Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
The god pauses on the stairs. Turns. Narrows his eyes at us. He looks at me first, then Jasina. That’s who he’s talking to when he speaks. “You are quite bold for a down-city whore, aren’t you?”
How dare he. I’m about to protect and defend her honor, but Jasina is not one to cower and doesn’t need my help.
“You can insult me all day long, if you’d like,” she says. Her voice even and strong. “But I am not a whore, nor do I reside down city. Perhaps if I was still a slave in Tau City Factory, this approach might work. But here,” she waves a hand at his factory. “This isn’t my town, these aren’t my people, and you’re not my god.”
The god snickers. “The perfect answer. Congratulations, you pass.” Then, without another word, he turns and once again begins his ascent.
Jasina and I pause on the steps, looking at each other with confusion.
But the workers coming up behind us, prod us into motion by poking our backs with their weapons.
So we follow.
It truly is a long way up and by the time we get to the top, Jasina is breathing so hard I’m actually concerned. But she tilts her chin up, determined to be strong, so I say nothing. Just turn back to the god, looking past him at… plates? I think? Lots of glass with lots of colorful things on it. Many of them have views of houses or rooms. The insides of towers as well. But most are colored shapes. Rectangles with words and numbers inside them. Some of the plates are very active, showing many scenes or many colored boxes with information inside them. But there are quite a few static ones as well.
Spaced evenly around the perimeter of the massive domed room are tall, skinny, floor-to-ceiling windows about the width of a man.
In the very center of the room is a glowing circle. A sort of stage, I guess. It’s elevated off the floor about a foot. But it’s not made of stone, like the God’s Tower Stage outside. It’s glass. Black and shiny like the desktop inside the Looking Glass room in the Extraction Master’s tower. Parts of it are lit up, parts of it not. And I immediately recognize these lights as switches.
Looking back at the colored shapes on the plates, I surmise that they might be switches as well.
Around the inside perimeter of this main circle are more, smaller circles. All of these glow a bright cyan-blue.
“Would you like a tour?” the god asks.
I look over at him, blink like a confused idiot, then check myself. “Maybe later,” I say, looking the god straight in his eyes. They are blue, I notice. But they shine unnaturally. Spark, I realize. He’s got spark in his eyes. “We’re here. We followed. Will you answer my questions now?”
He holds up a hand. “Mr. Scott, be assured that all your questions will be answered. But I imagine I can speed things up by explaining what is happening here, and how you’ve been misled. And that starts with a tour. So, if you don’t mind, please answer my question with a ‘yes’.”
I look at Jasina, but she just shrugs. As if to say, What choice do we have.
The man is a god and he just caught us snooping through his… realm, or whatever.
And now that I think about it, I realize we saw something we absolutely weren’t meant to see. Those cocoons, the woman inside that looked like Clara, and the rest of the city.
It’s all his. The women, the city, the cocoons, the spark. We are uninvited strangers. And I think he’s pretty pissed off that we got in here. Nonetheless, here we are. So he’s being forced to deal with us.
Which can only turn out one of two ways.
We survive, or we don’t.
I, for one, having just learned that I am to be a father, would like to live.
So I resurrect all my up-city manners, dust off my Extraction Master title, and try my best to emulate my father. “God of Xi Factory – Dimension 702, I would be absolutely delighted to have a tour of your tower.”
His smile is tight, but immediate. Like he can’t quite figure out if I’m patronizing him, or being serious.
To be honest, I’m not sure myself, so his confusion is understandable.
“Let’s start with me,” he says, placing a hand over his heart. “I’m Xi. And, as you know, this is my factory. Well, one of them. I have four, but this one is the most productive.” He puts up a hand, pressing it at us. “Yes, yes, yes I have eyes. Obviously, it is a mess. But it’s fixable, and so it is being fixed.”
“What happened here?” I ask. “Why is it so… run down? Where is everyone? What were those pods we saw?”