the exiles
chapter five: rendezvous
wayward
He reaches the bottom of the ladder and looks around cautiously. He withdraws his spear that he had relied so heavily upon. He has used this spear for killing small lizards he found scuttling in the desert, and he still feels guilty about it. The tip of the spear is still coated with the blood of his prey. Gripping the spear tightly in one hand, he enters the dark room. Slowly, the lights and machines of the base whir to life.
peregrine
She steps through the door of the helipod base, also gripping her weapon of choice. She never liked wielding a sword. As her time as a mail woman, she thought that wielding of a sword was unnecessary. The things that had changed. Inside the dark room, she feels around the wall for a switch. Eventually she finds one, and flicks it on. She then shields her eyes from the bright light that is produced.
wayward
The walls of the room that he is in are mostly empty, and on the wall to the right of the entrance are some containers. Try as he might, he is simply too weak from hunger and dehydration to open them, and even if he WAS healthy he would be too feeble. On the wall opposite those containers, there is a monitor with a keyboard, but he does not want to consider that just yet.
He walks over to the wall opposite the entrance, and finds a bottle of oil and a lump of uranium. He smells the bottle first. It smells rather toxic and generally unpleasant, so he goes for the uranium instead. He gulps it down with ease, as if he had been eating green things all his life. Which is true.
He then turns ninety degrees and faces the tangled mess of the computer wires behind the monitor and keyboard. He THEN wonders what this even is anyway. Slowly, he walks up to it. There is a young boy on the monitor and he appears to be standing on his balcony. He wonders if he can converse with him. He begins to type.
"YOU THERE. BOY."
peregrine
As her eyes adjust to the fluorescent lighting of the helipod, she examines her surroundings. He base is as bare as the vagabond's, only she doesn't know it yet. There are tons of mailboxes near a monitor and keyboard. She frowns at them. Is this some sort of sick joke? Were these supposed to remind her of her previous life? She doesn't know.
A sudden rumble shakes the entire base. Alarmed, she quickly whips out her sword. A metallic snake-like creature pokes its head through the door. She puts her sword down , and goes to pet the thing. It seems to be friendly. Without a warning, the metallic snake creature begins to eat one of the mailboxes! She does not know what to do about this, but she feels she had to protect those mailboxes.
Later, a decapitated metallic snake is found lying in the sand near the base. Fortunately, no blood.
aimless
As if expecting visitors, he hops down from the temple, holding a roll of caution tape in his hand. He begins the string up the entire perimeter with the caution tape. The area is secured. He can now rest. He starts the long and slow journey back up the temple. Plus, he has other things to do than spend the entire day in the cold night. He needs to review how his guns are doing, and explore a little bit more of the temple. He also has found some interesting stuff, such as a bass guitar and some dolls. He wonders who left those things here in the temple, anyway.
wayward
After typing a whole bunch of messages to the boy on the monitor, an agitated finger slips mid-sentence. His finger accidentally hits the caps lock key, a key that has not been touched in a long long time. Behind him, a container swings open. Multiple cans fall out of the now open container and roll across the floor. He turns around. FOOD!
He rushes over and picks up as many cans as he could in his arms and flails excitedly about. He couldn't believe it! How long had it been since he had found a source of food?! Decades?! Eons?! The questions whirled through his mind. He tried to pry one open and-
He realized he couldn't. Although his thick carapace was suitable and his digits were suitable to penetrate metal, he didn't have enough energy. He threw the can at the nearest wall in frustration! He then sighed and sat down. Well, at least cans were good building blocks to build something. At least maybe he could occupy himself for however long he would be in here for.
peregrine
Why were these metallic snake things or whatever they are attacking me? thought the mendicant to herself as she sat atop the pile of mailboxes. She slowly slid down the pile, a soft thump being produced as she hit the floor. She was real bored. Sure, finding this helipod was pretty exciting and fighting those giant metallic snakes was pretty exhilarating and fun, but what did that amount to? Nothing.
She turned her head towards the wall next to her. A monitor and keyboard. That's funny. She had never seen a computer shaped like a house before. She briefly considered the possibilities if she turned it on. What if something bad happened? What if it blew up in her face? There was only one way to find out, wasn't there. Plus, it wasn't like she had much to lose anyway. She reached over and flicked the 'on' switch.
windswept
She was already travelling through the air.
She didn't know what had happened, but it must have had something to do with the monitor that she had turned on earlier. When she had first stepped into the base, she had found a monitor. She quickly turned this monitor on, and observed a young lady standing on a dock near a multicolored sea. She typed some advice to this girl, talking about her guide, who is apparently a cat with tentacles.
After doing this, she pressed an arrow button on the keyboard, which then triggered some sort of time mechanism. A large clock appeared on the monitor and she was not able to do anything that registered on the keyboard.
And so she waited.
And when the timer wound down and hit zero seconds, she could feel the entire base rumbling. And it almost felt as if she was rising into the air.
peregrine
Elsewhere, another countdown winds down, sideways.
She didn't know what she did, but after typing several messages to some kids through the monitor, she had accidentally pressed some buttons and a timer was triggered. Panicked by this, she tried to stop the countdown in any way possible, involving throwing mailboxes at the screen and untangling wires. Alas, this was to no avail.
wayward
Meanwhile, another countdown comes to an end.
It had been almost four hours since the vagabond had pressed the set of buttons that had triggered the countdown, and he was now messing around with the cans of TaB that he had recently found in the container. Heck, he had made a giant town out of the numerous cans he had found. He had just finished a game of chess when the countdown had finished. He looked up and decided it was time to get out of here. He quickly packed some food and his belongings, as well as a new friend, a firefly, that he had freed from amber. Slowly, he began his ascent above the Can Base.
null
Two bases rose into the sky simultaneously, each carrying their respective passengers. The vagabond stood on top of the base which was now in the sky, and the mendicant was thrown against the wall as the helipod righted itself in midair. The two bases lingered in the air for a moment, and then began their journey to their rendezvous. The vagabond is confused and scared. Where will this funny-looking contraption take him? Why? And who will he meet? These are the questions he asks himself as the wind whips in his face. The mendicant is also paralleling to the vagabond's emotions and thoughts.
These questions will be answered soon enough.
aimless
He sits against a wall in the temple, eagerly looking at the sky. When would they be here, and who would they be? These questions will be answered soon enough.
Two white dots gleam in the sky. They slowly approach the area. The renegade stands up and he loads his gun. He is ready.
He was expecting visitors.