He had been taken from his egg... that's for sure Joshua thought as he left the bunker and with the light in his eyes he almost convinced himself that they were tears from the photonic impact and not that he was crying. Not for any particular reason, just for being alone, for not knowing what was out there, so many things registering in his backpack and his new robot (the amazing thing is how he doesn't think I can keep up with him). I am sure I will find answers to my doubts.

The plains have changed a lot since I was locked up, there are no more colonies or hills, everything looks like an endless series of small dunes, to him they look huge, but by a simple mathematical formula on the shadow I know they are no more than four meters. The microphone picked up the sounds of his boots and his recovery suit turning his sweat and tears into water.

That was perhaps my best move, knowing that my actions would prevent one more death I made sure not to let him go prematurely, at least not before by visual commands I sent a maintenance bot to the entrance with the most advanced suit I could conceive. That suit will send us out, him to his freedom, me... maybe something else.

As he advances I can notice his heavy breathing, we train him very well in the chambers to have resistance on the exercise equipment, but not with the sand that sinks under the steps of someone big with too many instruments carrying. There is little I can tell him, the terminals allow me to see what he does and within certain limits his bodily functions, the suit he wears is an improved version of the ostentatious military battle suits... ten meter hulks with prohibitive fuel consumption, with half its size and with much of its machinery originally designed to transform all waste through recycling; It had very limited space for the person themselves, the organic waste is processed, all the matter not assimilated by the intestine is used, minerals are captured from the air through the filters on their shoulders and from the equipment's reserves (this contains vitamin concentrates weighing more than three kilograms) adds balanced vitamin parts to a diet, the rest is discarded and the feces are converted into nutritional pills based on fiber and vitamins.

When night falls, he extends a tent over himself. I am never ceased to be surprised by how useful it is. Military-made, it is a three-meter cane. This is planted on the ground and with the release of a lock it extends another half meter, releasing a fine fabric, which is fixed to the ground with hooks, the material is lighter than Kevlar and darkens, preventing anyone from seeing what is inside; The person must sleep sitting up, but I made him (as a punishment) take extra discipline classes, so he won't have problems, he already left his moisture collector and his indigenous life hunter on, now he sits and reads over and over again. the manuals that their similes (not to call them clones) left on their laptop... better command by command a mild analgesic, it is too early for a depressive period.

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During his dreams he tried to graft procedures about other disciplines, I'm not very interested if he doesn't live well, but I do want he to cover a lot, I want to know what the military said in the facilities is true, when the main commands disappeared, this regiment took over the facilities where I was taken prisoner, they spoke with the technicians in charge of maintaining the site and told them their options, help or die, what was originally a safe preparation site for the company's CEOs became an elite regrouping center... useless after a considerable amount of years without contact with a competent authority.

The sun rises an hour earlier than expected, Joshua gets up and rigorously checks his battery reserves of the Exo Recovery and Survival Suit (E.R.S.S.), which is not necessary, with a sun like the one there is (photovoltaic cells maintain their batteries and at operate with hydraulic pistons, fuel is not necessary). From his face I know that he slept little and poorly, his sleep state did not reach phase 4, which indicates deep restlessness, his breakfast was an interesting dose of crawling insects, most of them are variations of beetles and the occasional poisonous insect. , probable successor of the scorpions, not having a specialty in insects but in plants, cannot understand the information on your computer, but I can (I have the databases of the other "deans"). I tell him what to separate to be put in the death box, who will extract the poison and purify it for the few darts of the suit and its claws. The edibles go into the appropriate compartment where they will be dried, ground, and included as protein in his morning pills.

I heard them before my scout (it triggered the alarm in a minimum of .3 tenths of a second), turned around and I was able to use the helmet's visual filters to identify their attackers, it took me a full second to recognize a pair of humanoids that They stalked with a fierce gesture. He is dumbfounded. The creatures are no more than five feet tall, leathery, greenish-brown in color, and have black hair. Both are found about a hundred meters from a demolished building. I send an indication of "protecting territory", upon seeing it, he slowly moves away from these poor beings. It would be interesting to put the capabilities of the suit and its wearer into action, but with such poorly armed creatures facing a fifteen-foot beast, it was not a fair fight.

Only twenty kilometers have passed and Joshua no longer seems to want to return, he has drawn a very crude map of his route (I, who have the advantage of taking advantage of the cameras built into the helmet, have a very clear idea of where he has been, with two rods and a steel plate has built a wheelbarrow in which he has put everything he is interested in investigating. Seeing him like this I do not regret having created him, I hope that when the time comes, he will understand everything I risked, I know that in the end my need is very selfish. to know what was left out, what we did with a selfish project of clients with desperately deep pockets. I think that if I find out enough I will be able to put pressure on these stuffy military to send all the troops prepared by us to reconquer and bring back the people to a civilized world, now I will have to leave surveillance to teach classes... even if I don't want to, I would prefer a thousand times to follow a stone in the desert than to return with a group that does not know that there is an 'outside', that for two more days They will ask about him, after that time the drugs and physical work will make them forget having had someone from their genetic branch named Joshua Villegas.