MINI-READ Seventeenth Installment
This seventeenth mini-read installment ran for two weeks from 06/04/20 to 20/04/20 which features the eighteenth chapter of Participant In Entropia by Andrew Jenery.
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Participant In Entropia
The Typhon Aftermath and Something Strange
Stumbling around but somehow not falling over, I finally managed to focus on my surroundings. Eh!? What was happening - and where was I? The more I looked; now that my vision had fully returned, the more I was confused. Everything was different and there were other citizens here and there looking just as lost as I was, and there was something else that was not right. Everything around me was covered in some bright-white snow and it was much colder than usual, even with the internal heating of my cognac coat. Still, I'm sure I would have been frozen without it. One of the wanderers had come slightly closer, so I introduced myself through the face-guard's voice amplifier. “Hi – I'm John.” “Dillinger...” “OK, hi! What in Calypso is going on? Everything's changed – and this snow that's everywhere. All I remember – just about, is the last Typhon warnings, that fireball in the sky - and that's about it...” Dillinger chuckled slightly at this. “Ha, ha, ha... That's about all everyone remembers, but according to the info terminals, anyone in the area was auto teleported to cryogenic capsules beneath Hadesheim and this snow everywhere is due to some atmospheric bla-bla that happened as a result. Of the impact! It's frozen water in the atmosphere, or something...” I took-in what he was saying as much as I could whilst producing my electronic atlas and hitting the power switch. “Right, I get you...” I just stared at the map, which was completely different from how it was before. “The outline of Calypso's continents are completely changed, and I never heard about the cryogenics during all the warnings!” Dillinger shrugged at this. “Nope... Nobody did, but I'm sure glad we're alive. It's a miracle - if you think about it..” “Yep. We also wouldn't be walking around if it wasn't for our heat exchangers.' Two small pools had formed beneath my thermal Reiley boots, which I pointed at. “Looks like you're right. It is frozen water! Never seen anything like it in the years I've been playing – and it's still falling. I can hardly see anything.” “Yer – it's been like that for weeks, months according to some people.” I shook my head, not quite certain if I had heard him correctly. “Months!?” “Yea! It's been like this for at least months. Two or three, or more... The cryogenics hadn't teleported us back outside all at once – you must have been one of the last one's to have come out.” “Thanks for the info. That explains a lot – didn't know what was going on to begin with. Right, I'm off to Omegaton, if I can find a teleporter. That's where all my gear is...' “Well there's no teleports round here. Hadesham was flattened. The nearest one from here is Corinth I believe. And one other thing... You won't find anything in your place either, if that's where you're going to. If you had anything, it will all be in matter compacts in personal storage.” I was very glad that Dillinger had told me this. Because, if I had gone all the way to my apartment in Omegaton and found nothing in it, I wouldn't have been very happy. “Great – thanks! That's exactly what I was going to do. Thanks for the info. When I'm sorted we can get some mobs later or do some mining...” “Nope! Can't do. Just spent what little I had left before the fireworks on DNA fragments. I already had a small plot and I'm hoping to spawn some Berycleds and Daikiba's. Don't know if it'll work, but...” “He, he! You're going into the landowner business. I wish you luck, you're gonna need it...” He just nods as I fire-up the teleporter chip and vamoosh a few split-seconds later in the direction of Cape Corinth. It took me about five teleporter-chip jaunts in the end to get to Cape Corinth and mob activity had been fairly high in-between, but finally I managed to find a personal storage terminal and the two matter compacts that Dillinger had mentioned. The matter-shrinking technology boffins must have reached new levels of refinement at some point, because the matter compacts themselves were no bigger than some of the armour pieces I was wearing, but most important of all, the virtual viewer was showing that the entire contents of my apartment was somehow held within their confines. How, I didn't know exactly, but the main thing was that everything was there. Then I fired-up the matter transferrer, and within seconds the two compacts were in my personal inventory. Alighting onto the teleporter, it wasn't long before I was once again in the slightly more familiar surroundings of Omegaton West Habitat. Slightly more familiar, because even here things had changed and white frozen water, or snow, was still falling everywhere. The teleporter was on top of a stepped entrance and the long rampart had gone, as well as the landscape being different. Everything was different... Calypso's government city-planers had obviously been working overtime with their works robots, as it took me a while to find the Beta-complex where my apartment was, but eventually I did and it wasn't long before I was inside my now very bare and humble looking abode. Again I used the matter transferrer to place the two compacts in front of me in the middle of the main room, then pressed the matter conversion switches on the two units. The matter compacts must have been programmed not only to restore things to their original state, but also to their original position, because in a few seconds, everything was exactly where it had been before. However, my personal bank-balance teller was still telling me that I was very low on funds, so it was time once again to hit the outside world to get some more much needed commodities that I could sell for credits or exchange for items that I badly needed. Checking once more that everything was as it should be, I quick-marched back to the entry door which opened before me, and alighted onto the televator. End of this mini-read instalment. Click here for the next chapter or chapters of Participant In Entropia which runs from 29/06/20- 13/07/20.
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