Chapter 21 – The Room [Part 3]
Staring up at the ceiling of the large spacious room, time ticks forward without him caring. His thoughts are full and in a mess, but his heart felt empty. It would have been easier if he didn’t find her body. He would have preferred it if he didn’t, or at least would have preferred the body to have decayed instead of staying in its perfect condition.
Slapping himself he shakes his head and does his best to collect his thoughts, pushing out his emotional side he thinks about facts and facts only.
The year is 4328. The war is over. My unit is gone. I am the last of my kind. The world has changed. We are at peace. I am a Zulu.
Shaking his head again he repeats it out loud.
“The year is 4328. The war is over. My unit is gone. I am the last of my kind. The world has changed. We are at peace. I am a Zulu.”
Standing up on his own two feet whilst wiping his face.
“My unit is gone. We are at peace. I am a Zulu” he whispers, repeating only the most important pieces of information.
Looking back at the chamber with Zag inside, he kicks one of the robots roaming the floor in frustration before turning his back to it.
Closing his eyes and taking a long breathe “I am a Zulu. We are at peace.” He states with complete composure.
Opening them he turns his attention to the right of the room.
Vit-3127. Cal-8124. Pro-2732. Min-9945. Car-7654. Mix-8218
Six conveyer belt like distribution machines, each containing six similar but different, unique items.
Walking over to them he grabs the Mix-8218 and injects himself with it. Crushing the injector once done making his hand bleed as he walks over to the table located at the large blank wall.
Concentrated Healing Commencing
Miniaturize minor healing notifications
Minor Concentrated Healing Notifications Miniaturization Confirmed
First inspecting the machines upon the table, that was more like a workbench, he finds that he can’t make out what any of them are. Moving some of them to sit with the ones on the ground he pulls out the chair and sits upon it.
“My unit is gone.” He says quietly, almost serene like.
“My unit is gone!” he slams the table with a bleeding fist, red eyed…angry…infuriated that he could not do anything about it.
With his blood upon the table, making one keyboard and fifteen screens emerge out of the wall; arranged in three rows and five columns. A gigantic, rotating Z in black and red display upon the combined screens. The third column aligning itself with the seat he sits upon, ensuring that they all centred on him.
“My unit is gone.” He sighs, tired as he presses a key to awake the computer.
Nine of the fifteen screens start showing real time surveillance footage. Surveillance footage constantly switching viewpoints of the city, some showing footage as if it were flying from above the city, others in mundane rooms showing children reading books and a few within the tower itself, giving video of The President and Council.
Sitting there he stares at the nine outer screens that constantly change every second for a full minute, concluding that there must be thousands of cameras that were feeding footage to the terminal. “As thorough as always.” He mumbles rubbing his eyes.
Changing his attention to the five screens of the middle area he finds data constantly being fed through it at an amazing pace. Too fast for any human eyes to properly read, but not fast enough to get past his head gear.
Heat, Water, Electric, Weather Data.
Above Ground Activity Data
Military, Government, Law Data
Having nothing he needed to know at that moment he looks to the last unseen screen, the one directly in front of him.
A black screen with one bleeping green small rectangular box is located at the top left corner. It was waiting for input.
With both hands hovering over the keys, blood slowly drips onto them. He doesn’t know what to search for, nor what he should do.
Pulling his hands back he leans back on the chair and closes his eyes. Explore the new world, learn all there is to know. It seemed so pointless to him now. He wasn’t needed. He was free and was not needed.
The year is 4328. The war is over. My unit is gone. I am the last of my kind. The world has changed. We are at peace. I am a Zulu.
Opening his eyes and sitting up straight “I am a Zulu”
[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=middle width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][pc]4 053. Noiizia. Zag[/pc][/col][/box]
He types the year of Noiizia’s destruction followed with the name he called her.
Pressing the enter key he waits, waits and finds that nothing happens. Typing on the keys he finds that it does not respond.
Grinding his teeth he stops himself from speaking, choosing to instead slam the keyboard in silence with his right fist, breaking it.
Pulling his hand back, he takes out the pieces stuck in his hand and throws them on the table. Staring at the destroyed keyboard he sees it slowly reassemble itself, unintentionally making him smile.
Inhaling and then exhaling he realizes that all fifteen screens were now showing an in depth real time blueprint of the tower. Showing all current locations of everybody in it as a red bleeping dot with their name and current heartbeat showing.
All except for him and Zag’s body in the room, instead two green dots and four blue dots, unnamed and unmeasured were present on the screen in the room’s location.
Recalling the blueprint that had been shown upon the tablet, he remembers the other reason he had wanted to enter the tower. Typing upon the keyboard he magnifies the room’s bleeping layout, to give a more detailed image.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Two bodies with heat signatures and four cylinder like object were outlined and highlighted in their respective colours.
Looking to the ground, where he had recently placed some of the unknown machines, he grabs one of the outlined objects.
Unable To Identify
Made of multiple pieces of metal and alloys his headgear is unable to identify what it is. Being 20 centimetres in length, coloured silver and shaped to fit on a forearm; there is no markings on it except for the Z symbol that was previously displayed upon the computer screens.
Holding it in his left hand he rolls back and forth upon the table. The fifteen screens were showing fifteen real time images from fifteen different angles of the object as it moved.
Unknown Object Do Not Use
Ignoring the warning he slides his left arm into it. Ensuring that the Z symbol is facing up he smears his blood over it. Waiting for a second the symbol starts to glow red, like how the door did.
Relaxing himself, he flinches as it tightens and drills itself into the arm.
“Why do you always make these so violent?” he says wiping his cheeks dry.
Unknown Object Entering System
Cells Destruction In Progress
System Being Invaded
Firewalls Disabled
Counter Measures Stopped
10011011100110101101011011101011101
01101010101010101010111100000011011
00011101111000010110001101010101010
10011011100110101101011011101011101
01101010101010101010111100000011011
00011101111000010110001101010101010
10011011100110101101011011101011101
01101010101010101010111100000011011
00011101111000010110001101010101010
10011011100110101101011011101011101
01101010101010101010111100000011011
00011101111000010110001101010101010
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Delia
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Breathing in and breathing out Delia steadies herself as she looks down the scope. The target is a good 600 metres away, moving at what the scope says to be a constant 80 km/h.
She follows its movement, seeing the predicted outcome the scope was showing she stays in front of it. Pressing the trigger once, the recoil pushes against her left arm. Pressing it a second time and third the shock is less intense each time. Fire the clip empty, no recoil is seen on the last shot.
“You’re getting better with it” a man with goggles standing over her comments.
“I missed” she says getting off the ground as steam starts to rise from the start and end of the barrel.
Putting on a pair of thick fireproof gloves “It’s still in prototype stage.” Disassembling the weapon “Getting that close to hitting the target and minimizing the recoil as you did is amazing enough.”
“When do you think it’ll be ready?” crouching low to see how he disassembles it.
“I don’t know,” throwing her the scope, “I didn’t make it,” carefully placing the barrel against in a long box of ice “I can’t stop it from heating up so fast.”
“Why do we need this again?” she asks looking through the scope at the flying target that escaped her.
“It’s the only thing powerful enough and small enough for a single soldier to kill the larger size beasts.” Picking up the shell casings that were burning the ground it lay on.
“Six shots.” Delia states “Six shots and its extremely immobile. We can’t use this.”
“That’s why it’s a prototype Del.” He replies placing the cases in a bucket of ice. “It’s not usable yet.”
“By the way,” he says taking off the gloves “Thanks for helping me out. After the last incident not many people are eager to test these.”
“Not a problem,” Looking up and taking a long breath, “I needed to see the sky again.”
Looking up at it with her, “Not many people care very much about that.”
“Not many people didn’t see it until they were 18.” She says with her eyes shut.
“Why are you here anyway?” he asks changing the subject, “I thought you would be east with the new guys.”
“I would be,” sighing “but the general said that there was no point, anyway, they’ll be back later today.”
“Why didn’t you initially go with them?” pouring the now warm bucket of water to separate it from the casing, “You always go this time of year.” Throwing the casing, without touching them, into another bucket of ice.
“Why don’t they melt?” Delia asks seeing the process.
“I don’t know” shrugging, “as I said earlier. I didn’t make it.” Looking back at her, “You didn’t answer my question Del.”
Smiling “No” she replies “I didn’t”
“You don’t want to talk about it?” draining the steaming box the barrel lay in.
“I was assigned to keep an eye on the Zulu.” Helping him pour a bucket of ice into the box.
“Ah” he replies “So how did he disappear?”
Looking up at him. “How do you know that?” she questions “The intel is still locked.”
“Intel leaks.” He shrugs, “You know how it is.”
“Intel leaks.” She repeats, “You’ve been drinking with the general haven’t you?”
Taking a seat next to the box, he doesn’t reply.
Not pursuing the subject, “How long till they cool?”
“On average?” he answers, “maybe an hour.” He looks to the box and bucket. “We’ll need to replace the ice every ten minutes though.”
Taking a seat on fold-able chair next to him and rubbing the engraved Z on the scope “Can I keep this?” she asks looking out from the clearing down at the open lake surrounded by trees.
“You know you can’t” he replies not looking at her, “We only have five of them.”
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A/N
Wish I could draw, That Z I have in mind would’ve been a pretty cool cover picture T_T
Hope you all liked the chapter. As always, thanks for reading ^.^