Sorry about that error. It actually is supposed to be his legs that are enhanced, somehow I was thinking he just had mechanical arms fused into his shoulders like Dock Ock. Sorrrryyy. Or maybe he's still walking on his hands, and he's now using his mechanically-enhanced legs as arms? You decide.
Enjoy another chapter, but if I make more mistakes, please show me. I'll try to be more careful about that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Abe knew he had to move fast. From that higher vantage point, the BigBros would see him and easily be able to mow him down with those blasted Blitz Packers of theirs, and until he had freed every Mudokon on Mudos, he didn’t really want to die. Frankly, he didn’t want to die at all, but that was another story…
The two BigBros hustled off toward a nearby staircase leading upward, their legs making plenty of squeaky noises. If Abe had been the kind who cared about Sligs, he would have told them to get a lube job…and then got himself shot. And, as already expressed, he didn’t want to get shot.
Using their noise as his cover, he crawled forward across the top of the processing machine. He had a desperate gamble in mind, but then again, desperate gambles had been his life since that dreadful night in RuptureFarms. If he could open the hatch and get inside the machine, no one would think of looking for him in there.
The only problem would be not getting chopped up while inside the machine. He couldn’t hear the blades running, but the metal was probably soundproof.
This isn’t the best plan I’ve ever had, he acknowledged with a grunt.
He spared a glance up at the BigBros. They were having some trouble mounting the stairs—whoever had designed their mechanical pants hadn’t given the Sligs the mental capacity of lifting one leg at a time to climb up stairs, so they were going quite slowly.
Abe crawled forward to the hatch atop the grinding machine. Through the bad lighting in this area, he could clearly see the pair of locks pinning the thick metal cover to the machine roof. He cursed under his breath; why did they always have to put extra security in all the wrong places?
He reached into a pocket in his pants and produced a small wire made just for this purpose. He had long since abandoned his RuptureFarms worker shorts due to their lack of protection in the cold weather, and because there wasn’t enough room to have a pocket. With full-length pants, he could keep plenty of “terrorist tools” on himself. He still hadn’t tried using a shirt, though. The idea was simply appalling.
Growling to himself, Abe slipped the end of the wire into the first lock. Surprisingly, it only took a swift twist to pop the mechanism, and the lock slid free. It nearly slid right off the edge of the machine, and only a quick grab saved the piece from hitting the floor and making unnecessary noise.
“That was close,” he muttered, and fell to on the second lock.
Unfortunately, despite his easy success on the first lock, this one proved much more of a task. He wriggled the wire end around in the lock hole, but the little pieces staunchly refused to move. A quick glance showed the BigBros nearly at the top of the stairs.
He twisted the wire with all his might, grunting, “Oh, come on!” When he did so, the wire end jammed tight into the lock. He gave it a sharp tug, but the wire refused to come out, leaving him without a tool.
He wondered if he should curse again, just for the fun of it, but there was really no time to waste on foul language. Wrapping both hands around the wire, he gave a huge yank.
The wire popped free, and the second lock clicked off.
Grinning in triumph, Abe replaced the wire in his pocket and grabbed the lid of the grinding machine. It had to weigh about forty pounds, but with some skillful rolling he managed to get it to move without letting it drop.
These skinny arms of mine still aren’t good for much, he thought grumpily.
It was then he realized something bad, and this time he did curse. The grinding blades were going inside the cylindrical machine. The guillotine-like blades were moving up and down like the old meat saws back at RuptureFarms, only a whole ton bigger and even faster, built for chopping the thought-extinct meech beetles into tiny pieces. The long cylinder had a conveyor belt floor, and a series of eight blades that would be chopping up the dead beetles moving along that belt.
“Hey! I see him! He’s on top of that processor!”
Abe grimaced, as he heard one of the Sligs shouting. He’d forgotten all about the guards in his rush to get the lid off.
Bullets rained down around him, pinging off the metal roof of the grinder. Left without any other option, he took a deep breath and dropped through the opening.
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