Story #3

Crossroads

I had no idea the dissent would be so rapid once we halted our trek through the underground when we were faced with not one or two tunnels, but five. They lay ominously before us, five great gaping mouths in the cracked cement wall. It was like deciding which monster would swallow us. I wanted to take the middle monster mouth, it curved slightly upward, and upward meant toward the surface—to freedom. But my idiot friends didn’t seem to understand my logic. They had been arguing about what tunnel to take for thirty minutes now, giving ample time for the machines who ruled our world to find us.

Yeah—machines ruled our world… and it sucked. Whatever retard figured out how to give computers the ability to think obviously didn't take into account that they had to be able to understand as well—understand what it meant to be human. But they didn’t understand, and thought that we humans were a determinate to the growth and peace of the earth with our wars and disease, so they hunted us. Our group of seven hadn’t seen another living being for almost six months. But we’d heard that there was a colony in Old Chicago. That’s where we were headed until we got lost.

“We should go down the far right one,” Cole said. “I think I see light. What do you think, Lux?”

I glared at the blue-haired teen. “I already told you that I think we should go down the middle tunnel. That’s not light you see in that one, dimwit. It’s the glow worm shit in there.”

“Please, let’s not fight,” Mina said, wringing her hands. She was the most sensitive out of all of us, which was nice for Kid, the youngest in our group. He had yet to speak a word, but his eyes were alert as we argued.

“Oh, shut it, prissy,”  River shot, taking a drag from her cigarette. I wondered where the hell she had found it, or lit it for that reason.

“No, Mina’s right,” Fox butted in, his lazy eyes shifting between us. “The more time we waste here, the more time the machines—”

“Shut your traps!” Everyone stilled at Brawn’s deep voice, we didn’t have an official leader but we all listened when Brawn spoke. He was the one that rescued all of us from the machines… and ourselves.

Water dripped and the underground echoed eerily in the ensuing silence. But then we all heard it: the whirring and clicking of the language of the machines.

Fox voiced our thoughts in one word at the sounds, “Shit,” and then he dashed down the middle tunnel, his long red hair flying. I grabbed Kid’s hand and followed, grinning while everyone else was left with no choice but to follow.

Our boots slapped on the wet concrete as we ran blindly, it was as if we were running up the monster’s throat. The machines had heat sensors so they already knew that were were here. Our only chance was to take advantage of our head start and run like hell to stay ahead of them.

My legs were starting to scream from the upward climb when we were flooded with machine light and panic gripped me, but then I began to see another light. Ahead, Fox’s lithe form began to be visible in a circle of grey light—the surface! That meant buildings, and buildings meant hiding places that their sensors couldn’t penetrate.

I let out a whoop as we ran, making Kid grin up at me. “Chicago, here we come!”

Fin...