Fan Fiction ❯ Human Alloy ❯ Epilogue ( Epilogue )

Time had passed. There was no idea how to tell how much, other than trusting Cale on his time measurement scale, and that was even with this faster revolving sun. Rain had come and gone, flowers had bloomed all over the place, animals had borne their young, and we had learned to cope so well with the earth given to us. But we hadn't forgotten the world above us. When it was mentioned, Cale never had a word to put in, Yue put in a reassuring yet somehow concerned word, and I was left to wonder. When would it be safe to back to the surface? It was nice in this world, but I wanted to go back to how things were before. Breathe the real air on the surface, have a good Coke, watch T.V. We had found our way back to Cale's cave after trekking across the globe long enough. It was much nicer there but the thought of a real bed was something I really looked forward to.

 

One late summer day, the opportunity arose. We would go back to the rebel's lair, to Yue's home, and if we couldn't at least stay between there and Cale's cave, then we'd see if the destruction had ceased above ground. I had gotten as much from my brother and from Yue, that robots had gone haywire with the illegal programs the rebels had installed and major panic and chaos had been taking place above ground. We packed up provisions, sealed the cave so nothing else could get in, as a family of raccoons had made home when we first arrived back and had to evict them to save the rest of what hadn't been destroyed, and headed off. Stepping into Yue's bedroom was an odd sort of different heaven I wasn't so used to now, and it was quite dark. My eyes adjusted to the dim lighting from the aquarium. We lived in the house, re-supplying food from the gardens since what was in the pantry and fridge had gone bad, except of course nonperishable foods. Not too long after Cale and Yue pulled me into the Gin's and laid me on her bed which they had turned into an operating table. I had my eye replaced, the scarred one I could no longer see with; my right eye, with an eye similar to Cale's. It was the same in color too. I awoke on what was believed to be a Saturday morning to find a note on Yue's door telling me to stay in the house and that he and Cale would be back as soon as they could. Not long after getting dressed and taken a bath which I adored now so much more than ever, the two arrived.

 

“It's safe, come see,” Cale said, exhilarated, tugging my arm out of my socket as Yue smiled wearily. He nodded. We traced a way back through a deserted R.A.D.A.R. building, everything askew and left, as if everyone had rushed out at the precise moment, dropping whatever task was at hand. I question this, but my protests were met with silence and hushes. Suddenly, I was standing outside of what was supposed to be the rest of the building. Twisted black masses and mounds of….. tar, or something like it, furnished the surrounds. Green fuzz and grass was sprouting in places, dust and dirt covering other places. A lonely daisy had managed to take root in the superficial soil. It felt harder to breathe and the air was acrid, but it was startling. Where had my world gone? I was shocked—horrified; unable to comprehend anything. Cale squeezed my hand and said gently, “Questions can be answered later.”

 

It was interesting and upsetting to hear. What they had kept from me, and the entire plan. I couldn't believe it. I vaguely remembered a faint glimpse of my father but hadn't it been a dream? Wasn't this all just a dream? Was everything really gone? Yue had gone through Root's room one day and found something, a device like a bird Mecha-Pet only much simpler. It had a surveillance record of everything it saw, like a miniature satellite. It came back nearly a week later, and after reviewing its records, we found not everything had been destroyed. Plants were sprouting, yes, but parts of buildings and even whole buildings remained. Rubble piled up in small mountains and black, twisted hunks of hardened magma held protrusions of not entirely enveloped concrete and steel. There were two things we found most disturbing. One was the hulking shadow of a grotesque form, silhouetted in a haze of dust, and the other was a small faction of people, sitting near a small craft and conversing.

 

The people, back here on earth, was alarming enough, despite the curiosity of the large figure, but some of the words we caught, were even more disturbing.

 

“Establish….base…. earth. We have technology…..years or so…..won't be long……too many people… Mars.” Soon, our sanctuary, our paradise, would be overrun with humans. We made a decision. Back to the Black Halo, a memory I never had. We would see what was there—what robots were left, and gather them, making our own race; enough to frighten the humans back to Mars or else create a proposition. Years from now, this would be war.