Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) Milo Fowler (different e readers TXT) 📖

the door opening. There must be some sort of security measure in place, a hidden camera. Someone's watching, and they scan anyone attempting to enter.

A sudden burst of white light interrupts my train of thought, and I step forward, through the doorway, blinded for a few moments. I assume the door slides shut behind me, but I can't hear anything above the wave of voices and music that hits me head-on. When my eyes adjust, I notice the room seems to go on forever to the left and right, taking up the entire floor. So, none of those other doors we passed led anywhere.

The space isn't lit very well, and an easily recognizable haze of illegal smoke hangs low like an oppressive fog in a VR mystery. Well-dressed people mill about with drinks in their hands, many of them with a smoking apparatus clamped between their teeth, releasing gusts of multi-colored and multi-flavored smoke with every exhalation. Everyone is absorbed in some type of conversation, a few serious with their heads together, others more flamboyant with violent hand gestures and explosive laughter. There must be close to a hundred citizens in here, clustered on low couches, standing in huddles, drifting with the music, never remaining in one place for too long.

Unlike me. I've been standing as still as a tree since I stepped inside. Yet no one seems to notice.

So I enter the organized melee and try to look natural. Like I belong here. Keeping an eye out for Erik—who seems to have been swallowed whole, never to reappear—I navigate the perimeter of the animated, smoke-spewing throngs. In the distance, where the lights are even lower, I spy the glow of multiple screens and dark figures hunched over what appears to be a bank of antique computer consoles. I decide to drift nonchalantly in that direction.

"Drink?" A tall blonde in a silver cocktail dress steps in front of me. She has an athletic build and carries a platter with a variety of beverages on display—wine, beer, martinis, others I don't recognize. No idea where she came from, but she seems eager to share her bounties. "Smoke? Dust?"

Dust. Offered like it's just another variety of legal indulgences. How many people in here are high on the stuff? So far, nobody is climbing across the ceiling, so the abilities it produces must be more subdued. Like telepathy, for instance.

"I'm looking for someone." I lean toward her and raise my voice over the din. No band in sight, so the music must be recorded, playing through speakers I haven't been able to spot. "We got separated."

"You're with Erik, right?" She flashes me a gorgeous smile, the kind you might see on a VR model. Come to think of it, haven't I seen her online? "He sent me over. Said he'll just be a minute, that you should unwind a little while you wait." She lowers the platter and thrusts a glass of red wine at me. Her smile doesn't waver, but I get the distinct impression that she's stalling me.

"I don't drink." I slide past her and keep walking.

She grips my arm with sharp fingernails that dig through the fabric of Erik's jacket. The platter of drinks remains steady in her other hand.

"On the house, Enforcer Chen."

"Where's Erik?" I don't try to pull away. Not interested in making a scene. Also, not sure how many of these dust-addled revelers will rush to her aid if I knock her to the floor.

"Neck deep in negotiations, at the moment." She doesn't relax her grip.

So, it's a standoff. "I'm here in an unofficial capacity."

"Yes, we know. You never would have gotten in the door, otherwise." She gives me a friendly wink. "C'mon, take a load off. Erik will be back before you know it."

Without my augments, I have no way of knowing if what she's saying is true. But I don't need them, do I? Because I've got this weird mind-reading ability now. And not only can I dig around in her brain, but everybody else here is fair game, as well. So I replay their memories of Erik's arrival and where exactly he went, once he stepped into this murky dive bar.

What I see doesn't inspire confidence in this waitress's sense of honesty.

I chop her in the throat and yank my arm free, resuming my course toward the computer bank and the secret room beyond, cloaked in a hologram that reflects the lounge's revelry and modifies it just enough to make it look unique, extending the illusion that the room goes on for another fifty meters. How do I know? Because as soon as Erik stepped inside, two blank-faced bouncers converged on him, each one taking him by the arm and escorting him into the invisible room. As they passed through the holo-cloak, it rippled around them like a disturbed pool of water and then stilled once they disappeared on the other side.

No one but the friendly waitress—currently doubled over and wheezing with a hand to her windpipe and her tray of drinks miraculously unspilled—saw Erik's gruff welcome take place. Everyone else in attendance apparently had eyes only for each other or their screens.

And still do. Not one of them races over to ask the waitress what's wrong.

She curses me in a hoarse rasp, saying somebody named Trezon will tear me apart. Something to avoid.

I pass the computer consoles and keep my eyes to myself. The people hunched over the old-fashioned keyboards quickly close out whatever's on their screens and mutter expletives aimed in my general direction. Picking up the pace, I head for the holo-cloaked room and walk straight through the mirage.

No one's waiting on the other side—just a nondescript wall, closing off this end of the room. And in the middle of the wall, less than a meter in front of me, a single steel door with a retinal scanner mounted beside it.

I consider going back for the waitress. Grabbing her by the arm and dragging her over here to stare into the