The Astral Hacker (Cryptopunk Revolution Book 1) by Brian Terenna (best ebook reader .txt) 📗

for an escape, but ten or so more guards run up behind them.

I whirl around and sprint the other way. One of the dazzled guards stumbles into the hallway, his face bloody. I run faster, holding Gerald’s gun in front of me and pulling the trigger. My shots are mostly wild, but one dart hits his leg. He screams and clutches at it before slumping down.

I leap over him, sprinting for the courtyard exit and get a glimpse of Americus fighting in the conference room. Three guards are incapacitated, but at least six more pummel him with blows.

I grit my teeth but continue on, pulling out another flashbang. The door bursts open, and guards raise their guns. I throw my flashbang, spin around, and run down the perpendicular hallway.

Partway down, I realize there’s no exit. Oh hell no. Fear threatens to disable me, but I force it away. The window!

I toss the dart gun and sprint as fast as I can, much quicker than when I first started this horrible journey. I leap, my fists out, my eyes closed, and my head down.

The glass shatters around me and tears into my hand. Then I’m hitting the ground and rolling like a mouse fleeing for her life.

I leap to my feet to see a sunlit, grassy courtyard, several large buildings, and two powered down Corefense Obliterator robo-suits. My heart slams into my chest, but I have no time to think, just react.

A whirring noise sounds as roof turrets angle toward me.

They didn’t want to kill me, but the turrets don’t know that. “Chim, initiate my turret program, and take them over.”

“Failure,” my q-link says.

Diablo! My stomach drops, and a sense of nothingness washes over me. Like an out-of-body experience, I see myself shaking before certain death. And for what? I’ve accomplished nothing.

I watch as the turrets rotate. Everything was so fast until now, but the world slows to a sharp focus. Barbra is suddenly before me, saying she wants to adopt me. She fades, and Nav holds my hand to comfort me. Alexander appears, and I feel his warm embrace as he wraps his arms around me.

I snap back into my body, and my mind wakes up. “Chim, shut them down instead.”

I don’t know if it will work. It seems crazy that they wouldn’t have updated them, but it’s my only chance.

The turrets spin and target me.

I shut my eyes and prepare for the white-hot lasers to scorch through me.

“Success,” says my q-link.

The lights on the turrets dim, and for a second, I’m stunned that I’m alive.

Guards shout from inside and from somewhere in the courtyard. I don’t know what happened to Americus, but I need to warn the others.

My eyes flit around the space, looking for any way to escape. I toss two smoke grenades nearby to give me time, and I adjust my glasses to see through the haze. Guards round the corner but have no tactical glasses.

I spot a ladder that runs up the side of a nearby building. I dash through the smoke and climb, my toned arms and legs propelling me upward, twice as fast as when I climbed away from the security guard so long ago.

The smoke clears the higher I get, and a guard near the outer wall spots me and raises his gun. I hold the ladder with one hand, rip out my Torg, and fire three shots at him. One strikes his shoulder, spinning him to the ground.

A dart smacks into my back, but my vest stops the tip from reaching my skin. I shrug off the close call and climb, my adrenaline surging. More darts strike the wall and ladder, somehow missing me.

I crest the top, roll onto the roof, and leap up to rush forward. The wind whips by me, ruffling my loose uniform. All I have to do now is—I cut off as I realize this building doesn’t butt up against the outer wall.

Oh hell. I’m trapped. Sickness threatens to creep up my throat until I see another rooftop that does. The gap between the two buildings is wider than when I smashed my face into the wall, but I’m in much better shape, and I’m much more desperate. If I fall this time, they’ll kill me.

A hidden reserve of energy charges my muscles. My arms and legs pump, driving me forward. I can make it. I can do this.

I launch off the edge of the roof, my stomach dropping. Time slows as I’m suspended in air. A flash of uncertainty blinds me, flooding me with panic. But when the lip of the other roof approaches, relief parts the waves.

My feet smack into the surface. Pain jolts up my legs, but I roll to avoid the worst of it. The world spins around me until I jump back up and run again. I can do anything. I am StarFeather!

Freedom lies twenty feet before me. I’ll just hang off, drop into a roll, and cloak. I sprint onward, faster than ever before. I can still save the others.

Shouts and darts sound beneath me, but nothing can touch me. I’m not a mouse; I’m an owl, soaring through the wind.

A thumping noise grows steadily louder.

I slow and then freeze as a quadcopter Liberator Drone rises into view, its missiles and cannons threatening death.

Hope spills out of me, and terror takes its place. I stand there and gape at it, knowing it will tear me apart if I move.

Thoughts race through my head. Run away. Dodge around it and jump. Shoot it. No. Anything I do will get me killed.

“Drop your gun and surrender,” comes a voice through the drone.

I raise my hands, and just like that, I’m Fae again.

  CHAPTER 20

∴ BRING ON THE PAIN ∴

Two guards toss me