Read Crashland for Free Online Page B

but not actually hurt.
    â€œDidn’t someone once say the dupes were booby-trapped?” Jesse wiped his hands on his jumpsuit, succeeding only in smearing blood everywhere. “Guess that’s one way of getting rid of the evidence.”
    â€œThere are no secrets anymore,” said Devin. “It doesn’t make sense.”
    Clair felt sick to the core at the sight of her own dead body, but she couldn’t look away. It was almost too horrible. The dupe’s face was locked in a terrible grimace that looked pained the longer Clair stared at it.
    â€œShe went for me,” Clair said. “She tried to hurt me, maybe kill me.”
    â€œAgain, why not earlier?” asked Devin, scratching his head and looking even paler than usual when his fingers came away red. “Unless something triggered the booby trap, and she decided to use it to her advantage. But what was the trigger . . . ?”
    Shock and awe. Never gets old, just keeps changing faces . . . .
    â€œCan anybody else hear that?” asked Clair. The whispering was still there, one voice talking in a constant stream at the edge of her hearing, the words just beyond understanding.
    The dupe’s body twitched again, making everyone jump backward. Devin returned to his corner, well away from the corpse.
    A droplet of sweat trickled down Clair’s back between the orange fabric of her prison jumpsuit and her skin.
    â€œThis is vile,” said Jesse. “Can’t we just get out of here?”
    â€œThere is nowhere to go except by Net One,” said PK Forest, his blank expression seeming even more out of place in the context of such chaos. “We are in a relay station one mile underground. We will be on our way any second now, though, straight to Crystal City this time. We have priority, under the circumstances.”
    â€œNo,” said Sargent, speaking for the first time since they had left New York. “Wait, we shouldn’t—”
    chug
    The room quaked again.
    chug
    Sargent put herself in front of Clair as the dupe made a sound that could have been a cough and then exploded a second time.
    Clair screamed in a mixture of anger and horror. There was more blood, more smoke, and if possible she felt even more of a shock that such a thing could possibly keep happening to her own body . Several sharp pinpricks pierced her exposed skin, and she heard cries of pain as well as fright from her fellow travelers.
    â€œWhat the hell ?” PK Drader cried out.
    â€œSecondary detonation,” Sargent said, pressing Clair as far from the body as she could. “Common terror tactic. Triggered by d-mat, I think.”
    Clair peered past her, even though she didn’t really want to see. The body was now on its side, and this time it had burst open down its chest and face, putting splintered ribs and skull on display. Clair glanced hastily down at her jumpsuit and saw a tiny thornlike protrusion sticking out of the orange fabric. Bone, she realized with disgust. She hastily brushed it off, grateful to Sargent for protecting her from the worst of it. All around her, people were making sounds of discomfort as they removed the ghastly splinters. Tilly/Xia retched again.
    â€œYour eye, PK Sargent,” Devin called out from his corner. “You might want to do something about that.”
    Sargent touched her face in puzzlement, and Clair saw a bone fragment sticking out of Sargent’s tear duct like a malignant eyelash.
    â€œDoesn’t that hurt?” asked Jesse.
    Sargent just stared at him. Shock , Clair thought. She had been all business before; maybe it was catching up with her now. Clair sympathized.
    â€œHere, let me,” Clair said, tugging Sargent’s shoulder gently downward. “You’re no good to anyone half-blind.”
    Sargent resisted for an instant, then gave in. She looked up and away as Clair opened the lids of the injured eye with one hand and with the other