The intense heat from the fires were still fresh on their skin, hearing the increasingly clearer clash still going on the street, they managed to stand up and continue their escape from the maniacal entourage.
Turning down the now deserted street where they initially got kidnapped, they see the now collapsed outer walls of the hospital. In their attempt to reach the other side of the street, all of a sudden they hear a loud shattering of glass immediately followed by a woman violently hitting the ground holding her newborn baby. The sight of their inert bodies from the impact froze them in place, when they spotted a familiar large brown figure rushing through the adjacent crossing, carrying Maxi and Titus on top.
“Look guys!” Cornelia happily exclaimed. “They survived!”
Their brief respite was short lived, as soon after a large horde of the surviving crazed fanatics began rushing down the street, Maxi pulled out his rifle managing to shoot down a couple of the oncoming attackers.
“C’mon guys! Hurry up!” Maxi anxiously yelled out. “I managed to find a place nearby!”
Without a moment to lose, they all followed Maxi after distracting the angry mob with a nearby broken down reflective mirror. Turning yet another corner down a slightly narrower street, the tightly packed buildings and sharp corners allowed them just enough time to run into an old 1920’s French style townhouse that appeared slightly more preserved than the rest of the dilapidated structures around them. Maxi led them in through two long classical varnished doors, securing it with a surprisingly sophisticated disaster-ready barricade lock. The interior of the house was surprisingly well kept, if a little dusty. The beige and light brown granite tiles led up to a small conventional lobby with a dark wooden plank floor, making the entire place feel like an antiquated hostel or boarding house. Old colonial windowed doors separated the lobby from an exit to another granite floor patio on one side, the other led into a large living room area filled with old newspapers, magazines, and even board games neatly placed on a cornered coffee table. The patio only had a small set of plastic chairs and table, the previous owner seemed to enjoy plants on account of all the hanging pots around the white painted large brick walls.
Exploring further in the upper floors house they see that it had multiple rooms with a large number of beds in each, an art studio, and a laundry area with a terrace complete with a clothesline. Seeing that most of the furniture and household items were still in place, made them suspicious when they saw thick shielded cables running around most walls down to a room that only seemed accessible from the downstairs patio.
“Hmm, it seems that there’s more to this house than just someone trying to relive their college days.” Cornelia commented with a curious look, following the cables.
“What’s in here?” Lindbergh wondered as he opened the door that all the cables Cornelia was following led to.
“Hey! I was following it first, you dipstick!” Cornelia called out with a flustered frown.
They quickly fell into silence as they saw that large room filled with all sorts of electronics, high-tech terminals and even high-end gamer equipment of every kind imaginable: consoles, PCs, classic videogames organized into a large shelf with a crystal door. Investigating more thoroughly, they came across different samples and simulation diagnostics on several monitors that appeared to be gauging someone’s vitals, others were focused on different physical needs, there was even a sleep pattern analyzer that seemed to be regulating some form of REM sleep composition.
Their exploration came to an abrupt halt when Cornelia gasped in fear as she froze in place.
“What happened?” Lindbergh hurriedly asked. “Did you see a ghost or something?”
“N-no… It’s just… Them…” she muttered, pointing towards two skeletons sitting on a sofa in front of a vintage plasma TV set with joysticks still in their hands, surrounded by high-stacked columns of pizza.
“Don’t mind them, I think they actually need some company after staying paused like this all this time, don’t ya think.” Lindbergh snickered.
“You should be more respectful of the dead, Lin…”
“What? It’s not like I was planning on taking anything away from here.” he rebutted, his expression turning to a grin. “Besides, the tech nerd around here is you.”
At that moment, Maxi and Adriana entered the room with Titus on her shoulder, being immediately astounded by the intrinsic tech layout of the entire room.
“I never suspected this place to be keeping such a large secret when I found it.” Maxi expressed, still in disbelief.
“Someone was trying to pull off some crazy scheme before the end, this equipment isn’t easy to get ahold of. It’s discontinued or prototyped tech from OptoGenica and Crystal Creations from a few years ago.” Titus explained in a surprised tone.
“It’s incredible to see so many things still functioning even after the bombs, don’t you think, Cornie?” Adriana curiously observed around the room. “Do you think we could use any of these things to better our chances for getting out of here or defending ourselves?” she inquired.
“Adri, doesn’t it seem a bit morbid talking about this with those two still sitting around there?” Cornelia replied, pointing at the two skeletons on the couch.
“W-who?” she wondered as she turned to see where Cornelia was pointing to. “Eek! I didn’t see them there… I’m sorry Lord, I didn’t mean to insult those that have already passed on.” she apologized with a bow to the skeletons. “Do you think they’ve been like that from even before the war?”
“It’s unlikely, it doesn’t stink that much in here for them to be freshly rotted corpses. There aren’t signs of carrion scavengers or critters around here, the room was perfectly hermetically sealed before we came here. Whatever the case may be, they seemed to value this place.” Cornelia remarked.
“I think Cornie’s right. It seems to me that they were doing some sort of experiment here.” Titus observed the various gadgets and monitors around the room. “Maybe it was the house of an old OptoGenica or Crystal Creations scientist researcher. Because accessing all of this tech, even with money, couldn’t have been an easy ordeal.”
“I still don’t see how all of this can help us to get out of here safely.” Maxi commented in a blunt tone.
“Knowing chicuela here, she’ll probably improvise some sort of laser rifle or plasma gun, helping us shoot our way out of here. She’s full of surprises like that.” Lindbergh confidently smirked.
“Hmph. All that smooth-talk ain’t gonna get you far with me, you’re still a doofus to me. Still, thanks for the vote of confidence.” Cornelia mentioned, slightly blushing. “I doubt that the equipment around here can help us build weapons, but maybe they can help us build some sort of crude map of the area, I’ll try and figure something out. I honestly just hope that those loonies out there don’t find this place.”
“Come on, you always find a way to get out of sticky situations.”
“I’m telling you that this equipment is too advanced for me and that even if I did know what to do, it doesn’t get us anywhere in terms of weapons!”
“What about the repair kit you got for Abby? Could it help you with that?” Adriana asked.
“Eh? Oh, you’re right!” Cornelia hopefully exclaimed. “Maybe this can help us revive Abby and she can help guide us out of here.”
“Well while you’re hard at work with your gadgets, we’ll finish up exploring the rest of the house. If everything is cool, we’ll start making dinner and stay here tonight. No worries, I’ll cook tonight.” Lindbergh said with a wink.
“As long as you don’t kill us with one of your weird experiments. Sounds good to me.” she replied with a smile.
“Ouch! That hurt my pride as a chef, and as a human being.” he snarkily exclaimed as he walked out the door. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
“Hold on a minute, Lin!”
“Yes?”
“Have you seen Betsy? She clearly couldn’t fit through the door.”
“Uhm, no idea. She was with us though.”
Walking out into the patio, they began hearing a rushing rattle that seemed to go through loose metal panels and wood. All of a sudden, they looked up to the top of the inner walls that connected the buildings on the sides, only to see the characteristic large brown blob rushing down onto them, with an excited chirp.
Caressing her for being a good girl and finding her way back, Betsy turned around to see a garden beyond a rusted old gate that separated the granite floor from the randomly dispersed patches of grass in the large open area behind the house. Seeing her rushing up the walls, nestling into the place as if she found a new home, made them sigh tenderly as they observed the humongous Racha play and frolic in the dirt.
After settling back into the tech room, Cornelia began working on restoring Abby. Later that night, sparks of light from the solder as well as other tools illuminated Cornelia’s frustrated expression in an electric blue glow. After multiple attempts through different processes, every time she got Abby to reboot, she would immediately shut down again, causing her even more frustration from all that wasted hard work.
“Come on, girl… Don’t leave me like this.” Cornelia muttered, gritting her teeth. “I feel as if there’s a chance to bring you back, this is it. You’re my last memory from my old life, you’re my last bit of family… C’mon” she mumbled as tears began to form in her eyes. “You can’t leave me alone in this world… I know that these people are good, they’ve been good to me… I still don’t know why they’ve gone along with all my plans and want to still be here with me after all we’ve been through… I don’t even know what I expect to find when I get back. All I know is that I want you there when that happens.” she declared to Abby as she fell into tears, dropping her tools onto the workbench in the process.
A knock from one of the windows behind her interrupted her sobbing, looking back she saw Betsy tapping on the window that looked into the dimly lit back garden. As soon as she opened the door a happy chirp came from Betsy, trying to squeeze in through the narrow window.
“I think I never got to introduce you two. Abby, this is Betsy: she’s a nice big girl that has gotten us out of many tight spots and is always happy to be with us when we’re out and about in this broken world. I don’t know how Racha families work, but I think she’d be your younger sister.” Cornelia turned to show Betsy her small wristband that held Abby. “Look here, girl… She’s your sister. Who would have thought that even in the end of the world I’d still have such a special family?”
Small chirps of joy could be heard as Betsy tenderly rubbed her head onto Abby, leaning in to touch Cornelia’s hands as well. Not being able to control her already altered emotions, Cornelia began crying again as she hugged Betsy through the window, small paused chirps and rapid wing flaps seemed like an attempt to comfort her in her sadness. Wiping off her tears she smiles tenderly at her big brown eyes whilst saying:
“Thanks for the pep talk, girl… I really needed it. Now, let’s see if I can revive your sister so you can get to know each other better!” she exclaimed with a determined expression. “Maybe one if switched up one of the transistors from the microprocessors, reducing the voltage that they receive, it could reactivate the nanobot’s main core functions…” she mumbled to herself.
Attempting to solder some cables in order to connect them to a remote mainframe, caused a huge spark to reset the ongoing reboot process that she had managed to prolong. Betsy kept looking at her through the window, seeing her exasperated reaction.
“Coño de la madre! Why didn’t I foresee that?!” she yelled, bangin the table with her fist. “I just hope I didn’t fry poor Abby. I need to find another way to reactivate her core.
Suddenly, a loud screeching noise from the door catches Cornelia off-guard, revealing Lindbergh shyly peeking into the room only to later casually stroll in and throw himself on the couch, sitting right between the two skeletons.
“Hey, you almost scared me half-to-death, you idiot!” she angrily remarked.
“I just came in to tell you that we made some food, well actually, we made a lot of food, so I thought I’d come in and invite you three out to dinner.” he smirked. “I already served Betsy some out back.”
“O-okay then… I’ll be out in a little bit, just d-don’t… don’t barge in like that when I’m doing delicate stuff like this. I’m very frustrated right now.”
“I can tell, but… isn’t that like your natural state most of the time? What’s wrong now?” he commented with a serious expression.
“See why I can’t tell you anything, ya jerk?! I’m frustrated because I’m trying to find a way to restore Abby, but the only tool I think we needed was lost out there somewhere. It’s all very depressing.”
“That seriously sucks… Did you try asking these two though?”
“How am I gonna ask two old sacks of bones about tools? Are you okay, Lin? Maybe you took too many blows to the head. Seriously, sometimes you worry me a lot.”
“Could be, but that’s beside the point!” he eagerly continued. “I’m just saying, there’s a lot of notes, books, and documents scattered around here, maybe one can help point you in the right direction.”
“I checked most of them out, they’re mostly drawings, sketches and designs. Not much in technical documents.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, Lindbergh turns to the skeletons, wrapping his arms around their shoulders as he asked them:
“What do you think, guys? I know we’re basically invading your house, privacy and memories, but we’re in a really tight spot. Could you lend us a hand? Anything helps, really.”
“Lindbergh, don’t be a dumbass. Poor guys have gone through enough rotting away in the middle of the apocalypse.”
“I know, but haven’t you ever tried calling out to things you’ve lost?”
“What do you mean? First time I’ve heard of that.”
“It always helped me out, whenever I lost something, I’d just call out to it.” he cheerfully explained. “For example: the other day I thought I lost some of my candy I had saved up, I began calling them out so to speak, until I found that the little furball had been storing them in between Adriana’s chest. Cunning little guy.”
“That sounds like a load of crap, Lin. How’d Adri not feel all that candy stuffed down there?”
“Easy, the furry mastermind took away the wrappers, he would leave small batches in there, and then whenever he crawled in he’d discreetly eat a couple. Adri never noticed until one day I asked her why Titus’s fur looked so sticky after he got out of her cleavage, she started inspecting herself and voilà! We found the hidden treasure.”
“Wait, so what about the candy that Adri had stuffed in her bra? Did you throw them away?”
“No… She actually offered them to me, insisting that it was a waste to just toss them away, that The Lord would frown upon us if we didn’t eat all of the food we had.”
“You do know that those candies that she had there were stored for an indefinite amount of time, right? Soaking up all of Adri’s sweat?”
“That explains the slight saltiness that they had! I thought Titus had farted on them or something, a clever defense mechanism if I do say so myself.” Lindbergh chuckled as he pulled out another handful of candy from his coat, offering some to Cornelia that she waved off, only to then turn and offer the skeletons some. “You should really try it, man. It’s lemon-lime, real tasty.”
“Lin, please… STOP PLAYING WITH THE SKELETONS!”
As soon as she yelled, Lindbergh let go the jaw of one of them, making it mimic the movement that it was chewing the candy that Lindbergh put in his mouth. The sudden gesture made its entire skull fall onto the ground, rolling toward the wall as it loudly smashed against it.
Before they were able to peer under the desk it had rolled under. they saw the entire room light up as if a gigantic reboot was taking place, making the floor tiles quake a bit beneath their feet, suddenly the tiles split revealing a large underground passage into an improvised, yet just as high-tech basement. The small room let out a frigid mist that chilled them to their bones, as the cold fog dissipated, they observed a pair of small yet strange pods at the very back of that mysterious place.
Stepping closer to inspect the odd capsules, they see that its crystals are completely covered in a thick condensed shroud that limited their view, before they could do anything else, the pods suddenly open, releasing the freezing air from within as two men emerge from them.
A medium-sized man, with curly hair, light caramel skin, dressed in only a dark green t-shirt, dark jeans, and some classic Converso sneakers, stands up shaking his head as he exclaimed:
“Coño, hermano… I think that next time that we link up our minds we need to put an alarm clock or something, because we missed the Apoca-Con. See? These guys are still in their apocalypse cosplays.”
The other man seemed to grunt in agreement as he got up: he was slightly taller, his pale skin appeared to still be as frozen as his stern expression upon laying eyes on Cornelia and Lindbergh.
“Eh, w-who are you guys?” Cornelia nervously asked. “What were you doing locked in those pods?”
“Wha--? Oh, right! I’m Rick, nice to meet you there. This rigidly faced guy prefers to be called Sixx. He’s set in his ways like that.” the man cheerfully introduced himself, checking the various systems and terminals around the room as he spoke. “Now, my turn. What are you guys doing here? This is supposed to be our secret base. It’s not like the world ended or anything.”
“Well neither of you seem that old to be set in your ways, but it’s cool, man. Nice to meet you, I’m Lindbergh. The open-mouthed chicuela over there is Cornelia, she looks kinda kooky, but she’s a good one all in all.”
“Cornelia, huh?” Rick mumbled for a moment. “You still haven’t answered my question though.”
“W-we were in need of a safe house and we ran into this place, quite literally.” Cornelia stammered.
“Don’t sweat it, I guess it’s normal for kids to do weird things, eh?” Rick calmly shrugged it off. “So why are you dressed like that? Not to criticize, but you guys look like you’ve been through Hell. We do have some fresh clothes and working water around here, feel free to take your pick.”
“I mean, we just ran away from some crazy cannibals when the Hospital de Niños mysteriously blew up… Maybe it’s for the better, the things they were doing in there… You really don’t wanna know--” Lindbergh explained, hanging his head.
“Hold up. You’re telling me that Hospital de Niños blew up?! Did you guys call the cops or firefighters or something? Are you okay?” Rick worryingly exclaimed in disbelief.
“So it’s official. You guys definitely don’t know what’s going on.” Cornelia sighed. “The world ended some time ago… There was an attack, bombs fell, a lot of people died, war broke out as people fought for the remaining resources. Now we just survive out here in the ruins of the Old World.”
“Nah, that can’t possibly be right--” Rick begins thoroughly analyzing data feeds on his computers, widening his eyes at the conclusive reality that what they were saying is true.
“It’s true, Rick. The data and the cams don’t lie… Take a look.” Sixx finally spoke, pointing at a surveillance monitor.
“Goddamn it! If it was a level 5 emergency Hans should’ve woken us up! That’s why the ion batteries are almost depleted, I hope he’s got a good excuse when we go back there, I’m gonna pull him--”
“Wait, what’s a level 5 emergency?” Cornelia asked, tilting her head.
“It’s a plan we came up with one day as a joke a long time ago. We said that if the world was gonna end, we would make it so that there was a protocol in place to help people survive during post-apocalyptic life. Old gamer goals, I guess.” Sixx explained.
“Yeah, the plan was to clone each other so that we would always have a safe point in case something happened to us in our normal bodies.” Rick eagerly remarked. “The thing was, we didn’t realize how complex cloning really was versus just modifying some tech and uploading our minds on relay to an android body. Who’d have thunk it, right?”
“Psst, Lin… I think the cryo-sleep made these guys a bit looney.” Cornelia whispered into Lindbergh’s ear. “They’re delusional with some sci-fi crap.”
“It’s not some sci-fi crap, pequeña. Don’t take our word for it, you’ll see in due time, it’s not like I’m going to dissect myself right now in front of you just so that you can see my synthetic parts palpitating. It’d be rude.” Rick said, beginning to gather things into a small rucksack.
“What’s your protocol say about randomly meeting two people in your own house?” Cornelia inquired.
“Don’t think we established that part, we never planned to actually use it. We actually designed it for a zombie or alien invasion, maybe a partially non-humanity-resetting nuclear apocalypse that didn’t leave the earth uninhabitable for centuries. I’m yet to determine in which of those we are currently at.”
“Wow, despite sounding like a lunatic, you also seem to have everything planned out, kudos to you, bro.” Lindbergh cheerfully commented.
“From my analysis and the fact that you managed to somehow wake us up, I think it’s safe to say that this disaster was relatively recent. Despite there being bombs, our reinforced tech held up so far and we didn’t die in our sleep, so that’s a plus.”
“It’s not that recent, we’ve been roaming around for a while now. There’s no way to tell the hour of the day or what date we’re in, all I know is that it's been about a winter or two, it’s hard to tell because the cold has never really stopped.” Cornelia explained with a saddened expression.
“Hmph. From my readings we’re severely limited in our functions. Most of our reserves and links to our server have been almost entirely severed as well.” Sixx bluntly remarked as he checked the mainframe of the room.
“That would explain why Hans didn’t come to wake us up, he may have fallen into stasis as well. He’s probably just laying around waiting to be rebooted.” Rick thought out loud, contemplating the situation.
“Who’s that Hans you keep going on about?” Lindbergh asked.
“He’s our modded android assistant. We made him using an old HelpinHans discontinued model, we made him so that he’d be packing quite a few surprises for situations like this. If you care to join us when we go get him, I’ll introduce you.”
“Get him from where? Another secret compartment around the house?”
“He’s in our apartment on the other side of the hospital. We’ll just nip in and get him. It’ll be quick.”
“Haven’t you been listening?!” Cornelia exclaimed in frustration. “It’s chaos out there, there are cannibals and other weird things that want to eat you!”
Processing their words contemplating all plausible scenarios, they conclude that it would be best to search for Hans in the morning. After their plan was openly discussed, Rick and Sixx resumed checking up their terminals, reviewing data in total silence.
Cornelia popped her head in the room where the two men were still hard at work, asking them:
“Hey… You guys hungry? We made some dinner, if you want you can join us at the table.”
“We don’t really need to eat, but it would be nice to try out our taste receptors, see if these things actually process the smell and flavor of things.” Rick cheerfully accepted.
Once everyone sat down, they saw that the large rectangular wooden table had a large assortment of canned-made foods, skillfully converted into all sorts of meaty, spicy, and alluring smells that impregnated the entire room.
“A full-fledged apocalyptic dinner, huh? Looks pretty tasty too.” Rick expressed with a smile as he sat down.
“So, there’s nothing sweet around here?” Sixx bluntly asked. “If not, no worries. It does look pretty good.”
“There’s some canned fruits here.” Adriana said as she placed a number of preserves in front of him. “Oh, and also we have some jam and these sweet crackers we salvaged the other day, you’re more than welcomed to them.” Adriana affirmed as she got out two large packets of crackers and cookies, placing them near Sixx.
“I haven’t seen you before, who are you?” Sixx inquired.
“Oh! My apologies… I’m Adriana, but you can call me Adri. I got carried away there because those two have talked about you all day long.”
“No worries.” Sixx replied as he began taking long sips of the soup, whilst stealing long glances at the cookies, as if jealously guarding them.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Adri. What’s the furry guy’s name?” Rick asked.
“That’s Titus, he’s kinda the voice of reason in the group, usually gives out good advice, pretty knowledgeable of the things going on out there too.”
“Hmm? How’s that work?” Rick wondered. “How does he hand out advice? With all his fluffiness and cute little whiskers?”
“Actually he’s an experiment from OptoGenica, they were testing out how to make ferrets incredibly smart and able to talk.”
“You don’t say? I find that hard to believe.” Rick stared at her in disbelief. “That was some false publicity stunt they were trying to pass off as the future of commercial pets or something.”
“We were, and they did. It just didn’t make it to the sale’s floor, we were labeled as too unpredictable for the public and thus we were discarded. I somehow survived, now I’m here. Happy times.” Titus replied, standing up on the table looking directly at Rick.
“Wow, it seems that they did manage to give them advanced cognitive skills with those enhancer chips.”
“How do you know about that?” Titus asked.
“I guess since it’s the end of the world, it doesn’t matter if I tell you, it’s not like they’re actively listening to us anymore.” Rick snarkily remarked. “When we were configuring Hans in order to give him the capabilities we planned, I stumbled across a backdoor hidden access point to the old Crystal Creation archives from back in the 30’s. They were working on a lot back then, but the enhancer chip was to be their Holy Grail or something. Using a backlog of their data, I was able to piece together that they planned to use it on animals to improve their natural capabilities, I never could determine the purpose of those projects, but it was a joint operation with OptoGenica as far as I could tell.” Rick wholeheartedly explained, taking a sip from his canned lemonade.
Shocked by the incredible amount of information that Rick knew, Cornelia realizes that her mouth was still open due to pure unadulterated surprise. Regaining her composure, she proceeded to ask:
“How is it that you know all that? Did you work for Crystal Creations or something?”
“No, not really. Call me an enthusiast for information, I like to know things.”
“Then, what did you guys do before the disaster?” Lindbergh asked.
“Well, I draw stuff, sometimes help him out with his experiments or crazy ideas.” Sixx confessed.
“So you’re an inventor or something? An engineer?” Cornelia wondered.
“I wouldn’t call myself any of that, I just like knowing how things work. See if I can improve them somehow, give them a more efficient performance or something. Before all this I just lived off a few businesses that I had here and there.”
“That would explain why you guys were frozen down there. It’s still pretty creepy to leave fake skeletons lying around to scare away nosey people.”
“Oh no, those are our skeletons, like I told you before, we just uploaded our minds to these android bodies made like us in our primal years.”
“That’s far out, man. So do you have like, laser eyes or something? Night vision, X ray heat sensors? Stuff like that?” Lindbergh excitedly asked.
“Some of our functions have been limited, I’m guessing from the EMP of the bombs. Despite not having laser eyes, we can hold our own in a fight though.” Rick confirmed with a grin.
“Lin, you’re not seriously gonna believe these guys, right? I mean, they’re clearly not coping well with the news that the world has gone to Hell.” Cornelia disapprovingly remarked. “I mean, if the government wasn’t able to make themselves robots, what makes you think these guys can?”
“First of all, ouch, that hurt, pequeña.” Rick snarkily replied. “Second of all: it’s simple, the government wants everything to be set and ready for them, not