Unity by Carl Stubblefield (epub read online books TXT) 📕

thankfully free of certain biologic needs, but Yuki could have sworn she peed just a little. When she finally managed to pull her eyes away, the last thing she saw was the gorillemur leaping off of the branch.

The volume of the roars was getting louder and was like a demonic Doppler effect. Her frantic paddling stirred up dust and pollen in the still air. Paddling madly while scrolling through her display, she found the perfect avatar—if only she could get to the forest floor. Absolutely nothing was close unfortunately, and she was still over a hundred feet away from anything at all. She didn’t want to use her only flier avatar, which would be difficult to use in the thick forest, and would not lend itself to fighting this creature.

With inhuman agility, the gorillemur used its monstrously long arms to swing to a perch above her on the nearest tree. It opened its large mouth, which was rows and rows of claws lined up. It looked like a shark’s maw. The talons like claws flexed and extended.

No, not a shark. Its mouth looks like a Sarlacc!

And then it jumped.

Chapter Seventy-Five

Seeds of Destruction

The diminished gravity made the gorillemur’s fall appear surreal, like bullet time. Knowing she had nowhere to flee, it had not propelled itself off the branch and fell at a similar rate to Yuki.

It reached out a long arm towards her, and she saw the gnashing animals that made up each finger cackling in anticipation of their next meal.

With as much willpower as she could muster, she stopped staring at the approaching monster and resumed paddling while mentally scrolling through her avatars, looking for alternatives. The more she did, the more she realized she needed the one she had chosen. She didn’t want to transform until she was close though, as her small size would make her a more difficult target if the beast got close. It felt like trying to dive to the bottom of the pool, and she had some residual buoyancy that wanted to resist her efforts to get to the forest floor.

This was what sucked the worst about an AI hack. You never knew what to expect. She had liked the challenge when she was younger, but the field had really improved the complexity and difficulty of the bosses. It didn’t help that the AIs leveled up with each failed delve, so they became harder and harder to beat the more people tried to hack them. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about how Green was probably cutting their teeth on trying to hack into Purple’s mainframe on a regular basis.

But as much as she hated the inability to plan, she loved the challenge. There was always something new. It definitely was never boring or routine. And she preferred the escape from her mundane life. If she was honest, she was an adrenaline junkie too. She wouldn’t admit it, but she liked getting the shi—

A deep roar interrupted her thoughts as she worked to move, urging her to pull harder and descend faster. She dared another look and was horrified to see that it was closer than it should have been if they were both falling in the same environment.

No-no-no-no-no-NO! The creature was moving so fast!

It shouldn’t be able to fall at a quicker rate than she was. Gravity didn’t work like that. If this was an evaluation, that developer would definitely get points off for his physics engine. If anything, it should fall slower from more drag. The gorillemur cocked an arm back to take a swipe. It was close enough it could snatch her from this distance.

She blinked as something caught in her eye, stinging and burning. She pawed at it, wanting to be able to see in case she could somehow dodge the attack coming for her when something else got in her other eye. What was that, an eyelash?

The wind hit her like an unexpected wave on the beach. It carried her laterally through the air, and through blurry eyes she saw an enormous hand swing where she had just been, leaving contrails in the pollen. The wind picked up in earnest, carrying her out of range again but she had to shield her eyes. Either the size of the pollen or the fact that there was so much of it was wreaking havoc on her eyes like a sandstorm.

She tumbled in the current as a roar of frustration rose above the whistle of the wind. She was heading for a tree. She was hesitant to hit it, but realized this was exactly what she needed. She tried to roll with the hit as she collided with the mossy trunk and nearly lost her grasp as a large green chunk of something tore away from the tree trunk like sod. Her other hand managed to dig into some gnarled bark underneath and her momentum wrapped her around the trunk of the tree.

She rapidly side-shifted, moving to the leeward side of the tree trunk. Though she was upside down, she didn’t feel light headed as she pulled herself down the trunk toward the ground. There was a thinner layer of the tree-sod on this side, but still it was there, sloughing off if she tried to move too quickly, but now she was making a much quicker descent to the ground.

The sound of splintering wood nearby prodded her to go even faster, taking more chances. She began ripping off the sod in large strips and throwing it to the side as she pulled herself down, kicking occasionally with her feet to propel her downward when they could snag some ridge of bark.

Only about a hundred feet. So close. A ripple of force traveled down the trunk. She could see a large hand made of bloodthirsty lemurs holding the tree she was on, pulling itself down toward her. She just hoped it was far enough away. Fifty feet. Another flash of movement to her left but she refused to look.