Snippet #821846

“Warning: landing in ten minutes.”

The sound woke Crip up and he vanished from under his covers in the blink of an eye. The same instant, he appeared above a grate-metal walkway in a dark maintenance corridor and twisted to get his foot and prosthetic under him before he hit the ground. A piece of his blanket floated to the metal beside him. Damn! Well, at least he had jumped too much this time and not too little. He'd been practicing emergency jumps by waiting for some sort of alarm to startle him, whether he was cooking, reading or sleeping, and then jumping out of there. It was really risky; he not only had to make sure he didn't leave a piece of him behind, but also figure out the distance for the jump in a split second. If he did that math wrong, he'd end up in a wall and it would be bye bye Mister Crip. Then again, he wouldn't be practicing it if it wasn't dangerous. A few planned risks were a hell of a lot better than being woken up by a killer and not being prepared.

Crip picked up the blanket shred and draped it over the railing so he'd see it on his way back to his hideout and remember to repair it. The size of the shred upset him; everything seemed to be a reminder of how awful life really was these days. This time it was a reminder that he could never fall in love. What if that was his wife laying next to him? He'd be picking up shreds of her, then. A heavy sigh proceeded the words, "Sometimes, I miss the ignorance." before he spun on his good leg and headed for the hatch back into the main hall. He was in the landing dome not too far from the bay. This had been the perfect dome to set up little hiding places like the one he just jumped out of for four reasons. First: it was heavily locked down. That didn't hinder him at all, but just about anyone who might want to get to him would have a bit more trouble. Second: this dome was one of the last to be added when the planet suddenly became a prison colony and a place for secure prisoner exchanges was immediately apparent (it seems administrations doesn't approve of their expensive ships being stolen all the time). That meant it was put up after the towers, so there was no need for radiation paneling. Radiation paneling was not something Crip wanted to attempt a jump through. Third: because it was designed as more of a landing pad for big ships than for the people on the planet, it was really big and had lots of unused nooks and crannies. And finally, the place was almost always deserted. Crip spent a month in and out of this place building a little apartment on top of the dome and hardly saw a soul. That was very, very nice.

But right now it wasn't deserted. A ship was coming in, so there were actually people moving around and working. Crip listened for a full minute before unlatching the utility hatch and stepping out into the hall. The next hall down would have a observation room that looked into the docking bay. He strode his way there in the funny way a man with two different feet did and stopped at the door to, one more time, make sure there was nobody around, then jumped through it. Jumping didn't have any fancy light shows or puffs of smoke. He was just there and then he wasn't. On the other side of the door he just wasn't there and then he was. The only evidence of what he just did was that the door would be warm to the touch. He always left a slight heat trail. Denser objects could get quite hot, indeed.

The view from the large window was horrible, but Crip never planned on watching from here; he just wanted a line-of-sight. He'd be sitting on the same hanging light as he'd been watching from for the last two drops. It was about 40 feet above the walkway and had a perfect view of the ship's big door; nobody ever looked at it. He jumped to it and sat down casually to watch the newcomers. A gust of hot air tipped him off balance for a second when he did so, but that didn't bother him. The engines had just shut off and their effects were still circulating the air. For some reason, Crip liked the smell of it. It actually helped him relax for a second and he even smiled a bit. He needed that boost , because he saw Leon and his men pass below a few moments later. True, it had to have been one of them that took care of him when he first landed here, but since then they had been a huge pest. They were a false front that gave people high hopes before shoving them into Hell. Like guiding them up a flight of stairs before dropping them into a pit: it only made the fall that much farther. Crip had been in scrapes with them, too. All ending in him jumping away to some safe place. He knew a couple of their malformities, but not the majority and not Leon's. He knew Leon was a good shot, the bastard, and that was probably worse than whatever got him here.

Once they were inside the ship and out of view, Crip spun around just to check. Yep, there was Peng, waiting patiently. Crip still had no idea how he felt about the "kid"; if he could call him--it--whatever, that. It was a....unique situation. Talk said that Peng was built by a beast, or that his body died so he made a new one out of trash, or that he was simply a demon and should be killed. Whichever one, Crip was inclined to like him, but he was on the wrong side of things and Crip made a point to never talk to someone without a reason. So he never talked to Peng. Not that that mattered, now. The fresh meat would be dragged out soon and Crip wanted prime pickings. He twisted back around and got comfortable to watch, again.