Man-Kzin Wars XII by Larry Niven (books you have to read .TXT) 📕

throat as I devour one right after the other. I must have eaten them too fast, because the energy in my body seems to have raced to my stomach to help digest it. I lie down and keep my gaze in the direction of the elevators.

I'm not going to be able to fight off the darkness; it's too strong. But I also don't want to fall again. There is nothing in my cell to hold me down, so I wrap my arms around a couple of the bars and hold on tight. After testing my grip a few times, I feel secure enough to let myself fall asleep.

When I wake up, I see Grant standing over me. He pulls me to my feet. “Let's go!”

“What?” I'm out of sorts. I can't tell if this is real. My eyes dart around as Grant pushes me to the elevator. Anna's cell is still empty. “Where is the girl?”

There is no response from Grant. He pushes me toward the end of the dungeon. Reflexes get my legs in motion, because I am not moving them willingly. I look at him. “What did you do with her? Where is she?”

“Who?” Grant replies as we enter the elevator. I can see a slight hint of light peeking through the crack above my head.

“Anna!” I demand.

“She's dead,” he states, emotionless.

My heart drops, and my legs follow. The metal hits hard against my knees as I catch one last glimpse of what used to be Anna's cell. The doors shut. Tears roll down my cheeks. She should be home with her family. She didn't deserve this. No one does!

A pinch in my neck sends tingles through my body, and I fall to the ground.

“You'll be fine.” Grant kneels next to me. He's blurry, but I can tell that he’s holding a needle in his hand. With his other hand, he closes my eyes.

CHAPTER II

I wake up to my body shaking. As my eyes open, I notice that the ground is miles below me, and I panic. A strong hand grabs my shoulder and holds me down in my seat. I look back to see a large man at the other end of the hand. He looks familiar, but I'm not sure why.

“Relax 80,” he says with a very calm and deep voice. His eyes are kind and compassionate.

“Where am I?” My eyes dart around to make sense of my surroundings. I'm in one of the military Flyz, like the one that saved Atom and me from the building's roof. Next to the large man are two other scientists. Both women. One has a frame that rivals the man; the other is the exact opposite. Small in all ways possible, with darker skin and hair that looks like rope.

“You are safe. That's all that matters. Now calm down and sit back,” says the man piloting the Fly. Though he’s sitting down, I can tell he is the tallest of us all.

“Don't mind Nathan. He's just cranky,” the big man quips.

I get a better look at him, and the recognition clicks. He was at the entrance of the dungeon, one of the doctors that helped me after I was shot. I search my memory for his name. “Farouk?”

“In the flesh. I wasn't sure you'd remember.” He chuckles. “That's Nathan up front, and these two lovely ladies are Paz and Erin.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” the bigger lady, Paz, responds. Her cheeks flush with red as she looks at Farouk. Erin looks at me and smiles.

Their welcoming demeanor puts me at ease. I feel comfortable enough to relax back into my seat. “So, where are we going?”

“South, to a different part of Africa. A city called Nairobi. There’s a bunker being built there for two of the Genesys,” Farouk responds.

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to my next question, but I ask anyway. “Why do they need a bunker?”

“So they can survive the Ragnarok,” Paz interjects.

“Does the Ragnarok have to happen?” I press a little further.

Farouk's large hand squeezes my shoulder again. Stronger this time than before, causing me to wince. His kind eyes are gone, and now there is a fire behind them. “That's enough questions.”

His tone tells me that I should be quiet until we reach our destination. I sit back in my seat and look out the window to the terrain miles below. It's stunning—various green colors as far as I can see, and a giant body of blue water that breaks up the green. When I look back toward where we came from, I can see what looks like a gigantic pyramid covered in white. It doesn't look like the pyramid that Atom and I ran to. The green runs up to the edge of the white. It looks natural.

As I take in this beauty, I begin to realize that it will all be gone if the Ragnarok occurs, and if it miraculously survives, there will be no one around to appreciate it. I wish Atom could see this. It would make him try harder to stop the scientists. I am disgusted toward the people sitting around me on this craft. Do they not see what I see when they look out their windows? Have they so readily accepted their fate? I want to scream at them, tell them that they’re making a big mistake.

The Fly makes a sharp right turn, which presses my head harder against the window. The clear sky has become hazier and cloudier. The clouds are brown and gray and reach to the ground. Soon they engulf us, thick and filthy. As the Fly navigates through, the clouds drag across the windows.

I can tell by the way my stomach rises to my chest that we are losing altitude, moving closer to the ground. A small break in the clouds reveals the city below. It is more run-down than the one back by the compound in Cairo. Very few buildings seem to be standing in their entirety. Fires