Declaration by Scott Gengelbach

Author:Scott Gengelbach [Gengelbach, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781734462814
Publisher: Parabolic House Publishing
Published: 2020-04-12T22:00:00+00:00

6.6 One Last Stop

We waited another 40 minutes or so at the western gate. By the time we finally spotted Surreptitious, Lazuli had already been up for over 20 minutes.

“Are we all ready to go now? Does anybody need to do anything else before we leave?” I asked. Thankfully, my inquiry was met with silence. “OK, let’s head out.”

We exited the western gateway and were about to start the descent from the plateau when we saw a pair of Autoclons on the starboard side of the road. These two both looked dirty and in a general state of disrepair. They were large, very large in fact. At the time, they stood somewhat hunched over, but I estimated they were both over 130 cm tall when standing erect. They had broad central casings reinforced with several layers of metal added over the solar-cycles. They both maneuvered around with a pair of heavy-duty tracks, just as wide as Resolute’s tracks but with larger grooves in the tracks, providing them with more grip. They had thick arms that had become more rigid over time due to the lack of proper maintenance. The closer of the pair was completely missing its port arm, and the other had a seriously damaged chief sensory complex and had problems maintaining balance even while positioned on a level patch of ground.

As we neared the pair, the closer one asked us if we had any credits to spare. “Are you one of those Peace-Keepers that were kicked out of District Prime?” I asked.

“Um, yeah, I guess so. I guess you could say we was... discarded, not really kicked out.”

“Hey, Fastidious, why don’t we stop and talk to these Peace-Keepers about our mission?” Loquacious chimed in.

“Yes, we should,” Systematicus agreed.

“Well, I imagine Twin-Crevasse Platinum Mine can wait for a little while longer,” I added.

“Why waste our time on these rejects?” Surreptitious asked.

“A bro-ken Au-to-clon is an Au-to-clon none-the-less,” Winston said.

“Agreed.” I then turned my attention back to the two Peace-Keepers. “I’m not sure we have too many credits to spare at this time, but we would like to talk to you and the rest of your kind if you don’t mind. Could you lead us to your home?”

The one Autoclon doing the talking then motioned to its compatriot, and the two started moving back to the north along a small trail leading to their settlement. “This way,” the vocal Autoclon said. “My friend don’t hear or talk good, so I do both for us.” Well, I guess that’s good to know.

We followed this trail along the hillside for nearly 10 minutes before we entered their shanty complex. We saw a total of seven structures in the settlement, most of which were nothing more than lean-tos build into the side of the hill. Two of these structures were more expansive as their owners had excavated additional rock out of the hillside to provide more adequate shelter in case of bad wind storms.

As we arrived, the other “discarded” Peace-Keepers came out from their abodes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.