As the small group made their way through the Sand Crawlers corridors, Hamlin was a bit at odds at being ignored– his freaking head was on fire! Yet everyone’s attention seemed to be fixated on the ancient Ark Device Hamlin was standing on.
The old couple especially. They almost appeared hurt at the appearance of the Holographic version of the boy, who had introduced himself as Ferguson to the wayward Aspirant. Hamlin could only guess, but there definitely seemed to be something more going on there.
Hamlin did not miss the fact that the hologram just so happened to match the young boy, his new acquaintance, Hugo Lions, kept referring to as Ratchet. The dark weary look the boy gave the device, was telling. And the compassion he felt from the famous Troubadour, as the old Jinn shifted his gaze from Ratchet to the hologram, only filled Hamlin with questions.
Hamlin felt like maybe he should have taken a look at the local news before he was loaded into the Monolith and allowed Noreen to send his consciousness to this distant moon- A moon that was in complete shambles. Could the boy be connected to that? ‘Full Inquiry’, what could the boy have done to warrant such action?
Ai’s were funny- either they gave you too much information, or none at all. Hamlin found he fell on the ‘none at all’ end of that spectrum. He should have realized this mission would not be quite as easy as it seemed. All he need do was pick up a woman, granted it was from the moon’s northern pole, but it was not like the cold would affect him.
It was the sudden shadow ahead, which caused Hamlin to signal the small group behind him to wait a second. Instinctively he went invisible, ‘could only guess his new companions reaction to the ability. The problem, of course, was that Ferguson could not see the signal from his position directly below, and before Hamlin could leap down to scout ahead, as planned, the hologram blundered forward, around a corner.
The young girl appeared, and she did not look happy. In fact, she looked almost frantic!
“My Mom is going to kill me!” the young blond announced upon the sight of Ratchet. Only it wasn’t Ratchet she addressed, because he had yet to round the corner. Oblivious to this fact- she continued to express herself with an overly dramatic, “It’s like a nightmare!”
Ferguson was a bit taken aback by the girl’s attention, which apparently was the thing to be in such situations- as the girl was also taken aback as the real Ratchet followed behind, either ignoring the wayward Aspirant’s signal, missed it, or having recognized who was ahead. He suspected people just weren’t taking him seriously in his current form.
“What is this?” she did a double take, and then noticed the floating device, “What is that?”
That’s when Hamlin could no longer hold his invisibility, and flickered back into sight.
“What the hell’s going on?” she asked, shocked; she took a few steps back.
The girl reacted to his blazing bot-form, in Hamlin’s opinion, appropriately.
“It’s okay, Harper,” Hugo said as he strode forward, the Laurens close behind, then, referring to the Device and fiery-bot, “They um… brought themselves here.”
“Great! First a flipping battle drone hacks my ‘Crawler, now we’re having a party!” Harper did not look okay with this, “She’ll murder me! Where’re my sisters?”
“They’re downstairs with Margo, they’re okay,” Ratchet informed then asked, incredulously, “What hacked the crawler?”
“A Battle Drone!” Harper exclaimed, and nodded animatedly as she described, “Like the ones that tore down Grady!”
A Battle Drone? -It was Hamlin’s turn to be taken aback. Hamlin was pretty sure, at this point, everyone got a chance to be taken aback. A Battle Drone is what flattened the surrounding town? How could it escape the Ark’s notice long enough to even attack? Seemed like all he was getting were more questions!
“C’mon, I’ll show you!” Harper waved as she led the way back to the bridge of the massive vehicle, “I tried to get it to stop, but nothing works…”
Sure as the fire atop his head, hunched over the controls, a massive machine took up the majority of the space within the small cabin. It looked like a squat armored spider, its legs splayed out about the room.
“It doesn’t even know we’re here! Or it doesn’t care!” Harper, still frantic, explained with a firm flatfooted kick to one of its legs, “I don’t know what to do! Mr. Lions, what do I do?”
The girl looked at the old Jinn expectantly. In all honesty, the scaly face was hard to read, but Hamlin was pretty sure the Jinn was at a loss for words.
“Where is it taking us?” Hamlin asked.
“How should I know?” Harper turned to him, hands out.
“We might be able to access the navigation, even if we can’t alter course…” Ratchet thought out loud as he approached a terminal.
“We’re headed northeast, but, I mean, it’s all open desert,” Ferguson stated after a moment of silence and another one of those strange far-away looks, like he got when he found the sand crawler, “We’re really moving fast. Looks like a small canyon a little further east, but at this heading, we’ll pass it right up…”
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