Mech

Chapter 4: On the Run

"I never thanked you, did I?" Jason asked.

He just shot someone on accident, we're all trapped in a tool shed with Cycoffs crawling all around us, and this was the only thing on his mind.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He was still sitting in the corner, Mitzi was at his side, and I was kneeled across from them.

"You saved my life, kid. I wasn't gonna move, hell if I waited a few seconds longer I'd be dead. You snapped me out of it and got me out, so..thanks."

Mitzi looked from him to me, "Micah you saved him? I didn't know that! God, thank you so much little sis, we owe ya."

I blinked several times, "O-owe me? Yall don't owe me, I did what I had to'ave done. He was gonna die if he stayed any longer, I couldn't just let him..anyone with a brain an'a heart woulda' done the same."

"Well, still thanks anyway." Jason said, "If you weren't stupid enough to follow us I'd be dead for sure."

Mitzi laughed and I simply rolled my eyes. Jason, always picking on me like I was the youngest in the group. His own little brother was the youngest, but still he treated him like he wasn't. Hell, Max acts younger than I do. I guess its my height. No one takes a short girl seriously until they make us mad and forget we're at crotch-level.

"When do you think the Cycoffs will go away?" I asked, looking up at the roof as they banged on the tin cover protecting us.

"Soon enough," Mitzi replied, "They'll get bored and wander off."

I got bored and wandered off earlier when they told me I couldn't go with them, that made me wonder if it was a human trait, getting bored, I mean. Then I started to doubt they would ever leave. I stood up and walked over to Joshua and Uncle Jeb, standing next to Ian and looking over at the map.

"-this is where we ended up, right here. It ain't safe over yonder, some kind of worker's facilities, must'a been from when they were makin' this here place. I say stay away, that's where all them Cycoffs came from." Uncle Jeb pointed out.

"Is there any way we can recover Silvia's body? Maybe have a service?" Joshua asked.

"No chance, son, them robots take the bodies and tear 'em all up, ain't no telling what else they do. We'll have to have a little service ourselves, without her." Uncle Jeb replied.

"Its just sick..all of it..sick.." Ian muttered, "I say no one goes past that water pipe, or anywhere near it without back up. That's how it should have been all along."

The two older men nodded in agreement, and Joshua spoke up, "Good idea, son, that's fair. We can't risk this happening again. All those Cycoffs might just go back to those worker facilities, they tend to reprogram a set destination to circle around, especially when they're in big groups. Its best to just cut that out of the equation, stay on this side of the forest for good."

"Gee, mister Conway, you sure do know a lot about Cycoffs." I said.

"Well, I have seen my fair share of them. Its easy to catch on to habits and patterns if you've been fighting them and observing them as long as we have." He replied.

"Dad used to make city runs, remember? He knows everything there is to know!" Ian added proudly.

"Mah, I wouldn't say ev'rythin', boy. There's a lot we still don' know 'bout them monsters." said Uncle Jeb.

I slowly slipped away as they began to talk about more technical stuff again and I made my way over to Max. I looked across the room towards General Trenton, who sat facing away from everyone and cleaned his gun. I figured losing another one of the kids really took a tole on him. I started thinking, what if that was me? What if Jason shot me? Mitzi would never forgive him, ever. That would end their relationship real quick. I guess Max would be pretty upset too, if I died. He saw me like his best friend, mostly since he and I were the same age. I sat down by the box table again and observed what he was doing with the cards. Anna Lynn began knitting a scarf, and he was making a card tower. I gathered some cards and began to carefully place them to form the layers. He smiled, but said nothing, wasn't even breathing very hard so that he wouldn't knock the pyramid over. I kind of wished that he found Dominoes instead of cards. I love Dominoes, I'm a master at the game and I love building little cities and pyramids out of them, like cards only more stable. Plus, lining them up and making them tip each other over in a big long chain-reaction line was so much fun. We made do with what we had.