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XVII - Between rock and a hard place

XVII - Between rock and a hard place

No matter what I tried to do, Rosalina refused to explain what happened yesterday if the strange inscriptions appeared on the screen. She replied that she didn't know what I was talking about even if her ability to read my mind and memory., In the end, I gave up trying to explain to her and went to bed after I was too tired of cleaning the pots from the liquid.

Noises began to be heard in the echoing voices of the station at dawn. The rustling of branches and trees began to be heard everywhere and the sounds of blowing could be heard getting closer and closer, making me wake up. The map began to fill with red dots as soon as I opened my eyes and I stood up straight from the seat in my uniform. The noises got louder and louder until a crash was heard from the entrance to the station.

"Colin! I've located a whole group of aggressively minded animals headed in the direction of the station!"

"Why does it have to be in the morning"

I quickly put my things in order as fast as I could, throwing most things into the car without sorting them. Some of the biodiesel residue that stuck to one of the pots splashed everywhere before I threw it on the seat. Another noise of pushing and crushing was heard from the same direction and then fragments were heard falling. The dots started coming in quickly and moving in my direction. I jumped in the car and turned on the gas. The engine did not respond as quickly as yesterday. I began to fear and more sounds of crushing and trampling echoed in my direction and I began to see who it was that wanted to reach my direction: the same camel with the head of the iguana running on his overgrown claws, and he brought with him a company similar to him.

I moved the lighter several times before the engine was able to start. I moved the gears into reverse and started to push the gas with full force and backward. While I was just holding the gas, they burst into the rail and looked confused before one of them started looking at me and started running in my direction. The rest followed him and they began to close the gap. For a large creature like them, they are very fast.

I tried to push the gas with all my might, but the speed did not change and even slowed down as I went up to the central track. They just got closer and closer.

"Oh no oh no!" I shouted and started trying to reach for the rifle I put behind me. Not a smart choice on my part. They kept getting closer until they were within a very dangerous range, not-so-pretty so pretty faces looked very angry. Is it because I stole the liquid from that tree yesterday?

As soon as I crossed the junction that connects to the main track, I tightly turned the guard and flew in circles before quickly trying to change gears, thanks perhaps to the situation where I almost drove into the abyss a few days ago, I changed as fast as I could with the suit and began to fly away from them while they are especially stubborn and continue to chase after. In the side mirrors I saw myself speeding away from their anger and they suddenly stopped in their place and watched me drive away until they disappeared from the horizon of the mirror and I continued to drive as far away from the place as possible.

All the emotion and adrenaline that was coursing through my body from their pressure to tear me apart from nothing began to leave my body as I continued to move away from them. Every time I look in the mirrors I try to hope that they are still not chasing me, but I believe that they will not succeed at the speed of this car and I mainly concentrated on the rest of the drive.

Morning turned into afternoon and I felt tired and hurt I decided to stop the car completely and let my body rest from the drive and start sorting out the morning mess. Tools and objects were scattered all over the back seat along with the storage compartments. The pots were spilled all over the counter and the liquid dripped on some of them, leaving a strong smell and an unsightly stain on the beautiful seat. I fixed it during my rest, freshened up, and looked forward to the rest of the route.

"How much longer do we have until we get there?" I asked

"Thought... at the current rate of travel, we will arrive in 8 days, 6 hours on average"

"That's good news"

"Indeed. The track is extremely durable even if by chance a skyscraper falls on it. It is specially built to withstand heavy pressures created by the enormous speed of the bullet cable car"

"So that doesn't mean it can't be blocked. If I run into something similar to fragments or something lIndeedat"

"Indeed"

"How much longer am I supposed to stay on this rail until then?"

"At the current rate, around 2 days before descending to continue the route"

"Isn't there a direct track to the target?" I asked me wondering why this is so"

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"The entire metropolitan area according to the map does not show a closer point that comes with the rail close to the destination. Everything is thought out"

"Right right I forgot about that"

I remained standing by the car before I finished arranging the things and continued to drive on the same route. The afternoons turned into night and I slept under the sky in the car another day passed and a new morning came. I ate the last piece of meat I had, drank some of the remaining water, and continued on nothing was interesting on the road but I always kept an eye on the fuel gauges which started to move to E and slowly empty, causing the car to slow to a near stop near a station. Rosalina luckily managed to locate the biodiesel plant closer. I got down and moved towards the big tree, unlike before, there were not the same angry animals that I encountered the day before. I cut the trunk of the tree and filled the pots again, but since I was much closer to the station I filled even more than I could last time.

In between changing the pots, I just now noticed how tall this tree was, and the fact that I was high up on the rail last time, if Rosalina's scanner hadn't been able to scan any further than it is now, I probably would have abandoned the car by now and I wouldn't have been there where I was now. This whole process took most of the afternoon and a feeling of hunger began to be felt. Unfortunately, even with the help of Rosalina's scanners, we did not find anything edible, and even those that did were not satisfactory. And when I talk about unsatisfying, I'm talking about the leaves that are everywhere, reminding me of the fruit that was standing in front of me.

I had to ignore the urge to eat and focused mainly on filling the car as much as I could., Eventually, the liquid stopped flowing into the pot, a sign that it had run out of what to offer and I emptied what was left into the fuel tank. The car showed that it was close to being full, which was good enough for me for now but sudden rain started to come up again, and I spent the rest of the day finding cover at the station with the car open. The rain slipped into the night and I had to spend the night there as well.

In another new mo, mo, morning light I continued to drive hungry to the track. The ride was the same as the previous day, the sensation was not very exciting, in terms of skyscrapers that are covered with vegetation and something that resembles small birds flying in the sky, I continued to drive.

"Stop the ride!" Rosalina this time was heard in a loud voice and I shook myself and noticed what she was saying - the track led and one fell to the end of my life. I did everything to stop the trip. With a push on the brake and shifting to the lowest gear, the car began to stop until almost before a huge cliff, again.

"NO AGAIN!" I got up straight from the seat to the cliff, but the view in the distance looked different from what I expected: a line of mountains and sand spread from the point where I stopped to the horizon in front of me, which is completely blocked by a mountain range. There was no structure or forest and the line separating the two areas was extremely prominent as if someone had just glued them together. I'm surprised that even the map didn't show something like that.

"Rosalina. What is it? What do we do now?"

Rosalina didn't respond and started displaying strange addresses on the screen again. The same shapes I saw a few days ago. I managed to engrave one letter on the rail with the invention of the plasma knife before it disappeared and with it the map.

"I don't have an answer" Rosalina responded out of nowhere.

"No answer why?"

"A new variable was added to the list, and an attempt to recalculate a route failed"

"What?! Rosalina, can you give me a clearer answer?"

"Recalculating a route... there is no possible information to help cross without visual information from the user"

What happened to Rosalina?! More correctly: what happened to the world?! She started mumbling unintelligible things only right after I stopped next to a precipice. In addition, what does a desert in the middle of the metropolis do? I don't remember anything in the middle of nowhere! I walked away from the place and turned in the other direction, trying to stay sane. I had an idea that maybe it was taking a bet, but I think I have to get to the mountain to know what was happening now, but for that, I had to get to the highest place.

"Positive. Re-routing... Goal - to find a way to cross the mountain range. Understand what's going on... Glitch!" Rosalina started writing the same addresses again and I regretted them before they disappeared and she was back to what she was, but something seemed a little different about her. I think this is the right time to ask her about it. And this time, I have an actual look:

"Rosalina, can you tell me what is written there?" I pointed out what I regretted.

"Decoding.. new information comes in: if you want to leave and return to where you belong, you will find time"

"... what?"

"Sorry Colin. New information came from systems overload. The addresses that were listed and now that I've been able to distill the information from memory from days before now came from an unknown source who wants to hide it. I guess it's a glitch or part of the message. Right now I need visual information now Shampoo doesn't match the look"

"It's strange. I don't think I know about AI, but I guess it might be something in the message hidden along the way"

"Negative, I can't understand the source"

"I guess we'll leave that for another day, or never. Now, can you say what I can do now?"

"Positive. I calculated the new route, in theory, if the target is hiding behind the ridge, that route was correct. If not, I'm afraid this mission will fail"

"I'm aware of that, I'm just trying to stay sane about what I see or understand what's going on here. I have a lot of possibilities and have to go through the sand. Will the car make it through there?"

"I don't have the information to answer this question"

"Well, then I guess there is no such choice, I think I have to prepare for the trip to the desert first"