Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Because there's no concussive blast and no smoke when that grenade goes off. Instead, I'm blinded by a burst of neon-blue light, the type that sparks and sizzles as it expands outward in a localized shockwave, knocking out anything with an electric signal in its blast radius.

I curse as Wink and Blink drop out of the dark sky like dead weights and smash against the rooftop, plasteel drone components breaking off and skittering in all directions.

"Don't jump!" I shout at the top of my lungs, unaided by my audio augments now.

"No stopping me," he calls out jauntily, trotting backward as he approaches the edge of the roof.

Everything is so murky without my visual implants, but even relying on biologic I can make out his shadowy form. Why are his arms spread out to the sides? Are those his eyes glowing in the dark—the same blue as that damn grenade blast? Night-vision ocular implants, if I had to guess. Wink and Blink should have detected them.

Not to mention the grenade.

"Stop right where you are!" I throw down my shocker, useless now, and pull the emergency release on my exo-suit. I tumble out of the thing in nothing but my thermal bodysuit and take off running in stocking feet, straight for him. I should feel naked and puny without the added strength of the exoskeleton, but I'm too angry to feel anything else right now.

Who does this curfew-violating miscreant think he is? And where did he get his hands on an EMP grenade?

"Have a nice evening, Enforcer." He pivots and lunges off the roof.

"NO!"

I won't be having a nice evening. Not now, thanks to him.

Reaching the parapet milliseconds after his jump, I fall forward onto both hands, fingers splayed across the brick, and stare after him. Not that I'm going to see much without my augments. Not after curfew, with every light out in every building and along every street, pitch darkness filling every space between the soaring dome above and my Eurasian city below. But I can listen, and holding my breath, that's what I do, straining to hear the impact of his body slamming into a low-riser's concrete rooftop—bones breaking and guts splashing—after dropping ten floors through the air from the adjacent high-riser. In the utter black of curfew's impenetrable darkness, I wait.

Silence.

Until I hear rubber-soled shoes squeaking and then slapping against pavement down there, along with a grunt that echoes up the side of my building. The sound of someone who's made an impossible jump and landed on his feet, only to keep right on running.

This can't be happening.

But it gets weirder.

Goodnight, Enforcer! he calls up to me. Except I don't hear his voice, not with my ears. I hear him inside my head—thoughts that aren't my own. We should do this again sometime!

My hands clench into fists. I stare after him blindly, hearing the roof access door slam shut behind him.

Then everything's quiet again, like it's supposed to be this time of night. Lights out. Everybody home, where they belong. Not out and about, running around in the dark. Jumping off buildings like it's nothing.

It's something. It really is. And I have no idea what to make of it.

I exhale loudly, releasing the breath I didn't realize I was holding, and take a minute to calm down. I can't go after the guy. I have to stay here, where my commander expects me to be—right where all my augments went offline. The aerocar she would've sent to retrieve me should arrive in a couple minutes. Standard procedure when a connection is lost between an enforcer and HQ.

I need to stay put. I need to get my head straight.

Scratch that. I've got to get my story straight.

Nobody's going to believe this guy took a flying leap and lived through it. Just like they won't believe he made the previous three or four jumps from one building to the next. Honestly, I lost count.

Before my requisite debrief, I'll need to watch the footage Wink and Blink transmitted to headquarters prior to crashing. Bishop should allow me that much. I need to confirm what I saw. But there won't be a record of anything after the EMP blast.

What I heard after he landed that final jump? His voice in my head? Stress-induced psychosis. Nothing else makes any semblance of sense.

A stiff breeze hits me sideways, and I brace myself against the parapet, cringing in my bodysuit. It keeps me warm enough against the ambient cold, but wind chill is another thing entirely. If it keeps up, I'll have to climb back into my exo-suit until the aerocar arrives, just to stay warm.

I retrieve Wink and Blink, carrying one smashed drone under each arm. Crossing paths with my discarded shocker, I pick it up and give it a spin by the trigger guard. Crouching, I slide the muzzle through what remains of the EMP grenade. Not much more than minuscule shards of plasteel.

"You guys let me down," I mutter.

Wink or Blink should have identified the bomb and let me know about it long before we started running across rooftops. Maybe the guy had some sort of lead shielding in his jacket to block their XR capabilities.

The first question my interrogator will ask: "When does a curfew violation escalate into a dangerous foot chase, Enforcer Chen?"

Answer: When that curfew violator has information I need, and he refuses to share it without an idiotic foot chase ensuing. When he's high on dust and nothing can touch him, and he feels the need to prove it to me.

Which he did, in a big way. And I still can't wrap my mind around what happened.

The soft warble of the aerocar's ionic thrusters announces its arrival, as does the minor jet wash stirred up by its vertical descent, gusting across the roof. I back up against my exo-suit and give the vehicle plenty of room to land. It doesn't take up more space than a sedan would,