Kevin awoke in the middle of the night, and sat up in the bed throwing his covers off to cool down. “The heaters are nice but they do get hot after a while.”
Keving got up and walked over to the fusion core and untightened some bolts to release pressure. The steam blew out and burnt his hand. “Aahhh fuck.”
Keving got out quick enough to not take a blast to the face. “Whew, that was close.”
“Everything alright.” asked Cheryl standing in her panties and tank top.
“Yess all is fine, just a little burn.” Kevin walked over to the first aid box and administered a first aid spray.
“Yeah, the last thing we need is any of us going down.” Cheryl said and she walked over to the metal crate filled with freeze dried powder food. She brought out the packets and started to pour in filtered water.
The mixture turned into a mushy state, after they sat and mixed their food around in the water using some spoons the mech unit had in its storage compartments.
Kevin after mixing around his food he took a bite and inspected his hand.
“You sure its alright?”
“Yeah i'm fine please don't worry about me I will take better care of myself.”
Cheryl looked him in his eyes and then ate another spoon full.
“You guys are up early.” Becky said, looking down into the living quarters from the top operation deck.
“Yeah it's too damn hot for us to sleep.” Cheryl said to Becky.
“Oh is it my bad, sorry guys I will turn it down right away.” Becky leaned back and soon enough the engines made a notable sound which suggested the engine came to a lower pace.
“That should do the trick.” Becky said and climbed down. She walked over to the table dressed in her black short shorts and black sports bra.
“What's that smell?” she asked.
“The smell is my hand, I burnt it and some of my arm hair off.” Kevin showed
Becky who lifted it to inspect it more.
“Ooo yeah that's gonna hurt for some time. Let's apply more of the first aid spray after you're done eating and we will properly wrap it up.” Becky smiled at Kevin. “Next time climb up and shut off the heaters.”
“Noted, I will climb up next time becky.” Kevin looked at his bowl and finished off his food.
“Becky, when do you think we're planning on walking on?” Cheryl asked.
“Well Garry said he was tired from the long travel here, so maybe by mid day we will leave.”
“Any destination?” Asked Kevin.
“Well that's the surprise.” Replied Becky, she giggled and walked to grab herself a bowl and spoon from the storage. Becky walked back and poured the water into the bowl with the powder in it. “So shall we, I know it's still morning?” “Shall we what?” Kevin replied to Cheryl.
“Try out our loot from yesterday, test and see if any of it still works.”
“Sure!” Kevin said enthusiastically.
They both walked up and opened the biohazard bags and took out the contents which were three tablets and a solar panel.
“Kevin, can you pass me the knife?”
“Sure.” Kevin reached over to the tool box and looked inside.
“Regular or the laser knife?” “ummm regular blade will do.”
Kevin reached in and pulled out the blade and passed it to her. Cheryl opened the solar panel plastic wrap and the cases the tablets were inside of.
Cheryl hooked up the cables and solar panel then she stepped into the living quarters viewing bay and opened the latch to let the light inside which made a little green light appear on the top of the panel. Kevin smiled. “Wow, it still works.”
Cheryl looked up and smiled at him. “It will be awhile before they are charged, but it's great to know we will always have power to charge up these devices.”
“That's wonderful news, I will ready some files for our tablets to download from the mech later.” Becky said. “Yeah, in the meantime I'm going to go lay back down.” Kevin said and walked back into his bedroom. Cheryl walked back in the room shortly after and laid beside Kevin.
Kevin fell asleep once she was beside him tryna latch on to his side.
He dreamed about life in the Temple and how his whole life was under the small roofs in a cave.
Being taught about the mechs, then flames started to burn everything around him. Everyone and everything turned to ash. When the ashes settled he looked and in his dream he was looking out at a vast stretch of broken buildings and nuclear wasteland.
Kevin woke up and sat up in his bed.
Cheryl wasn’t beside him. Kevin looked around the small room which pretty much was a crawl space with a bed inside of it. Wires and mechanical components were the walls of his room.
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Kevin sat up, walked over to his bag and pulled out a towel and wiped his face. Then he walked out into the main living quarters.
Cheryl was sitting at the table messing around with the tablets.
Kevin walked up to her. “So how's things?”
“Great,I got these working.” Cheryl turned around and handed one of the tablets to Kevin who turned it on.
“So what do I do?” “You can use your fingers and select the options like this. Cheryl tapped the screen with her finger and Kevin did the same. “ Well look at that, that's neat.”
Cheryl smiled at Kevin and started to show him how to make a profile.
“See the program from the mech would allows us to access the internet and but since the bombs and astroid impacts the internet was fractured.”
“Internet?”
“Yeah, the internet was weird… haha never had to explain it, the internet was an invisible force that nobody knew was there kinda like the air you dont know its there but you breathe it. And this force allowed us all around earth to connect and share information and videos, pretty much anything we wanted.”
“Woah sounds awesome, how do we connect?”
“You can’t.. It's….. wait what the hell there's a signal.”
“Where's the signal coming from?”
“Nearby.” Cheryl replied.
“BECKY!” Cheryl cried out.
“What?” Becky looked down from the top deck.
“Check your tablet for the internet.”
“Holy FUCK!”
“Cool I can still access the military archive, see this was our last order to the temple, we were on a mission of retrieval, to acquire any and all findings at the ancient site, to kill any witnesses.”
“Is that my?”
“Yeah your mother, she is a very admirable woman.”
“Woah, head of the archeology research team.” Kevin smiled and looked at Cheryl.
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Allowing me to see her again..” Kevin smiled and hugged Cheryl.
“Hey guys, wanna come up to the top deck.”
“Yeah sure.” Kevin started climbing up the ladder and Cheryl followed.
Once at the top flight deck, Garry was in his command jacket and black hemp pants. Becky stood beside him and looked at Kevin and Cheryl approaching the operations table.
Garry smiled. “Well there seems to be an operational underground facility, which has the servers still running which is why we still have the internet. Where exactly I don't know but my suspicion is that the fusion engines they have running down there are probably what is keeping the internet servers going. And to add to that, I wasn’t able to connect with anyone, so I'm guessing the underground base is a tomb.”
Beckythen speaks. “I was able to pull some satellite imagery from the military surveillance systems.”
Becky uses the holoscreen to show the map imagery.
“To get where we would like to go, we're going to have to cross the water as the bridges are all destroyed.”
“That means.” “You guessed it kevin.”
“We're going to use the aquatic systems, everyone to your stations.” Garry took the command and the other three got into their positions.
And Kevin started the engines. The mech unit fired up and started to engage its hydraulics systems. The giant unit stood tall in the grassy overgrown city streets.
The dark clouds filled the skies as rain fell. The mech unit started to move forward as Kevin started to move the legs.
The Light jog through the streets sent splashes of water, mud and rubble.
The Mech unit moved down the destroyed city. Crushing old cars and Becky used the sword arm and swung hitting a giant overhanging vehicle stop sign.
“Good job guys, moving forward, nice and easy, looking out for any pot holes or unnecessary drops.” Garry said out loud.
The mech jumped over a turned over big truck, jogging along up the road till it stopped at the shore line looking out across the 300 ft long body of water that was in their way to freedom.
“Alright pressurizing the mech. All Systems check.” Cheryl announced.
“Moving mech into the water now.” Kevin said out loud.
The mech unit walked along to the edge and then jumped into the waters. The body of the mech unit started its unique propeller system.
“See, these mech units were first designed in the Navy for underwater battle.” Garry explained to kevin.
“Seriously, would people fight each other in these Mech units underwater?”
“Underwater, on land, In space.” Cheryl added to the conversation.
Kevin looked at Becky who nodded in agreement.
The mech unit continued to move through the waters. While Garry used the radar systems to judge underwater landscapes.
“Wow there's a lot of fish I didn't think there would be this much, but there's a lot of fish!” Garry said with enthusiasm.
The mech kept moving along the open water. “Halfway.” Garry said.
“Wait, we got something big coming our way.”
“Battle positions.”
Becky got the right arms Sword out and Cheryl got the plasma energy weapons ready.
The mech unit was then crashed into by a huge squid that started to wrap its arms around the mech unit.
THe squid started to attack the Mech biting into it with its Radioactive teeth which seemed to bend the metal on the Mech unit a tiny bit.
Becky swung the metal sword and stabbed then ripped into the squids head.
The tentacles all wrapped around the sword of the Metal Mech unit.
Cheryl used the energy weapons and fired into the Giant radioactive squid.
“Is that the only one?”
“Lets hope, keep moving.” Garry ordered.
“Ohh nope! More on the way, the radars picking up five oncoming!”
Cheryl used the energy weapons and fired under the water at the
Incoming giant squids. Blasts from the cannons sheared through the jelly bodies.
The others that got around some of the blasts covered the body of the mech unit biting and pulling at the arms of the mech unit.
Garry used the explosives to rattle the squids. Operating the top head cannon to blast some explosives at the squids.
“That looks like the last of them.”
“Let's get out of these waters.” Becky said. And they moved the mech unit through the murky green waters.
Once on the shore they climbed out of the water and disengaged the aquatic systems and the mech unit’s air filtration systems returned to normal. Kevin started to operate the legs moving the mech along into the city down the streets.
Trees and forest started to come back in this part of the downtown area.
“Scanners picking all sorts of life up ahead.”
They stopped the mech to look at the massive silver herd of deer standing in the city's park.
“Well look at that mother nature can’t be stopped.” Garry said while nodding at the deer.
“You think they are safe to eat?” Kevin asked.
“Well no telling if they are even able to be eaten, they used to be brown now they have silver fur and yellow eyes, not to mention their massive size and see the horns they all have to have at least 10 points on each buck.” Garry looked at them in amazement.
“Should we kill one and do a radiation test?”
“Sure let's give it a shot, no pun intended.” Garry smiled and ordered Cheryl. “Use the small guns and take some of the suckers out.”
“I'm on it!” Cheryl switched the guns and fired at the crowd of deer and blasted through 5 deers. They landed on the ground and the rest of the crowd scattered from the loud sound.
“Alright team, let's investigate.”
They stopped the mech and disengaged the advanced operating system and had the mech come to a halt in the middle of the old city park.
The team took off the controls and climbed down one after another to the living quarters.
Garry got undressed and so did Cheryl. Becky got the suits lined up and radiation detectors out.
Kevin took off his pants and started to wipe the orange sponge chemical all over his chest, neck, shoulders and legs.
Cheryl administered the chemical agent to her body as well wiping her stomach, butt and legs.
Garry wiped his face, neck and arms. Then put on the bio suit. Garry stood in the living quarters suited up head to toe in the biohazard suit, Garry pressed the elevator door button and the door opened. “ Kevin wanna help?” asked Cheryl as she attempted to reach behind her.
“Oh sorry yes, I got you Cheryl.” Kevin reached over and helped Cheryl suit up.
Becky got inside and waited with Garry. They watched as Cheryl put on her helmet and Kevin walked in the elevator as well.
“Sorry guys let’s go!”
Cheryl hopped in and Garry hit the button.
“Going down.” Garry said jokingly.
Kevin gave a little chuckle.
End of chapter 002 the Walking Mech Written by Travis Willier Copyright 2022