After pouring the acid onto the dead bodies, Riley covered the deep hole with its plastic shovel, “all sorted! Sorry for having you waiting this whole time. What are you looking at?”
Eleanor was staring what appeared to be a notebook of the outlaws that dropped from the pocket of one of the bodies. Riley walked over and examined the object, “seems quite clean on first glance, but I must get rid of it once…”
“I’m done,” Eleanor stood up quickly and headed towards Jeff.
Riley watched Eleanor getting into the vehicle and dripped the remaining drops of acid onto the notebook. Then, it put the lid back on and entered the AFV, “time to head to the control station, or we’ll be out of acid.”
The Finale Doctor walked pass Eleanor and stopped for a short bit, “I know how you are feeling, but those people are the reason why the virus is still not gone.” Then it returned to the pilot seat, “wanna suggest a song?”
“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down & Out,” said Eleanor, “give me some time, I need to forget.”
“No problem,” replied Riley happily, “Jeff do you have that song in your storage?”
“Yes.”
Once I lived the life of a millionaire,
Spent all my money, I just did not care.
Took all my friends out for a good time,
Bought bootleg liquor, champagne and wine…
The last beam of sunlight had been cut off by the horizon, darkness awakened from its long nap and began its celebration. There was no headlight on Jeff since those will be useless in a snow storm. Instead, the vehicle used ultrasound to navigate its path in the dark. Inside the vehicle, Riley punched lightly onto Eleanor’s helmet, “wake up Eleanor, we are almost there.”
“Oh!” Eleanor sat up from her sleeping position, “how long have we been driving?”
“Today’s road time is eight hours and fifty-five minutes,” said Jeff.
“Wanna have one of this?” Riley passed a glass tube filled with brownish liquid, “this will keep you awake, but actually, it is night already.”
“What is that?” asked Eleanor pointing at the glass container.
Riley rotated the tube playfully while watching the air bubble move from the bottom to the top, “this is a caffeine supply tube, it is like drinking 10 cups of black coffee all at once.”
“Isn’t that extremely dangerous?” Eleanor laughed nervously.
“Yes, for a normal person,” said Riley, “but both of us have bionic bodies, so of course, not all of this tube’s content go in at once, instead, the caffeine is stored in your bionic parts, which can be released after some time.”
“That’s nice,” Eleanor looked out the front screen, “are there lights near the control station?”
“Nope,” Riley replied quickly, “but they have radio emitters on the outside, adjust your internal radio, you might be able to hear it.”
Eleanor looked down at her arm and saw the large round button that was used to control the radio receiver on her suit/body. She rotated it back and forth several times but she kept hearing the white noise. On the final time, she did it extremely slowly and there it was, the sound of the control station. It was a genderless voice with no emotions and was surrounded by white noises in the background.
“You are currently approaching Control *bzzzzzzz* #369, if you are below the class *bzzzzzzz*, please leave immediately or *bzzzzzzz* squad will be sent to your position. If you are class A or above, please send the recognition signal immediately *bzzzzzzz*”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Have we sent the signal?” Eleanor was terrified.
“No worries,” said Riley calmly, “ Jeff did about five minutes ago, and the station will never tell you if it received the signal or not, besides the extermination squad was long gone since their only use was to annoy the hell out of all the Finale Doctors.”
“That scared me,” replied Eleanor, “I can never imagine what the WHO can come up with.”
“Am I out of your imaginations as well?” asked Riley casually.
“A bit.”
“What do you mean by a bit?”
“Like when you expect a red apple but a green apple show up.”
Out of nowhere, Jeff braked instantly, causing Eleanor to fell over on her heavy steel body, “Ouch! Jeff, can you at least warn me?”
“Brake warning mechanism is not updated,” replied Jeff, “please update at the nearest Control Station to Version 1.0.99.”
“We are here!” Riley said excitedly and pushed open the cabin door, “night vision on Eleanor!”
Eleanor stepped out of the vehicle and her thick mechanical leg sunk deeply into the snow. She turned on the snow mode on her power suit which granted more power on her legs and extended her foot’s sizes to reduce her pressure on the ground. Eleanor grabbed a handful of snow and watched them curiously through her green night vision filter. Unlike before, the snow remained frozen on her hand and she couldn’t feel its coldness or its softness. She sighed a little and made a small snowball.
“Catch!” Eleanor shouted and threw the snowball at Riley.
Bop!
Her snowball shattered in mid-air, by another snowball. Eleanor stared in amazement but another hit her right in the face/helmet, “AAAAA! I forgot about your reaction speed!”
“Nice try tho,” Riley laughed and chucked more snowballs at her, “I have motion sensors all around me and I am designed to outshoot any cowboys on Earth. Come on, we need to get in before your grease solidify.”
Through her unclear night vision, Eleanor finally saw the grand structure that laid right before her. She looked from the ground, all the way up, but wasn’t able to see its top. It was like one of the chapels in her isolation camp, but thousands of times larger and intimidating. She could work out the outlines of cannons that were extended on the side of the fortress as well as a CCTV camera that was staring right at her.
“Come in, come in!” Riley shouted at Eleanor at the entrance.
As Eleanor stepped towards the entrance, a bright light completely submerged her, she covered her visor with her hands and switched off her night vision. The inside of the control station was as grand as its outside. There were huge pillars, or acid and detergent containers that stood hundreds of meters from the ground. On the sides of the room were all sorts of repairing stations with robotic arms. In the centre of the room was a large floating map of the world with all the isolation camp locations.
“Wow,” Eleanor gasped.
“Impressive, right?” Riley said proudly and led Eleanor towards the virtual map, “this map is being updated every second, the red dots mean a camp that has a new infection, the green dots mean a camp that has no new cases in two years, and the grey dots means the camps that are…lost.”
“Where are the green dots?”
“Well, if you are patient enough, one might show up sooner or later,” Riley claimed and sat down heavily. It took out a digital note pad and scrolled through a list, “let me see, what do I need to get…”
Beep! Beep! Beep!
The two turned their heads and saw a yellow light flashing rapidly and then…
Vrrrrrrrrrrrr!
The large steel door beside the light swung open quickly and snowflakes flew in rapidly. Then there was the roar of a powerful engine with two powerful spotlights appearing from the darkness. A monster of a vehicle drove in slowly from the outside. It was not a normal AFV, its tank treads were twice the width as Jeff’s and it had a march larger turret with a nice arrowhead design on the turret cheeks. In the centre of the turret was long cannon with a square opening.
“That…that’s an MBT!” Eleanor’s voice shook with fear.
“Yes,” said Riley who stood up from its seat, “I might know…”
“RILEYYYYYYY!!!!!!” the cupola of the MBT opened and a cheerful, but still digital voice appeared, “what’s up big sissy!”
“Aha,” Riley sat down again, “its Jessica, another Class F like myself.”
“Hang on,” Eleanor said, “did it, I mean she, just called you ‘sister’?!”
Jessica quickly climbed out of the turret of the MBT. Unlike Riley, she was much smaller and was completely pink. Her armour still showed certain female features that allowed others to quickly interoperate her gender despite not seeing her actual appearance. Jessica didn’t carry any handgun, instead, she carried a long shotgun on her back with a wooden butt with flowery carvings.
“She is NOT my sister!” Riley cried.
“Why don’t you tell me you are a girl too?” asked Eleanor curiously, “I was guessing the whole time.”
“Big sissy likes to play tricks on people,” Jessica walked towards them and took off her shotgun, “where’s Jeff? Don’t tell me it is broken, it was like a father to me, but I lived it like my son.”
“Jeff’s outside,” Riley replied and looked at Jessica’s tank, “I never know that the vehicle entrance was fixed.”
“You dummy!” Jessica slapped Riley’s helmet, “Jake and I fixed it last month when we were locked in here due to the superstorm. Anyway, who is she…OOOOOOOO…is that an FN195?!”
“Yes,” said Riley, “the last one in her camp.”
“NOICE!” Jessica jumped in front of Eleanor like a cat (her suit is far more flexible than Riley’s), “You must be infected right?! Can you feel yourself starting to inflate with the gas? Is there pentagon-shaped wounds forming on your face? How long can you still live?”
“Ehhhh…” Eleanor couldn’t say a word to those harsh questions.
“I’m joking X-D,” Jessica hugged around Eleanor tightly, “I am sorry, girl, but at least you got more time to spare than many others. Anyway Riley, why is she here? Don’t tell me…OH NO! Riley, you are so naughty.”
“That’s NOT HOW IT IS!” Riley cried, “Eleanor just wants to travel around the world with me.”
“That’s so rrrrrrrooooomantic,” Jessica shook her body rapidly, “Oooooo should I go to another control station so you two can…”
“JESSICA!”
“That’s a joke lol,” Jessica stepped back, “actually, I must stay because my poor Doggy was hit by an anti-tank missile yesterday and the transmission turned orange.” While saying Jessica pointed at the large blast mark on the side skirts of her tank. In the middle of the blast was a small hole that went deep into the tank.
“Do you know how annoying those outlaws were,” Jessica said angrily and removed the armour skirt on her tank, “those bastards, I’ll make sure to bring more acid rounds next time and melt their asses.”
Eleanor watched curiously as Jessica started to dismantle the broken parts on her tank and asked, “where do the outlaws come from?”
“The outlaws?” Jessica turned around, “Normally it is because their camp turned grey, or they are part of Freedom Movement, those dump shits, if I find their leader, I’ll sure shoot him in the nut first before finishing him off.”