The War of the Future

Chapter Four General Hunter's Past

March 15th 2120

Hunter Spears Padlock had been on his own since his parents and brother died a year earlier, when the machines attacked, they killed his brother and Father almost immediately. His Mother was able to place him in the tunnels and told him to hide. She had told him "Steer clear of the machines and stay safe" mere moments before her heads were blown to pieces by a War Machine. Hunter slept in a janitors closet in an abandoned building and hunted rats for food. He would kill them, boil them in a pot and eat them up. They tasted terrible and every day he missed his parents and brother. One day, he was going through a damaged building in the city once known as San Francisco, he was looking for food and was very hungry. After opening a closet, he found some canned food that had been made 2 weeks before the war and said "Best before September 2200". He grabbed it and pulled opened it open with his bear hands. It was beef stew and he didn't care what food it was, so long as it was food. It was his first good food in months, the bag of canned foods his mother gave him when she died ran out long ago. He had long since missed the taste of food that wasn't rats. After the food entered his stomach, he heard the horrible noise that was that of a War Eagle. Those horrific machines would fly throughout the destroyed cities and kill survivors the moment they saw them! Hunter then quickly put his bag back on and tried to creep away. He passed through a doorpost and into a room with a window that went across the whole wall. Of course the window was destroyed and only a few glass shards remained. Scattered across the room were tables and chairs that had all fallen over. There were skeletons all over and there were plates all over as well. There were also pieces of paper alongside the skeletons, Hunter could easily read the writing on them "Steak Tartare" was on the top of the list of foods. Hunter then looked out at the once great city of San Francisco. The buildings were heavily damaged and were barely holding together. Some parts of them had been reduced to rubble and a few buildings had been completely destroyed. There were cars in the streets that were burned badly and there were skulls of those who died when the bombs fell. Of course all of it was covered in snow from the winter caused by the war. Due to the radiation, Winter had extended from December to February, to December to April. Hunter thought about how these people thought the world would stay that way forever..... they could not have been more wrong. He was about to leave when a rat, the size of his hand suddenly bit down on his shoe "OW!" he shouted. He quickly covered his mouth, realising that the War Eagle had probably heard that....Hunter was right. He heard the War Eagle coming down from the top of the building called "InterContinental San Francisco". Hunter thought fast and leapt behind the counter. He held his breath as the War Eagle arrived. It hovered outside the room and using its bulging red optics, scanned for life forms. The wind from its turbines blew away the snow which then went flying through the winds.  Hunter held his breath as this monstrosity scanned for him. It was twice the size of the many old cars he had seen throughout the city, it was covered in chrome and two spinning blades in its wings kept it flying. It detected the rat and red light shot from its eyes! Turning the rat into a pool of blood! It's scanning rays were getting close to Hunter, who was beginning to think "Is this it? Is this the day I die?" The scanning rays were now right next to him when Hunter heard a loud BANG! The War Eagle screamed as someone was using a shotgun to shoot right at it's weak spot....it's eyes. Both eyes were shot and the Eagle went blind long enough for the shooter to toss an EMP grenade at it, causing the War Eagle to malfunction and its head exploded! Sending the War Eagle back and falling to the street below. The War Eagle crashed onto a bus, that was badly burnt and filled with 35 remains of people who died when the Machine War began. Hunter slowly looked up to see the person who saved him, extending their hand towards him. He looked at the woman's face and saw that she had brunette hair, Caucasian skin tone like his and a burn mark over the right half of her face. The woman had the words General Julie Myers, stitched onto her jacket and simply smiled and said "Come on". Hunter went with her as she led him out of the room and down to the bottom of the building. They went through the front entrance, she raised her hand up and spun it around. Over 50 over survivors appeared out of rubble, vehicles, hiding places and debris. They were all equipped with armour and War Robot guns that were scavenged from War Machines and modified to be used by humans. General Myers got on top of the War Eagle that had by this point powered down and was damaged beyond repair by the fall. She then made a speech that changed Hunter's life forever.

"Fighting amongst ourselves, that's what War-Net wants, to make our species go extinct quicker, War-Net makes cold and calculated decisions, War-Net murders innocent people without a second thought, War-Net is a machine with only one purpose....to kill. War-Net has crushed our cities, War-Net has crushed our homes, but War-Net has not crushed the Human spirit. War-Net thinks that we are scared, War-Net thinks that we will easily go down and die, but War-Net is wrong. We are Humans! and War-Net has forgotten that we created that god forsaken thing, we can destroy it! War-Net may be good at tactics, it may be good with weapons and murder....but War-Net is nothing but a machine and we posses the one thing that it lacks.....emotions. That is our greatest chance against War-Net, War-Net doesn't understand that, it only understands how to kill. We have weapons, we have armour, we have tactics, but most importantly we have hope and that is our most powerful weapon. War-Net will fall, now we, the Free People's Army take back our WORLD!"

The soldiers started cheering her on, she was the leader they needed the wholetime, someone who would lead Humanity to victory in this long and terrible war. Hunter was inspired by the words she said and knew that this was the group he would fight with to free the world. General Julie Myers had just given him something he had not had in a long time....hope, the most powerful of all weapons