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CHAPTER SIX
The two Sligs opened up with their Blitz Packers, but Abe wasn’t going to sit around and get shot up like so many other Mudokons had done over the years. After all, he still had to save the Mudokons in this factory.
He threw himself sideways, rolling behind a piece of machinery whose use he had no idea, and no time to figure out. Bullets pinged off the metal, barely denting the frame. Abe heard that feared mechanical sound of legs moving toward his position—eight legs, so both BigBros were onto him.
This really stinks, he thought.
He picked up a small rock from the ground nearby—why hadn’t one of their slaves picked that up?—and tossed it into a corner. The Sligs immediately whirled around, directing their shots in that direction for a moment, and Abe took that moment to charge out from behind his machine cover, racing for the elevator.
The BigBros whirled around again, their bodies swiveling on mechanical frames, Blitz Packers following him with a trail of bullets. Abe moved in serpentine formations, moving from rolls to a standing position whenever he could. Bullets flew everywhere. Dents began appearing in the nearby walls. One bullet skimmed his hairless head, drawing a stinging flow of blood into his left eye.
“Blast it,” he muttered, blinking one eye rapidly to keep the blood out. “Gotta get over to that elevator…”
One of the BigBros suddenly lowered his gun. The Slig reached onto his shoulder comm and said into it, “Close the blast doors! Close the blast doors!”
Abe was barely meters away from the elevator when the doors slid shut, sealing off the escape route with three feet of solid steel. He banged once on the doors in frustration. “Open the blast doors!” he screamed.
But why would the Sligs in the control room listen to him, of all people? He turned and ran for the nearest bit of cover, a large engine used for processing meech beetles. Bullets from the Sligs’ Blitz Packers followed him all the way.
He dodged behind it, hearing slugs rebounding from the walls all around him, and closed his eyes tight. Should he take the risk of chanting, and possibly kill all his Mudokons? No, that would be wasting hundreds of lives just to save his own – even though the other Mudokons had never done anything worth remembering. All they ever said to him was “Hello,” “Okay,” and “Abe, you’re the greatest!”
He heard the mechanical legs coming closer and closer – one set from each side. He opened his eyes. The two BigBros had split up, and one was coming at him from each side of the machine. He was trapped!
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