Back Together Again
Suggested listening: Tool - Right in Two
A few dozen people gathered out in what was left of the halls and bridges of Zion. The mass movement of bodies would have seemed like a vacuum, amid the silence, save for a few whispers and din of rubber boots clanging against the steel-grated floors. Suddenly there was what sounded like an explosion, rushing people into a nearby corridor.
"Where's dad?" a young girl, all of ten years old, whispered as she looked up at her mother. She tugged the side of her dress and held her little brother's hand, who was a couple of months away from five years old. Her mother looked down at her, glassy-eyed and bleeding slightly from her brow.
"Your daddy went out to fight those bad machines again, baby."
"Is he coming back to hide with us?"
She sighed, releasing the breath and tears she was holding back, and smiled as she closed her eyes and held both children firmly against her leg. "Yes, baby. That's why I'm waiting here. Either he'll find us or we'll find him."
"Okie...Why can't we g..."
The mother interrupted, pressing her index finger to her lips, signaling them to be quiet. "Peace, child. Be quiet... We don't want to be too loud, or they'll hear us."
A moment later, there was another loud boom, and a half-dozen uniformed men flooded the corridor with EMP guns as screams were heard in the distance. After two or three charges, the Sentinel had fallen limp to the ground with a resounding thud.
"See... we have to make sure they don't know where we are."
The young girl nodded, her eyes fixed on the woman. She whispered this time. "Why are they coming here for us?"
"Because we aren't like them, and we don't do what they want us to do."
"What do they want us to do?"
"They want us to stay here... in Zion. We need to go to the new city, where it's safer. Away from them."
Upon the direction of the uniformed men, herded the lot into and through the narrow corridor that led into the temple ruins. The woman picked the youngest one up and held the hand of the other as they proceeded. As they approached the mouth of the temple, the young girl overheard two of the guards arguing.
"We need to make due with what we have. There are too many outside the dock to get any reinforcements. Goddamn maskies, I tell ya! They sold us out"
"Sh!t, man... I guess this is it, then. Any word from any of the ships up there?"
"Nah, Commander said there wasn't any use in hoping for any either. If they're not in the new city, they're all dead."
The woman stopped in her tracks and turned to listen, last hearing that her husband's ship was just outside the city.
The second paused momentarily and shook his head. "Goddamn waste... Just because some program decided we need to die, and over what? Some dream program that most of us have never seen or been a part of...?"
"This is war. The people with power decide who lives or who dies. All we can do is fight while we're still standing."
Suddenly, a loud voice. "Sh!t! We've got incoming!" Followed by another explosion as what seemed like hundreds of sentinels flooded the area, making quick work of the crowd of people left. Save for a couple of random, small EMP bursts, they killed without resistance. The slaughter was complete and over with in a few moments. The azure air had become crimson and gold as fires broke out and the dust settled. Soon, the predators were gone, levitating back towards the entrance to the city, and all was silent.
The dead laid still; peaceful.
The family that was missing it's father was reunited.