Thread War by Ian Donald Keeling

Author:Ian Donald Keeling [Keeling, Ian Duncan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-77148-433-6
Publisher: ChiZine Publications
Published: 2017-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

To Shabaz, it felt like they rolled for days.

For the first few hours, everyone talked nonstop about the size of the space they occupied— awed whispers with each ghost building they rolled past, startled cries of amazement the first time they saw damage: structures cut in half, broken holla screens topping them like jagged teeth, rifts in the corridor wider than the Combine. Wobble ferried them across each rift, two at a time.

Nothing attacked them. Shabaz had never been in a damaged part of the Thread where a Vie or an Anti wasn’t coming out from behind something or dropping from the sky. It took her hours to relax. And when she finally accepted that they weren’t in immediate danger, she almost broke down at the thought; they might be safe for the moment, but the lack of Vies was a sign of something gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Then, as the hours continued pass, vast space after vast space lit up like some underwater wreck, she became numb. They all did, the chatter dying away. Even Dillac shut up.

Johnny rolled over. “How’re you doing?” It was the umpteenth time he’d asked, but it was sweet he kept doing it.

“Not a vaping clue,” she said, passing a building where a single sliver remained—a shattered black needle glinting with white light until even that died out in the darkness above.

“Yeah,” he said in a hushed tone. “It’s gotta end sometime, right? How are the others?”

“Onna and Akash seem to be all right, last time I checked. As for those two,” she poked an eye at Kesi and Dillac, “your guess is as good as mine.”

He chuckled. “What about Zen?”

A thread of irritation trickled down her stripes. “Shouldn’t you be the one checking in with him?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Johnny, you’re the one who’s been hanging out with panzers and squids for the past few months. Don’t you think you’d have a better idea what’s going on with them then I would?”

“Uhh . . . sure?” he said, backing up a tread. He stared at her for a second, then rotated on his treads. “I’ll, uh, I’ll go check on him.” He got about three metres, then two eyes swung back her way. “Do we have a problem?”

She sighed. “No, I just don’t know why you’d assume I’m checking in on everyone more than you are. I’m not Bian, for Crisp’s sake.”

“Whoa, wait,” he said, rotating back on the treads. “What the hole does that mean? I wasn’t assuming anything—what does Bian have to do with this?”

“Nothing,” she said, flustered.

“You were checking up with them before, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, well, just because I did something before, doesn’t mean you should assume it’s my job.” Now, why had she said that? How the hole had they gotten here—she’d just been thinking he was sweet. There was a point she was trying to make, she knew there was, but she wasn’t sure she was making it, or even what she was trying to say.

He stared at her for a long moment.

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