Such efficient posting form T-nex! Hers your chapter, hope you like it.
Chapter 11, The Orb.
It was 11:22. Aaron arrived at the weaponry 2 minutes late. He’d had to take a detour to miss a drunken slig who was attracting attention. He’d almost run straight into a B-B slig and his heart was racing.
The sligs’ weaponry was, to put it bluntly, a mess. Weapons and various other metal… things… were piled randomly into crates and drawers as well as strewn all over the floor. There was a rail running across the ceiling on the wall furthest from the door. Several hooked objects hung from it and lay slightly bent on the floor beneath it. A gun-rack lay on its side in a corner – surrounded by rusty guns. There was a very wide shelf on the left wall from the door piled up to near breaking point with metal objects.
It was the rail across the wall that Aaron went for first. He ran his hand over the metal tubes and spheres till he touched to object he was looking for. A grappling hook was the most important thing.
“A grappling hook, something you can measure a metre with, a compass and a few weapons,†Were the words of the old mudokon. The door, Aaron knew, was a metre wide for “quick accessâ€. Aaron clambered over to the gun-rack and grabbed a few rusty broken weapons he thought were about right. Then he measured them in the doorway and found the one that was closest to the right length. He also found a small compass on the floor just inside the doorway.
“A few weapons.†A quick excavation of a draw revealed a small clear plastic bottle labelled “NERVE GAS: HIGHLY DANGEROUS. DO NOT APPLY TO SKIN, EYES OR ANY ENTRANCES INTO THE BODY.†The liquid was clear and so much like water that Aaron decided to test it on some mould that was growing over something in the corner. He squeezed the top of the bottle very gently and a drop of liquid came out and dripped onto the mould - which was completely dissolved!
Aaron glanced at the clock; he had 2 more minutes before he had to leave. Aaron dug through the rubble on the floor and found what looked like a small handgun with an “energy gauge†and 2 wires protruding for the barrel. He squeezed the trigger and a shot of electricity burst out.
“Wow, a long-distance cattle prod,†He muttered, stuffing it into his loincloth and running out of the door, gun in hand.
12:30. Aaron was in the boiler room. Stopping on the way in to shove the rusty gun under boiler 3, he ran up to boiler 7 and typed clumsily into a keyboard designed for a slig’s hand: C.AC R.56 drain:75min.
That would give him an extra 10 minutes to take the Orb in case something went wrong.
13:28. He was in the room behind the Orb’s and had 7 minutes to get it if he was going to get out on time. He had crept past a sleeping slig in the corridor outside that room. That had given him an extra 2 minutes which he otherwise would have spent waiting for the guard to pass.
He shoved a few empty boxes underneath the grate overhead, thankful, for once, that they starved the mudokons in that place. Otherwise, he felt sure that the flimsy cardboard boxes would not hold his weight. He tugged at the pre-loosened grate and it came loose easily in his hands, then he wriggled up into the ventilation shaft and tugged himself through the narrow passageway forward until he reached another grate which he shoved loose.
Last time he saw this place it was alight with red motion beams. Now it was in almost complete darkness. As he wriggled out of the shaft, grate in hand, he gasped at the ice-cold air in the room. He had turned off the heating in that room and an icy chill had filled it.
Shivering, he stumbled through the room to the pedestal on which the Orb stood. He picked up the metallic green ball in both hands and instantly felt an unexplained warmth spread through his hands, up his arms and into his body. He felt suddenly comforted and reassured. With a determined look on his face, he pulled himself up into the ventilation shaft and wriggled forward through the darkness…
I would welcome any feedback you want to offer.
|
, Hah Hah hah 
