King Ruin: A Thriller (Ruins Sonata Book 2) Read Online Free Page A
Author: Michael John Grist
the HUD. "Everybody geared up, over?"
A chorus of four checks rings back, each at a different pitch.
"Beautiful harmony," Ray replies. "I should start up a choir, over."
"Pick," Doe says, and So hands it to her. Ray stands with the others at the base of the ladder while she climbs, unspools the exit hatch, and opens the sublavic to the brick wall layer without.
"It's intact," she calls back down. "But it's black."
Ray can see, the wall of mortared bricks overhead is jet-black with seeping mud. A blot drops to splash off his HUD. "It's come through the brick?" he asks into HUD, smearing the mud off his screen.
"Not possible," Ti answers. "The ablatives are three decks thick, non-porous. Nothing can get through unless its cracked."
"Well is it cracked?" Ray asks.
"No sign," Doe answers.
"What the hell is out there?"
"Let's find out," Doe says, "brace yourselves."
She pulls the pick-axe back, then drives it up into the bricks. Chips of soggen brick and mortar splat down into the mud by their feet, along with a rain of tiny, maggot-like creatures, wriggling in the mud.,
"Oh fuck," says Ray.
"That's disgusting," says So, blanching through the tint in her HUD.
"There's a lot more," says Doe, brushing detritus off her shoulders coolly. More of the tiny wriggling creatures fall like seeds into the black, where they dig in.
"I'm gonna puke," says Ray.
Ti drops closer, picks up one of the creatures, and studies it. "Saprophytes," she says. "Entropic genetic devices, wired to mulch dead and dying matter."
"God, put it down girl," Ray says.
"Ah!"
"What?"
La grabs Ti's hand and pulls it close to her face. "It bit her finger. It's burrowed inside."
"I'm fine," says Ti, but Ray is already moving. The shears are in his hand and encircling the bitten finger before anyone else can move.
The snip is clean and sure, and Ti only cries out for a second before her suit seals the wound and feeds her psychotropics to kill the pain.
Ray looks into her eyes. "Are you alright?"
Ti nods.
"Don't pick anything up."
"Look at that," says So. They do. The finger is already moving, the whole thing like some larger version of the other maggots, worming into the muck.
"Get us the fuck out of here, Doe," Ray says.
"Roger that. Brace hard." She hits the bricks again, and this time they implode inward, a torrent of rotten black brick alive with maggots chased by a vomiting flood of clotted black water and sludge.
Doe is ripped off the ladder by the weight of it, crashing into the others below and flattening them like trampled blades of grass. Someone screams out through blood-mic, as a tide of thick putrid muck shits down upon them, burying them in mire, locking them tight like souls lost within a cooling pyroclastic flow.
Ray cannot think as the weight of the onslaught fills in the conning tower with putrid black muck, until everything is muffled, stilled and silent, and then he can't budge his heavily-suited body an inch.
"Fuck," he whispers through blood-mic.
AETHERIC BRIDGE B
I'm torn rudely out of darkness, like an infant birthed prematurely from an artificial womb, and into the light. Something is hauling me upward like bait on a line and I can't slow it down.
Where am I?
"Doe," I call out, but no answer comes. "Ray!"
Into heat, and burn. This is the Molten Core, and it chars my skin. It consumes me at the edges, eating down through my many layers, until I burst clear, and the Solid Core dawns massive above. It is all girders and black iron, and I am gathered hard up toward it. The line cores me through the Gate of the Dead we blew out so long ago with candlewax, up through the Napoleonic battlefield where So went mad alone, up and into the heart of the Solid Core.
"I already came this way," I shout out, but no one is listening. "I already got out!"
The line drags back through the rotational maze, flashing along undulating corridor-tubes in a blur, past the bloody jags of torn Lag still scattered on the
A chorus of four checks rings back, each at a different pitch.
"Beautiful harmony," Ray replies. "I should start up a choir, over."
"Pick," Doe says, and So hands it to her. Ray stands with the others at the base of the ladder while she climbs, unspools the exit hatch, and opens the sublavic to the brick wall layer without.
"It's intact," she calls back down. "But it's black."
Ray can see, the wall of mortared bricks overhead is jet-black with seeping mud. A blot drops to splash off his HUD. "It's come through the brick?" he asks into HUD, smearing the mud off his screen.
"Not possible," Ti answers. "The ablatives are three decks thick, non-porous. Nothing can get through unless its cracked."
"Well is it cracked?" Ray asks.
"No sign," Doe answers.
"What the hell is out there?"
"Let's find out," Doe says, "brace yourselves."
She pulls the pick-axe back, then drives it up into the bricks. Chips of soggen brick and mortar splat down into the mud by their feet, along with a rain of tiny, maggot-like creatures, wriggling in the mud.,
"Oh fuck," says Ray.
"That's disgusting," says So, blanching through the tint in her HUD.
"There's a lot more," says Doe, brushing detritus off her shoulders coolly. More of the tiny wriggling creatures fall like seeds into the black, where they dig in.
"I'm gonna puke," says Ray.
Ti drops closer, picks up one of the creatures, and studies it. "Saprophytes," she says. "Entropic genetic devices, wired to mulch dead and dying matter."
"God, put it down girl," Ray says.
"Ah!"
"What?"
La grabs Ti's hand and pulls it close to her face. "It bit her finger. It's burrowed inside."
"I'm fine," says Ti, but Ray is already moving. The shears are in his hand and encircling the bitten finger before anyone else can move.
The snip is clean and sure, and Ti only cries out for a second before her suit seals the wound and feeds her psychotropics to kill the pain.
Ray looks into her eyes. "Are you alright?"
Ti nods.
"Don't pick anything up."
"Look at that," says So. They do. The finger is already moving, the whole thing like some larger version of the other maggots, worming into the muck.
"Get us the fuck out of here, Doe," Ray says.
"Roger that. Brace hard." She hits the bricks again, and this time they implode inward, a torrent of rotten black brick alive with maggots chased by a vomiting flood of clotted black water and sludge.
Doe is ripped off the ladder by the weight of it, crashing into the others below and flattening them like trampled blades of grass. Someone screams out through blood-mic, as a tide of thick putrid muck shits down upon them, burying them in mire, locking them tight like souls lost within a cooling pyroclastic flow.
Ray cannot think as the weight of the onslaught fills in the conning tower with putrid black muck, until everything is muffled, stilled and silent, and then he can't budge his heavily-suited body an inch.
"Fuck," he whispers through blood-mic.
AETHERIC BRIDGE B
I'm torn rudely out of darkness, like an infant birthed prematurely from an artificial womb, and into the light. Something is hauling me upward like bait on a line and I can't slow it down.
Where am I?
"Doe," I call out, but no answer comes. "Ray!"
Into heat, and burn. This is the Molten Core, and it chars my skin. It consumes me at the edges, eating down through my many layers, until I burst clear, and the Solid Core dawns massive above. It is all girders and black iron, and I am gathered hard up toward it. The line cores me through the Gate of the Dead we blew out so long ago with candlewax, up through the Napoleonic battlefield where So went mad alone, up and into the heart of the Solid Core.
"I already came this way," I shout out, but no one is listening. "I already got out!"
The line drags back through the rotational maze, flashing along undulating corridor-tubes in a blur, past the bloody jags of torn Lag still scattered on the
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