The Ultimate Rescue

Chapter X

SKYLAR

Music: Beach Bowl Galaxy from Super Mario Galaxy

Since we weren't that far from our target location after the hovercraft's crash-landing, we simply decided to just walk the remaining distance instead of using our now-disabled hovercraft. On the way there, Mia rambles on about what she thinks could've happened to the hovercraft, which Sam has resorted to carrying with him (which he doesn't normally do ever).

"Now, it's not like this reset would just happen randomly. If the apocalypse has spread to this location, chances are, there could've been some kind of power surge that caused the hovercraft to do a manual reboot," Mia speculates. About half of the group is actually listening to her, and the other half (including myself) is just trying to tune her out. Not because she's being annoying, just that I don't really care about this kind of shit.

"What makes you think it was a power surge?" Avery asks.

"Think about it: Mrs. Smith has possessed an immense amount of that energy by now. I'd imagine it's at least somewhat radioactive. Radiation like that can dismantle electrical devices, sometimes permanently. Either that, or her powers can generate enough electrical energy to cause the power to briefly short-out." Luke, Elle, and I (the people trying to tune her out) give her odd stares, and she frowns and sighs, "What? Am I not allowed to know anything about technology? I'm not that much of a trigger-happy airhead. Geez."

"Well, the hovercraft has a failsafe mechanism in place to prevent permanent shutdown," Sam says. "That doesn't explain the data erase, though."

"That's simple. A power surge like that can damage a device's hard drive. So, unless you have all the files needed for the hovercraft backed up on a different hard drive, flash drive, or memory chip, then there's no undoing the damage. Everything's gone forever," Mia explains.

At first, this statement actually worries me. If the hovercraft has truly lost everything for good, then we can't rely on it to assist us in battle. Given how strong our opponent is this time around, that could mean that this mission just went from insanely difficult to outright impossible. Not to mention, Sam doesn't always think ahead and consider possibilities like this, so if he doesn't have a backup plan for this, then we're really screwed.

My worry is relieved when Sam's face lights up, and he says, "As a matter of fact, I have two flash drives that contain all of the hovercraft's abilities."

Mia nods. "Well, there you go. You'll simply need to reupload all the files to the hovercraft, but with how much data is stored on those drives, it could be a very long time before the hovercraft is fully restored."

Sam opens up the glove compartment (because for some reason, the hovercraft needs that) and pulls out a small, black pouch. He unzips it and pulls out two small, blue flash drives, then sticks one of them into the side of the hovercraft. A small window opens up on the hovercraft's monitor, containing a progress bar and text that changes very quickly between different file names.

"Well, while we're waiting on this, let's get a look at our situation here," Sam says, directing our attention to the beach right in front of us, which I didn't even know existed until now. Many people are present at the beach (which doesn't make sense to me, since it's in the middle of September). There's some little children playing in the sand or at the shoreline, some older residents lying on beach chairs and getting tans, and even a few high school-aged people playing volleyball. Behind us is some kind of resort, and off in the distance is a large dock. There's also a lighthouse not too far away from the dock. The water splashes onto the beach in short, frequent waves, and the noise it makes is just faintly audible.

"Isn't this lovely? Literally nothing to go off of," I sigh. There is absolutely nothing that gives any indication of Mackenzie's presence, or even the illuminati's presence for that matter. Everything just looks too normal.