Ambrosia Garden Archive
    • EV/EVO Chronicles: The Morning Watch


      I hope this is enjoyable, It is a failed first pages to a novel idea and is my first attempt to use fiction that stands alone

      Morning would come all too quickly on the cursed desert. It would bring blistering heat and danger from all sides, however it was still just few minutes away and the convoy tried to cover as many sandy miles as it could before daylight. A lone figure perched on the light bar of his dust jeep watched it intently. He let out a long sigh that clouded into a thin fog before disappearing. Try as he might, protecting the omnitrain and its motley followers was not nearly as exciting he had hoped for. Although, he had been part of the small escort for three days, he could not let the boredom force him into complacency. Simply stated, complacency kills in hard times like these. He kept his jacket open and let the cold breeze rip through him, cold would keep him alert. His home had been routed, his parents displaced, and his life changed forever, but this did not bother him for the moment, although it would after he had unceremoniously liberated a few pints of beer from the nearest tavern. He had a slight sensation in the back of his mind, a feeling more of a irritation and this is what bothered him. It was the sensation that something was going to happen, something that probably would not be pleasant.
      The other jeep bit into the dune he sat on and splayed sand every where as it fervently tried to climb the steep slope. With far too much effort and a liberal gunning of the engine the jeep reached the peak and parked to his right. A grimy middle aged man stuck his head out of the window and sneered up at him. His month old beard, nose, and visor were filled completely with dust hinting at the brief ride up the slope.
      “How the hell did you get up here, I almost flipped my jeep!” he griped.
      “The slope is not as steep on the other side.” the man replied nonchalantly. “I hope you didn’t just come up here to enjoy the sunrise”
      “No” the older gentleman chuckled. “brought you breakfast, it should be edible this time but just between you and me I don’t think my wife will ever learn how to cook.”
      The man unlocked his stiff joints and leapt off his jeep, the rising sun silhouetted his small but athletic body and rested on the worn black boots, faded jeans and brown leather jacket. He eagerly grasp the small brown bag filled with burnt toast, watery eggs and a small cup of some sort of liquid. He ignored the unpleasant odor and dug into the breakfast.
      The middle aged person tilted his seat back and let his bulk recline.
      “You know Isaiah, you sure picked a nice spot to watch the morning come in. Tomorrow night, I will take lookout and you can drive around the dunes like an idiot, I am too old to do this.”
      “You would fall right to sleep if you tried this, Frank.” Isaiah Skyes shot back between bites as he rested against the jeep.
      “Oh, yeah? What is so wrong with that, they are finished with us, they haven’t showed up in the past few days and they probably won’t either. Hey, can I have a piece of that toast.”
      Isaiah handed him the least burnt toast slice and froze. In the distance a flash of light sparked for a second before dying out almost at the same moment. The irritation which had been so easily displaced by the brief meaningless conversation returned with full force. Something was going to happen.
      “Hand me the binoculars Now, frank.” His voice had gone from bored conversation to drill sergeant like orders in that sentence.
      “Oh, now don’t you use that tone on me, I’ll get your damn Bushnells.” Frank spat back as he dug into the cluttered junk in the back of his jeep.
      “Hurry Up, this might be important!”
      “Here you go, next time why don’t you say please and thankyou.”
      Isaiah ignored him as he peered through the goggles, searching. The desert spread far out before him, a sea frozen in a storm to giant swells of sand and troughs of rock. It was beautiful in a surreal way as the sun burnt red streaks against the dunes, and shadows battled to hold every inch against the solar onslaught. He felt like he could see everything through the goggles, even the occasional stubborn shrub that clung to the ground as desperately as people clung to life here. For several moments he saw all he had hoped for, nothing. His quickened heart slowed and he relaxed ready to give the goggles back after one more second of watching one of the world’s largest sandboxes.
      At first it did not register, then it struck him like a two by four to the chest. Two mechanical monstrosities were following the convoy’s trail. They covered ground in leaps, their infared lenses glowing red against their pitch black bodies, as dozens of spidery legs prodded the ground sensing for the lumbering omnitrain. They would find it in minutes and then it would be over for all of those lucky enough to survive the disaster set against his hometown. He leapt through the ajar window into his jeep and keyed the ignition. He looked to his right opening his mouth to scream at Frank.
      Frank’s seat was up and the car was throttling already. He had the ability to mutate himself from his playfully whining normal state to a hardened soldier who had seen more then his fair share of battles in two and a half decades. Frank faced Isaiah and mouthed the words “Let’s go.” Before both off roaders blasted forward kicking up the omnipresent sands into almost aquatic rooster tails. They shot off the dune picking up every inch of needed velocity, speeding towards hated enemies and deadly combat.
      As they bounded over the dusty waves Frank radioed in
      “Alright boy, what are we chasing here, foot soldiers? Over.
      “Arachnid scouts” he radioed back. I hope you have some of those old RPG in your trunk.”
      “I don’t, we loaded them into your jeep, remember.”
      “I copy. Alright get off the comm. They will be monitoring it.”
      It did not take long for the wildly careening jeeps to catch up to the arachnids. Isaiah cut the engine stopping the vehicle behind a dune. He reached into the truck and yanked out several of the woefully inadequate weapons. They had been built by a country that collapsed on itself to fight a war that never began. He sprinted up the hill and set the first weapon.
      “Frank, get your fat but up here!”
      Frank did not respond. “Frank?” The other jeep had not stopped by the rise and had continued on. Skyes spared a precious moment searching for it before shouldering his weapon. He fired and the missile ran true knocking dead into the robotic monster. The concussion sent the contraption to the ground before it shook it off and started hunting for the shooter. Of course, Isaiah was not stunned when the weapon failed to destroy it. He half expected it and had a second RPG launcher ready.
      Both man and machine stared at each other when a deep guttural roar filled the air. Frank’s jeep charged steadfastly forward covering the distance at breakneck speeds. He pointed the old vehicle’s nose directly at the Arachnid and shoved the gas throttle to its stopper.
      He hated the machines with all his fury. If he thought his own body could harm the thing he would have launched himself at it. Rage filled him and memory drifted back to the all too recent events of four days ago.
      He like so many before him had carved out their lives and indeed their very existence from the sun scorched rocks. He had his family and although he struggled everyday, happiness filled him, until they came. The sun had fallen from the sky that fateful night and not even the stars dared show themselves to the doomed. Unexpectedly, the mechanized emerged like wraiths from the shadows spraying the helpless down with hellish weapons. After the initial shock and terror had faded the survivors took up their weapons and fought. Their plan had been simple enough, get to the only vehicle that was large enough and fast enough to escape, the omnitrain. The Frank Master family had escaped in the train or so he thought. He later found out that his only daughter had been numbered with the slain. Of course, he never told anyone else and he tried to keep as cool as he could.
      Now, he had snapped, he could keep the pain inside no longer. A score of combat experiences took over him and before he had realized what he was doing he was lying flat on his back weapon in hand as the jeep smashed into the colossus of wires and servos. The mass, velocity, and load of weapons all rose up together in a unified explosion that shredded the Arachnid and jeep. Frank regained his control just long enough to turn and grin at Skyes. His voice carried over the wind. “I got it!”
      Relieved, Isaiah lowered his weapon ready to congratulate his friend when a realization as dreadful as the sudden death of a family member dawned on him. He cried out hoping against all odds that he was wrong, knowing full well he could not be.
      “There are two of them!”
      Frank’s smile melted like ice in boiling water, his hand automatically chambered the M-16 in his grasp and he started to run. He would never make it. The second Arachnid rose from the dust, sand pouring off its metallic hull. It charged the fleeing victim.
      Isaiah fired and the beast went down only to rise again and chase even faster. Skyes third rocket caught it straight in the back. The spider whined and sputtered smoke but did not let up. It caught up to Frank and pinned him with one of its steel legs. It was greeted with a magazine of fire into what could have been its face. The glowing red infared eyes shattered but the creature shot back with two fang like cannons.
      Skyes last rocket left the launcher and sailed to the target. It exploded and brought the demonic creature down for the last time. “Too late!” he screamed. “Too damn late!” Dejectedly he stumbled to his jeep. He did not have to look at the lacerated flesh trapped under the pulverized arachnid to know his friend was dead. The jeep lurched forward and rushed to the tracks that the convoy had left. The feeling of dread he had a slight glimmer of earlier in the morning had kindled into a wild fire of fear.

    • Nice story, interloper...good plot, good beginning. There's a good story here.

      That said, what have you got against contractions? 😉

      Cheers,
      Guapo

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      "Quote it, paraphrase it, soak it in peanut oil and set it on fire. I don't mind in the least." - forge
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    • I like It. In my opinion Its well writen. the problem Is that It sounds a lot like the matrix. It also would be nice if you gave a bit more Information about where the robots came from.

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