Gemworld Read Online Free

bone. Something pounded his body armor from behind, trying desperately to reach flesh. But Sal ran on through the storm of gunfire. That’s not to say the pain went unnoticed. Far from it. The pain and the fear—and forward momentum—kept him moving as best he could, his one-eyed vision tunneling until he could only see the doorway to the side office.
    Sal threw himself through the opening, barely keeping his feet. The office was small enough that he didn’t have to get his bearings. It was about twenty feet by thirty, scattered with those metal desks that militaries the world over were so fond of. Seeing the object of his pursuit, he resisted the urge to duck for cover behind one of the metal hulks. The scientist stood against brick outer wall of the barracks, oddly calm for a cornered man. Without breaking stride or even slowing, Sal dove at the scientist, bringing his weapon to bear. He didn’t need the scientist healthy... just breathing.
    All at once, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Sal watched with agonizing clarity as the man in the white lab coat raised his hand toward Sal. The man’s face twisted with such hatred that Sal might have pulled up short if he could have. The man’s eyes flashed briefly... then changed. Whatever they had been before, now they were orbs of polished rock, brownish grey with black flecks throughout.
    Sal felt his feet leave the floor as his dive continued.
    There, in that split-second of frozen time, the man’s arm was fully extended toward Sal, fingers upward, as if commanding him to stop. As he watched, a ball of rock materialized out of thin air before the man’s hand, then launched itself at him. It seemed the only thing in the world moving the right speed, a blur of brown that plowed into Sal’s right shoulder. He felt the joint give way as his shoulder dislocated. But his momentum carried him forward, and he started to spin away from the impact.
    After an eternity, he struck the man full in the chest, left shoulder first. Instinctively, Sal grabbed at the nearest convenient appendage and held on tight as they tumbled toward the brick wall.
    But instead of stopping, the two men continued to fall, the wall not hindering them in the slightest.

Chapter 2
    Pain. Just… pain.
    Waves of agony washed over Sal as he shifted position, his limbs slowly returning to life and adding their voices to the cacophony of misery. His entire body was wracked with suffering of every type—the sharp, stabbing pain in his head, the low, throbbing pains in his side and back, the dull ache of his arms and legs. His entire body, from toenails to crew cut, screamed with it, filling the void of semi-consciousness with a single truth—he wasn’t dead yet. At that moment, the prospect was no great comfort.
    He almost drifted away again until he noticed something else. The smell. It was a musky, putrid smell, like some hellish combination of body odor, rotting corpses, human waste, and hot metal. True enough, the gunplay could account for all these smells—Lord knew that little workout had scared the crap out of him —but he made the terrible mistake of actually noticing all this. Now he was curious. More’s the pity. As his mind awoke to the “hows” and “whys” of his situation, the sweet darkness of oblivion fled him, leaving him to the hell of the waking world.
    More sensations came to him as he roused. The sound of suffering, and of comforting. The feel of the gritty ground below him, and the reeking stickiness of his clothes. He tried to open his eyes, but only his right one obeyed. Images swam in his vision, but nothing distinct. They were blurs, almost shadows of afterimages. He tried to force his remaining eye into service, but the effort only added to his headache, with his left eye pounding out a sharp counterpoint. He finally just gave up, offering silent thanks to the throbbing for slacking off.
    Wherever he was, it was dark and chilly. Paralyzed as his eyelids were, they still shut