The Lucid Series: Android Uprising by Den Warren - HTML preview

Chapter 37

The chase continued. The Inquisitor armored personnel carrier, driven by Milton, still had a long line of Homeland Police vehicles chasing them.

Milton said, “Daaa! We’re low on gas already! Who goes somewhere with such low gas?! Stupid smurfs!”

Sleepy, who was standing next to Milton, said, “In about twenty seconds, around the bend on this road you will come to the Westfield River. After you are well onto the bridge, but before you cross it, slam on the brakes while you are between both lanes.”

“What?!” Milton said, “That will cause a wreck!”

“Duh!” Beth said, “That’s what we want. We got the heavy armor.”

“Oh yeah. Okay, I can do this.”

Sleepy took a seat and buckled himself in. As he had said, the picturesque setting was in view with the sign “Westfield River”. “Brace for impact. Brace for impact. Milton . . .”

Before Sleepy could say any more, Milton jammed on the brakes. The APC did not stop on a dime because of its weight. But all of the traffic behind them was jammed together and was bumping into each other as all the vehicles continued to slide on the bridge. Sleepy got out of his seat and went out of the door with the Plasfusion Rifle. Police gunshots could be heard. Sleepy blasted the engines of the front cars with the intense energy of the Plasfusion rifle. Then he quickly got back on the APC.

“Go,” Sleepy said.

“Yeah!” Milton said as he could see in the back camera screen that the lead police cars on the bridge had been torched by the energy blasts. There was no way the Police could get around the blazing cars on the bridge. More bullets hit the back of the APC. “We’re getting away!”

“Way to go, Milton!” Beth shouted. She turned and looked at Sharon’s body and quietly said, “We got away Mom. The prayers worked. It was like . . . a miracle. God let us get away.” She started choking up, “We got away, but not you.” She put her head down on her mother’s body and mourned.

In a few minutes the police on the bridge were out of sight. But then the APC engine started sputtering. “What the . . . “

“You’re out of gas,” Beth said.

Milton noticed that Beth’s statement conspicuously did not have an insulting name at the end of it as he was accustomed to.

“Yeah. The gas,” Milton said, wiping tears from his eyes.

Sleepy said, “We need to leave the vehicle anyway. Pull it over.”

After the APC came to a stop, Sleepy got up and said, “Disembark.”

“No!” Beth said, “We are not disembarking Mom here.”

“She is dead,” Sleepy said.

Beth said, “We humans don’t leave our other humans on busses.”

“True statement,” Milton said.

“I don’t understand,” Sleepy said.

“Because you’re not a human!” Beth said. “Just like we are not spiritual beings, like God! You don’t always need to understand why we do everything that we do! So just help me get her out of here!”

“Very well.”

“Now!”

Sleepy carried Sharon’s body on his back. They walked up a rocky hill through the woods. “This is rapidly draining my energy reserves.”

“Fine, whiner,” Beth said. “Put her over there in that rocky area and we will cover her with rocks. Do it nicely!”

Sleepy said, “But taking the time to cover her with rocks will not repair her.”

That comment put Beth over the edge. Milton put his arm in front of her.

“Do it,” Milton said, and Sleepy complied.

They all gathered rocks laying around and covered Sharon’s body with them. Then they sat to rest for a few minutes.

Milton caught his breath and wiped his brow. He said, “She was a good mom. Right now, thinking about Mom; you know, being gone; is the most important time to think about God. Why do people not want to even think about if God is real or not? I feel glad that she believed in God and I think she believed in Jesus and we will see her in Heaven.”

“Me too,” Beth said.

Milton said, “Beth, I know this has all been some crazy stuff, but we can’t go another day without believing what Jesus did for us. So I pray to God that I believe in Jesus payment for my sins and that Jesus rose from the dead. I thank God for Jesus and for letting me live in Heaven forever.”

“Me too,” Beth said. “Please help us now, God.”

There was a moment of silence.

Beth looked at Sleepy and said, “It’s kind of sad that we lost L17 and Kevin the Custodian too. All those androids had no problem being destroyed so we could make it out of there.

Sleepy said, “They were valuable resources and do not have the human will to survive. They were useful in our war effort, but your life was their priority, Beth Thomas.”

Beth asked, “What was that creepy thing in that battlesuit that you blasted back in Hartford, Sleepy? Some kind of a cyborg or cloneborg? Or borgyborg?”

“It was not a cyborg or cloneborg. I do not know borgyborg. That was a human in a synthetic presence. The surrogate presence was basically a human remotely controlling an android which was wearing a protective battlesuit.”

Beth said, “I bet some wimpy fat guy sitting at home eating donuts threw his VR stuff across the room after you splashed him.”

Milton got a good laugh out of that. Beth started laughing too after she realized how it sounded. They looked at each other in the eyes.

Milton asked Beth, “How did you ever get by that huge Robocop?”

She reached into her bag and pulled out the blue and yellow toy water gun rifle. “I just let him have it with some of this.”

Milton looked confused and turned to Sleepy. “What do we do now?”

“We have a refuge in the Green Mountains. Manjack and Andy the Android from Boston are already there with many humans. I have the exact coordinates and a topographical map for getting there. We can walk there in a few days. I calculate that I will not have much battery to spare upon arrival. There are points along the way that will provide fresh water for you humans to consume.”

Milton said, “I know that Mom . . . it’s still hard to leave her here. I know God is with us. Sleepy, lock in these coordinates in case we ever have the chance to come back.”

“Sharon Thomas coordinates locked in memory.”

“Milton?” Beth asked.

“What?”

“Did Mom ever tell you why Dad got sent away? No one would ever talk about it. I think I should know about it now.”

Milton looked away. After a long pause, he held his hand over his eyes and said, “They said Dad was guilty of ‘child endangerment’.”

“What kind of smurf-talk is that? Dad would never hurt us.”

Milton said quietly without looking at Beth, “Dad was trying to tell me about God. I told my one friend at school about it and that kid . . . he reported Dad to the smurfs. And . . . you know. Dad just wanted us to know.”

Beth said, “Oh, okay. It makes more sense now. That was bogus, Milton. We were real small then. You didn’t know that was going to happen.” She put her hand on his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder.

Milton nodded with tears streaming down his face.

Beth said, “Maybe all of this trouble; first Dad; now you. Maybe God meant for it all to happen this way. You know, to help us understand. Just sayin.”

Sharon’s children paid their last respects to her. They wiped their tears before continuing on in their new challenging Christian life.

THE END

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Den Warren

https://denwarren.wordpress.com

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