The rails that I rode on
everyday down here in the seventh level were looking old to me as i looked at them through my eyepiece.I
guess the infared light just made them look older or
something cause I knew most of the rails I rode on these days were really no
more then 2 or 300 years old.The map on my eyepiece
told me to shift my weight to catch my turnoff for home so I did and the maglev
wheels attached to my arms accordingly shifted to catch the correct rail.It made a loud swoosh sound as I did so-just a second
of noise and then quiet became my friend again as usual.
My home was just a mile
or so down this rail and I was anxious to get home.I
had a full backpack of supplies I'd bought from the Corinth province, some of
the best on this level.The food from there was of the
highest quality because they had a direct route via the rails to the surface farms.I know my crew would be happy at getting these
supplies cause for the last few weeks we had been feeding off of the rail rats
and the coolant water.Not the best diet for rail runners.Especially when one of your crew was just a kid,
boy he did not like rat meat one bit.He squirmed
every time he had had to take a bite.And the coolant
water, don't let me get into that.The water was
primarily to keep the maglev rails we rode on and wasn't exactly the best or cleanest.Rev said it tasted like sewer water from one of
the surface cities.How he knew what sewer water
tasted like I don't know and didn't ask when he said it.
Luckily though we
had been paid by the gov for finding there runaway
maglev train last week so I had had enough dough to go get some real supplies
for the five of us.Yep we were five rail runners.Me, Jack Lev orphan and kind of the captain of the
crew was the oldest runner. Rev Lev was my brother-at least
that's what he called himself-we really didn't know for sure if we were
brothers or not and didn't have the money for a dna test.Reason we called each other brother was because we
were found together when we were about 4 by the gov
and we grew up in one of the rail orphanages that were located down here.Then there's Janny or jan as she likes us to call her whenever we meet with the gov types.She's the teenager of
the group and always trys to find anything wrong with
my orders, and i mean anything.But
she always meant well and I guess that's what made me keep her around.She made me think, and down here if you didn't think
fast....well....you didn't think at all.The kid of
the crew, Scar we called him was about ten and he was our best hider.If we needed a place to hide, the kid new where you
could find a deep cave or small hole along the rails to hide and no one, not
even a rat could find us.Lois was our other member
and she was about me and Rev's age so she knew the
rails about as good as us.As to where she was from, I
didn't know and neither did Rev even though I'd caught him stealing a private
moment with her from time to time.Private as it could
get at least down here.They were just friends
though-not lovers if that's what you're thinking.Riding
Rails didn't afford relationships very well.
My eyepiece typed Home in
the corner for me just as I got to the point on the rails I knew I had to jump off.I hated this part.I clamped
down on the rails with my hands which were covered in a special titanium-platinum
weave gloves to slow my momentum and then I twisted my arms inward.Once
I was slow enough the rails sensed my arm twisting as a signal to disconnect me
and they did so, abruptly.I fell to the floor of the
rail tunnel which was ten feet below and had to duck and roll as I hit the ground.The floor wasn't particularly soft either, it was
made of a carbon composite that felt like the old steel that used to be used
for some of the maglev trains.My Rail Runner Outfit
was supposed to protect me, but as it was getting old-some of the patches
didn't exactly cover everything.And new professional
grade uniforms like the Rail Racer's wore weren't cheap.Supporting
a crew like I had took all the extra dough we made so new uniforms were out.
I looked around the dingy
floor and found what I was expecting, the door entrance to our little hole in
the wall.It was just a small ring pierced threw the
floors surface that most other runners would of missed it unless they had been
looking for it.I grabbed it and pulled up, opening the four foot entrance and
briefly letting a flood of light into the tunnel.I
quickly jumped down it, knowing that Scar would yell at me if I didn't and
landed in our main hall.
Scar and Jan were waiting for me near the
eating area's entrance.Didn't suprise
me one bit so I pulled off my pack and threw it to them, smiling.
"Took you long enough," Scar said
digging open the pack.
"I know, sorry Corinth wasn't exactly
slow this time of day.I had to skip around four maglev's and a cargo hauler just to get there.The
food's good though.Had a snack before i got here." I said watching the two of them dig into
the pack.Dang they were hungry.Almost
laughed, but then thought better-Jan would've bitten
my head off.And not just because she was hungry.
"Stupid Maglevs.Why
don't they just make everybody run the rails like we do?" Scar said
knowing this would halt Jan for a second.He must want
something she was grabbing.
"You know perfectly well why not you
stupid child!Without Maglevs ordinary people would go crazy trying to figure out
where to go down here!" Jan shouted stopping whatever she was doing. I was
right, Scar quickly grabbed a pack of ice cream she had just about been ready
to open out of the pack.I stifled a laugh at this.Instead I asked a question hoping to stop Jan from
jumping on Scar.
"Where's Rev at?"
"He's in the com room looking at some
VR stuff I think.He said something about another railrunner contest earlier.I am
not entering with you guys if there is.I'll help do
some bounty searches but those stupid contests are a waste of my time."
Jan said still sorting through the pack's contents.
I decided not to comment
on her hatred of railrunner contests and went off to
find Rev.Maybe he'd found us some more money sources.I hoped.This eating rats
was getting to be tiresome.The little cave we called
home used to be a Maglev station a few hundred years ago.It
was pretty large for five people, thankfully as we had eight rooms to ourselves.The Com Room used to be one of the many Maglev
Control rooms the surfacers used to route them along
the right rails.It was just at the south side of the
main entrance behind a huge seven foot thick wall that used to be controlled by
a retinal scanner.You had to have the right eye
pattern to enter the room.When we had found this
station four years ago Jan and Rev had figured out how to bypass the thing so
now all we had to do was press our hand to a small scanner and the big door opened.I did so now and sure enough the big door slowly
slid inward.
The Com Room was filled
with giant screens,computer terminals,big
chairs and one big cubicle set at the back of the room where we supposed the
head controller had sat so many years ago.Rev was in
this cubicle now with his railrunner helmet off and a
VR headset in place of it.VR was our primary source
of communication with the other crews around the planet and without it, our
source of Money would be reduced to Scar's hiding abilities.One
time in fact we did have to go without VR for a month-Lois had let loose some nanobots into the VR headset hoping to improve the
resolution, but instead they almost destroyed it.
I walked back to the big
cubicle room where Rev was and walked through the small door to find Rev
completely mesmerized by the VR headset.He always got
like this whenever he was in VR.Practically like a
zombie-its a wonder I can even get through to him but somehow he always hears
me and comes out of it.I slapped him on the back and
yelled his name to get him out.He shook his head once,grabbed the headset and yanked it off quickly.
"Damn, bro you took me out of a very
interesting convo." he said setting the VR
headset down in front of him.
"Interesting how? Jan said something
about a contest she didn't want to enter?" I asked looking at his large
black dilated eyes.He must of
been in one heck of a convo if he looked like that.
"Well, the black
dragons are having a little contest for all the rail runners on this level next
week.I was talking to their sechead
bitch and she said that the dragons are looking for a new crew to take over
their bounty ops.The contest is to determine who
that'll be.I think we can be that crew, bro." he
said leaning back in his chair and smiling.
The black dragons ran
level five and they were one of the biggest squads on this planet.They
were also reputed to be not exactly law following types.Rev
knew this, but he also knew that if we got on a major squad as a bounty crew,
our food situation would no longer be a situation.I
on the other hand had a rep to take care of and if we went for this black
dragon spot that would be pretty much ruined on every level of this planet.Presently my rep among the other levels was good
enough that we usually got called first to do any seventh level bounty hunting
but as it was, the seventh level didn't get much of that.Damn
and double damn.
"Bro you know what this means.We'll have a whole shitload
of trouble on us if we go for this spot.Not to
mention my rep.We can't go for this.Not
now.You know that." I said hoping he wouldn't push this anymore.
"Jack, I know you
don't like the dragon's rep, but shit bro-they got the fifth level and
everything in it!What we got here is nothing.Maybe a few scraps from the surface and thats it.We gotta
try for this.Look-at least talk to the sechead bitch about it.Come on.The dragons are looking for a good clean cut crew-which
is us!I'm good, You're Clean,Lois
is Cut....and-" he paused snickering out the corner of his mouth.
"Very funny bro.I
don't know.I'm gonna have
to think about this.Tell the sechead
I'll talk to her tomorrow.I brought back some goodies
from Corinth if you're hungry.Where is Lois by the
way?" I asked hoping to change the subject.
"Oh she took some of the extra dough
and went down to
Murray's being the local gadget and part
shop on this level.Lois was kind of our mechanic and
she was always looking for ways to improve our rail speed or any of our
numerous gadgets we used on the rails.Sometimes her
ideas worked, and others well....you get the idea.
"Okay.Well I
think I'll go take a nap before I eat.Damn traffic
was ridiculous today." I said and headed out to my room.
Rail Runner Headquarters
I liked to call it.It wasn't really, at least not for
this planet.I'd heard stories of Headquarters where
all the Rail Runners had to report to on this planet or that of course but this
one was all my own.I had shelves full of vidchips of all the famous and not so famous rail runners
of the entire Fed.Rail Runners were a rare breed, the
only humans tough enough and fast enough to ride the Maglev Rails that criss crossed the insides of every planet.We
were kind of like the worker bees of a planet's innards, some did maintenance
on a planets surface controls, some did bounty hunting work like our crew, some
did maintenance on the rails themselves and some even fought their own govs for the protection of the planets people.The
Black Dragons were reputed to be like this last bunch and fighting your own gov wasn't exactly the best way to move up in the planet.But from what I'd heard they'd successfully built
there own little democracy on five and the people were fairly happy.
The Rails that us Rail
Runners ran on were like a big huge subway system of the twentieth century only
the rails ran all the way through the planet's core.From
what I understood, the rails were grown like plants with nanotechnology and the
tunnels that they ran through were dug by an animal called a Granite worm.Something I've never seen and from the descriptions
I've gotten wouldn't like to.Granite Worms were just
that-giant worms that were made of granite based nanobots
and natural biologically based nutrients.They had large
mouths that were covered inside and out with the nanobots
formed into the sharpest spikes and little miniature mouths.If
the rock that the worm ran into was too hard, the spikes tore up the material.If it was too soft, the little mouths would eat
the material and the worm would excrete it after it's digging shift was over on
the surface.And the excretion sometimes wasn't
exactly pretty.
The levels of a planet
were set up a little like the old style countries on earth.Each
level had its own leading squad, like the black dragons and to be a member you
had to either compete for a position or if you had enough money, buy your way in.The planet's core was divided into levels from top to
bottom or north to south.Level 1 was of course at the
top or the north level and level 9 was
at the bottom or the south level.Moving up levels was
possible, but your crew had to be really good or your squad had to be really
rich to take over another squad's level.There was no
fighting-just good quality competitions that were judged by the planet's head
cheese's who were called Congressmen.Every Level up
was better then the one below it-at least on this planet.The
surface that was attached to each level as you went up had better food,better teachers,better jobs,just generally a better quality of life.
I'd been taught all this
by me and Rev's foster parents ones we had from age
seven until we were eighteen.Our Dad was a level
eight rail runner for over fifty years and he had a seat on the squad's council
that ran that level.Mom did some running too until
her arm joints started getting athritis and she could
no longer twist good enough to get off the rails.One
time I had to go get her cause she had a severe athritic
attack on the rails and she couldn't stop herself.Luckily
she had found one of the many circular routes on the rails and it wasn't too
hard for me to find her and bring her back home.I was
seventeen then.Dad died about three weeks after that
I remember.Accordingly me and Rev had to become full
time runners and help support our mom until she passed.Which
as of today had been eight years ago.
"Jack, you asleep in
there?" Lois's voice interuppted
my thoughts from behind the thin door of my room.
"No, Lois I'm awake.Come
in if you want." I said sitting up on my bed.
"Don't have to, just
wondering if you wanted to eat some stew i made.I need to talk to you about something too-and I'd
rather do it in the kitchen." she said, pausing briefly between the and kitchen.I wondered why.The
kitchen was fairly private being behind a six inch thick door on the east side
of the main entrance but it was also noisy.All the
appliances and it was closest to the tunnel above us.Maglevs
made little noise,but the people on them sometimes
loved to yell for some odd reason.
Her eyes were shaking
visibly and I knew something must be very wrong.Lois
was afraid of very little-her origins helping her in this.She
had grown up in a ninth level orphanage, which might as well have been a
dungeon for kids abandoned by the lowest level runners.The
stories I'd heard of the ninth level weren't what you would call paradise for
kids.
"Okay, I'm coming." I said and
got up to follow her to the kitchen.
We got to the kitchen and sat down at the
small wood table we'd found along time ago across from each other.Lois
made sure the door to the kitchen was shut and scar and jan
were busy outside picking at the backpack i'd brought
back.
"What's wrong? I can see in your eyes
something's got you scared." I said after she had sat down and hadn't said anything, just staring at me.
"Boy this is harder than i thought." she paused, wringing her hands," I
went to
"Yes....Rev
told me you did." I answered.
"Murray's wasn't
there when I got there this morning.His Cave was-it
was-just a big black hole in the side of the tunnel when I got there.It looked like somebody had either blew it up or
burnt it from the inside I don't know which.I crawled
in to see if I could find something-maybe a note from Murray or something you
know?" she asked.I shook my head yes,"There wasn't anything.He's
moved before but he's always left a note or something that told us engineers
where he went for some odd or stupid reason of his."
Murray was notorious on
this level for being a bit of a nomad.He liked to
pick up and move for no reason at all.And considering
what he carried in his shop this was really wierd and
difficult.Murray had just about every little
mechanical part,computer chip or uniform part you
could think of-and this was alot of stuff.But Murray moved anytime he liked to.Some
of the engineers thought he had a warp cargo hauler or something but nobody had
ever seen him use it if he did.
"Was there any electromagnetic
signatures that you could pick up on your headset?" I asked, because if
"No, I thought of that.I
know about his supposed hauler.Murray kept his stuff
in top condition.Couldn't of blown if that's what he
uses to jump from place to place." she said, her hands going around the
bowl of stew in front of her.She was trying to stop
them from shaking.
"Was there anything left?burnt supplies,parts?"
I asked getting more worried by the moment.If there
was somebody attacking our main supply guy, then logically they might just come
after us next.I think Lois was thinking the same
thing.
"No, nothing.The
cave was just black, all black.Jack, what if this is
some type of government thing?"
"Gov types don't come down here
Lo....only contact we have had with'em in the last
300 years is through VR.They're too busy running the
surface and keeping their trade relations friendly with all the other planets.I don't know.This is damn
strange.Maybe one of the other crews got pissed at'em and decided to torch his place-"
"Jack, you know that'd be stupid of anyone.Everyone needs Murray down here.Without
his supplies the crews wouldn't be able to do any running.And
I don't know what we're going to do for parts-I've only got maybe a months
reserves left in the build cave.What're we going to
do?" she asked still trying to stop her hands from shaking.
"Well we can try and
find murray.I'll get Rev looking for him on VR.Maybe later tonight you and I can go back to the cave
and see if we can find that note he always leaves.And
I spose we can put out some feelers to the other
crews to see if they know anything.But other then
that-we can't do much more.The dragons are holding a
competition next week and we may have to be ready for that.I
don't know whether we will or not though, I haven't decided."
She shook her head yes in
agreement and decided to eat.I wasn't very hungry so
I left the stew and went back to Rev to get him to look for Murray.I
hoped Lois hadn't picked up how really worried I was.If
Murray had been killed by something or someone, they'd logically be coming
after the runner crews next.We'd never had any
trouble like this-no one had any reason to fight down here.Luckily
Rev didn't ask why I wanted him to look for Murray and frankly I didn't want to
tell him.If the others found out about this they
might just freak and head for the surface.It'd been
that peaceful down here for so long, something like this was just foreign to
them.
-------------------------------------------
The creature sat at the
bottom of the rail tunnel and tried to sense more of the substance it craved.It opened its seven senses to the limit but could
only feel the throbbing of the electromagnetic rails above it.The
small cave that it had found only two days before had had only a small amount
of the substance it needed and thrived on.There had
been a intelligent being hiding the substance and the creature wondered why
this had been so.It had traveled through many star
systems and many planets but this was the only one that a being had tried to
stop it from eating.The being had had strange
thoughts and the creature had searched through the jumbled beings mind and saw
many things that frightened it.
There were many more
beings living on the planet apparently.Some were here
below the planet's surface and many more were above on the surface.They
all had rudimentary communication systems-they actually used vocal communication.They did have a electronic communication
system but it was artificially created.Artificially created.Something the creature in all its travels had never
come across.It communicated with thoughts and
sometimes it used the planets own natural communication system if it had one.This one did and it used it to send out a query to any
of its other kind to reply back with any information on the life giving substance.The creature didn't use its telepathic ability
because it was frightened of the other intelligent beings-The one it had
scanned had a memory of telepathy deep inside its subconscious and others might
be able to hear it.As much as the being's depended
upon artificial electronics to communicate she didn't think they would be aware
of the planets comm system.It
hoped.The being had been easily erased, but the
creature had scanned images of tools the beings used and some of them worried
it.
There was no
communication back from any of its kind.The planet
must be bare of its kind.This was unusual also.The Creature had traveled some distance but still
there must be another of its kind somewhere on the planet.There
were billions of them in this galaxy alone.It was a
rarity that it didn't come across another of its kind on a planet.Now
the creature was really worried.If it was the only one
on this planet among beings that depended
mostly on electronics to exist it would have to conceal its activites very well.For if they
discovered it, they might try and do some kind of electronic experiment on it.The creature remembered from another of its kind an
incident that had happened to it when it had been discovered.The
creature had suffered immensely at the things they did to it.All
of them were linked via memory so the creature could remember things from
another easily and at any time.These experience's
that all of them remembered helped all of them to survive.They
had survived for eons of ages because of this.
The creature decided to try and move toward the surface of the planet and perhaps launch
itself away from this planet.As it traveled to the
surface it would continue to look for the substance but only as an afterthought.It intended to leave as soon as it could.
----------------------------------
The huge conference hall
was full to the brim with congressman from all over the planet.They
were all here for the monthly gov meeting where they
decided trade policy and anything else that needed done like making new laws or
electing a Fed representitive.At the moment there was
a low din of conversation as a scientist was explaining a problem on a nearby
Fed planet.
"Nigoro
has a medical quarantine on it at the moment because of the outbreak.They
have requested to send some of their infected here, via stasis pod for analysis.They think we can help them find a cure for this
insidious disease that has killed a vast majority of their population.I
and the entire scientific community here on Toron concur.We should help our fellow neighbors and I think we can.We have more advanced equipment then they do and this
disease might prove to give us some more discoveries at the same time."
"Sir, what if the disease is
transmitted to us? I understand that stasis pods aren't always as secure as
some of you make us to believe." A congressman
from second level said from a chair just below the stage the scientist was on.
"We would as always take stringent
precautions in the transportation and examination of the patients.There
would be no chance of infection here." the scientist stated very matter of
factly.
"Alright.Mr.
President I recommend then we take a vote on the
subject." the congressman said looking at the gray haired individual
sitting just to the right of the stiff necked scientist.
"Oh okay, whatever.Vote
on Ferrying diseased individuals from Nigoro.And
hurry up, I have a bed to reach very soon." the old President said tiredly.It was late as they had gone through nearly seventy
topics of concern during the day.And the old man was
getting up there.
Toron was famous for its medical facilities and curing a plague wasn't very
new to them.Over the past fifty years they'd cured
nearly three thousand diseases from all over the Fed without much of a problem.There had been a small outbreak twenty years ago
but it was quickly quelled.Accordingly the vote went
as always ninety nine percent for with one percet
against transporting the patients.One of the Stasis
pods had been dropped by accident and had cracked, allowing some of the disease
to escape into the planets atmosphere.It was a
rudimentary disease though and the planet had only lost five hundred
individuals to it.On a planet of nearly forty
billion, this was insignificant.
The president took the
vote via the comm system and filed it in his pad for
transmission to nigoro tomorrow morning.He
then closed the meeting by hammering his gavel down and retreating to his
offices just behind the stage.Everyone filed out
quickly, eager to get home and to their own beds.It
was nearly midnight after all.The president's offices
had a large soft air bed just beside the desk that he used to bitch at
congressman from every now and then.He'd moved the
bed there after a marathon session of law making fifteen years ago so he'd
never have to be without sleep again.The president
laid down on the bed and closed his eyes hoping to get a nice restful sleep.He remembered he had six meetings tomorrow with a
bunch of merchants and some other group that he forgot so he needed his sleep.He drifted off to dreamland easily after a few
minutes of worry about the meeting.
Outside, the congressman
from the second level was climbing into his hovercar
for the long trip home with his intern at the controls.He'd
considered pushing the scientist for some more answers on the disease but as it
was it was late and he hadn't slept in days.His Rail
Runners had been on strike for the past two weeks and he'd had to negotiate a
new contract with them that took two nights to work out.It
was all because of this new group on level five, called the black dragons that
he'd had to do this.They had apparently gotten some kind
of privleges for surface living!Imagine
that-rail runners wanting to live on the surface.He'd
been a congressman for eighty years and never had one of the rail runner crews
wanted to live on the surface.They had it great down
there-no earthquakes,no storms,no
floods,no worrying about energy costs, nothing and
why they wanted to live on the surface just befuddled him.He'd
asked repeatedly why they wanted to surface and all he got back was-to be able
to generate more revenue opportunities for our members below.Which
was kind of stupid, because they could do they same thing via VR.Just didn't make sense.The
only thing he could think of was because of their telepathic abilities.Rail Runners were all telepaths-that's why they prefered the downbelow's of planets.
On the surface the Rail
Runner's abilities almost always overwhelmed them and some were reputed to even
go mad in the early days.The early days had been over
four hundred years ago when the first telepaths began to be born.There
were numerous wars between telepaths and normals
until eventually Rail runner's were created and a kind of mutually beneficial
relationship was created.Rail Runner's built,ran and lived in the maglev tunnels in downbelow and the normals lived
on the surface and provided them with food in exchange for access to the maglev
tunnels.Under the surface of planets, the Rail
Runner's telepathic senses were mainly suppressed by the various minerals and
rock types so most of them lived pretty mundane lives.There
had been rumours recently of a crew of runner's that
had developed some kind of special helmet or nanobots
that allowed them to control their abilities on the surface around others but
this of course was just rumours.His runner's couldn't
possibly have developed something like that they just didn't have the technical
or scientific knowledge to do so.In the end of the
negotiations of course, as expected they had asked for homes with thick lead walls.This convinced him that they hadn't developed the
tech to filter out all the voices of people they heard.It
still bothered him though-why would any of the Runner's want to live on the
surface, especially in a big city like Corsion-one of
the biggest on Turon.
The big hovercar stopped in front of his home and the congressman
got out of the car remembering to grab his pad from the small desk in front of him.It contained all his notes from today and the contract
that he had worked out with the Runner's.His house
was a modest one-he lived alone and had for the past twenty years.His
wife had passed just a week after his reelection to congressman for the fourth time.The door to his house slid open automatically, the
retinal scanner embedded just above the door scanning his eyes for the distinct
pattern that was his without him even noticing the action.Lights
came on smoothly as he entered his living room and noticed he wasn't alone.
The Scientist that he had
asked questions of the Nigoro situation sat in his
favorite recliner, nursing a small drink of something.He
still wore the same dull white coat and stiff necked expression as he'd had at
the conference but he also had a small device in his left hand.The
Congressman approached the scientist slowly and cautiously not knowing what
this was about, and frankly not wanting to.
"Thank you, Congressman for your
support today.We of the Scientific community greatly
appreciate it." the scientist said in a very
drab, monotone voice almost computer like.
"Of course, Professor-" the congressman paused, he'd forgotten the man's name!
"No Need for names congressman.I'll only be here a short time.Afterwards,
you won't remember a thing.Will You?" the
scientist asked again in a flat monotone voice.That
voice seemed somehow calming and very soothing.The
congressman felt very sleepy, but yet he felt that he had to stay awake.Whatever this man said and told him must be very
important so he must stay awake.He must answer.
"Yes I won't remember a thing
afterwards." he replied, slowly as if the words were heavy.He
was very tired.He wanted to sleep, but knew he couldn't.He must listen to this man.
"Good.Now give me your pad." the congressman handed his pad over."Everything I say to you over this evening you
will remember when the time comes.You will be able to
access the information I input into this pad when the time comes as well.Do you understand me?" the scientist said.
"Yes I do.When
the time comes." the congressman replied, again
with words heavy.
The Scientist handed his
pad back to him, set the glass of liquid he had been holding down and grabbed
the thing in his left hand with both.He opened his
hands, and clapped them together rapidly.Instantly,
he was gone.The Congressman sat down in his
favorite recliner and told the house computer to lower the lights for sleep mode.He was very tired.He slept.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The comclock
went off at exactly five thirty and I hit the snooze button hard.I
didn't want to get up but I knew I had to.We had a
long day and for that matter a long week ahead of us.Yesterday
after eight hours of deliberation with everybody I decided to enter the black
dragon contest.Rev bitched at me for two hours, Lois
for three and the kids bitched the rest of the time all in favor of entering.They were tired of doing this crappy seventh level
work we were alway getting and frankly though I
didn't say anything I was to.So I decided to go for it.If we won the thing we'd be a part of the black dragons
and level five.A major move for any crew.And I think we deserved it.Only
thing was, we'd have to show everyone else we did.Which
meant, beginning this morning alot of practice and
training.
Contests or competitions
as the surface called them involved testing the skills of your entire crew
about every aspect of running against all the other crews that were vying for
the spot.We had to know all the maintenance tricks,
all the bounty hunting tricks and we had to show an excellent knowledge of the
rails-including little hideaways and what to do if we got caught in a maglev
traffic jam.We also had to have the speed to beat
every other crew challenging us.That was the one
thing that worried me-without Murray's parts and supplies Lois had very little
to work with on our uniforms.Our Rail Wheels had to
be in top shape and some of ours weren't exactly brand new.I
knew mine were at least four months old and as for the others they were
probably older.One advantage we did have though-our
nuclear battery packs were fresh and ready to power the electromag
field that pushed us along the rails.
I got up, slowly and
dragged myself into the workout room where everyone was waiting without their uniforms.Our Uniforms were all enabled with special pneumatic's that allowed us to jump on the rails and land
on the tunnels surface's without getting banged up too badly.So
exercise was always done without them because we never new if and when the
pneumatics in our uniforms would fail.Rev and me were
just about the same physical strength, while Lois was a little lagging-females
by nature were and Scar and jan were both about the
same to.We did an hour of calisthenics, an hour of
weight training and three of aerobics.It was lunch
time by the time we were finished so all of us hit the kitchen and drank our lunch.None of us talked-we knew what we had to do.
Next we got our uniforms
on and went out to the rails for some dry runs.Dry
runs are just like sprinting on the surface except we rely on the rails and our
wheels for the speed and not our legs.Lois went first
and topped out at 250mph on a length of rail five miles long.I
did 276, Rev 275, Jan 280 and little Scar of course did 310.He was always the
fastest as his wieght and height helped him run the
rails like the wind itself.Our helmets read out the
speed to us as we traveled and fed all the little things back to our main comp
in the lair.We'd look at it later for any problems we
could fix with our wheels or battery packs or uniforms.The
speeds we were getting up to were okay, but I knew that some runners could get
up to 450 miles an hour and I wanted that badly.We
all had to be able to reach those speeds, because when we were in the comp we
would be racing as a group and not just individuals.Lois
didn't know whether she could do enough mods on our
stuff when I asked her, but she said she would work on it tonight.I
could still feel that she was very nervous about what happened to Murray.
Rev had looked all over
VR for him but hadn't found anything and he was worried too even though he
didn't know about Murray's cave.Lois and me had went
back to the cave that had been Murray's but I hadn't found anything and neither
did she.We looked all over it for nearly half a day.All we could see was a fine bit of black dust all over
the floor of the cave.The place had looked like it
had been burnt by a plasma cannon set on low or just a simple flamethrower.My headset didn't pick up any electromag radiation which was very strange.With
all of Murrays gadgets there would logically have to
be something left over.There was nothing though.Almost as if Murray had never even been there.
We finished the dry runs
and got to work on our group running.I jumped on the
rail first and then everyone else got on behind me.As
there were four rails-I was on the middle right with the rest behind me on all
the rails.Rev was directly behind me,Lois
to the right of me and Scar and Jan on the left.Scar
was on my left because if we needed him to scout ahead in a obstacle course, I
wouldn't be in his way on the rails.Scar was best for
scouting ahead because one, he was the fastest of us, two he was small enough
to evade most of the rail obstacles in a obstacle course and finally he knew
where to find hiding places if he needed to.
Lois was on the right so
she could handle any maintenance stuff that came up.Sometimes
one of our pneumatics might fail in mid run or something would fly off our
uniforms and she'd have to fix it on the fly.She was
telekinetic and she knew how to use her feet very well if she had to do close
up work.Her telekinetic ability came in damn handy
especially if we were flying down the rails at three hundred miles an hour
trying to catch someone or evade various obstacles that someone put in front of
us on the rails.
Rev and I were usually
the catchers as we had the lot of nanobots built into
our arm guns.With our Arm guns we could fire a set of
nanobots at say a maglev that a bounty was using and
they would get into the lev's mechanics and stop the lev instantly.Our headsets
interfaced with the arm guns and all we had to do was think for them to fire
and what we wanted the bots to do and they would do it.The
arm guns were electromagnetic force guns that fired the nanobots
at incredible speeds.How fast exactly I didn't know,
but they could shoot a steel cube that was one centimeter in size clean through
lead that was a foot thick.The recoil was tremendous,
so that was why only me and Rev could fire them.If
Lois or one of the kids tried, they would probably break their arm,ribs or worse.To Fire them,
we had to either connect to the rails with our leg wheels(hang upside down
another words) or just use one arm gun and keep the other connected to the
rail.