Kasey still had nightmares of his initial time in this world under the threat of the monster that had killed the four legged creature. He had spent his time like a rat crawling in the cold dark labyrinth that sprawls under the city scavenging for resources to keep his body fed and his home powered.

Much of the city’s depths were made of unstable tunnels that could collapse at any moment and occasionally there could still be functioning weapons and traps set by the forces of the past still waiting for their long dead adversaries.

Every moment in the ruined city’s depths was that of life and death. Not to mention other creatures that roamed the city’s underworld ecosystem.

Intact technology and rations from the past were scarce in the ruins depths as time and the intense warfare long ago had used, buried or destroyed that which was once useful.

So sometimes he would hunt the underworld’s inhabitants becoming part of the never ending game of hiding, ambushing and consuming that was played among the creatures of the depths.

It was in the underworld that Kasey had fully explored the processing and sensory power of his augmented body as every vibration, sound, smell, taste and marking could be a clue to survive. While he would set traps and ambushes using any possible resource just to acquire some food for his energy Hungry body.

All of this was while he didn’t dare to venture to the surface as occasionally the apex beasts that prowled above ground would clash and their fights would make the ruins seem as though they had descended in full blown warfare once again.

It wasn’t until one day the entire region began to quake randomly for a week and the underground continually collapsed from the vibrations of battle forcing Kasey to huddle inside his hanger quietly hopping whatever monstrosity causing the mayhem would leave.

Only when the chaos had settled and Kasey went outside did he realize the apex beasts in the area had all been killed. This allowed him to hunt on the surface for bigger prey however he had to adapt from the slow methodical paradigm of the underground to the quick paced and stealthy lifestyle of those weaker creatures on the surface.

It was when he could finally hunt bigger prey that he had time and energy to spare for other tasks like exploring or figuring out how to jury rig and use some of the technology he had found to improve his life in the hostile ruins.

***

Kasey was running along a road toward towering structures that twinkled with lights under the ever cloudy skies of the world. He was so happy at finally making it and wanted to talk to someone. As he ran along the road that had a field of flowers bordering it he saw two figures before him.

“Hello!”

He yelled as he ran towards the backs of the two. The two turned towards him and smiled. Kasey however slowed his advance. There was something off with these people.

The two saw Kasey slowing down his run and their smiles grew too large for their faces and long teeth began to protrude from their mouths.

The fields of flowers morphed into the bloody faces of corpses. While the distant city’s buildings took the shape of long red tentacles that began to approach him like a wave.

Kasey could only stare in horror as the jarring descent from utter joy to complete terror caused his mind to freeze.

Kasey quickly sat up from where he lay and looked around sweating. He was still in his hanger and still was safe.

He shook his head to remove his drowsiness and calmed himself through long breaths.

“Kate what time is it?”

“It is a quarter past four. You have five hours until you must depart.”

Fay made a brilliant smile.

“Hehehe it is finally time to kill that fucking stupid beast.”

He often would talk to Kate to take his mind off the nightmares he often had.

An unfortunate side effect of this body that Kasey had yet to solve is that when he sleeps his augmented brain operates without proper management and solely on the subconscious. This leads to it generating extremely vivid dreams that can bring forth deep emotions and feel quite real.

It had once caused Kasey to sleep for two days while subconsciously thinking he was undertaking his normal daily routine before he eventually noticed.

The biggest problem is that he can sometimes mix up what has happened in real life and what has only been a figment of his imagination. This is because he doesn’t forget his dream or much else for that matter as his memory is near perfect.

Kasey stood up and grabbed a ration jelly and scooped a cup of water from a barrel.

He sat cross legged on the floor in the middle of the hanger enjoying his cup of water and the also clear jelly that he squeezed from the tube which lacked any flavor.

Normally he would avoid the ration jelly like the plague however with possible salvation ever closer rather than waste time hunting for meat he would rather just eat the jelly which contained everything his body required anyway.

Kasey sat there and thought about his recent dream. The dreams he experiences are constructed from his subconscious and this is not the first time he has had a dream similar to this.

This is most likely a reflection of his worries at what he may find when he reaches civilization and tries to interact without knowing what the civilization is like or whether they are even human.

For all he knows they may be humans but the mere act of him waving at them may be considered a threat causing them to burn Kasey at the stake or something.

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This is the reason why he had never tried to wave down the aircraft. Since he couldn't just roll up and say hi he decided that he would first scout out whatever the destination of the aircraft is as the designs from what Kasey had observed has many similarities to the human wrecks in the ruins.

However there are multiple issues that Kasey had to solve in order to first reach humanity.

Firstly he could not travel by foot. The reason why this is the case is for two main reasons. For one these ruins were once a battlefield and some of the weapons used still affect it to this day.

However more importantly while the apex beasts in his current area have been cleared for the aircraft to travel through.

The same cannot be said for others and without prior knowledge he cannot follow the aircraft on foot as they travel too fast to track.

Next even if he decided to slowly chart a course using the intermittent flyovers of the aircraft he would have to prepare for a journey which will take him though unknown areas that may not have any supplies like where he currently is.

So if he cannot travel on foot that leaves vehicles that way he can travel faster and carry supplies so the lack of them in a certain area does not affect the journey.

Since the terrain is far too complex to move a ground vehicle through that leaves one option.

Kasey looked at the sharp angles of his own stealth shuttle that sat in the hangar. It had a rear opening door that led to a cargo bay that could hold a team of twelve men.

There were no windows anywhere even for the two seater cockpit in the front, rather the hull was completely covered with an angular armor design. The shuttle had a length of about thirteen meters and did not feature any obvious thrusters, rather it uses small maneuvering thrusters under normal circumstances and only opens larger thrust ports when more speed is required.

Thrust can be provided in any direction due to the shuttle being designed for use in space and atmosphere however there is a bias toward rearwards thrust. For atmospheric flight it features forward swept wings even though it could fly without them it is more efficient to use wings to turn and fly at speed in the atmosphere.

What seems to be the main feature of this design is it using limited thrust whenever possible most likely due to the thrusters increasing its chance of detection. It is to that end it uses some sort of tech to manipulate its own interaction with gravity.

That's right while within gravity it can fly solely on its gravity manipulation. The only issue is while supposedly stealthy it is slow. This is where the problem lies for Kasey as to follow the supposed human aircraft he needs to be faster.

The gravity tech works off energy stored onboard the craft while its thrusters are powered by what kasey considers to be a black box he has no idea how it produces energy nor how the thrusters work he doesn't even know how the gravity manipulation works for that matter.

What does matter though is that he gets fuel for the shuttle because currently it can only be flown using the power stored in its energy storage. Of which is charged using the equally complex reactor aboard the mech torso that sits in the hanger.

This arrangement however only provides limited flight time along with a long charge time back in this hanger.

Kasey had finished his meal and threw the ration jelly tube over his shoulder while he left his cup on the floor as he walked over to the area where he had left his gear from yesterday in a pile.

He grabbed his mobility pack and the harness it attaches to and placed them on a clean bench nearby.

This area was where he kept and maintained his gear that he used. On the desk he thoroughly checked the harness that mounted the mobility pack to his body for any damage. Following with an inspection of the mobility gear.

The mobility pack was a constant headache for Kasey as it was vital for his movement through the ruins but after years of usage despite its quality construction it was definitely showing its age.

He had spent plenty of his time reverse engineering it and had leveraged the full computation power of his augmented brain and used Kate’s computing and deducing abilities to understand it enough to prolong its life.

This mobility gear was what came with him in the escape pod, however it was supposed to have a second part which carried most of the fuel and dealt with its calculations for thrust and nozzle movements.

The most important function though was its neural interface which as the name states allows the wearer to directly control the set by thought alone.

He grabbed a collar that had a small module hanging off the side and placed it around his neck, the module sat just under his ear. This module was a neural interface from a combat armor Kasey had salvaged.

He grabbed a custom cable and plugged it into the neural interface then to a box on top of the mobility pack. This setup was Kaseys solution to the missing part. The box on the mobility pack was essentially an adapter that interfaced to where the back mounted part of the gear was supposed to transfer data instead. The cable then runs up to provide power and data transfer between the neural interface and the mobility pack.

He used the neural interface and tried to see if there were any issues with the mobility pack which luckily there weren’t.

He then removed the interface and checked various pieces such as his armor which featured some gouges here and there.

His armor was made from light metal pieces he had shaped using tools in the hanger. This was because the soldiers of the ruins seemed to only use combat armor which was fully enclosed however too heavy to wear without mechanical assistance and despite his efforts he has never found one intact enough. So he settled to protect his vital organs.

There wasn't much to his clothing that was made similar to a ghillie suit as it had many loose rags to break up his shape and make him blend into the terrain. He only looked for tears in the clothes.

He then handled his grenade launcher which was a very simple single shot launcher that was a mount on some armor that he had essentially taken the barrel from and converted to a break action launcher.

Once he was happy with his gear he put it on and started loading the shuttle with food, water ammunition, various weapons and other items he would take with him as he would likely not come back for a long time.

Kasey walked up to the mech torso that had been sitting to the side.

He had taken many of its parts off such as its sensors with the direction of Kate.

From his understanding of the machines that litter the ruins the remains of this mech contains some of the most advanced bits of tech. So he has stripped anything still in decent condition from its frame and will be packing it into the shuttle along with other bits of salvage he believes to be valuable.

As he may need to sell the salvage for money or he may one day learn how to use some of the parts.

“Kate I'm leaving so I'm going to be moving you over.”

“Affirmative shutting down.”

The low hum from the reactor died off and Kasey got to work removing it using an overhead crane that was used for aircraft maintenance in this hangar. He had long prepared for the reactor's removal so it was a quick process.

He placed the reactor in a cradle that he wheeled into the shuttle. It took up a fair amount of room inside however it was probably worth it.

The last bit he removed was the computation core from the mech frame. He hopped inside the shuttle through a hatch into the cockpit as the rear was now too packed. Inside of the cockpit he popped open a panel and slid the computational core into a slot.

“Are you ready to see the world Kate?”

Kasey said with a bit of joy.

“I have integrated with the shuttle’s systems.”

Kasey suddenly felt something was off so he thought for a bit. He slapped his forehead.

“That’s right I have never named this shuttle… let’s call it Arc as it is like Noah’s arc to us.”