ruins too far to reach on foot. The semi’s trailer was full of loot, but selling the lot wouldn’t even begin to cover what they owed.

Dale was behind the wheel of the semi because he was debt-free. Kolbe had recruited him separately because he needed a driver who wouldn’t run off with the loot to escape from debt—a fact that he hadn’t shared with the rest of the team.

Guba was a passably skilled hunter. His competence had earned him his place at the head of the collection team and permission to wear a powered suit. But his debt had outgrown his abilities—the interest alone had ballooned to the point that it was only a matter of time until he found himself forced into an even more dire situation. He might be given a simple cyberization procedure—leaving him no more effective than before, but without control of his own body—and sent deep into perilous ruins as an expendable pawn. Or he might be used as a test subject for unapproved combat drugs. There were other possibilities as well, but they all amounted to the same thing: he would be stripped of his rights and put through hell to pay off his debt.

Guba knew that better than anyone, and he was starting to panic.

Shit! I could at least make a dent in my debt if these pieces of trash weren’t so useless! I oughta kill ’em all!

The only thing stopping him from doing that was the team’s contract—in the event of a member’s death, the survivors would shoulder their debt. Thus, while the hunters didn’t trust each other, self-interest drove them to help each other anyway. Yet this system didn’t eliminate fatalities. Death was just a fact of hunting, and since everyone on this team owed more than they could possibly repay, none of them was exactly at the top of their profession. So the party sometimes returned from a relic-hunting expedition deeper in debt than when it had set out.

I’ve gotta do something, Guba told himself. Of course, stumbling onto an untouched ruin would solve all my problems. He knew he couldn’t hope for such a lucky break, but he was so desperate that he couldn’t help dreaming of it anyway.

Just then, they got a call from the semi.

“I’ve got a reading up ahead. Vehicle approaching.”

The truck had better instruments than the bus Guba’s team rode in, since it carried more valuable cargo.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.