Hostile Genus: An Epic Military Sci-Fi Series (Invasive Species Book 2) Ben Stevens (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

of the hammer stepped a pack of savages similar to the first— ragged, dirty, drooling upright beasts of men. Their mouths hung open, showing off extremely large canine teeth that seemed to shine when the hammer-light struck them. They came out of the shadows, forming a loose half-circle around the camp.

Jon looked from one to another as they approached like wolves on the hunt. It occurred to him that their appearance was somewhat wolf-like, these beast men. He shuddered. The goddess and her guardians were in over their heads.

Jon began to step backward slowly, and Carbine followed his lead. They were too exposed and, besides, they needed to protect the goddess first and foremost. Unfortunately, giving ground encouraged the hunters, and they began to tighten their noose around Jon, Carbine, Ratt, and Maya both more quickly and with more brazenness. Jon knew the tipping point was coming, and it was coming fast.

6

The little boy pulled the cupboard door shut behind him and crouched in the dark, cramped space. His breathing sounded as loud to him as the winds of a spring tornado. He gulped a few big gulps and tried to slow his racing heart and heaving chest. He surfed the razor's edge between the fear of being caught and the thrill of the night’s adventure to come. He had come into the Paramount earlier when it was open and milled around with the other patrons until the moment was just right. Once old man Allen was occupied, he’d stolen away into the upstairs offices. He’d helped himself inside and found a large cupboard that was mostly empty, certainly empty enough for him to hide inside until past closing, so he could have the ancient theater to himself.

He had wanted to get inside the Paramount for years, but the place had been locked up and protected. He had heard the grownups talk of “preservation” and “time-capsule,” but he didn’t understand what that meant. He only knew that it was a sanctum of magic, a place that contained all the treasures of the past, of Earth-That-Was. Everything that got him high, that glittered, that brought a touch of the sublime to his otherwise utilitarian, pointless life, was hidden in the Paramount’s treasure trove. Ever since he’d seen his first relic, Ratt had been fascinated with the past.

Blessed and cursed with a genius-level IQ, the child found little satisfaction in the company of others, and as he grew, he withdrew more and more into his own little world. That world was a fantasy pieced together with scraps from the past. He consumed anything pre-Storm with the ravenous ferocity of a starving animal. Literature in any shape or form, whether it be a pulp novel or a masterful work of literature or even a takeout menu from a long-gone Thai restaurant mattered not. He read it; read it and treasured it.

Pre-Storm clothes, gadgets, knick-knacks, and anything else under the sun was as gold to him. He daydreamed entire days away, pondering the nature of things he had read references to but couldn’t imagine. What were these smartphones that so many people in Earth-That-Was wrote about? What was Tiger Cry beef? Mostly, he wondered what a “TV show” and “movie” looked like. He had read enough bits and pieces to understand what they were—moving pictures—but he had never seen one. Tonight, he would satisfy that burning curiosity. He had learned by listening to the grownups that a vast store of “movies,” as well as something called a projector, had been found in the basement of a pre-storm building called The Paramount.

By some wild stroke of luck, this building had survived the Great Storm, the Scrappers recently discovering it while out on one of their missions—an expedition into the thick, dense ruins of what had once been the City Center.

After the Storm, people in the crowded parts of Austin-That-Was suffered the greatest. Food riots, fighting, collapsing and burning buildings, and other forms of brutal savagery had taken care of the majority of the population. Those who had fled and made it out, along with the more self-sufficient residents of the outskirts, had become the survivors. Generations had gone by before the survivors became organized enough to try to reclaim the city.

Two weeks ago, a Scrapper party had come back to report a find of note: a veritable vault of pre-Storm “movies.” Ratt had overheard the grownups talking about it and decided to tag along with the older boys who were accompanying the men to the “unveiling” of the find. And so he had, and now sat, trying his hardest not to let the pain of his cramping back overcome him. He could still hear people downstairs; it wouldn’t be too much longer.

He awoke suddenly and quickly realized that his butt was numb, his neck was stiff, there was drool smeared all over his hand and left cheek, and he had to pee something fierce.

He looked around and couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. No light shone through the cracks outlining the cupboard door. He held his breath and listened as hard as he could, but there was only silence.

Ever cautious, he apprehensively pushed open the hinged wooden door panel. Pitch black. He crawled out and tried to stand up. Pins and needles ran from his ass to his toes. He stumbled like an amateur circus performer trying out stilt-walking for the first time. He careened this way and that on club-like feet, able to tell that something he was dragging was touching the floor, but unable to truly feel it. His right foot came down slightly sideways and rolled, and he lurched forward in a fall, his hands reaching out into the dark in a desperate attempt to find something to cling to.

He felt something and grabbed it, trying to prevent the fall. Whatever it was, it wasn’t tied down and came tumbling down with him, showering his fallen form and the floor around him with a volley of unknown objects.