Excision Verdict, page 31
part #5 of ShadowTech Series
Wrench looked up. “More than just machines.”
“But not people.” She turned to Lise. “You said it yourself—Chiron wanted me out of the way because he couldn’t trust what I’d do. I’m just a girl with a thing for her screwdriver. But I could still screw things up for him, right?
“And it’s not only me. He didn’t trust you, so he pushed you out, but you came back. Bet he never expected that, right? Didn’t count on Stefon interfering, either. And…and it was organised interference. Don’t reckon you had much—what, a boat and a Proteus?—but you made it work. Pulled in a top-notch pilot to get us free, too.”
The pilot’s head twitched at that. Deva couldn’t see her face clearly, but from the way her cheek bulged Deva reckoned there was a smile growing.
The thoughts and ideas continued to rush through Deva’s mind, and she continued to let them free.
“And there’s others, right? On the boats, that wasn’t everyone. Yeah, might only be small pockets dotted around the planet, but that’s something, right?”
Her mouth flapped open as the words dried up for a moment.
Lise frowned. “What are you saying, Deva?”
It was a good question. Deva wasn’t sure. But as she looked at Lise, with those lines in her forehead and that mouth twitching as if it wanted to burst into a smile, the answer crystallised for her.
“They push us down, but we can’t give up, can we? So we keep fighting. Do all we can to stop Kaiahive buggering things up for everyone. Right?”
They smiled—Stefon and Lise, and even Wrench.
“We can be the worm that brings them down,” Deva said.
Brice
His vision flickered. For a moment everything went dark. And then Brice saw reality.
He stood on a grey floor that stretched out, fading into shadows. There was a ceiling somewhere overhead—he was certain of that—but it was obscured by an even, pale light.
A second ago he’d been on grass, at the edge of a river.
Brice bent down, brushed a hand over the flooring. There were tiny bristles that squashed down when he pushed, and a part of his mind told him they felt like soft, short grass.
He stood, walked towards what had been the river. The flooring tilted, and he felt as if he was heading down a steepening incline. He reached a hand out. The flooring had risen behind him, and again it felt like grass, but with gritty mud underneath. Yet there was nothing on his hand when he looked, and nothing beneath or behind him but that strange bristled flooring.
Brice heard water. It was right in front of him. He stopped, rocked on his feet. The bristles clumped together, and a part of him believed he was standing on pebbles. He crouched, leaned forward. Ran his hand through the water.
No. Ran his hand across those bristles. Only, it felt like water. Or he imagined it did.
“This is more screwy than my lattice.”
Then he stood, looked around.
He’d been alone, away from the others. Couldn’t risk Piran turning the construct off if he was too close. So there shouldn’t be anyone close. Yet when he looked away from the river—okay, where his mind still told him the river should be—he saw everyone.
Most of them were in a group, around raised sections of flooring. Somewhere in his mind he knew this was the meeting room, and that those raised sections were the chairs and tables, as well as the row of dispensers. As he looked closer, it appeared that some of the people were holding beakers.
So the beakers were real. Did that mean the food and drink was too? Must be, because they’d been here too long. Without sustenance, they’d be suffering now. Hell, Brice and Willem would’ve starved to death.
What else was real? The bedding? The clothes were, because he could see them on his body, and on the others.
Lavena rushed away from the group she was with—okay, it looked like she was rushing, but she barely moved. She flung her arms out, as if she were opening doors, and then she unbuckled her trousers and crouched. A section of the ground rose to meet her back-side.
Brice turned away. But a part of him was curious. How did toilets work? Did a hole open up in the floor? Was it even sanitary?
How could he answer that?
Bloody strange. You able to pull schematics for this place?
Whole place is smaller than it felt before. And a thought struck Brice as he looked around, as Lavena did that play of opening doors again before joining the others. And stuff only exists when it needs to. Furniture, walls, that kind of stuff—it’s all just the flooring shifting. Makes getting my bearings bloody impossible.
Brice shook his head. Never existed in the first place. Part of the construct. Should be over there. He turned and pointed.
He took a step, and a part of him heard a splash. His foot grew cold, and he reckoned if he was seeing the construct water would be seeping over his boot.
Any chance you can give me a toggle?
Switch or something. Be good to flick between real and the construct.
Brice saw it, superimposed over the grey—an image in his lenses. And he hesitated. The switch wasn’t real, was it? Nor was the construct. But this greyness, this vast space that ended in shadows—this was reality. This was the inside of the Ancients’ craft.
But what would they do if they knew he could see reality? Until he knew more, Brice had to play their stupid games.
He concentrated on the toggle, and it flicked up. It remained, but dull now, and his vision filled with grass and trees, and he heard running water and smelt fresh pollen.
Brice looked down, removed his boot from the water, shook his leg. And he could feel the damp soaking into his sock.
He toggled back to reality. The cold dampness around his foot faded as grey blandness appeared.
That works, he told Piran. Don’t suppose I can get an image-in-image kind of thing, see both at the same time?
Brice toggled back to the overlay, walked beside the river, walked away from the others. When the river twisted Brice continued straight. A gentle hillside rose in front of him.
As he walked he toggled between reality and construct. He focused on his feet, and the flooring. It was hard to make out, but there was movement, like the flooring was shifting underfoot.
Brice lifted his head, looked straight ahead in reality. He willed his lenses to zoom in. There, in the distance, he could make out a wall—two lines in the shadows, one low down where the wall met the floor, the other high up at the edge of the ceiling.
He jogged. Then he ran. He flicked back to the construct, checked he wasn’t going to crash into anything, but the hillside seemed to never end.
And he couldn’t reach the wall.
Brice stopped after half an hour. In that time, he should’ve run a good few kilometres, and in the construct he was far, far away from the meeting room and the others. Yet when he turned around in reality he could still see them clearly. He’d moved maybe ten metres.
Brice stood, thinking. He bent down and ran his hand across the flooring. Those bristles once more felt like grass, but Brice concentrated and felt the bristles. He pushed harder.
The flooring was in sections. This made sense, if different parts needed to lift to become furniture and walls and whatever else. But the edges weren’t distinct.
Using both hands, Brice crawled. He focused on the sections.
Testing something.
So Piran could overlay the construct independently. Might be useful.
Brice sped up. So I’m moving in the construct?
Not getting as far in reality, though. Can feel the floor moving beneath me. He stopped, stood. Reckon that’s how it gives the illusion of distance. Kind of like a treadmill, but far more advanced.
Yeah. He peered at the distant wall. And the Ancients can use the floor to keep us from the edges. Going to be next to impossible to walk out of here.
Which meant he was still a prisoner, even out of the construct.
Don’t suppose you can hack this room, Brice asked.
So don’t hold my breath.
Very funny.
Everyone? This was a distraction, but at the moment Brice would take it.
Brice frowned. Why the hell would they have all that?
But we still don’t know the criteria, do we?
But Marella thought she knew. She said those with potential—those the Ancients had pulled into this prison—were connected in some way.
And Piran was good with data. He could set loose his routines, track down the data on everyone up here. He could use other routines to find similarities, or however he worked things.
It would be a start. But it wouldn’t answer everything.
A thought struck him.
Piran.
You can track connections, right? And you’ve traced those connections to the Ancients.
So the connections from me—are they flagging anything at the moment? Are any of the Ancients showing more interest in me than normal?
Brice laughed. The whole bloody situation was abnormal!
But this was good news. So me being out of the construct, he sent. Either it doesn’t bother them, or they haven’t noticed, right?
Things between insert and lattice, yeah?
Have my moments. So my lattice is interfering with the insert’s control.
Which meant Brice was safe in reality.
Didn’t mean he was totally safe, though. He was still a prisoner, stuck on a craft on the edge of the solar system, being watched over by a race of aliens who were into abducting humans.
No—who were into judging humans. Judging the whole of humanity. Like they were superior in some way. Like they had all the answers.
But they didn’t know everything.
They didn’t know that Piran was all over their system. They didn’t know he was a bloody tech genius.
And there was more.
“Don’t know what the Anomaly can do,” Brice said as he turned towards the others and walked back into the construct, head high and back straight.
ShadowsTech continues with
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What next?
Want more ShadowTech? Then you’re in luck, because I have a free book for you. It’s a novella called Mag-line Bolt, a fast-paced story set before Desert Bound, featuring Piran and Deva. And it isn’t available in any stores—it’s only available through my newsletter.
The plan sounded so simple, but things fall apart as soon as they start, and Deva’s trapped on the speeding mag-line train, hiding from guards as she desperately searches for a way off. But she’s not alone—a carriage of prisoners, those the company wants to remove. They could be an asset—but can Deva trust them?
And Piran, left behind, can’t abandon his crew-mate. But when his hacked buggy collides with a gang of mercenaries he has two options—die, or join the gang in their seemingly impossible mission.
Will Deva make it off the train, or will the company catch up with her? Can Piran rescue her, or will the mercenaries end his life?
The ShadowTech series starts with the crew on the run, struggling to stay ahead of the company. But how did thy come to be fugitives? How did Keelin end up as a NeoGen? When did Brice’s lattice start playing up?
There’s always a past, and the crew’s past is told in the sci-fi/horror trilogy Shadows. The first book Shadowfall, is currently free from all the usual ebook stores. Alternatively, you can buy the complete trilogy, in either ebook or paperback. Check your preferred store for more details, or visit twiain.com/books.
Books by TW Iain
ShadowTech
Sci-fi action/adventure
Desert Bound (ShadowTech Book 1)
Subtle Weapon (ShadowTech Book 2)
Hostile Alliances (ShadowTech Book 3)
Haven's Deep (ShadowTech Book 4)
Excision Verdict (ShadowTech Book 5)
Broken Resistance (ShadowTech Book 6)
Mag-line Bolt (A ShadowTech Story)—Mailing list exclusive novella
Shadows
Sci-fi with a dose of horror, prequel to ShadowTech
Shadowfall (Book One)
Shadowsiege (Book Two)
Shadowstrike (Book Three)
Shadowlair (A Shadows Prequel)—Mailing list exclusive novella
Shadows—The Complete Trilogy
(Contains Shadowfall, Shadowsiege and Shadowstrike)
Dominions
Dark, Dystopian thrillers
Dark Glass (Dominions I)
Dead Flesh (Dominions II)
Deep Water (Dominions III)
Riled Dogs (Dominions IV)
Rogue Wolf (Dominions V)
Rebel Rout (Dominions VI)
Fading Control (Dominions VII)
Fallen Domain (Dominions VIII)
Final Target (Dominions IX)
Gatekeeper (A Dominions Prologue)—short story
Control (A Dominions Story)—Mailing list exclusive novella
Expedient (A Dominions Story)—novella
Animus (A Dominions Story)—short story
Errant (A Dominions Story)—novella
Impact (A Dominions Story)—short story
Recompense (A Dominions Story)—Mailing list exclusive novella
Dominions Box Set (Books I-III)
(Contains Dark Glass, Dead Flesh, Deep Water and Gatekeeper)
Ghost Stream
Sci-fi short story available in the anthology The Power Of Words
The Reason We Run
Post-apocalyptic horror short story available in the anthology It's Behind You!
Touch
Horror/tech short story available in the anthology Electromagnetism
Millenary
Free short story collections
Millenary
Millenary 2
Millenary 3
Millenary 4
Millenary 5
TW Iain, Excision Verdict
