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

“I didn’t have no special taser sword!” Darik snapped back.

“My Fulgurant? I haven’t used it in a while, but it works nicely as a non-lethal, especially on supers,” Prime said off-handedly. “It temporarily disrupts nerve conduction. You can easily kill someone if you don’t know what you’re doing, but it is very effective in the right hands. Those supers should be back to normal in about six hours.”

Darik rubbed his foot, flaking off the crispy bits, revealing healthy pink, though shorter, toes underneath.

“Thanks, BoJack. But damn, I liked those boots.”

“I assume you all know about Gus?” Prime asked. When all she saw were confused looks, she scrunched her nose. “Don’t any of you read your messages?”

Chapter Eighty

The Good, the Bad, and the Dirty

Prime clicked on the intercom. “Seneschal, you’ll want to hear this too, so listen in.” She turned to the group and removed her helmet. “Gus ran off to fight Mengele on his own. And he says he doesn’t want us to follow. He gave the manor to us and put Aurora in charge.”

“He what?!” Aurora blurted, while others looked shocked or gasped.

“But why?” Anastasia held her hands cupped to her face.

“I’ll let you read it yourselves, but we have to help him. With the Faction being as it is, we need him, and to figure out what happened. He apologized to you, BoJack. What was that all about?” Prime asked bluntly.

“I’m still pissed off at Gus. In more ways than one, maybe even more now—”

“Yeah, what happened with that? You guys seemed pretty buddy-buddy there for a bit,” Harmony piped in.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“She’s right,” Aurora said, color draining from her face. “The tracker is gone. We have no idea where Mengele is, or Gus either if he went after him. He could already be gone.”

“He’s not gone, at least not yet,” BoJack mumbled so only Anastasia could hear.

“W-w-wait. What aren’t you telling us, BoJack? How do you know he isn’t dead? What’s this all about? I thought we were a team. Now I’m hearing all these secrets coming out of nowhere. There’s no way we can get along if we don’t communicate.” Anastasia censured giving everyone a hurt look. “I know I don’t speak up most of the time, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried. You know we have to go after him, right? No one left behind.”

“He did give the manor to us. Maybe we should head there and regroup?” Harmony interjected. A few withering stares from some of the others made her squeak in surprise. “Just a suggestion, guys…”

“If you must know, he delved me without my permission. And then acted like he was shocked that it was a big deal,” BoJack blurted out, staring at his hands and playing with one of his fingernails. “And now he’s run off after Mengele. Throwing his life away. I was angry at him before, but now I’m furious!” He clenched the hand into a fist. “There’s so much he doesn’t know, and he just runs off half-cocked.”

“I had no idea. But is there any chance that he really didn’t know how bad that is?” Harmony asked.

“It’s possible. Hell, it’s more likely than not. It’s hard not to forget that he has practically no training. I’ve never had to deal with that. There’re just some things that they pound into you at the Academy so long you just accept that everyone knows it. But who does that? Who throws their life away?”

“He is a clueless dumbass a lot of the time,” Aurora conceded. “But he means well.”

“I can still feel him, sense him at times. Late at night, when I’m just on the cusp of falling asleep, there’s a twinge, and I just know—” BoJack confessed.

A scream ripped through the air, causing everyone to jump.

“What the hell?” Darik grumbled, quickly covering his reaction.

Yuki sat up suddenly and grabbed her head, moaning.

Everyone clustered around, trying to see if she was okay, all speaking at once. Yuki winced, pantomiming a ‘shh’ and taking short, deep breaths.

“I’m okay… I think. Oh, this is like the mother of all hangovers. Hoo.” She hung her head and used both hands to knead her neck and the base of her skull.

“What happened?” Aurora asked.

“I lost my hack and got kicked. That hasn’t happened in forever. Got too cocky, I guess. Oooh.” Her fingers dug deeper, rubbing harder.

“Here,” BoJack gently laid a hand on hers and removed them. He placed his fingers there and rubbed slowly up and down.

“Aah, yeah. That’s the stuff. I knew there was a reason we were friends, BoJack.” Yuki sighed.

“Did you get anything while you were in?” BoJack asked.

“No, that’s what sucks. Now if I try to go back, I’m locked into using that avatar. Not the worst choice, but I would need to plan. I almost always go in blind, and can adapt pretty quickly. I think this boss was power leveled by idiots playing around, trying to break in from other factions. I was overwhelmed with the power differential.”

“We’re out of Purple, so don’t worry about any of that now—we have more pressing matters. Gus went after Mengele,” Prime broke in.

Yuki sat up, breaking contact with BoJack’s hand and immediately cringed. She pointed exaggeratedly at her neck again, and he resumed.

“I don’t know where he is either. He was supposed to link the tracker to the manor and wait for us.” Aurora shrugged as Yuki looked at her.

“BoJack, do you think you could find him with this… connection, you speak of?” Anastasia asked.

Yuki carefully turned to look over her shoulder. “What’s she talking about, BoJack?”

“He’s very, very far away Yuki.”

“Is that one of your abilities? If so, why didn’t you mention it before? We could have gone after him a while ago.”

“I can’t control it. At first, I doubted I was feeling anything at all. I thought it was part of a dream until it began to be consistent. I know he’s that direction,” BoJack