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- Herausgeber: Tami Veldura
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
In a planet-sized city built and maintained by aggressive autonomous robots, Tian and Salene are humans struggling to help their little community survive. On a mission to find food they encounter a man fighting back against the machines.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Living City
About The Author
Copyright
Living City
By Tami Veldura
Tian glanced at his scanner as the ground shuddered with another constructor step. He had a limited range, maybe twenty feet, but it was a critical warning system. The conbots were blindingly fast and they wouldn't hesitate to tear he and Salene apart the second they were sensed. Each bot was easily twice the size of a single human, maybe larger, and Tian didn't want to tangle with one if they could avoid it.
At his shoulder, Salene drew her bow to its full extension and took aim. The slim arrow balanced on her finger blinked green, a single LED that indicated the payload was active. She took a breath, and released.
The arrow shot toward the ceiling. It buried itself deeply, piercing right through a sensor tower's steel shield. The tower shuddered as its mechanism caught on the arrow, then the entire system drooped and shut down. The red lights indicating active scanning faded out. An orange light blinked, an attempt to reboot. Then that light, too, faded to black.
"We're clear," Salene whispered.
The constructor took a step that shuddered through the city.
Tian took the lead. He darted away from their protected gap in the wall, making a dash across open space. He slid under a broad pipe. His cargo pants had been reinforced on the knees and lower legs with panels of scrap. They withstood the friction easily and Tian popped up on the other side of the pipe. He ducked immediately to the right against a square hulk of metal. The city was made up of all kinds of parts and pieces, but everything was metal. For miles around, possibly the city entirely, there was nothing but mysterious ancient structure maintained by the constructors and their conbots.
Salene ducked under the pipe and followed Tian against the metal block. She pulled another EMP arrow from the batch against her thigh as Tian checked his scanner. In the metal ceiling far above them and just beyond the block, was another sensor tower. It showed up on his scanner as an orange icon that he could tap for more detailed information. The subtle arrow of attention that circled around indicated the tower's field of view, and, critically, the direction of its powerful railgun. Occasional pulses of orange washed over the image, shadowed where the metal structure of the city blocked the scan. Salene nocked her arrow. Tian held up his hand. The tower was turning past them now, they just needed to wait for the next pulse....
The orange wave washed over their hiding spot. Tian closed his fist. With expert speed, Salene stood, turned, and drew her aim up at the tower. It hung from the ceiling like a lump, it's huge laser railgun rotating away. She released the arrow and ducked back down before the next pulse could reach them. Salene nocked a new arrow as Tian waited for the first one to activate. The orange dot on his scanner remained solid. He gave it another few heartbeats. It was possible that Salene had missed the tower, but unlikely. Sometimes the EMP in the tip of the arrow was finicky.
As the tower circled around to them again, the orange dot on Tian's scanner flickered and died. It attempted to reboot, blinking in steady rhythm for several seconds. Then it shut down entirely.
"Go," Tian whispered.
