Humanoid-Nuclear (Humanoid Trilogy #1) [ON HOLD]

13

I shoved the notebook in a plastic bag, then into my backpack right next to Gerber. "You alright if I put this here, Gerbs?"

Gerber gave his silent 'okay'.

"Alright, cool." I used my camera as a magnifying glass, trying to see if I missed anything small. Now that I thought about it, the nuclear war thing made sense. We were warned about someone from another country using his weapons carelessly. My parents wouldn't talk about it in front of me, though. Plus, we did use radiation quite a bit in our every day lives, which could have easily helped build up the disaster to such a degree. Data, microwaves, surprisingly cat litter, bananas, fluorescent lights, some ceramics... They're everywhere.

I dusted off a chair and sat, observing the flyer. If Jay became a mutant here, I wonder how many others turned... Maybe a blue jay touched him when he was covered in the radiation, and that caused his cells to take in the information in their crazed state... I don't know, I'm spit balling. Something small and white hit my mask, and I looked up through the hole in the flyer to see specks in the air.

"Hey, JP!" Jay shouted. "Check it out!"

"Yeah, I see!" I replied, standing. "I didn't know it could get this cold anymore!"

"Neither did I!" I could hear his heavy footsteps coming my way.

When he was in view, I mentioned, "You need something better to wear."

"Yeah, I know." He shivered and rubbed his arms.

"Here," I pulled out a heavy blanket from my backpack, handing it to him. He took the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders, having trouble because of his wings.

"Thanks."

"No prob,"

"Did ya find anything else?"

"Nah, just this notebook."

"Alright. Let's try and find some more things we can use."

"Righty-o." We headed out, I looking around in wonder, and Jay smiling at my amazement. "I hadn't seen snow in so long!... Brr! I forgot how cold it was."

"Yeah, that's what snow's known for."

"Sarcastic much?"

"Much." He nodded, horns stabbing a snowflake. "When was the last time you saw snow?"

"Uh... When I was, like, five?"

"That's a long time."

"Mm." I hopped down into another ditch, being followed by Feath as always. The ditch had a tank in the middle, a massive hole on its top or roof or whatever you'd call it. By the looks of the ditch, it wasn't that huge of an explosion, but still fatal and damaging. Jay pounced into the tank like some sort of big cat, and I tried to climb up, but I was too short and couldn't get a good enough hold. Seeing this, he let his tail come out of the hole like a ladder for me to climb. I hopped on and held on tight as he pulled his tail back into the vessel. I was still warming up to Jay, but so far, I was starting to see him as more than just a mutant or a stranger.

"Whoa, look!" He practically jumped for joy as he saw a machine gun sitting on a seat. Next to the gun, a skeleton leaned against the side of the tank, his or her flesh completely eaten away by the mutated beatles or scavengers. Jay stepped over the skeleton, ducking so he didn't hit his horns or head, and picked up the gun. He gave it a once over, checking if it was loaded, and seeing it was full of unused bullets and looked to be in perfect working condition, he nodded in approval. "This... This is mine now."

"Good for you."

"It is very good for me."

"Do you see anything else?" I questioned, looking at one of the many cobwebs that was placed in the many nooks and crannies.