“It’ll be easier for us to avoid
notice,” Ripkins said.
“Yeah, but it’d be more fun to hit the labs.” The bodyguards knew where they had to go: Mount Isolation in the Chessboard Desert, Redd’s former home and the birthplace of those they hunted. Avoiding the notice of Alyss’ card soldiers, who were themselves scouring the land for Glass Eyes still at large, became more difficult when they reached the desert. The alternating quadrants of black lava rock and sun-reflecting ice did not allow for much camouflage. “Not surprising,” Ripkins whispered when they came upon Mount Isolation. Decks of card soldiers had the place under surveillance. Unable to return home, Glass Eyes might have been hiding nearby.
Careful to avoid detection, the bodyguards began to case Mount Isolation in ever widening circles, their course spiraling out from the dark palace while— Not far away, behind a boulder that sat like an enormous lump of coal in the landscape, a pack of Glass Eyes was engaged in biological self-assembly. The vacant stare of crystal in their sockets; their eerie, waxwork stillness as if, all at once, they had suddenly paused in the middle of various activities: They were defragmenting their internal hard drives, healing wounds superficial and otherwise with the regeneration cell-buds that could develop into organs, limbs, tissue. But hearing the lightest of footsteps, their heads turned as one.
Ripkins and Blister were on their third time around Mount Isolation, approaching a quadrant of craggy rock formations, when—
Sssst!
A blade came slamming down toward Ripkins’ shoulder. “Humph.” He sidestepped it with the calm of one avoiding a dollop of seeker droppings, pulled a crystal shooter out of his thigh holster, and fired. The blade-wielding Glass Eye staggered, went down. Blister was taking on two of them at once—hand to hand, blade to blade, defensive swivel countering offensive lunge in a ballet of violence. Ripkins sensed it more than saw it, the clash of activity to his left, because he’d become busy with his own pair of Glass Eyes, slashing at them with a forearm-length blade, using his crystal shooter to deflect their swords and knives, all while avoiding crystal shot from a third Glass Eye.
One after another, the Glass Eyes coughed their last breath, sent their last electrical pulse along wire-veins, fired the last synapses in their nanochip-infused brains. Carried away with the fighting, Blister seemed to forget the purpose of his mission. “I’ll take care of him,” he said, stalking forward to put an end to the last remaining Glass Eye. Ripkins quickly reached for his gossamer shot—a small, thin tube attached to his belt. Fffshaw!
A large web bulleted out of the tube, fell over the Glass Eye. Frantic, it slashed and shot fruitlessly at the
“Yeah, but it’d be more fun to hit the labs.” The bodyguards knew where they had to go: Mount Isolation in the Chessboard Desert, Redd’s former home and the birthplace of those they hunted. Avoiding the notice of Alyss’ card soldiers, who were themselves scouring the land for Glass Eyes still at large, became more difficult when they reached the desert. The alternating quadrants of black lava rock and sun-reflecting ice did not allow for much camouflage. “Not surprising,” Ripkins whispered when they came upon Mount Isolation. Decks of card soldiers had the place under surveillance. Unable to return home, Glass Eyes might have been hiding nearby.
Careful to avoid detection, the bodyguards began to case Mount Isolation in ever widening circles, their course spiraling out from the dark palace while— Not far away, behind a boulder that sat like an enormous lump of coal in the landscape, a pack of Glass Eyes was engaged in biological self-assembly. The vacant stare of crystal in their sockets; their eerie, waxwork stillness as if, all at once, they had suddenly paused in the middle of various activities: They were defragmenting their internal hard drives, healing wounds superficial and otherwise with the regeneration cell-buds that could develop into organs, limbs, tissue. But hearing the lightest of footsteps, their heads turned as one.
Ripkins and Blister were on their third time around Mount Isolation, approaching a quadrant of craggy rock formations, when—
Sssst!
A blade came slamming down toward Ripkins’ shoulder. “Humph.” He sidestepped it with the calm of one avoiding a dollop of seeker droppings, pulled a crystal shooter out of his thigh holster, and fired. The blade-wielding Glass Eye staggered, went down. Blister was taking on two of them at once—hand to hand, blade to blade, defensive swivel countering offensive lunge in a ballet of violence. Ripkins sensed it more than saw it, the clash of activity to his left, because he’d become busy with his own pair of Glass Eyes, slashing at them with a forearm-length blade, using his crystal shooter to deflect their swords and knives, all while avoiding crystal shot from a third Glass Eye.
One after another, the Glass Eyes coughed their last breath, sent their last electrical pulse along wire-veins, fired the last synapses in their nanochip-infused brains. Carried away with the fighting, Blister seemed to forget the purpose of his mission. “I’ll take care of him,” he said, stalking forward to put an end to the last remaining Glass Eye. Ripkins quickly reached for his gossamer shot—a small, thin tube attached to his belt. Fffshaw!
A large web bulleted out of the tube, fell over the Glass Eye. Frantic, it slashed and shot fruitlessly at the