Read The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone for Free Online

already alert, as was
Purr, who prowled about, peering into the trees. The watchers
emerged and approached with hesitant steps. Sabre tensed, but the
creatures that advanced on them appeared to be singularly
innocuous.
    They looked
like chubby toddlers with plump bandy legs, enormous brown eyes,
button noses and rosebud mouths set in alabaster skin. They were
naked and apparently sexless, and wore angelic expressions of
smiling friendliness. They chittered amongst themselves, and gave
Purr a wide berth, but converged on Tassin and Sabre. Tassin
wondered if they were in fact children, and whether adults would
follow. Purr watched them with narrowed eyes.
    About a dozen
of them came within touching distance of Tassin, while more stood
back and watched. Small, hot hands brushed her ankle, examining her
contact with the tree. They chittered excitedly as they clustered
around Sabre, reaching out to touch him with a remarkable lack of
fear. The cyber scowled at them, but Tassin smiled, which caused
them to draw back, twittering. Then she yelled as pain shot from
her ankle, and turned to find that a toddler had sunk sharp fangs
into her leg.
    Sabre snatched
up the little monster and pulled it free, hurling it into the trees
as he dumped her onto the ground and jumped up. Purr sneezed
explosively and sprouted fangs and claws, with which he attacked
the nearest vampire children. They swarmed over Tassin, biting her,
and she slashed at them with her dagger, sickened when it sank into
soft flesh. Sabre laid about him with his fists and knife, striving
to protect her and beat off the creatures that clung to his legs,
biting ferociously. A mob of the things engulfed Purr, and blood
sprayed as he fought them in a seething melee from which a vampire
toddler was tossed every now and then, broken and bloody. Sabre
stood over Tassin and smashed the monsters away as more and more of
them poured out of the forest.
    Brown and
green shot through the ground, and the world Changed. Sabre scooped
Tassin up as an eerie world of ruins replaced the trees and vampire
children, striding through the Change. The mosscat sneezed and
leapt onto a crumbling wall, looking bedraggled and cross. A ruined
city surrounded them. Smashed marble tiles, mortar and fallen
columns were mixed with the piles of rubble. Pot shards, broken
china and rusted implements lay strewn on cracked paving
stones.
    Sabre placed
her on a wall and gazed around, taking stock of the new world.
Several painful bites throbbed on her legs, bottom and arms, and
blood trickled from numerous puncture wounds in Sabre's legs and
torso. Purr seemed unscathed, apart from his ruffled fur.
    Sabre turned
to her. "Are you okay?"
    "My face
hurts, and I have lots of bites, but otherwise I'm well
enough."
    He nodded,
scanning the surroundings again. "We were lucky it Changed. I think
those little fiends would have done a lot of damage if it
hadn't."
    Purr said,
"Beasts. They were dangerous. Many foes, no matter how weak, are
always more dangerous than one."
    "At least this
place looks uninhabited, and we can travel easily enough."
    After tending
to their wounds with Sabre's ointment, they set off across the
ruined world, picking their way through the debris. Tassin hobbled,
her buttocks smarting from the bites, and her stomach rumbled. The
fruit she had eaten in the previous Flux-reality had remained in
that realm. The new world appeared to be devoid of life; not even a
blade of grass struggled amongst the ruins.
    "If we see any
creatures here, they must be Real-reality," Purr commented. "I
don't think anything lives in this world."
    Tassin limped
beside Sabre for hours, finding no end to the ruins as they
followed broad roads that ran in the direction in which they wished
to travel. When they stopped to rest, Tassin fingered her throbbing
nose, and Sabre smiled.
    "You'll look
like Purr soon."
    "What do you
mean?"
    "You're going
to have two lovely black eyes."
    She glanced at
the mosscat, who chuckled.