As I and Hassen travel through the woods, Hassen lead to a small opening in the woods. Hassen stated with grace, “We are here.”.
We entered this opening of a green plains, bordering the woods were improvised structures with smoke coming out of large pipes repurposed for chimneys. Up in the distance sky was more flyers, one red, one yellow, and the rest, that dark blue.
It smelled of diesel and the humidity was slightly higher here than in the more urban areas. There are a few people around the opening talking, doing mechanical work and training some weird martial arts. I’ve notice that they all have that long scarf of differentiating colours much likes Hassen’s red scarf. As for it being a hide out, it was clearly exposed to the sky for satellite imagery to catch an eye.
As we walk to the largest building among the small village, I asked Hassen, “Hey, um you said this was a hide out, right? It pretty exposed to the sky.”. Hassen confidently answered, “Oh don’t worry, the map services haven’t updated their maps when we started building here.”. I check my phone to confirm if he was right. I asked another as I was looking, “Why is everyone wearing those scars?”. Hassen whisper, “Its a trademark of Vollers, You stay here, I’m gonna talk to doctor Yannic.”. I nodded.
I checked the GPO maps and found nothing. He may be right. I then took my eyes off the screen and observe the people flying. Seeing those people evaluated in the air like drones was inspiring.
I heard from Hassen at a distance, talking to another person, “Hello Doctor Yannic, I bring an update on the Palites and an outsider that wishes to work.”. I stepped closer to get a better hearing. I heard from a light French accent, “Wait, you brought a stranger to our settlements?”. Hassen reasoned, “Trust me, she could offer a special service to our community.”.
I saw Hassen and a large, old white man with a sharp white beard, and white engineering gear and vest, presumably Yannic, take a peak outside the door and look at me, then jump right back inside.
I heard from Yannic, “Hassen, do you have any idea who that is?”. Hassen delightedly said, “I know who exactly that is, I heard tales.”. Yannic asked in a deep, serious tone, “I’ve seen the stream. I look into the documents. They are from secret organizations, train to hunt and kill any that their leaders demand silencing. If she not working for anyone, she might be just working for herself.”. Hassen reasoned, “Exactly. She seem, nice. She discovered the Vollers, wanted to find work. I told her a part of my life story. She have experienced pain, as so have I.”.
There was silence for a couple of seconds, then Yannic questioned, “Is this your brain talking or your dick talking?”. Hassen simply replied, “My heart.”. This conversation was making me uneasy. While I was looking for some payments, seeing those gilders sparked me to take a closer step to the Vollers.
I walked to the door step, saw Yannic and Hassen at a table with tools. The walls have cabinets and tabletops, all littered with mechanical props.
I popped out and greet, “Hi. I’m Lue.”. They both look at me, Yannic had doubt in his face while Hassen was smiling with joy. Hassen replied back, “Welcome, Lue.”. Yannic joined, “I will just call you K three.”. I didn’t like Yannic’s tone of distancing, he clearly had his skepticism and lack of trust of me. He might of had bad relationship with other subjects or just doesn’t trust anything from the, ‘higher ups’ like Reba described.
Hassen defended, “Hey, hey, she is just as Human as you.”. Yannic smirked, “Ha, she not fully Human, only eighty eight point two percent. The rest, predators.”. I sadden as I know he was right. I tried to find words but I kept doubting each sentence that came through my thought process. Hassen disguised, “Look, did she ever did anything wrong?”.
Yannic stated, “We all did something wrong, but some are more wrong than others. Well its often debated, with the information regarding Stafaker, she was solely responsible for his death.”. I tried to change the topic, “True, but let be a little more forward thinking, like those gliders. They’re, interesting.”. Hassen smiled. Yannic expressed with insisting guilt on me, “Oh, you enjoy seeing my creation? Those gilders, the Volates as I call them, was built by me. I had a young company that constructed man-flight packs. When the new world came, our headquarters was bombarded, lost my wife. I settled to create the Vollers, a group of agents to stop the terrorists that now stain the streets.”. I gave my apologizes, “I’m sorry to hear that. I can understand your anger.”. He looked me in the eyes with mouth shut. Hassen looked at Yannic with a smile. Hassen spoke, “Doctor, we should get back to work. I got notes that I would like to share.”.
Yannic kept staring with his analytical gaze. I asked, “Do you have any... jobs?”. He replied, “Yes, we could use some... extra hands.”. Hassen said, “Well I’m glad that we can come together.”.
Yannic got off his chair, he said, “Follow me to the gathering place. Hassen, await me at the board room.”. Hassen nodded, “Yes doctor.”.
We walked out and towards a large, single floor assemblies. I was thinking of Hassen and he may have a kink for me. While it got me to meet some new blood and potentially ride on those epic Volates, he will maybe be disappointed, heart broken if I turn him down.
I asked Yannic, “Doctor...”, Yannic vented, “Not now. I got the job you claim to desired. Once its done, I’ll pay you some gold. It should be enough to get you going.”.
He wasn’t playing easy, its clear he was defensive with his little tribe, but I can’t blame him.
We entered a filthy kitchen with a ranch of dredge, sounds of clings and clanks echoed the bluish grey steel as the food boil and cook by robot arms and mechanisms. The room was steamy and rackets of old vacuum drones suck the floor.
A young, western European male chef with a white scarf came out of a freezer with a container of frozen schnitzels. He looked at us and questioned, “Doctor, who is this?”. Yannic tried to push me, shocked, he mumbled, “Um.”. Then said, “She, K three is our, temporary employee.”. The chef introduce himself in an upbeat attitude, “Daniel, that is an odd name. Clone? Nah, doesn’t matter.”. I remarked, “You can just call me Lue.”. Daniel instructed, “Well its a good thing that you came around. I can tell that you are new here, considering your lack of scarf.”. Yannic signed then state, “Look, she not gonna...”. In irritation, I interrupted, “I can speak for myself. I’m just looking to make some gold or universal dollars. What do you need me to do?”.
Daniel looked at both of us, then around the kitchen, “Well, I need someone to dust off the shelves at the ware closest, clean the produce and protein off the floor fling by that malfunctioning cutter bot, take out the clean dishes and set them up on the tables and later clean out the vacuum’s filters.”. I simply replied, “Okay.”. Yannic whispered to Daniel, “Be careful.”. Giving Daniel a face of questioning. Yannic then left the place. I simply got to work.
*
After cleaning the leftovers on the floors and dusting the out to reach places. I was taking out the dishes, organizing them to prepare them for placement on the tables for dinner. Daniel behind me at the cutter bot counter top spoke to himself, “Damn, what is going to cut these steaks? They are not gonna eat this.”. I turned around and asked, “What is the problem exactly?”. Daniel answered, “Machine broke and I just called a manufacturer, they said they will drop one in two days but we got a bunch of empty stomachs in two hours.”. I told him, “Wait, aren’t you a chef? Don’t you know how to cut fat out of the beef?”. My inch to slice flesh started to make me sweat and the boiling food was not helping. My hands were ready to touch the warm handles of my knives.
Daniel replied with confusion, “Me, cut? I’m just a chef. I just give and tell the robots what to make. I’m too imprecise to cut the stuff out.”. I put the dishes away of the first floor then approached Daniel, claiming, “Look, I can do this, I am butcher, I know my way with the blade.”. Daniel was blocking me from the counter top, he exclaimed with doubt, “No, you can’t, it will not be precise, they need as much protein as possible. These are freaken muscles I’m telling ya.”.
I was tempted, I was a little close of pushing him aside to get to the counter top, but it could just give Yannic and the other the impression that I’m just another violent subject drifting on the streets. I tried to convince him with my rational and dedication, “Its better to have little protein then no protein.”. He looked at me, then around the kitchen, then the cafeteria. He whispered in desperation, “Damn.”. Then declared, “Okay, you try to get the steaks trimmed, I will take the rest of the dishes and get back on organizing the forks and knives. The user knives should be on the shelf there.”.
I took out a pretty standard knife, it was a little small but it should do. I move the arms away and did my trimming skills, a satisfaction of release as the blade carved the flesh of the raw beef.
After taking all the fat out, I went to Daniel’s little room to tell him that I was finished but he wasn’t there. I saw a desk with a messy pipe of papers, and a large computer with scandal times for the food. It seem to also be the main computer for the bots aside from the vacuum drones. I saw at the current time that in about ten minutes, the steaks will have to go to the quick BBQ for grilling but that is it. I seen that the list instructs what ingredients to add and the steaks had nothing. The whole course was pretty bland. I saw a list that quantified each of the food items that they had. Since Daniel was preparing the tables, I took the opportunity to reach the fridge, took garlic and green onion, chopped with a clean knife and put the steaks into the BBQ with the chopped vegetables on top to melt the flavor onto the meat.
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