Miriam's Dilemma by Jaxon Reed

Author:Jaxon Reed [Reed, Jaxon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-09T22:00:00+00:00

22

A cushion of air slowed Chu’s cylinder when she neared the tube’s endpoint.

She burst out from a tunnel into another underground room, this time a large natural cavern that had been expanded, its rough edges tamed with lights and sidewalks.

Surrounding the platform where the cylinder floated to a stop, her personal guard detail waited. Four men in uniforms, blasters held down at an angle stared at her.

She looked in the eyes of Stenovich, the leader. He was not smiling, but held her eyes the minute the clear tube came out of the tunnel.

The door opened with a sigh, and Chu stepped out, staring at him.

“Ms. Chu.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“That’s Tetrarch Chu, Mr. Stenovich.”

“Not anymore.”

He raised his gun and pointed it at her chest.

“Sorry it has to be like this.”

Thoop! Thoop! Thoop! Thoopah!

She could not help but close her eyes, tensing up while the bolts flew.

When it ended the opened them.

Igor Stevonich and two others lay dead on the floor.

A hulking young man of mixed Asian descent smiled at her, his blaster smoking from the muzzle.

“Sato, thank you. You were always loyal.”

“You are still my Tetrarch,” Dag Sato said. “I don’t care what Mr. Stenovich or the others said.”

She looked down at the bodies and nodded.

“I’m afraid. I don’t have many friends right now, Sato. Everyone is going to say some version of what they did.”

“I don’t care. I’m still your bodyguard. I will protect you from Tetrarch Thrall myself if I have to.”

“Brave Sato.”

She reached up and stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers.

Chu felt truly touched. Her heart filled with joy, as if somebody just poured warm honey all over it.

Then the moment passed.

She said, “I need a knife, or something sharp. We have to get rid of our implants. Quickly.”

He produced a pocket knife. She took it and sliced out the tiny metal disc under her ear, dropping it to the floor.

“Now yours.”

He dutifully bent down so she could reach him, and she extracted his implant as well.

With both on the floor, she stomped on them, and handed him a handkerchief to staunch the bleeding.

“Come on. I have an escape plan for getting out of the city, but we have to move fast.”

“You have a plan? Mr. Stenovich knew about the escape pod from the Administration Building, but . . .”

“But we’re going farther than this, yes. Come on, before they find us.”

He followed her up a flight of steps carved into the stone walls of the place.

The ceiling had been lifted, a lid of giant rock carved out and popped open, then carefully placed on thick stone columns surrounding the circular cavern below. Light and air streamed in, and at the top of the steps Sato and Chu paused.

Brown, red, orange and black rocks mixed with sand stretched out for kilometers in all directions. Here and there, signs of life struggled to establish a foothold in the sparse soil, stubborn patches of green defying the unyielding rocks.

In the distance to the north, they could see

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