139 Years to the End of the World

Last of the Wars, Part One

She wore a gas mask that covered her face, even her hair. The rubber of the accessory stretched all the way down and around her neck and her clothes were all tightly sealed and lengthily sleeved. The combined ensemble, gloves, boots and all, were enough to completely cover my 'rescuer' from head to toe with not a lick of skin visible. Two pistols were holstered on both her thighs, with her main firearm, an assault rifle, strung over her left shoulder.

"Stop gawking!" she commanded, dragging me to my feet. My prosthetic legs, not needing any form of rebooting like my physical body does, found their steps almost instantaneously.

"What's...going on?" I asked groggily, pushing myself away from her.

I stumbled towards the wall where I took cover, out of the line of sights of the attacking machines and clear of the line of fire from the humans who kept up their shooting.

"What does it look like?" she ran up to me, shouting through her mask. "We need to get you out of here before you get skinned by those damn machines!" It was then that I noticed a name tag dangling from one of the many carabiners hanging around her waist.

I read aloud, "Amelia?"

"Con-fucking-gradulations. You figured out my name. Now can we get a move on?"

Needless to say, I was reluctant to follow. But between mysterious humans with guns and alien-like robots clawing their way into a mountain side, I had to go with humanity on that.

Unsure of what to say, I simply nodded to her, to which she signalled to her, I guess, squad, "Back to the tunnels!" turning to me, she commanded, "Stick close to me!"

She rushed forward towards the cover of the walls of the blasted opening and I followed after, sliding behind the steel between her and another soldier. She pulled her rifle up to ready in her left hand, preparing herself to shoot if necessary.

The soldier behind me, wielding a inconsistently small sub-machine gun said through his muffled breath, "Name's Borris sir. It's a real honour to meet you!"

"I guess I'm likewise then!" I yelled back a greeting as another round of suppression fire took place.

Annoyed, Amelia scolded him, "Save your bootlicking for after we get out of this!" She turned to the Cryo-Tube and I saw a figure working on the machine that I had missed before. A man, padded at the joints from shoulders to knees and carrying a backpack almost the size of his body, stood at the machines' side, pulling open panes after panels. "Brother! You found the data?"

On cue, the brother pulled out a hard-drive from the bottom of the machine. Raising it above his head, he shouted back, "Got it!" And made a beeline for the opposite wall where he took cover with two others.

"Alright," Amelia said and turned to Borris. "EMP those bastards!"

Borris circled around me with a politely out-of-situation, "Excuse me."

From one of his many belt pouches, he pulled out an egged-shaped device which, by the orders given by Amelia, I would assume was an electromagnetic pulse bomb. He squeezed the side of it gently and the device's edge glowed with a blue light.

"Fire in the hole!" he shouted as he got to his feet to toss the grenade.

The grenade left his hand, flying out of sight towards the hulking spider bots. A metal spike was returned in kind, slashing through the air before of me, piercing clean through Borris's chest, taking him off his feet, flinging him backward from the sheer momentum. The spike clang into the Cryo-Tube, embedding deep into the metal.

I heard myself called out, "No!" Though I sounded as if I was an outsider, listening to a recording of my own voice.

I jumped out from hiding, with Amelia's futile attempt to stop me being swatted away. I ran towards the downed man, popping out of cover just as the EMP wave blasted through the air. My prosthetic legs and arm gave way and I fell forward towards him. The last image I saw before my camera-eyes frizzled out was of my good hand wrapping around Borris's wrist.