God's Bounty Hunter (Biddy Mackay Space Detective Book 1) by T Olivant (reading in the dark .txt) 📕

got into the lift.  There were buttons for floors one to five.  Lu Tang pressed the button for the second floor.

“How do you know where they are?” Biddy whispered.  Despite the fact that the place seemed like no one had been there in decades, she couldn’t help but feel like there had to be some kind of guards.

“I checked the floorplans on the cloud.  The hibernation pods use a hell of a lot of power.  There are extra generators on the second floor.  It must be the place.”

Biddy didn’t like the clammy sheen that had coated the Augment’s face.  It didn’t exactly fill her with confidence that they were on the kind of mission that could make a God nervous.

The lift door opened.  They were in some sort of vast cavern that had been dug into the rock of Eritree.  Strip lights glowing green only seemed to emphasize the darkness.

“This is it,” he whispered. “Here they are.”

Biddy stepped out behind him and saw what the Augment was looking at.  There was less than ten of them, upright coffins stacked against a wall.  Corridors led off to different sections of the cavern, but there didn’t seem to be any guards coming down them.  Biddy kept her stungun raised anyway.

“The old Gods!” Lu Tang practically skipped over to them, caressing the hibernation pods with an almost indecent tenderness.

“Mackay?” Phil’s worried voice came over the radio.

“We’ve found them.  No sign of any guards, human or otherwise.  Give me a few minutes to work out how we’re going to get them out.”

She walked closer to the Augment.  The LED light bounced off the sweat on his brow.  She put a hand to her own forehead and found that it was damp.  Damn, she was tense.  And, truth be told, she was genuinely scared.  There was something profoundly creepy about all those frozen coffins with their sleeping almost-corpses.  She kept expecting one of them to snap their eyes open.

“Aargh!” Biddy yelled as she felt a clawed hand grab her arm.

“Relax,” Lu Tang said, releasing his grip. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Biddy walked over to one of the pods.  The technology was both cutting edge and ancient.  Screws had rusted around the metal frame that kept the module in place, but the plastic coffin itself looked sleek and the display had readings that she could not interpret.  It was like looking into a window on the past, but one that had imagined a future that had never come to pass.  Or something.  It was giving her an instant migraine.

“Do you think they’ll be happy?” She asked, her voice soft in the darkness.

“What?” The Augment was typing something into a computer console.  His brow was furrowed in concentration.

“I mean, do you think they’ll be happy that we woke them up?”

“That we released them from this prison?  Of course they will!  Do you think I was happy to escape Widdershins 3?  Where they had locked me up for a decade and waited for me to fade into nothing?  No, I was not happy.  I was ecstatic.  I was exalted to a higher state of being.”

“Hmmn.” Biddy stared at the pale, almost skeletal face in front of her.  What would it be like to be in a room of awakening, ecstatic and exalted Gods?  She was starting to feel like she might just throw up.

“How are we going to get them out?”

Lu Tang glanced up at her and blinked a few times.  Were there tears in his eyes?

“There are trolleys near the door.  But they are heavy.”

“All right.  Phil?”

“Yes.”

“I need you and Francesca to come and help us load up the bodies.  And tell the Geek to bring around the rescue craft.  Let’s hope to God he’s got it ready.”

“God is kind of busy right now,” Lu Tang called out as he pushed over a metal trolley.

“You know what I mean,” Biddy barked back.

Chapter 38

It took the humans nearly twenty minutes to load the Augments onto what the Detective had called the rescue craft.

“I do not think this is a fitting mode of transportation for the Gods,” Lu Tang said, looking around the waste collection van.  They had stacked the habitation pods next to a pile of domestic waste.  And it stank.

“Let’s give them a chance to object,” the bodyguard said, flashing his teeth. “Any objections?  No?  I think they’re all good.”

Insolent cretin, Lu Tang thought, but he simply closed his eyes and said nothing.  He could afford to be magnanimous.  All the effort of the last few months was coming to fruition.  He had saved his people.  And this was just the start.

“We will have to wait here for the Geek to work his magic,” the Detective said.  She was still holding her stungun as if she expected some sort of foe to jump out behind her.

“Just what is the plan again?” The bodyguard asked.

“Geek’s going to create a distraction.  All smoke and mirrors stuff, then he’s going to move the ship towards orbit.  Scotclan will think we’re trying to escape.”

“But he’ll really be coming here?”

“Yes.  In fact, he should already have started.  Any minute now…”

A strong vibration rocked the van on it’s treads.

“That’s the Black Maria,” Mackay said, her eyes staring up at the roof of the van. “Francesca, can you drive over to meet it?”

“I think I can handle that,” the young Navigator said from the driver’s cab.  The vehicle lurched forward as she pushed it into gear.  Lu Tang put out a hand to steady the nearest hibernation pod.

“You’re safe now,” he whispered to its sleeping occupant.

There was a buzzing sound from the pocket of his robe.  He reached in and pulled out the small black datapad that had been left in his cell.

You have done well.

The words flashed across the screen.