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Stories from the Verse
Re Verse All
Chapter 110: Beam 97
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 46
Beam encountered nothing on the climb to level twenty-one, and hoped that his luck would hold as the rest of the group snaked its way up the ramp. However, there was a new sound amidst the din which caught his ear.
“Do you hear that?” he said to his companions.
“Hear what?” Sophia and Bron asked simultaneously, and Sophia continued.
“I don’t know what you think there is to hear. I just hear the people.”
He wanted to tell her to shut up so he could listen, but it struck him that there was someone reliable he could ask instead.
“Dawn?”
“Sir,” the girl-like construct said, “there is the sound of machinery working in the hall in that direction, sir.”
That made sense. It wouldn’t be extremely loud, but loud enough that echoing in the hall and mixing with the other sounds it would add an odd timbre to the noise. Well, he was tired from the climb, but probably this was something he was going to have to investigate. “Dawn, with me,” he said. “Bron, Soph, Bob, watch the people.”
“Do you want us to get them into one of these restaurants?” Bron asked.
Always thinking about food, Beam thought. “N-no,” he answered hesitantly, “not until we know what’s making that ruckus.”
He thought Bron shrugged, but was already mostly turned in the direction of the sound. He noticed that it was the same direction that they had been walking up the ramp, the direction in which the ramp continued, which, he noted, would mean that any vibration noise from whatever this was would not have been so noticeable during the climb.
They did not have to travel far. The site of the commotion was on a straight line along the hall, and gradually became clearer as they approached. It appeared that there was one of those mining mole machines in the hallway, damaged, and one of the repair robots was attempting to fix it.
“Not too close,” Beam said to Dawn, unnecessarily as she was unlikely to leave his side anyway.
“Should I attack?”
“No, I think not. For one thing, we can’t waste the ammo. For another, it’s likely just to send another repair robot to fix the first. And we don’t know if the system has a self-defense mode, but we don’t want to risk activating it, particularly given that it’s already glitching. Let’s just move the people away from here.” He watched for another minute, perhaps, his never impatient bodyguard waiting, then pivoted on a heel and headed back perhaps a bit more quickly than usual.
He realized as he returned to the crowd that his haste so soon after the climb had already winded him. Choosing short statements, he said to Sophie and Bron, “Not here. Move away. Then find food.” Having so said, he started down the hall away from the machines.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with five other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #395: Character Obstacles. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
