Every day at 5 p.m., find a new episode of Mortal Derby X on 20 Minutes , Rocambole's soap opera, the app for reading differently. This series of SF projects us into a post-collapse world, the king sport of which is Quad Derby, a confrontation halfway between Roller derby and Rollerball. Its author, Michael Roch, is not an unknown. He has already published science fiction novels and hosts the YouTube book brigade.
Summary of previous episodes: During a Quad Derby match accident, Molly Pop, star of this sport, is violently kicked off the track by another competitor. She wakes up in the hospital with prosthetics in place of the legs and hatred deep in the heart. What is not tolerated in the Cocoon, the only protector of the human species since the Great Collapse of 2030 ... Molly is condemned to exile. Barely out of the Cocoon, she falls on Tob who makes him discover Althen, the largest city in the Free World and enlists him in his team to participate in the Mortal Derby X. The first leg is a failure but Molly noticed a staircase on the course, which leads to a bomb threatening the Cocoon and Althen.
EPISODE XIV - Flee or die
The night passes and the spirits cogitate. In the morning, on the rink, the girls drag their paws and exchange low masses. Molly Pop is the target, she knows it. She feels it on her neck, catches the eye in her peripheral vision. She requests that training be stopped. Brood B. Queen brings them together in the center of the room.
- If there are some who want to play it hypocritical bitches and speak behind the backs of others, let them go do it at the Conan Dolls of Althen East. I don't want plagues in the pack. So if one of you wants to spit your mollard, let her do it right here and now.
Mama Doom steps forward.
- We wonder, with the girls, what forces us to help the Cocoon, or Althen? We just have to get out of here, us. Let them die. There are other cities behind the mountain. We all know it. And if Rigbal wants to blow his face with his madness, then let him do it. It doesn't concern us. And I speak not only for my apple, there are many to think so.
"The problem isn't there," said Molly. There are families and children up there. There is my family. There are yours, all around us. Don't you want to fight for them?
- You don't hit why we nursery here? We are all orphans. Our mothers died on the Track. Our only family is the pack. There is only us, us against the world. Against the piss, the false hopes, and against those from above. This world is brilliant, eh! We can clearly see it at night. But we're not butterflies, Molly Pop. We don't care about that world. He doesn't want us, it doesn't matter. We survive very well without him.
Black Sarah advances in turn and tempers.
- It's not that we don't give a damn about the Requisitors and the society they built in the Cocoon. It is because we refuse to feel enslaved by their dogmas. Why do we celebrate Derby X under their spots, when we know they shoot on sight? Why are they shooting, when the last uprising of the Free World dates from several generations? This is because they always think they are above, dominant. But the reality, we know it: they are just afraid of losing their privileges. Our freedom, we acquired it by our desire to be free, not by opposing their system. We live as we see fit. We are independent until we die.
- But you remain slaves, retorts Molly Pop, slaves of your laziness. You live in filth, murder, rape and drugs is your only way out! You call Althen the "Free World", but ultimately you build nothing on it. And all this out of laziness, I repeat. You vaguely reproduce what the Cocoon already does, without understanding what a truly free and united society is. Althen will never get by if you don't choose to build a common good. You prefer indifference, selfishness, immobility, and you refuse to assume the freedom that you claim. Ask yourself the question: is your independence useful for something, or are you ruining it miserably? I have my own idea.
Silence swells the space of the room until Tob's boots hit the dry ground. He returns from a night of hack, atomized eyes, non-existent eyelids and dark circles that hang like saddlebags.
- The message got through. They just answered.
To be continued…
Discover the next episode on our site on May 11 at 5 p.m. or on the Rocambole app for iOS or Android.
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