Starfall: A Durga System Novella by Jessie Kwak

Author:Jessie Kwak
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2016-05-17T06:00:00+00:00

NOW STARLA’S watching the cleaning bot’s hatch, afraid she’ll miss it if she doesn’t keep her eyes peeled.

She has no idea what time it is, but she hasn’t seen it yet today, and so she tells herself it must be coming soon. She has her blanket clenched in her fists — she doesn’t know why they bothered to give her a blanket when it’s so horribly hot here — and she hopes that the insulation from it will keep the cleaning bot from shocking her too badly. She has the flimsy water bottle, which no one seemed to care if she kept. She’s not sure what she’ll do with that, but it seemed wasteful to pass up the opportunity to try something.

After what seems like ages, the little door slides open and the cleaning bot scurries out.

Starla knows from watching it for the last few days that it will make a sweep of the floor clockwise before scuttling up to do a quick swipe of the toilet seat and hopping down to disappear back into the wall. It hasn’t seemed to be programmed to notice her movements, as though its makers assumed its electric shock would be enough protection.

And maybe it will be. Starla will find out.

She tenses, launches herself with squat-tired thighs across the room as it scurries onto the seat of the toilet, her blanket folded in front of her like a shield.

Her plan works — she knocks the miniature robot into the bowl, where she expects it to short-circuit in the shallow water. It’s not ideal, but she’d rather have the metal parts than the electronics.

It doesn’t short-circuit.

The cleaning bot explodes beneath her hands, throwing her back against the wall with a force that seems completely impossible for such a tiny little machine. She thinks she must have screamed.

The synthetic blanket ignites with a rush of heat that she can feel on her cheeks. She flings it away from her; smoke roils off it to pool on the ceiling.

The cleaning bot scurries out of the toilet and escapes through its hatch, trailing sparks.

Smoke chokes the room, and Starla’s lungs are burning. Where are the fire-suppressant foams? There’s water in the little plastic bottle, still, and Starla flings it in a spray at the blanket, sending up clouds of steam with the black, toxic smoke. She turns away to pound at the door, shielding her stinging eyes.

The door slides open and Starla falls through, retching, into the arms of her two guards. They immediately wrench her singed hands behind her and into cuffs.

Busted.

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.