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, 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 her discover Althen, the largest city in the Free World.
EPISODE VI - Ravine Skulls
The team nursery in a room fitted out like an old rink: small oval track in the center, cluttered with studs, hanging bars and other training elements, curved ramps and steep slopes occupy the rest of the space. Above, mezzanines connect habitable blocks by walkways, stairs fall at the edge of the rink. An armored locker room of dismantled quads, buggy helmets and old knee pads catches Molly's eye. Every team has its stock of rougnes for new recruits. Tob blows to him that the girls are in cardio training on the slopes, then takes him in his corner to him: a workbench crammed with stuff of recovery ', expired circuits and dismantled electronic devices. In a patched metal shelf, a small visioboard is connected to a twisted antenna. The boy places the package on the work surface, among the screws, bolts and rollers.
- Come on, touch me that.
Kneeling before Molly, he inspects his cyber prostheses. Its guibolles are a balanced amalgam of mechanical and flesh-colored plastic shells. It goes up along the limbs and the joints by small pressure of the fingers through the therapy: the feet, the ankles, the legs, the knees, Molly Pop is redone to the top of the thighs. The reduction ensures the biotonic functionality of the lower limbs, but they are disproportionate, hence its difficulties in walking.
- The pelvis has not taken a fart. The terminanche of the nerves recover the sensaille?
- Not yet.
- But it turns.
- Cyber links are active. The legs follow orders from my brain, subconsciously, as if they had always been there.
- It's really good work.
- These are dwarf legs.
- Are not made to frolic. They are made to roll.
To ride. Like an echo, a heat wave submerges Molly Pop. The specter of his past life saturates his mind. Her family bleed for one day to go back on the Track, and they have only one idea in mind, selfish and primary: revenge. The cocoon jammer pushes Tob away and closes his loden.
- It's okay, you're done rinsing your eye.
The door of the room opens loudly, ejecting his dark ideas. A pack of girls in sports clothes, sweaty and noisy, spreads in the room. They rush on the stairs and on the walkways leading to the blocks, some immediately get rid of their skinners bathed in sweat, releasing their swollen breasts with effort. Each one gains its square. The din of showers floods the local piping network.
The last one to cross the door is the only one to come to meet them. She shakes a badly brushed afro and swings her quads over her shoulder.
- He doesn't rinse his eye, he can't ... So, are you happy?
- I have laid her that slab, for now.
- I don't care, Tobie. I don't want her on my team.
The boy does not have time to open his mouth; Molly Pop catches up with the leader before she goes upstairs.
- Am I having a problem? That's good: I get out of here as soon as your boyfriend gives me back my package.
The leader of the Ravine Skulls stops at the bottom of a staircase and stares at the jammer.
- Look at this: the great Molly Pop is waking up. Does she remember me, at least?
Molly Pop looks at him. The leader is larger than her, about the same age, but nothing comes back to her.
- Obviously not, she continues. So we do it like this. Get your barda and get out.
The two women turn their backs, but Tob does not cooperate. He grabs the bag and leads Molly into an annex to the room which holds her room, as messy as her workbench.
- I need this bag.
- I'm going to punch you, you idiot.
He steps back against the back of his square, moving a wheel-mounted seat between him and Molly.
- In your guns, there is a small soldering iron. I need it to make up new tasers for girlfriends. I bite you, you keep the rest.
- I'm leaving with everything.
With a quick gesture, Molly Pop hangs the bag. The ramboror does not drop his booty.
- Seriously, Molly Pop. We need you here. You stay, you eat and you sleep for free. Do not be careful with the girls, especially Broody, they have not been humble since the last race. We lost a blocker.
- Did she get away?
- No. In Althen, we die on the Track.
Molly Pop reads mourning in her eyes. The buzzing of the water pipes echoes all around them. She herself is aware of the danger, of death slipping under the wheels of the packs that compete on the Track.
- Look, kid. If I'm here, it's to find someone. I have about two weeks to do this. After, I go back to the Cocoon, far from all that.
- No one goes back into the Cocoon. The Réclusionneur is the only entrance and you caught it yourself earlier: you get knocked out as soon as you set foot on the gangway. The Reclusive Gardouille has military oculus for rodave holograms and the bullets of their rifles are supposed to head. You have no chance. On the other hand, with you, the Ravine Skulls could take the Derby X hotspot, and our good life.
- Your leader doesn't want me on the team.
- Broody will turn his mind. We need a new pivot and you're the slimmest in all of Althen.
- I'm a jammer.
- In barter, I assist you to find the zigue you are looking for.
Molly Pop bites her tongue, then spits the song out.
- Her name is Ubie Stevna. She came down by the Reclaimer a few days before me.
A worried look crosses Tob's face. One thing he doesn't say.
- Well, it's folded. It was started by Althen's biggest team: the Wicked Demons.
Molly Pop feels the whirlwind, but her heart is beating faster than her thoughts.
- So if we can die on the Track, I need new quads. And a worker.
To be continued…
Discover the next episode on our site on May 3 at 5 p.m. or on the Rocambole app for iOS or Android.
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