Murder Drones: Born from ashes

Chapter 6 : Hunger

Kale was navigating the map on his visor. The rattling of parts and the electrical hum of the van filled in the silence. Uzi was still shaken from the encounter, Stacy looked worse despite not being the victim. She held her hands to her mouth, muffling her words. The van bounced before grinding to a halt. Just one more night outside and they will be at the camp. Sleep felt like a nightmare she couldn't wake up from, her body was warmer and her vision a cloudy haze. A violent kick was delivered to her chest sending her sitting up in shock. Uzi barely had time to come to her senses as the drone was already running out a door, drunk with laughter. She found herself in an emptied out office complex, rows of extension cores with chargers created dirty white lines across the blue carpet floor. She wandered through the halls sand yellow halls which were decorated with the occasional bricks set in, mercenaries were at every corner emplaced with machine guns while others were conversing with each other.

She walked out into the fields where the mercenaries were being trained, rows of them lined up aiming carbines towards dead drones. Boxes were being moved in and out of vans. Rubid and Ruger were nearby.

"You said this was just a short trip, not serving a tour of duty." Ruger said.

"Listen, this is a great opportunity, soldiers are in high demand right now, imagine the money we can make from this."

"I'm not worried about us, Kale will probably be reconnaissance and Stacy can handle herself. I'm just wondering why you enlisted Uzi? I get the other people here, but Uzi's got real parents to go home to."

"We gotta take risks..." Rubid let his sentence roll off his tongue, looking up to Uzi.

"You don't got a problem, right kid?" His words did not set into her as the only thought in her head became the answer to solving the problem, killing the murder drones.

There was a mess hall, drones sat at tables from oldest to youngest. Uzi was at the far left of the room. The kids around her were talking about gossip, seemingly unaware of their situation. She overheard talks about a murder drone that was brought in a few years earlier. A team of decoders and mechanics worked day and night carefully taking it apart. Today they had cracked the encryption of the hard drive, giving them loads of information.

"I got a peek of a video, she ate something and was talking to an alien!" a drone announced, pointing his thumb at his chest. The white sleeves wobbled with his movements.

"Aliens? Like the bugs?"

"No, it wasn't like the movie... he had lumps of skin and had no eyes!" he exclaimed pointing at the blue dots in his visor to draw comparison.

"So they have a home base?" "Did it kill the alien?"

They began to bicker over what the blue eyed drone really saw. Uzi watched from the other side of the table along with the new recruits. She stared into her cup of oil, wafts of steam came from the warmed cup. She couldn't bring herself to drink it, it definitely wouldn't cool her down. A drone from another table strided over to them and slammed his fist on the table.

"Fresh meat huh? I'll tell you kiddies the deal." he said as he flashed his purple armband.

"You're all gonna be soldiers from here on out. Me and the boys were thinking about maintaining the "dress code"..." his voice trailed off, "First things first, no hats" he held out his hand and began moving up the tables. They obeyed him. Uzi was still staring into her cup when the merc reached her.

"Hey, give it up"

"No." she said bluntly. She didn't know why she said it. Her head was screaming at her to just listen, but the idea of seeing him taken aback was too enticing.