Fragment - Paul G Swanson (best android ereader .TXT) 📗

side sending me tumbling side by side for a moment. I kicked it away as it exploded. It blew what was left of my helmet to pieces and sent me disoriented spiraling through the sky. Blinded by pain I felt for injuries.
"One thousand feet." It told me. "I'll will numb the pain once on the ground. You only have minor burns and low grade lacerations." As I struggled to regain control of my descent I noticed that my glide apparatus was torn on the left side. It was not bad enough to prove fatal, I would just have to deal with it at the moment.
Three more, I told myself calmly. "ADIN distance report now!"
"Four hundred meters." It coldly calculated. "Three hundred feet above sea level. Less than a second until impact." I balled myself as fast as I could and felt the missiles pass as I fell in between them. "They are coming back around." He alerted me as I uncurled myself. "Six O'clock."
Good, I thought. I twisted myself into a flat spin I knew from previous experiences that targeting systems try to follow the targets movement as much as possible. Hopefully this would disorient the bombs. I glanced back and saw the twisted plumes of gas behind me. Good it was working. But now I was in grave danger I had entered the layer of fog sitting on the forest. I stopped my spin and made myself level with the earth once again. I heard a explosion behind me and felt the intense heat rush past me. At least one of the missiles it seemed hadn't noticed changed direction and drove itself ever downward.
Just two more I thought to myself as I was within inches of the forest canopy.Now as I was moving forward I could see the forest rushing past me only inches in front of my face. I figured what the hell, either I die as soon as I descend by smashing my head against a tree limb; or the alternative; I don't die and dodge them all and manage to survive rolling to a stop on the ground.
I descended, and guessed I was alive because I felt the instant pain of leaves whipping me in the face. Well that's good.I thought. Another explosion and more heat followed by yet another one. These explosions did more than just warm my feet however. I lost my already difficult to control flight path and tumbled through the air going a hundred something miles per hour. Surely if I had not been gliding nearly horizontal the impact into the ground would have left me in the best-case scenario, completely paralyzed. However since I was nearly horizontal the result was me rolling uncontrollably some immeasurable distance. I felt my arms and legs smashing into various obstructions as I crashed into and bounced off the ground. My sliding slowed to a stop after one drop that left me half covered in water. I gasped for the much-needed breath that had been knocked out of me by the shock waves of heat. Somehow I was alive. Sure I was floating in a river with my eyes closed but I was alive.
"A-Adin." I manged to gasp through the pain. I struggled to pull myself out of the water.
"Administering numbing agent. Do not move, running system diagnostics. You have broken three ribs your left arm and leg; as well as several small moderate severely lacerations. You may feel minor side affects such as hallucinations and severe but temporary narcolepsy." I didn't care. I passed out from the severe exhaustion I had just put my body through. I had forgotten the toll such severe G forces can have.
"Seth." I heard a distant voice urging me.
"Wha?" It seemed I had floated down stream until it bent left and I ended up onshore. When I finally opened my eyes I was looking into the face of something gray and wrinkly with a long nose. I jumped up with a start and saw that it was just an Anteater. The creature was equally startled and ran off into a nearby fern and then several more in the distance until I couldn't hear it anymore. It was then that I became aware of the ambiance in the forest. The current of the water under my feet, the birds screaming at each other, the drops of water falling from my uniform, and then finally the color of everything. The fog was gone and now the trees were lit up and their lush green color filtered out the bright sun and left dapples of it on the ground.
"Seth. How do you feel?" It was Adin.
I had half forgotten about all that for a moment as I took everything in. I flexed my arms and saw small rips on my arms as well a good deal of blood. And then did the same for my legs. "I'm fine now. How long was I out?"
"Three hours. I put you into a light coma in order to heal your body."
"That long?"
"You were severely injured. Normal humans would have taken weeks to recover. Your body has already adapted to nanomachines. So your recover time was greatly reduced." It explained.
"Adin."
"Yes?" It seemed to be learning rapidly, it was already starting to sound more like a human.
"Scan the surrounding area for any hostiles." A moment went by and then two. "Try to exclude anything with more than two feet." I added thinking of the curious anteater.
"Six life-forms detected thirty-five meters to the east. Rapidly moving in toward our location."
"Ok got it." I wasted no time and was already running. I yanked out the knife that was in my belt and ran ready to use it. Vines caught on my arms and legs as I ran. The lush green fauna seemed out of place being as I was running through a nuclear test site
"ETA: forty-five seconds" As I rolled to my feet to tore the knife out of its holster in my boot.
"Just tell me which way to the first set of coordinates!"
I wasted no time and was already running. Vines caught on my arms and legs as I ran. The lush green fauna seemed out of place being as I was running through a radioactive weapons test site. Under normal conditions high levels of constant radiation should have destroyed the wildlife and vegetation however the plants here seemed to have mutated and evolved into something more.
"ETA: forty-five seconds"
"Shut it! Just tell me which way to the first set of coordinates!"
"Seventeen degrees to your right, and roughly seven kilometers ahead." The ground beneath me gave way to steep slide of mud. I took it and rolled to my feet at the bottom. Looking around I saw an old burnt shack. Walking toward it and with my knife ready, I pushed on the door. It creaked and fell open sending a wisp of dust into the air a foul odor followed it. Holding his my nose I peeked inside and gagged immediately.
In the corner were numerous badly disfigured faceless decomposing bodies. They were burnt so horribly that I couldn't tell the gender or even if they were humans.
"Adin. Are they human?"
"Can't say. The DNA I'm able to scan is to badly altered to recognize classification."
"This is sick." I quickly retreated from the doorway.
"I must insist that we hurry on to the first rendezvous, we are close."
"How close?""One kilometer, to the east." I cranked up my personal AC and ran keeping in mind there were people in this jungle that didn't take kindly to strangers. Eventually I came upon a waterfall with a small crescent moon shaped path leading behind it. "Seth, that is the rendezvous point. You are to wait here until nightfall, and in the event that your informant does not show up you are to proceed alone."
"Ok. Who is the contact?"
"Signus, I believe you two know each other."
"Signus? What's he doing here?" The light was being filtered thin and refracting on the walls of the small cave.
"He infiltrated them three weeks ago, and then when enough information was compiled they sent you out here."
"Hmm, so that explains why he never returned my calls."
Somewhere behind me I heard something shuffle. Turning around I saw a figure lunge toward me with a knife glistening in the low light. I quickly drew my own knife and swung it upward. The blades connected and sent a small explosion of sparks showering down upon the cave floor. With the blades in deadlock I swung my legs around behind his. I felt the blade give way as he fell so I performed a small acrobatic feet that placed me behind him with my knife half an inch from his neck. I had him a neck lock. His knife laid a few feet away on the ground half covered in a pile of gravel.
"You always were stronger and faster than me." I released him and put my blade back in its sheath, because I knew that voice. I hadn't noticed it was him at first because of the foreign uniform.
"Signus, you bastard." We shook each other's hand. He patted me on the shoulder welcoming.
"Sorry about that." He laughed about it; I wonder if he even knew how close I had come to actually killing him. "Had to make sure it was you." It sounded like he had the accent down perfectly.
"Nice suit." I was joking of course. He was wearing a tattered Russian army suit.
"Yeah, you too." He said taking notice of my stealth suit. It was having trouble adjusting to the patterns in the water so I appeared to have black spots around the areas that had been shredded. I glanced at the time display on my wrist; I could have just as easily checked it by the position of the sun but it was not visible at the moment; it was now five twenty-four.
"You're early."
"There were problems with the, uh, landing." I said showing off the slashes in the suit. Some of my water pouches had been destroyed. "BTM missiles."
"Ah, that'll do it. But how'd you know they were there?"
"My AI implant warned me."
"AI." His voice told me he was interested. He nodded approvingly.
I pulled out a ration and started munching on it. All that running had made me quite hungry I hadn't noticed until I stopped moving around. I sat down to better enjoy it. While the hunger made it sufficiently tasty, relaxing made it more so.
"Ok, down to business." He began; first he sat down across