Age of discovery
Author's Note:
I understand that human generated power is redundant at a nuclear power plant like Serrano Point. I could have switched to a different resistance base, or tried to rewrite the incidences, but instead I am asking the reader to take it with a grain of salt. I am lazy.
Any resemblance to actual people is deliberate and done for the lulz,
Note: RGs are resistance greens, the uniform of the day.
The year is 2026.
The war with the machines has dragged on. The robots rule the surface, and man is reduced to a furtive burrowing creature, huddling in caves and tunnels, consumed by paranoia and desperation. Life in a resistance base can be pretty grim, and Serrano Point is no exception. Every person has to carry their own weight and more, just to eke out their meager existence and survive another day. Everyone has lost someone, and the chance of losing more on a daily basis is very real. And yet, despite the ever present danger of attack, the meager survival rations and constant health issues, through some magical design of human nature, eleven year old boys always seem to find some way to have fun.
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In a room poorly lit by a guttering fluorescent bulb, Phillip and David were sitting on stools pulled up to a table. Sometimes the bulb would start to dim, and one of them would have to work the crank on the hand generator to charge it up again. Which one got this task was determined by a contest of guessing which combination of digits they would extend when their right hand was raised above the table, a process they called 'bucking up' for it.
By the bulb's light, they were assembling links of disintegrating ammunition belts, and loading the completed belts into boxes. They needed to complete four full boxes each, then Lt. Stevens would sign their ration chits, and they could get their share of whatever culinary miracle was available at the mess hall that day. Afterwards they would have some free time, and would most likely meet some other boys to play four wall in one of the empty hangars.
David spoke up: "I saw her in the motor pool today."
Phillip looked up sharply. He didn't need to ask who David was talking about. "Whoa, how did you get to see her?"
"She drove in with a little truck, and they got me and Marco to help unload it. I think it was boxes of cans. The truck was all full of holes and smoke was coming from the engine. "
"And she was standing right near you? What was she wearing? "
"She was just wearing RGs like everybody else, but she was carrying a gun that was bigger than me. She was waving it around like it was nothing."
"Holy crap, that's badass. I'll bet she could lift the truck."
"I know man. Once, she looked right at me. I almost crapped myself."
"You're such a squaddie. I would have looked right back and smiled at her."
David chafed at the insult, 'squaddie', meaning a soldier with no rank, "You're mom is a squaddie!"
Phillip rose to the occasion. "You're mom is a gray!"
David, whose mother was actually a point woman in an elite forward unit, threw a link at Phillip. The missile connected, and Phillip reacted with pain and surprise. David was a little sorry for his overreaction at first, but when Phillip's answer to this outrage was to leave his stool and come at him with fury in his eyes, David obliged him with a willingness to engage in combat, hand to hand. A vicious struggle ensued, as both boys rolled about the floor, grappling amongst the links and cartridges that fell from the table.
They both froze as a sound came from the corridor outside the room. With a rumble and a screech, another boy rolled into the room on a skateboard. He wore an RG jacket and had a leather pouch slung over his shoulder. Scot was a board courier, entrusted to run communications between officers throughout the base, in lieu of radio or other wireless comms. As such, he was practically guaranteed a rank when he turned twelve. Often, he was a little snooty about it.
Scot looked down with his eyebrows raised. "What are you two shitbirds doing rolling around on the floor?"
In the presence of a new antagonist, David and Phillip rose to present a unified front. Phillip thrust forward his jaw.
"Who you calling a shitbird, brownnose?"
Scot shook his head and started picking up cartridges and links off the floor. "You guys are going to hit fifteen and still have no rank. By then I'll be a captain, and I'll order you two squaddies around all day. Or maybe you'll just get picked off the first time you go outside."
David and Phillip were once again stymied by Scot's ability to both irritating and helpful at the same time. Maybe he was going to be a captain someday. David began picking up shells as well while he answered: "No way, I'm going to pile up metal so high they are going to make me a general. I'm going to rack up more kills than Major Green!"
Scot's reply was a disinterested "Hmmm". Frustrated by the boy's one-upmanship, Phillip said, "David saw her today, in person, at the motor pool. She looked right at him."
"Really," Scot replied nonchalantly, "well I saw her naked."
Shells dropped to the floor again, as well as two boys jaws. This was too big of a thing to be believed, but Scot was known as the kind of boy who doesn't brag or make stuff up. The ordinance forgotten once again, they bombarded him with a flurry of interrogatives, beseeched him with the how, when, where, until he held up his hand and began to explain.
"Ok, so Connor lets her use a tool shed as her own private supply room. It's topside, in the compound, next to the dog barracks." David and Phillip were wide eyed and slack jawed as he spoke. "I found an open hatch that goes up there from the pump room. I was going there sneak food out to the dogs, when I saw her walk in and shut the door. I snuck over to a pile of barrels next to the shed, and found out there is a little space between the panels you can see into. She has a whole bunch of guns and launchers in there, and while I was watching she changed out of her TAC gear and into RGs."
After a reverent silence Phillip spoke up, his mouth a little dry. "Does she have all the stuff.. the uh, things, that the girls in Cpl. Sawyers magazines have?" They had once stolen a few pages of an enlisted man's stash of contraband periodicals, the racy sort. They were still worried about being discovered and reported.
"Well," Scot replied, "I actually couldn't really tell. I didn't have the best angle, and the dogs started to get a little upset when I stopped throwing them snacks. I got cold feet and ran back in. But now that she is around again, I'm going back out there."
"Not alone you aren't" David shot back, "We're going too this time! If we find out you went without us, so help me I'll gray you out to Lt. Stevens!"
"Ok, don't worry, I wouldn't have spilled the beans to you guys if I was gonna cut you out. Meet me after chow tonight, and if there is anything like meat today, try to save some, to keep the dogs quiet. I hear that she is gonna be back from an op, and she is guaranteed to be going in there tonight."
Phillip eyed Scot suspiciously, and then held out his forearm. "Swear on your brand." None of them had numbers tattooed on their arms, but the ritual had become commonplace. Scot held his right arm out, and grabbed it with his left. "I swear." Phillip and David nodded, satisfied, then Scot left saying "See you after chow".
She had more trouble with the second raid. Skynet had expected her return, and left units waiting for her. She had anticipated this, and planned accordingly, but without Connor's advice, Skynet would still have been a step ahead of her. As it was, she had barely gotten out of there intact and functioning. The mission was complete; the food stores that resistance scouts had located had been retrieved. The vehicle she had been assigned had functioned properly despite having just recently been repaired after the first raid. Now she headed back to base where the order of business would be to report, unload, debriefing, then rearm, reload and repair.
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Sitting through chow was an ordeal. It was bad enough that the excitement they felt could barely be contained, the mixture of anticipation and fear that had them practically dancing in their seats. They hadn't thought of excuses for not wanting to play four wall afterwards, and the flimsy on-the-spot ones that they concocted were frail, leaving the other boys and girls suspicious. Also, it was difficult to save the dark gristly little bits of meat that they were served, almost the only protein they would get all day, but they deemed this sacrifice worthy of the endeavor.
They met up with Scot in the corridors outside the mess hall, and followed him through the labyrinthine tunnels he had learned in his capacity as a courier. Sticking to dark deserted passages, they made their way to the pump room unnoticed. Finding the unlocked hatch, they climbed it and made their way into unfamiliar territory, the outside world, where no ceiling loomed over them. Adjusting to the mild agoraphobia that came naturally to subsurface dwellers, they waited until Scot first approached the 'dog barracks', as they referred to the kennel, as he had been here before and was familiar to them as a rare source of treats. These dogs were a breed apart from the old noisy excitable creatures of the past, they only sounded off in the face of an actual threat. As Scot approached he was met with wagging tails and low whines, and he spoke to them soothingly. When they were all gathered at the chain link, he motioned Phillip and David over, to share snacks and garner acceptance. With the dogs placated, they continued on toward their objective, the supply shed where she kept her gear and ordinance.
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His call sign was Goalie. Lt. Stevens was charged with keeping the perimeter of Serrano Point resistance base secure, and he took this job dead seriously. He spent very little time away from the control hub of the surveillance and alarm system, even keeping a cot there to nap in while one of his subordinates kept tabs on the monitors. At these times, Zeus napped on the floor next to him, his pointed ears still twitching as if scanning for sounds while he dozed. Zeus had the best biological hearing in the whole base, and he was fiercely loyal to Lt. Stevens.
Stevens and Zeus were wide awake when a monitor blipped, and a quick look showed three unauthorized heat signatures inside the compound.
"Well Zeus old boy, what have we here?" he said aloud. The sigs were inside the compound, and there had been no perimeter breach. They were moving around near the kennels, and Stevens made a disapproving clucking sound with his teeth. This almost always meant that some shitbird in the community felt they were receiving an unfair portion of the rations, and came up to steal from the dogs, or in one disgusting incident, had even tried to make a meal out of one of Serrano's canine patrol.
Stevens put on his helmet and checked his sidearm. Zeus jumped to his feet and ran over when he saw Stevens grab the leash. "Alright boy, time to kick some shitbird's ass"
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They were tucked in between the barrels when she came out of the motor pool. The massive garage door rolled up, and there she was, holding a large crate that she could just see over. They froze as she walked toward the shed, with the strange steady gait that she used when transporting a heavy load. They all entertained a horrid fantasy of discovery, that she would drop the crate, walk straight over and crush their skulls like cans, the expression on her pretty alien face never changing. They were afraid to even properly sigh in relief when she merely walked through the door of the shed and disappeared from view.
They heard the crate thump to the ground, the tiniest creak of a door hinge. There was the snap of a switch, and light leapt out of a crack between the metal siding of the shed, just as Scot had described it. Three pairs of eyes were illuminated as they aligned to that sliver of view, and peered through it.
They saw the back of her jacket as she dragged the crate into the door, and closed the door behind her. She then faced directly away from them, toward a shelf that contained boxes of clothing. The boys began to believe that their mad plan was coming to fruition. Their hopes were further raised when she removed the black jacket she wore, to reveal a tactical vest underneath. This she also removed, and now she was down to a clinging black undergarment that crossed her back and left the pale skin of her shoulders bare. With her right hand, she picked up an eighteen inch combat knife from a nearby worktable. All three boys forgot to breathe as they heard the knife slide through the fabric of the garment just before it fell to the floor. They were now looking at her bare back, covered only by the fall of her silky brown hair. Then, as if they had willed it, she turned completely around, fully facing them….
Her chest was a mass of metalwork, framed by ragged tatters of bloody flesh. An RPG had directly impacted her during the raid, blasting her lovely biosheath to an ugly mess from her shoulders down to where her navel would have been. Her face had also been damaged, skin dangling to reveal pearly teeth in a gleaming jaw, pert nose torn and seemingly hinged, hanging to the right as it were a door to the mechanical olfactory sensors below. All this in contrast to her perfect eyes, now staring at them with the ruined face below, as if a young woman had suffered grave injury yet was somehow not dead. And somehow that made it all the more frightening.
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There was noise, and all the dogs were reacting to it. Even Zeus sounded off, straining at his leash. Lt. Stevens barely avoided squeezing the trigger of his sidearm out of pure surprise as three young boys rose screaming from behind a group of barrels and literally charged straight into himself and Zeus.
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Three boys are in a room with a concrete cistern full of water in its center. There are bicycle frames set in the concrete floor, their chains attached to pumps that move the water through a filtration system. Each pump has a meter attached. The boys will remain in this room until they each have pumped forty thousand gallons of water through the purifiers. Once this is done, they will be able to collect regular assignments that will allow them back on full rations and privileges. Until then, their meals of tasteless mush will be brought to them, and they will relieve themselves in a nearby bucket that will be emptied infrequently.
They are all bathed in sweat; the atmosphere is very hot and humid. Scot slows down a bit and speaks.
"Man, I can't stop thinking about the way she looked… all that metal and blood…."
Phillip slows as well. "Yeah, that was…."
David stands on the pedals and pushes with all his might. "That was frakkin hot!"
They all laugh out loud and begin to pedal furiously, as if they were racing each other up a hill.
Fin