The next morning when I woke up I saw Mia already tinkering with the drones. Gabe was covered in sweat presumably from collecting them from the field. I could feel the tension in the room, I'm guessing Gabe is still mad about last night.
"Alright, we don't have much more to go, the ship is almost complete, what's left though is going to be difficult and I'm going to need help, we need an A.I. to get us in the final stretch of getting off this shithole."
"I'm beginning to feel you only took us in because you need help making your wishes come true." Mia said cold and emotionless.
"I don't need it but it, but as the name suggests it certainly helps."
"Finished." Mia hands me the drones.
That girl is amazing with tech I'll give her that, not to her face of course cant let her ego get too big.
"Let's load up, we're headed to the place where this story began, Spacer Co."
"You really think they left an A.I. chip there?" Gabe asked
"I'm positive they did." I said, smiling from ear to ear.
We start to load up, Gabe grabs his usual tools and guns, the muscles bulging out lifting the equipment up to the van. Mia was sitting like a porcelain doll up front, One that would sit on someone's window seal all creepy. Her perfect straight black hair curved away from her eyes at the bangs sitting still and motionless carrying her usual small pock tool with various tools inside it, and one small knife attached to her leg. Finally I hop in the driver seat dirty overalls and goggles and all.
"This is one of the most important trips we're gonna make out here, I hope you two are ready, we're going right through Jortega. Jortega is the town's home to nothing but poppers; they're the ones who inhale toxic chemicals to get a rush and they're very easily agitated when the rush is dying out; they will do anything to retain it as long as possible.
I turn the key to the truck, the lights flicker on, I click the button on the ceiling of the van, lights turn on around me and the garage door begins to open revealing the dawn sky. With most of the world's electricity out, the stars in the sky are often much brighter then they ever were. I pushed the pedal to the floor and we're off. The drive is a nice and quiet one aside the random dodging of decades old decay, from nobody around to assist with upkeep. Jortega is peering into our vision now. It's been a few months since we were even close to this place.
Smoke still rises to the horizon covering the sun beginning to crack the sky. There's fog that always stays above the city and hugs it like a parasite. As soon as you get close you can smell the Gas people pumped from the ground here.
"Welcome to the city of gloom Jortega!"
"Finally, a city I can relate to." Mia said with the slightest of smirks.
Yea as I thought that's one fucked up girl. Looking back at her brother he seems so lost in thought I doubt he even heard her utter those words. Driving through town we gained many looks from those camped out of the street most of them near death or maybe even dead who knows. We pulled up to the decrepit building half of it was already torn to rubble on the ground. Gabe hops out the back with his rifle in hand, me and Mia get out and head toward the front door only half covered with giant blocks of cement.
"Ah ah ah." A voice broke out from behind us.
"You need to pay your tax before meddling around in my city ladies.. And gentleman." He said after looking around and seeing Gabe.
"If we refuse?" Gabe said, loading the gun and bringing it to his chest.
"There's no need for that sir." Twirling his fingers men and women appeared from every angle with guns of all kinds pointed at us.
"It's okay Gabe, I came prepared."
I lifted my hand with a can full of a black tar-like substance.
"Ah miss where did you get your hands on the good stuff?" The man asked.
"I traded for it a few weeks ago when I knew I needed to come here, never come empty handed am I right? I said laughing.
"Well hand it over and I can assure you, you'll have a lovely Jortega visit." He said with a smile, losing his cool and scratching his neck a little.
Now that's customer service I tossed it over and turned back toward the door.
"What's your business in there anyway? Aren't you that mechanic with electricity at your camp. You match the record we hear about, a dirty mechanic with two little orphans following her." He gave the bag to someone beside him who began checking the substance.
"That'd be me, but I'm just looking for some more high grade metal is all. Thought there's maybe a chance there'd be some in here."
"I couldn't tell you yes or no on that, but do be careful. I can assure you're safe out here but in there is outside of my control, there are a lot of unruly poppers in there." He said.
"That's fine, some of us need to let off some steam sometimes." Gabe said, cutting me off with a courteous smile and bow.
Climbing over the rubble and grimy rocks I pushed through the door that at one point was very luxurious, with golden trim embroidered across the door showing constellations. Pushing through the door were greeted with a nice smell of mildew and mold. It was pitch black but stressing my eyes in the dark I could see faint lights that appeared to be small flames.
"Alright guys, stay behind me and let's stick together."
"Okay." Gabe said.
"Mia you understand?" "Mia….."
"Mia's not here!" Gabe said in a panic.
"Mia!" Gabe said, taking off into the darkness.
"Fucking kids, I might've been better off alone."
Sounds of bullets almost immediately began ringing out into the building so I hurried my way to the culprit. There he was, Gabe already a floor below me firing at a horde of poppers in an almost zombie state.
"Gabe, get back!"
"I'm finding Mia!" Gabe shouted back pressing on leaving a pool of gore in his wake.
The gunshots are still echoing like thunder in this confined old office space. Occasional groans from these tweakers as they were hit and a new smell of gunpowder hit the air mixing with the ever present decay found around Jortega.
To hell with it I'm just going to get the A.I. myself and deal with this later. I pull the detailed map out of my pocket and it's the blueprints for the building. It's dark but I can make out shapes enough to get around. The gun crazy kid lights up the room with every shot he takes. Gabe has drawn most of the people in here toward him. I make my way toward a spiral staircase that leads to the room where they produced the A.I. chips. Getting to the door I realized there was an old code lock on it but with no power I should be able to use a little man power to get it open
More and more echoes of bullets being fired rains from upstairs.
"There's something seriously wrong with those kids." Is all I could think and chuckle to myself.
I Shove a metal pipe in between the door and slowly it inches open. I find myself utterly pissed that most of the room has collapsed. The room might not be as disgusting as the rest of the building but it's still covered in a thick layer of dust.
I search through an endless amount of boxes and shelves that are still salvageable hoping to find an important key to my mission. Nothing absolutely fucking nothing I'm losing my mind sifting through all this shit. I went through all this just to find the blueprints for this place. I kicked a box as hard as I could in frustration and a small metal container flew from inside it. The box read A.I.
"Hell yes!" I couldn't help but say.
Opening the box I was met with what can be explained as mild anger issues as I realized the box was empty.
"AHH! you little pricks always have to fuck with me, I'll be up high one day then I'll see what you all have to say for it!"
Kicking and slamming every table and desk in frustration until I can't breathe.
Out of breath I began the long depressing trek through all the carnage left behind Gabe's anger. I found him on the floor covered in blood. I couldn't tell if it was his own or all these people laying around us.
"You good?"
"I don't know where she is." He said with a depressed voice.
"She'll turn up, she always does."
This boy's mind always goes blank when it comes to his sister. We probably would have made our way pointlessly without being seen.
Groaning, he got up and started following me toward the exit. I looked him over. I saw he did take a wound himself, a nice stab wound not too deep but enough to let you know it there and keep some decent blood flow leaving it. It won't be a problem unless it's left untreated.
"I'll hel…"
"I'm fine, let's find Mia and leave." He said cutting me off mid sentence he must have noticed I was staring at his fresh new scar.
Making it outside were greeted by the dim light barely peering in past the smog in the sky. As well as one dark hair pale girl sitting atop a small rock.
"Mia! Have you been out here the whole time?" Gabe spoke as fast as he could.
"No." She spoke calm and softly but in a very condescending tone..
"I did what we came to do so we could leave as soon as possible. As much as it pains me to admit it, this place is awful, there's no reason to stay here any longer than needed." Mia continued in a monotone voice.
"Yea well the mission is a bust sorry to disappoint in that department as well." I was still sour about that box.
"What do you mean?" Mia asked, tilting her head slightly to the left as bits of her hair fell to the side blowing ever so slightly in the breeze.
"I mean there was no A.I. chip in there I was wrong."
"No you weren't." Mia said, still confused.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I've got the chip right here, you were only half wrong this was a prototype." Mia said nonchalantly.
"How the hell did you get that so fucking fast?"
"Well I told you I'd be right back with it, I figured Gabe just wanted to play terminator and you a babysitter is why you did what you did." She continued in the same smug voice.
I fucking hate kids sometimes…
"How did you even know where to go?"
"You left the blueprint on your desk for weeks, I figured we'd go there eventually so I memorized the whole building. I took the air ducts down. It was the easiest way." Her stupid perfect hair went back into place as she hopped off the rock, and dusted her legs off.
"You're going to kill me one of these days Mia, that is if someone else doesn't first." Gabe said.
You could tell he was happy she was safe and sound, the manic in his voice has all but disappeared since we found her.
"One small problem though." Mia announced.
I make a small gesture for her to continue.
"The chip I found and the sole remainder from this facility is a prototype. Meaning it's not finished and might have some minor kinks I may need to iron out."
"You can do it?" I ask redundantly already knowing the answer.
She didn't even bother with a reply she must've known I knew.
We started heading back to the van when we started being followed.
"Can we help you all?" I turn and say seeing the crowd of people and the self proclaimed leader among them.
"You see what you gave is already gone so we were thinking we might need to secure your van for future ventures if you know what I'm saying. The man said with a smug look on his face.
"Listen we have something important to do, just so you're aware there's gallons of pops in the building and we just evicted all the residents so you all might need to hurry if you're going to get your hands on some of it." Mia said in her signature monotone voice.
Like animals, tons of the people scrambled trying to get to the building first. Leaving just the leader behind looking as angry as can be that his plan to secure a vehicle just crumbled in front of him by such a little girl and one sentence.
"Wait until you come back." The man said leaving us behind disappearing into the smoke veil with the rest of the savages.
"Making it back to the van in one piece is quite the accomplishment if I say so myself." I could cut the tension in the room with a knife.
"Mia stitch your brother up please, we don't need to paint the inside of the van red."
"Sure." Mia gets the needle and thread from a makeshift first aid kit and sits beside Gabe.
"Don't cry, I'm going to stitch it up on the count of three." She said
"One.."
"Don't you need to rub numbing cream first?" Gabe gestured toward the filled bottle.
"Two.." She dug the needle into his arm.
"Ow, what the hell. You said on three." Gabe shouted
"Oops, I forgot, my bad." She replied without even breaking concentration from stitching him up.
"Alright, guys let's bail." I cranked the key into the engine and took off like a bat out of hell hoping I'd never have to see such a distasteful place again
I was happy we got what we came for even if it was in such a fucked up way but none the less a job well done. It was almost dusk out now the sun no longer had the ability to break through the clouds above. Weaving through the decaying world would become somewhat of a challenge now.