Andromeda's Fall (Legion of the Damned) Read Online Free PDF Page A

magazines by then, but the synth on the escalator had opened fire, and a line of bullets chased Cat toward the formal entry. A blast of humid, ozone-tainted air hit her in the face as the door slid out of the way, and she ran into traffic. Horns blared, tires screeched, and there was a loud crash as a semitransparent taxicab hit the rear end of an automated delivery truck.
    A synth stepped out onto the sidewalk and opened fire as Cat dodged around the front end of a passenger car. Bullets rattled as they hit both sheet metal and the driver, causing him to jerk spastically and slump over the wheel. Then the robot’s line of fire was blocked as a bus hit the pileup and propelled a limo into an intersection, where a powered unicycle slammed into it.
    Cat had left the street by then and was about to limp into the half-lit passageway between two buildings, when there was a crack of artificial thunder. She turned in time to see multiple tongues of fire belch out of the tower’s fifth-floor windows. Then, as tons of debris rained down onto the street, she witnessed a series of lesser explosions. That was when Cat realized something important. Esparto’s governor had been appointed to her position by Emperor Alfred. Which meant that just about all of her guests could be counted among his supporters. So the synths had been ordered to kill all of them. Not just her. She was little more than a detail in a much larger plan.
    The knowledge brought little comfort as sirens began to wail, and Cat turned away. Tears ran down her cheeks as she limped through a shadowy passageway to the street beyond. North–south traffic was still flowing there. So Cat stepped between a couple of cars and raised a hand. Two cabs passed her by, but the third stopped. The rear door hissed open, and Cat slid inside. The cab was semitransparent, but she knew her features would be little more than a shadow to people outside.
    “Where to?” the driver inquired, as he eyed her in the rearview mirror. He was wearing dreadlocks, light-enhancing goggles, and had a stim stick dangling from one corner of his mouth. If he was aware of the explosion, there was no sign of it.
    Outside of the rarefied world she lived in, Cat knew very little about Elysium. But she’d heard of an area called the darkside. A sprawling neighborhood, by all accounts, where many members of the working class lived. In other words, the last place a socialite was likely to go. “Drop me in the darkside.”
    The driver frowned. “Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    A fire truck had been forced to stop behind the cab. The man at the wheel hit the siren, and the cabbie flipped him off before accelerating away.
    Cat gave a sigh of relief and allowed herself to lean back against the seat. The next problem was how to pay the fare. And Uncle Rex was correct. The moment she used a credit card, the synths would know where she’d been. She checked and her clutch was still there—held in place by a gold cord that ran crosswise across her body. After poking around inside it she came up with a half dozen coins intended for use as tips. Would they be sufficient? Cat hoped so as the driver made a series of turns, and the skyscrapers gradually shrunk into five- and ten-story buildings. Garish signs battled each other for dominance as clothing stores, bars, restaurants, nightclubs, tattoo parlors, and bakeries fought for customers.
    And there were lots of people on the streets. Most were human, although Cat spotted an exoskeleton-clad Dweller, some colorful Prithians exiting a bar, and a pair of Ramanthians. None were citizens of the human empire. But all three races had something in common, and that was the need for trade, and a common fear of the marauding Hudathans. “Okay,” the driver said. “Where should I drop you off?”
    “The next corner is fine,” Cat said as she eyed the fare on the screen in front of her. The total fell just below the amount of money she had. And the rest would go to a