Mechanical: Four
i'm so sorry, schools been kicking my ass and I had a lot of trouble mustering up motivation to finish this chapter just due to the fact I had to rewrite most of it because I didn't like it. And we all know how rewriting scenes go. Good news is I'm in a writing mood, and I might even get up the next chapter (which is already written) by tomorrow! :D Hopefully that makes up for my absence, yes?... Please?
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Chapter Four
"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic,'
-Joseph Stalin
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Nick was the first to hear footsteps outside the safe room door, but didn’t move from where he still leaned against the wall. Rochelle hesitated, not seeming sure of whether or not the sounds belonged to a bot, until she heard the tired voice outside the bars. “Ya’ll not gonna leave us out here, are ya?” She was the one to go open the door, and the large man limped in, the unconscious redneck slung over his shoulder, the stupid hat still on his head. As soon as the door was closed again, Coach lay the kid on the ground, still hacking and wheezing from the smoke. “Lord almighty… he’s heavier than he looks.”
“At least you found him,” Rochelle took over, leaning down to kneel next to the kid and worriedly pressing a hand to his chest. And that was when Nick noticed that the hick wasn’t breathing.
“Is he alive?” Nick’s shock was interrupted by the hoarse voice of the black man, who was watching the two from where he leaned heavily on the wall. “It took me a while to find him, I’m not sure how much he breathed in…”
Why would the smoke have killed the kid, when Coach had spent just as much time breathing it in? “I-I don’t know,” Rochelle stammered, turning paler by the moment. “I don’t feel a h-heart beat or anything, but he’s still hot-“
“I’m sure the fact he decided to collapse in the middle of a fucking fire didn’t help,” Nick decided to remind her, though the comment was biting and filled with sarcasm.
The man managed to stop hacking up his lungs long enough to look up at Nick, dark eyes wet and red with irritation, though whether it was from the smoke or Nick’s words he wasn’t sure. “You shut yer mouth, boy,” The voice was scathing and filled with disgust. “You left him back there to die, if you had jus’ paid more attention and helped ‘im when he was falling behind, he’d probably still be alive!”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Nick held up his hands with an irritated expression. “When did I get assigned to baby-sitting duty? Don’t try to pin this all on me, Butterball. You weren’t paying attention either, you were too busy trying to get your own fat ass outta this fire.”
Rochelle tried to stop the argument before it escalated, but within moments insults were flying from the two men. The only thing that got them to stop was the rough coughing that grabbed their attention. Nick looked away from the black man to stare at the kid that had been completely still only seconds earlier. Now his body jerked and seized, coughing violently to expel the leftover smoke that had lodged in his lungs.
Rochelle was the first one to react, crouching next to the kid and helping him to sit up as he gasped for air. “Well, shit,” Nick muttered, forgoing the argument to continue at a later time. “Guess he wasn’t that dead after all.”
The kid looked up to him at that, letting out a hoarse chuckle. “Naw, naw, ah ain’t dead,” Ellis was already trying to stand up, though he did so slowly, like he didn’t want to strain himself.
“But- but I didn’t feel a heart beat-“
Ellis waved Rochelle off with a lofty hand. “Yew probably jus’ didn’ feel it. Ah’ve gotta bit of a weak heart, jus’ gives me trouble sometimes,” Coach moved over as well to help Rochelle get the hick up off the floor, Ellis still rambling as they did so. “One time, mah buddy Keith sent me out ta help anotha frien’, Dave, cause his car had broke-down on tha side of the road, an he didn’ know hot ta work with cars back then. But it was a hundred an’ six degrees out! So ah collapsed in the heat an’ Dave started panickin cause he couldn’t hear a heartbeat or feel me breathin or nothing, an when he called Keith, he tol’ ‘im ta jus wait a bit. Sure ‘nough, after ten-so minutes in tha shade ah was up an fine again,” He paused, silent for a moment before starting up again. “There was this otha time, Keith an ah-“
“You can tell us later, boy,” Coach interrupted him before he could get started in on another long-winded story. “Right now we should be headin’ for the mall.”
Ellis nodded, letting out a small ‘okay’. Nick had a feeling that he was somewhat hurt by the fact none of them wanted to hear about him and his redneck friend, but if it would shut him up, Nick was alright with that.
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“Why can’t you get your own god damn cola?”
The voice from the speaker was gravely and rough, interlaced with static. “Yew can keep arguin’ with me, boy, ah don’ have… that truck. Tha only otha-… mall is a two hour walk. Ah think… a good deal here.”
“It’s alright sir, I understand, a man needs his snacks,” Coach stopped Nick before he could make a venomous comment, taking over the conversation.
“Good, ya’ll get goin’ now.”
They nodded to the camera that watched them on the wall, opening the door to the stairs leading outside. Once they were out of earshot Coach shook his head, muttering. “That man’s a weird one alright.”
“I wonder why he can’t get it himself,” Rochelle wondered aloud, voicing the same question that Nick had at the moment. “It’s not like the store’s far away. It’s only, what, two blocks from here?”
It wasn’t even that far in the end, the store right next to the truck that had flipped over onto its side in the middle of the street. The parking lot was abandoned. Though Nick wouldn’t have been surprised if the gun-store owner had simply picked them off from his little wooden shack, which he could now see was on top of the building they had just been in, a clear view of the entire parking lot. Hell, he was probably watching them right then from some peep hole.
Nick snorted at the thought, then turned around and sped up to catch up with Rochelle, Coach and Ellis, who were already at the sliding glass doors to the small mart. Suddenly Nick wasn’t liking the silence, the utter calmness making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. His muscles tensed and instinct told him that whatever they were going to do wasn’t a good idea. And if there was anything he had learned from card games, it was to listen to his instincts. “Coach, don’t-“
The words came too late to make any difference, Coach having already used the muscles that hid underneath the girth to force open the doors. Except for Ellis, who winced as if shocked, they all froze, Rochelle and Coach because of Nick, Nick because he was listening intently. For a brief moment he thought he had been worrying over nothing, the silence still uninterrupted. Then he heard it. A shrill, high-pitched whining noise, only detectable by his ears because he was so close to the store, and Ellis tried to speak. “Guys, we should really get that cola fas-“
On cue, metallic screeches broke out across the area, practically surrounding them.
Shit.
“Get in there and grab the guys fucking cola!” He snapped, already turning in time to be hit with the first wave of bots, driven mad by the siren in their heads. God damnit, why did he forget about the alarm system? And what made it worse was the fact it was specifically designed for bots, instead of the older, noisier alarms that simply flashed lights and broke your eardrums. No, this alarm could, and would, be heard by every bot within a two mile radius.
Coach and Ellis were beside him, shooting into the crowd of bots, covering the entrance while the woman found the coke. The bots came from every direction, clambering over the truck, scaling the fences, jumping off of the roofs. Technically the alarms were only supposed to be responded to by police-bots, but all bots were designed to hear it. It wasn’t like it could actually be easy for them.
The flow of bots had slowed when Rochelle finally reappeared, the case of soda held tightly in her hand, a pistol in the other. “Hey, Ro, need a little pick-me-up?” He dug through his pocket, and when he felt the sticky plastic against his hand he pulled out the adrenaline shot he had grabbed from the house earlier with the kid.
She managed to catch it with the hand she was also holding the pistol with, looking surprised at the gift from the man. After recognizing the item though she used her teeth to hold the gun temporarily, popping off the cap with her thumb and stabbing the metal of the needle into her upper arm.
That seemed to be just what she needed, because as soon as the raw adrenaline had been fully injected (he was pretty sure a person was only supposed to take a quarter of the dosage and switch needles, but he supposed in their circumstances that could be overlooked) she was off like a bullet, gun back in hand. Coach followed behind her, noticeably slower but able to clear off the crowds that tried to rush the woman.
Nick took up a jog behind them, helping Ellis and Coach with keeping the path cleared. Even with the adrenaline though it seemed like a slow, never ending process. At one point Nick turned to shoot at some of the bots that were following them closer behind.
He managed to clear them off, having slowed to a stop to make his shots more accurate. But when he turned around the three were gone, having continued to deliver the cola to Whittaker. His stomach twisted unpleasently. Sure, it wasn’t like he needed them, but it was always a good idea to have someone watching your back. He was still by the truck, so it wasn’t like they were going on without him. He just had to wait it out until the gun store owner cleared the way and they came through.
As if sensing the fact that he was more vulnerable, the mob seemed to redirect its attention on him. At least, that’s what it felt like, even if that wasn’t the case. He managed to fend them off for a bit, but eventually it started to get overwhelming. He would try to get rid of the ones in front; the ones behind him would lurch forward to start beating him with heavy metal fists. And as soon as he turned around to kill them off, the process would repeat itself.
He had started to feel the first faint stirring of panic bubbling up, when he heard smashing of metal, that wasn’t caused by him. Had they finally noticed that he wasn’t behind them anymore?
There was a loud whoop of excitement when a crowbar swung into view, and Nick jerked back and lifted his arm up too late to prevent some of the oil from splattering on him. When he managed to wipe it off of his face, Ellis was grinning at him, looking like a cat that had caught a bird. “Need a little help?”
As if to remind him that they were still being attacked, a pair of metal teeth lodged in his shoulder, pain blossoming in the muscle. Immediately he jerked away, spinning around and slamming the barrel of the shotgun into the bot hard enough to knock it away before shooting the electronic brain right out of its metal shell.
They fought back to back for what felt like hours, even though Nick knew it was no longer than a few minutes. He was beginning to wonder if something had happened to Rochelle and Coach when he was nearly blown off his feet with the force of the explosion a few dozen feet away. Some unlucky bots who had been clambering over the truck to get to them were caught in the fiery inferno and completely destroyed. A telephone pole’s base was blown out from underneath it, causing the entire thing to teeter before falling to the side and smashing into the grocery store. It had probably landed on the generator, because a moment later the power to the lights was cut off and, Nick could only assume, the alarm system as well.
“Shit, man, did ya see that?” His attention focused back on Ellis as the kid finished off the last bot in the parking lot, laughing. “That was awesome!”
Nick could hear Rochelle and Coach running up to the pair of them. He didn’t receive any questions about whether or not he was alright, which was just fine with him. Coach was the one to finally get them moving again so they could avoid any straggling bots left over after the alarm.
Nick had to agree with the man. Out in the open of the parking lot they were sitting ducks. He was surprised nothing had been attracted over by the explosion.
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They reached the safe room without a problem, but only after searching the tents. CEDA had been there, that much was obvious. It was as obvious as the dead bodies strewn about the parking lot where they had set up their station. It didn’t look like anyone human had been there for quite a few hours. And the smell. God, the smell. An aracid aroma of rotting flesh, blood, and gasoline. It had almost made him sick to his stomach.
None of them were willing to talk in the safe room. It was one thing walking through the streets, where the only things out in the open were the bots. There weren’t any dead bodies. Maybe blood, but not…
It wasn’t like Nick hadn’t dealt with corpses. But not like this, not this much of it at once. And now as he reloaded the shotgun he could feel the severity of the situation settling in. CEDA was powerless to stop these things. They didn’t know how to stop the virus. They knew how it worked, sure, but knowing how it killed people wouldn’t save any of them, wouldn’t save the ones that were being slaughtered. And if CEDA couldn’t even fight these things, what hope was there for them?
The gun he held suddenly seemed a lot less powerful than it had before.