Chapter 4

 It was dark out when the micro chip in One Forty Two’s camera eye woke him up. The message was sent by Alistair, who was tapping Ikarid’s legs, attempting to wake her too.

“What’s going on?” One Forty Two asked. He was completely alert, and didn’t even have to rub the sleepiness from his eyes.

“The car stopped, we have to wake her up!” Alistair exclaimed anxiously.

“Should I…” One Forty Two asked, pointing at Ikarid. He made a poking motion at her cheek, getting much to close for Alistair’s comfort.

“No! What if she gets mad?” Alistair said, jutting his head out in One Forty Two’s direction as he did. “But, what if she gets mad if we do not her up soon enough?” The robot said more quietly to himself.

“Just yell,” One Forty Two suggested, “like, really loudly.”

“I have been trying.” Alistair said with frustration. “She is not as light of a sleeper as she thinks she is.”

One Forty Two looked around for a way out of the situation. He reached down to hit the button to recline the seats, and pressed it to tilt Ikarid up right.

Ikarid gasped and opened her eyes as her upper body reached an almost 90 degree angle with her legs.

“What, why are you doing that?” Ikarid scolded, glaring at One Forty Two as she said it.

“I, we just…” he stuttered in reply. “The car stopped moving.”

“What?” Ikarid screamed. “How did this happen?” she said in a quiet, yet shrill voice as she sharply turnd her head in Alistair’s direction.

“I do not know.” He responded some what blankly. “I am a medical bot, not a mechanical bot.”

Ikarid let out a frustrated growl. “Do we even know what’s going on outside? Did something stop us? Was there a bump, a crash, what happened?”

“Well,” Alistair said, rolling his eyes away from her like he did every time he gave an answer he thought no one would like, “Nothing happened. The engine stopped running and we rolled to a stop.”

“You!” Ikarid scoled, as she pointed a chubby finger in One Forty Two’s face. “Go outside, see what’s out there. Make sure it’s sae enough for me to leave.”

One Forty Two nodded quickly and obediently opened the door to step outside. Alistair took a step towards him before he slid out into the open and shut the car door.

The desert went on forever, a flat plain of darkness that stretched out as far as One Forty Two could see, with both his natural eye and his camera. It was pitch black, and comfortably warm, and completely silent. The only thing that moved as far as he could tell was the breeze that pushed his bangs out of his face. It was serene, and yet somehow sad, but One Forty Two felt relaxed and welcomed as soon as he stepped into the dry desert night.

He walked around the car , searching for anything around it that might pose a threat. His camera was in night vision mode, and he saw every thing there was to see with it. Dirt, small, dead looking plants, and rocks. There was no threat or him to fight or the others to fear.

He opened the car door on Ikarid’s side and looked down at her in silence.

“Well? Did you see anything? Is it safe to go out there?” Ikarid said in an irritated voice.

One Forty Two nodded and stepped aside to let her out.

“Now what the hell happened?” she said to herself as she walked to the front of the car. She lifted opened a small door and pressed her thumb into the touch screen underneath it. The car scanned her thumb and determined that the print belonged to its owner, and the trunk popped open slightly. She lifted the round hood, which took up most of the front the car, and began going through things. “It can’t be a power outage, since we still have light.” She mumbled again.

Alistair jumped out of the car in front of One Forty Two and looked up at him.

“Does this complicate things?” One Forty Two asked Alistair.

“Yes.” Alistair replied blankly.

“Will we have to go back?”

“Hmm,” Alistair said in thought. “I do not know. I do not have that authority.”

One Forty Two looked back towards Ikarid, who was now deep into the cars engine.

“Do you think she can fix it?” He asked, still looking at his Boss.

“I think she can figure out what is wrong.” Alistair replied. “She studies old world technology. She knows what she is doing. But, will she have the equi-”

Alistair was interrupted by a loud frustrated growl from Ikarid. “Those a******s thought they were cutting costs, huh?” She said loudly as she slammed the trunk shut. “They thought using an old a*s, junk car would be fine. Refurbished my a*s!” She placed her hand on her forehead and breathed deeply to calm herself down.

“How strong is he?” she asked after a long pause, looking at Alistair while pointing to One Forty Two.

“He has been genetically enhanced to be much stronger than the average human. He is apro-”

“Push.” Ikarid said, cutting off Alistair as she looked to One Forty Two to give him the command.

“The car?” One Forty Two asked with surprise.

“No, I want you to push the sofa, a little to the left so we can see the TV better�"Yeah, push the f*****g car.” She pointed in the air behind her, in the direction that the car was facing. “Northeast. I’m sure you’ve got something they’ve implanted to let you kno which direction that is without the sun telling you. Come get me if something’s wrong.” She opened the door to the car and put her foot up to get in, but paused to look at One Forty Two. “Actually, don’t get me. Don’t get me until the something wrong has passed, I don’t need to deal with whatever demons come out of this hell hole.”

One Forty Two nodded silently. Alistair walked to the back of the car, and pointed out the necessary steps to lifting up to flat, short bottom of the car to make it possible to push. One Forty Two lifted a lock, tilted the back end of the car up, and locked it back into place, effectively flattening out the pointed part of the tear drop shape. Alistair walked back to the carand jumped up to get in. His little legs scratched and clawed at the floor of the car as he almost fell out, but he made it in without help. One Forty Two closed the door behind him and walked back to the back of the car where he began the long night.

Kate Bui rode on a mitch-matched home made motorcycle. It ran on “oil” a crude source of energy that people in the old world had abandoned long before the war. But, it was still useful for making a variety of materials, and abandoned barrels of the stuff were very useful now.

She was covered head to toe in armor, a mix o a hard, leather like fabric and plastic and metal pieces attached to various extremities. Her the only parts of her body that were visible were the tips of her fingers and her monolid brown eyes. On her back was a gun that hung on a strap, reach from her butt to the top of her head.

Beside her was her brother, with the same outfit and the light caramel colored skin piking out o the fabric. He was riding on another odd motorcycle, with similar feature but it own uniqunes that comes from being made b hand by its owner. He rode with a large sythe on his back, hand made like the bikes and modified for fighting with a battery attached to it, giving and electric charge.

They rode with two others in the darkness, with only a small light in the front of Kate’s vehicale lighting the way.

“Almost there,” Jonathan Bui said as he looked up to his sister with a sly smirk. His remark was a reaction to a beep from the screen in between his motorcycle’s handlebars.

One the screen was a map of the surrounding area. On it was a blue line, separating “Our Lands” from “No Man’s Land.” They were head for the egde of their own land, where a red dot beeped on the map.

“Has it moved?” Kate asked in reference to whatever breached their security.

“It hasn’t hit another sensor in a while.” Jonathan responded, “But then again, the sensors are pretty far apart.”

“It’s probably more dirt eaters,” Kate growled. It was the third mission she’d been on that was just a false alarm.

“It was moving to fast for that, at least at first” Jonathan quipped. “Maybe, you should chill.”

“You know that’s why dad sent us out to do Southern boarder partol!” Kate lashed back. “Rather us be on some bullshit case like this than watching guard where s**t actually goes down. The south boarder, who the f**k gonna come outta there? We haven’t had that s**t happen for years.”

“And you’d rather me be keeping watch instead of being at home, where I belong,” Jonathan said. “I have crops to tend to, Kate. You think Jamie’ll be happy if there ain’t bread on the table when she gets back from her diplomatic blah-dee-blah?”

“She discussing important strategic information with-”

“Yeah and she’s gonna want food when she gets back,” Jonathan interrupted. “And children who haven’t starved,” he added after some thought. “Besides, you know what happened last time the mountain attacked.”

Kate sighed as the memories flashed in her head. “They haven’t been here in a long time.”

“And things are cooling down with the nation. Soon we won’t have any boarders to protect, then what will you do with yourse- F**k.”

The map on his motorcycle beeped again, and this time a diferent red dot glowed, one farther from the last one, and farther from where they were.

“S**t.” Jonathan said in an irritated voice. “It f*****g moved again. We’re going to be out here all f*****g night.”

“So much for your crops.” Kate said with a smirk.

“So much for your night watch.” Jonathan said with his own.

Kate rolled her eyes and turned her focus back to the desert ahead of her. “That was never going to happen anyway.”