Silver and Natalia - Children of the Machine

This is the series i plan to put for this site. Starring my two characters i commonly use, this is simply a "burst of the moment" story, written whenever i get an idea and as quickly as possible before the story bogs down. Most of them will be 3-4 pages, but sometimes if the story really captivates, might go higher.

Children of the Machine as a title symbolizes the creation of the two, born as "experiments" they are not of normal birth, thus created by mechanical means, but there is more to it then that as it will be said within the story.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the first part: Super Zombie

It wasn’t suppose to be like this…life, how it change for the worse these past years is beyond anyone’s knowledge, it just happened. One morning the whole world changed from what everyone knew it as to something…well…something totally unexpected. Life wasn’t an easy thing anymore, you couldn’t just walk the street to the corner store to buy milk, you had to walk with a gun…and that was scary.

Maybe it was the radiation of the wars that caused it, so many chemical and nuclear weapons had been tossed around that no one was sure what was what anymore…and to add insult an already bad situation, mutants and zombies became common gain in all those places that were struck. Or it could be the pollution; the vast amounts of fuel and burning combustion of every known substance was enough to give the sky a deep brown hue, it wasn’t even safe to walk, let alone breath now…but that’s how the world is, and that’s what people became use to.

Its hard to understand just what is my reason for being, the fact is I’m not so sure either, had no parents, had no friends, I was born a “tube” child, one of those experiments that grew kids for parents who were infertile, a rather unsettling if not disgusting process, for me, it wasn’t as a child though, I was a tool. Born as a weapon for one man who saw me in his best interest to gain some…ground…with higher officials. These officials controlled everything regulated on the planet after the collapse of humanity, the death of us all. I was suppose to be his key to get up there, I was suppose to be the one to bring him to the top, it was a shame though, that I found his true plan. He wanted me to kill them, and those officials higher up didn’t like that one bit. So…I was sent, like a dog from hell I made my way to their tower, made my way inside, and came face to face with something I never though possible.

Tin cans don’t fight well, robots and other sort of machines that move have been a hindrance with the collapse, they either didn’t work, or just failed to even do their job if they did, but this guy….he worked, and did well. A giant, black/blue armored robot in the shape of a wolf came to the party backing everything but the kitchen sink. I nearly lost it there, he may not have been fast, but he could take and give more punishment than I could give out. Sure enough, I couldn’t move after he finished with me.

The creator was killed instead, their robot did the job, but something…something inside him kept me alive, and I never understood what, robots were mindless, but this one had that sense of understanding, he actually took me as his “possession”. Possessions during this time were rare, you owned whatever you had on you or in your hands, nothing was ever a true “item of acquirement” always owned by someone else, but with my creator’s death, this robot said he “owned” me. I didn’t like that, but what could I do, I had no arms or legs, I was surprised to still be alive at all. I found myself being rebuilt soon enough, new arms, legs, fancy things that seemed to give me more speed and strength then before. I’m not one to accept gifts, but this was something I was really thankful for.

Months went on, I spent more time with this robot…named Silver, learning how to fight better, how to manage my new limbs, everything down to the fine details of maintenance. But it was soon going to come to a crashing end; zombies and mutants aren’t as dumb as people believe, when more and more begin to crowd around, they begin to get twinkles in their eyes; eating brains isn’t just for their hunger, it makes them smarter. Some zombies began using guns from dead soldiers, mutants, with their tougher bodies, became killing monsters that could rip a man in half, it was these sort of things that took down the high officials that one fateful day, and if that robot hadn’t been there for me, I surly would have been dead too.

We fled the tower as it crashed, probably blown apart by the gun crazed zombies and bezerking mutants. In the end, even the security forces inside couldn’t do much but become meat into the grinding. It was sad…almost pathetic to watch, but at the same time, a sullen fear seemed to build within the robot, which itself was unusual. A fear that something had caused those zombies to do that, that made them pursue and kill that building, was it they were guided by some bigger being? It couldn’t be just some random coincidence.

Silver told me that things in life are never just occurrences, everything, according to him, happened by a reason behind it, and this time, he figured something had caused that attack on his “home” and to destroy everything important to him; it was now personal.
He had said that he would find who did this and destroy them, and in turn, I would follow him too.

--

Living in this world is one thing, finding things to survive is a whole new game, there are no stores you can walk in for supplies, people trade, find, scavenge, kill, anything to get stuff. And finding weapons was even harder. The ones that we “acquired” from the tower before it fell were out of ammo and obsolete, we needed something more useful than pee shooters. Fortunately, when you grow up in the wastes, in less than a day you can always find something you need, Silver was a rather good robot in finding guns; we ended up rooting an armory from the collapse. Unfortunately when you find something, chances of it being what you want and in working order are less of a good chance than any. The armor had been stripped from top to bottom, guns tossed aside, bits and pieces everywhere, finding a working gun, heck one that was actually in one piece, was a trial all on its own. We didn’t leave empty handed; I found one machine pistol and Silver walked away with a light machine gun which he carried like a rifle. It may be little in the way of guns, but the ammo was enough to last us for awhile.

I must be honest here, I never actually walked this far into the world, from my creation till my relive from my creator, I was always situated within his complex, never venturing our further than the boundary wall. It was because this world was so eye opening to the one inside the complex. Silver however didn’t share the same awe, apparently he had been out of the boundary a lot longer than I have, and he had done much more and was quite fluent on many of the things to note here. Things like how to avoid mutated rats, how to build a safe camp fire without being noticed, and of course, avoiding any radiation pockets.

Fights… how I loved fights. Walking through the waste isn’t like a park, despite the dangers; the constant competition between humans, mutants, raiders and zombies is common. You wouldn’t consider this a wasteland without seeing the raiders run amok or the zombies attacking settlements. Whenever we got into a tussle, I couldn’t help but admire Silver’s skill. While I was mid range, close range fighting, he would be laying down suppressive fire at a very accurate pace. He was a long range expert, fluent in the arts of headshot and suppression; it’s almost mystical to see him move with a big gun. He told me that I was as skilled as he for mid range, using auto-pistols or sub machineguns to pummel and dance around the enemy. Wile he stuck to range, I got into the thick of it.

We spent around 4 weeks venturing across the world, we didn’t need to eat since we were mostly machine, but Silver still insisted on me doing so, maybe its because I’m still organic, maybe because he worried I needed sustenance, but I couldn’t refuse since he did so much work in preparing radiated rats…or whatever we found to become edible.
It became a game really, looking for food, either we looked for it, or something bigger looked for us, cat and mouse constantly changing. Every night this game was plaid, sometimes we were hunted out of a camping spot; other times we hunted something else out. It also gave us a chance to find better tools, each camping spot we found had some left behinds by another owner; mutual spots were common and the best means of traveling through the wastes. Soon, we were able to gather more ammo, and replaced our guns for better ones.

As we came to a larger city, we began our daily routine of scavenging; slowly searching each spot we figured would have something of value, be it for trading or use. Many things that were once consider simple pleasures were required necessities. Paper, pencils, they go for millions because writing is a slowly dying art, computers go for even more. Weapons, surprisingly, are at the bottom of the list; if you know were to look of course. People think guns and weapons purely for defending oneself, no other real reason to it, so they go fairly cheaply when there is a surplus, and after the war, there was one hell of a surplus. If it were meant to be, ammo would be the basic currency, and guns the dollar bills. Modern weapons were in plentiful supply, so many armies used them before they hit the dust that you could simply kick a few up in these massive towns and base complex’s if you have found one that was untouched.

We didn’t just find tools in the city, we also found information. Information is fare rarer than any weapon, and worth almost three times as much in the way of trading. Knowledge is power comes to mind big time here, whoever knows the most can get the furthest in this world. Its this sort of information that is needed for what we wanted to do, Silver had made a point he wanted to know who orchestrated the attack on his home, and the one man who knew all that was to be, had several dozen computers in him. His name was Deker, a robotic organization program that had been built to store data for eons and eons. Since the start of the war, he had sat here waiting, watching, and tracking each change through numerous computers, networks, satellites and communication’s sent by whoever may be speaking. He has watched humanity slowly twiddle away to nothing, from a vast super species to nothing more than rats scavenging around. From him, we learnt that there was a “super zombie” one that had become smarter then the latter zombies, and he led them with fines and skill that, to some, was beyond zombie understanding. He had orchestrated the attack…but the curious thing was, he was ordered to by someone Deker could not identify. Suffice to say, this had little concern for me or Silver, we knew the target, we knew the task, we led ourselves to it despite Dekers concern.

Finding this Zombie was now the task, with the world so barren and wasted, it wasn’t hard, but it also wasn’t easy, zombies moved in packs, and they aren’t slow or stupid either. Zombies around this one tend to be a bit smarter, clever even; they knew things and understood them. When the first zombie fired a gun at us, it was a clear sign this was not going to be an easy fight. Silver, still with rage in his eyes, didn’t hesitate to return it. By this point, both of us were armed well, Silver carried two mini-guns while I held tow with SMG’s to make sure his back wasn’t hacked. Suffice to say, we didn’t stop for anything and plowed head long into the Super Zombies base, which was an old Oil refinery.

The super zombie was nothing pretty, eons of mutation for whatever chemicals he came in contact turned this once human into a mindless, bulky, slobbering mutant. He seemed to be as tall as Silver, grappling easily with the large robot as I continued to pepper him with my guns. His skin seemed to absorb the shots, either that or they deflected right off, and his smell was terrible. That was one trick he had, I couldn’t get close because he reeked and radiated, but Silver could, and damn was I jealous how hard he pushed into the bad guy with his strength. Back and forth, slamming steel to flesh, it was gruesome; eventually Silver took the upper hand and silenced the zombie with a swift motion to the neck, jabbing a clawed hand right through the skin and out the back of the spine.

There was something odd with how easily he died, the Zombie could have taken more punishment, but it seemed too easy for him to just up and die. It was then Silver noticed something, a small gleaming metal rod in the back of his neck, it had been connected to his spine and when Silver slashed his claw, the rod seemed to snap off into his hand. The moment it made contact it turned to liquid and slid off to the floor. It laid there as a puddle for a while, both of us staring until suddenly it shifted off like a snake into one of the dark corners of the foundry.

Not wanting to waste time, Silver decided to vacate, which we did with ample speed. Yet the question of just what that thing was still lingered, maybe we would find it as we continued out travels upon this world, with no home and no future, we simply wandered as nomads through this dead place.