Crash Flux 1: Welcome To The Machine Read Free

giving you any more freebies, huh?  Oh well.”  She injected him again, and he started to fade.  The last thing he saw was the light from below the sliding door disappear beneath his feet.

    *

    The burst hit Raydin like a ton of bricks, and just like that, he was out, and under, and programmed to receive.  He began to meditate, finding his center, an endless desert plane of cracked earth.  The pain fell away, and he let the fear pass through him.  The program ended, leaving his mind a tangle of shorted wiring.  His nerves were shot to hell, his skin and muscles burning and twitching.  Most of the damage was temporary, though he would probably never remember what he saw in there.
    He felt suction towards the bottom at the sticky fluid drained out from the bottom of the suspension tank.  He lay shivering on the floor, the dark room illuminated only by the orange glow of the large heater.  The world became a blur as the lights came on and the door hissed open.  The footsteps of the men hauling him out echoed down the hall.  They removed his blinders, earplugs and the neural uplink.  Pain flared through his body as he was dressed in a jumpsuit and thrown onto a gurney.  They wheeled him down the corridor and onto the street, leaning him against a fence in the prisoner pick-up zone.
    Raydin’s eyes rolled back up into his head, the light reflecting off his violet iris.  He rolled over, twisting his wiry frame off his back and onto his stomach.  He grabbed his hair with both hands, pulling at it to distract him from the pounding in his head.  He spotted a couple of dark shapes waiting behind the fence, beside the gate.  Voices coalesced around him, the voices of friends.  “…Hurry up, get the shades on him, before the CR program decompresses.”  A pair of opaque shades was placed over his eyes, replacing the overload of visual input from the CR program with counter iconography designed to speed his recovery.  Drooling, he grinned broadly at the batches of flashing images.  He felt a slight sting from the hypodermic needle, and his mind went into focus as the drug took effect.  He remembered what his father told him.  “Those who run the cracks know how to look after their own.”
    Raydin said, “Is my comjack on? Am I wired?”
    Raydin lifted his shades, smiling as he spotted Irule’s curvy silhouette, her dress wrapped tight around her body.  Six feet tall, her hair was cropped, braided, and shaved at the sides.  She struggled to pick him up as Raydin passed out.  Irule lightly slapped him a couple times and said, “You okay Ray?”  He nodded an affirmative.  She said, “Take it easy.  You’re back online.  You aren’t but five minutes out of the hole and you’re trying to reconnect.  You’re going to overload.”
    Another, shorter, silhouette wrapped his arm under the crook of Raydin’s arm.  Raydin felt the stress of the last few days take effect, and ejected his half-digested nutrient feed all over floor.  “Damn it Ray, these are brand new shoes.  Put your shades back on.”
    Raydin looked up and said, “Adon?”
    Raydin smiled, bared his teeth.  Adon came into focus, silver eyes and slicked back, soft-metallic hair.  His eyes rolled over Adon’s refractive suit, glimmering with so many wildly shifting colors that Raydin had to look away.  He said, “Nize’ suit.  Wher’z Burk?”
    Adon answered “Burks hiding out in my shop.  He should be safe there.”
    Adon and Irule struggled to pick Raydin up onto his feet.  Irule swore and removed her shoes.  Adon smiled coyly, and they finished hoisting Raydin onto his feet.  Raydin said, “U get th’ codes?”
    “Yeah, we got him, everything went tick tock, just like you said.  Melvin is going to be locked up tight inside that storage unit for two days.  Did you get the triggers?”
    Raydin pulled his left canine from his gum.  Adon took the tooth and held it up towards the light, revealing the almost invisible