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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 2: Beam 158
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 214
As Beam led his companions over the open dirt plane, he tried to think of options to escape their unidentified pursuer. All he knew to this point is that his psionically-empowered alien companion Turbirb’durpa (Bob for short) described them as small brains in dead brains, and his hyper-perceptive biologically constructed killing machine Dawn (full name Dawn Project Prototype Unit Number Ex Dash Zero Zero, but as far as he knew the only unit) said had adjusted its course when they did. It could not be friendly, he was certain of that. He needed a plan.
How could he plan, without more information?
“O.K., everyone: we need to find a defensible position, a building or structure, or a natural formation, from which we can confront whatever these things are that are coming after us. It’s time to use your skills, people. What have we got?”
He realized that Sophia had stopped abruptly, so he stopped everyone else. Holding her left hand in front of her, she pronounced a string of mumbo-jumbo and caused a small sphere of fire to appear above her open palm. With the fingers of her other hand she seemed to stretch the ball into a circle, maybe a foot or so in diameter, and began pivoting clockwise. The circle remained in front of her as she moved. When she was half way around she paused for a moment, then continued, then stopped at around the ten o’clock position.
“That way,” she said. “There’s a building of some sort. Bob, can you see it?”
The alien’s telepathic response came into Beam’s head, and from the look on their faces he presumed it reached the minds of his companions as well. Dwelling, abandoned, damaged but intact.
Beam nodded. “Sounds like our best option. How far?”
Sophia had lost the fire ring, but said “Probably about two miles? Hard to tell with that kind of magic. Oh, and whatever those things are, they look like corpses, and there are five of them.”
Five of them, six of us, and we’re pretty potent, but we don’t know enough about them. Still, it was good odds as far as it appeared. He started walking in the direction indicated.
“O.K., then, let’s get moving. These things are sounding more and more like some kind of biological zombies, and I’m not eager to meet them at all, but we want to have a good defensive position when we do.” The team formed behind him.
“I’m relying on you guys to keep us moving the right direction, because all I know at this point is there’s a building this direction somewhere a couple miles away, and I don’t want to waste time wandering while trying to find it.”
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #476: Versers Deduce. 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:
