"The asphalt resounds with scratches. Exits are closed and, when a ratigeur emerges in front of them, blocking with his cadaverous silhouette the narrow passage by which they flee, Broody and Molly Pop understand that they are lost." - GettyImages

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. At the end of the first training Molly falls into a trap. ..

EPISODE VIII - Ratrigator trap

Their leader is an old man with a deconstructed silhouette. Under his loden, the arms are missing. Instead, a skeleton of biotonic prostheses will rust. The hands he points at the runners are scissors that cut through the air. Her voice is as destroyed as her hollow face.
- Here comes the gueuleton, kids.
And the other five ratrigants to jump on them. Broody draws his cleaver and first electrocutes an uppercut on the nose. Without a handgun, Molly Pop falls back on his quads. She puts them on her hands. Bangs everything that sticks out, everything that snot, bleeds and piss. We grab her hair, we pull her against the ground, she hits blind. We stick it, we press it, we drag it on the tar, it plays on the knees, breaking ribs, crushing testicles. Under the lodens and the shutters of the lousy ones, there are cries and groans, broken cartilage and broken tracheae. The old leper finds himself alone, his henchmen are knocked out. He tries to threaten the jammer of the Ravines with his sharpened arms, but, facing the electric shocks, walks away screaming.
- We're not staying there, coward Broody. The ratrigeurs are weak in small groups. Others will not be long in coming.
They run in the alleys, by the fastest way towards Althen and its crowd, outside the Zone. Strident howls rise above the roofs of the working area; barks and croaks which, little by little, enclose them in a trap. Shadows jump over them. The asphalt resounds with scratches. Exits close and, when a ratigeur emerges before them, blocking with his cadaverous silhouette the narrow passage by which they flee, Broody and Molly Pop understand that they are lost.
- They're all around.
- So, we go for it.
Broody does not slow down and pounces on the ratigeur, a woman as skinny as a nail. She smashes his jaw against the corner of the wall and clears the aisle. Other ratragers fall from the roofs, throw themselves on their prey. They are hungry.
Molly Pop is slowed down by the imbalance of her cyber legs. Hands grip his loden. The quad shots she sends are incisive. She smashes skulls, explodes arches, plucks teeth, and follows the scorched scorch that Broody leaves in his wake. "Come on! She shouts, pushing forward, "Come on! "

Tob is at his workbench, screwing the front brake of a quad, when the heavy door of the room opens. Broody and Molly Pop wear each other out of strength, brawling hair and flayed cheeks. He rushes towards them.
- I bet for ratigators.
- We got away with it. And Molly Pop will be with us for the next race.
The rambineur helps them to climb the stairs and opens their rooms to them.
- I'm served. We're going to have this money.

Molly Pop slams her door. The bed in the room still reeks of Kinky Doll's nightmares. She sprawls on the mattress, a patchwork of lodens of leather and wool, grafted onto the remains of an old chicken mesh. Not enough to rest his bruises. Around her, the things of the old pivot, her shorties, her skinners, her tees litter the ground. Molly Pop will be gone before having to sort it out. In a corner of the square, a past colored cloth bars the access to a small shower cubicle; a pipe runs through the ceilings, connecting each room from one end of the walkways to the other, Molly Pop opens it by reaching out. The water is hot.
Molly Pop is naked when Broody enters the galley. She looks at her breasts before planting his gaze in hers.
- You insured, earlier.
- I was going to take a shower there.
Molly grabs the laundry hanging in front of the shower and covers her body.
- We talk again about the interlocutor later, ok?
- I meant "on the Track". Few girls manage to follow me.
The leader of the Ravine Skulls pinches her mouth in a pout of approval.
- Make yourself at home, Molly. Just, in this jumble, there's a shorty marked "Spank it if you can". Kinky said he was lucky. She didn't put it on her last Track tour. Maybe you should find him.
- I'll think about it.
As if to say "come on, get out". Except that Broody takes his time, looking for the piece of flesh that sticks out of the sheet.
- It will suit you. I think.

To be continued…

Discover the next episode on our site on May 5 at 5 p.m. or on the Rocambole app for iOS or Android.

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