City of Light

Chapter 4

Knowing that word, my head sparks to life with questions. When I quickly sit up and rush down to my town public library. Oddly enough, I have never been more thirsty for information, but I have this feeling that I have all the answers. Like always the protector follows me, I reach the small quiet part of town. Everybody moved to the cities after the crisis I think I'm the only one here. The small building, the stone turned black from the previous fire. Paper rolls over and goes down the street. Abandoned cars with missing tires and parts, empty luggage bags with no owners. I remember that day, so many cars so many people, everybody was trying to move away to get to a safe place up east. Cars were backed up so far you couldn't see the end, horns and screams all day, you couldn't get through the city because of the block aids. So many deaths. I open the library door and look for the manuals. I find the section and find the page but the chapter is missing I look at another book but no chapter, all of them, it's gone. I thoroughly look at the books on the ground and rummage through the other shelves and see if they were missed places by readers. When the first batch of protectors was built they were only combat machines. Nothing more.When things started going south they were modified to their current form. There wasn't  much of an improvement. Apparently, they had time to publish books in enough time for the world to go to hell. I guess they thought it would all be over and the robots would go down in history, history was made years ago.

After all the rush, my senses come back. I don't feel my gas mask, my arms are cold, my lungs hurt from trying to breathe the wretched air. I stop breathing immediately and sharply turn around. I didn't notice before on my way over here, the protector had my things in its arms. It holds up my mask, I snatch it out of its hand still holding my breath. I quickly fasten it to my face and take a big, deep, rewarding breath. I feel so clean in a way, the air feels a heavy dust and my lungs get filled with black tar. It's scary.

"Oh crap!" I exclaim, I know I've been out here for too long. Mercy is probably worried I'm not home. I run past the protector out the door and down the street straight to the apartment complex in the city. I don't bother to look behind to see the protector, I know it's watching. We live in the old Aderson apartments, third floor. I hop the metal fence into the alley and hop into the window the janitors closet. No cleaning supplies left just empty shelves and a friendly spider building its trap. I reach through the doors missing bottom left edge and take the "S" hook with a wire attached to it, off a hook on the wall on the outer left wall. If you were to open this door and trip the wire a crossbow would blow your head off. I open the door and reset the trap. Down the hall past the barricades made out of suitcases, couches, and tables, I broke my back trying to set those up. I take a right and see the rope hanging from a hole cut in the ceiling connected to the upper floors ceiling, walk over and tug on the rope twice sounding a small bell that rings out signaling Mercy that it's me.  I climb up two stories and through the two holes in the floors and grab a hold on the third floor and pull my self up. 

"Mercy?" I call out. Nothing. I try again with more urgency, still nothing. I pull out my pocket knife and quietly, sneakily, carefully make my way around the apartment. ahead of the entrance, a small fire is still lit, and an open can or uneaten peaches, and a pillow where she sat by the fire. and wood shavings where she carved. No sign of a struggle, a disturbed rug with a corner folded tells me that she retrieved a weapon from our weapons stash under the floor board. To the right is the bedroom where we sleep. The door is closed, I tip toe over and put my back to the wall and the handle to my left. I open the door with caution, the hinges squeak and I see a shadow on the wall. I grip my knife and peek in, and my heart stopped. 

"Mercy!" I scream. She is held in a choke hold by the protector. I point my knife at it, my hands a violently shaking. Her right hand trying to hold its arm back as she tries to find oxygen through her small pink mask. her legs squirm and wiggle to try to get up. It doesn't move an inch, it's not fazed by her struggle. Her left hand pinned to the floor but its hand and the wrist. Mercy holds a hunting knife.