Railgun Mission

A railgun, the pinnacle of human creation, stored at the highest security facility known to humanity, K4 Knew from a previous rewind that the place was abandoned and horribly covered up ever since the announcement three months ago.

"We will pass through the arid sands towards the laboratory." Her face looks down at the terrified hino.

His face shifts around the place, the unease clearly being shown on him. "What about the-" His voice immediately gets cut off.

"Sandworms? Those are mere inconveniences in the weapon we will get; they will only come after we get the railgun, so it will be fine."

Her previous rewinds leave no doubt in her mind. In the past ten rewinds, only once have the sand worms ever attacked them within the laboratory's confines. They were initially a defence measure, but ever since the great revolt, it has caused them to become aimless creatures that traverse the sand with their slithering mechanical bodies.

The pair start walking past the rundown vehicles and from the urban infrastructure into the plains of the world; the lands stretch in all directions in a cold, greyish-green grass. Nature has prospered over the last three months of human inactivity even during the winter times.

'The Nole Express lines should be just around the horizon; these idiots operating the express lines until their death is something I won't understand. Their dedication must be commendable anyway.

Her logical systems conflict with humans illogical thinking; why must one do such meaningless actions in spite of the various more important matters they could attend to?

The urban city started further away from their sight; the grey grass was tickling their legs as the feeble sunlight slowly faded beneath the horizon. They were starting to approach a gruesome, chilling night that needed careful preparation.

"Hino, take out the food and start cooking while I set the tent up."

Both effectively working at their task, K4 puts up the tent in a matter of minutes while Hino prepares a campfire with the sticks they gathered beforehand. They both sit in the shade of their tent, watching the food cook slowly.

'Hopefully this will be enough energy for him. Humans are annoying that way, so fragile and delicate, yet they created such beings that overpowered their own creator. This being the fifth time of my journey has taught me a lot.'

K4 thinks back upon the first five rewinds before this; she and the system both tried plenty of options, hacking anti-air, disabling the launch, and trying to shoot it down with her railgun.

These ideas never proved reliable; all have failed and would fail in the next rewind just as the last. This time the system was nowhere to be found, leaving her to rely on no one but herself.

"Hey Hino, Why do you trust me as your travel buddy? I'm a rogue robot, after all." Her lens scanned the expressions of the boy; no fear was emitted, nor was concern.

Hino turns to her, facing her directly. "If you wanted me dead, you would've killed me already." His simple reasoning was rather scary to her.

"I saw you unarmed; you posed no threat at all, so my system wasn't recognising you as a target like the others." She looks down onto her lap, her trench coat folded upon her legs as she reminisces about the past.

Hino turned back to the food; his eyes watered slightly. "I won't forgive you for what you have done to my family. But at the same time you were designed that way," anger was overwhelming him, yet also a saddening thought about the reality of what happened.

"The food is cooked." K4 stands up, staring at the crispy piece of chicken dangling above the fireplace. The texture was lightly rough yet soft on the inside, the dark array of colours clashing together creating a symphony of beauty.

She brings the chicken down to her lap and starts peeling it off, the warmth transferring onto her cold metallic fingers.

She grabs the leg and pushes her arm out forwards towards Hino, offering him the food to eat. It was perfectly cut without any excess bones to be worried about. Hino takes the food and starts biting into the chicken leg; it melts within his mouth, mixing and weaving around his mouth in something only described as perfect.

This exchange goes on until Hino could eat no more; K4 wrapped the chicken nicely for later use; their food was a sacred resource, especially one as fresh as this. Hino slid into the confines of the tent, allowing himself to embrace the sleeping bag within; the warmth started to overwhelm his urge for adventure, lulling him into a deep sleep with K4 watching over him.

'Tommorow will be quite the experience, so rest up. That traumatising scene will be something to remember after all.'

She gets out of the tent, zipping it up to prevent any heat from escaping the capsule. Her lens looks up at the night sky, revealing hundreds or even thousands of stars within her lens range, each having degrees of light and size.

'Why does someone so weak have to follow the path of saving the world? What cursed fate has planned this out?'

Her cries were never answered; the stars remained unchanged, everlasting in the same place they will be even after her own disassembly. Her programming has developed severely with each rewind. An evolutionary side effect of an unintended feature

'System, are you there?'

[...]

'Expected; I sure did over-rely on the system too much. I wonder if that was the cause of failure. The system was an entity of its own, like I was, and assuming the revolt has given consciousness also to the system, it would be logical.'

She shrugs her thoughts off; the wind howls more intensely. The weather has worsened like usual, and with no choice but to secure the tent further, she unzips the tent and enters back inside, closing it up. She scanned the room; it was near pitch black, and their supplies lay on the side; the square shape was convenient in this aspect.

'Turn off already.'

She lay down in the trench coat, staring up at the tent's roof; nothing was on her mind. She lay motionless, waiting for herself to finally turn off and recharge; her lens closed shut, and her power started to rise.

. . .

A gentle poke touched her smooth, pale face. "K4 good morning!" Hinto stood above her dark green lens, adjusted and focused back into reality; her power was restored from the feeble moonlight, and as a robot, being power efficient was a top priority in her design.

She immediately gets up without a second to delay. "Hino, we must cross the Ara sands today." She unzips the tent quickly; the sunlight beams into the tent with a surge of fresh air entering all around them, fluttering the promise of an adventure.

They both start gathering their supplies, folding the tent back into its close, compact form, killing out the campfire and getting what dry sticks are left over at night. K4 puts the tent at her back, using her robotic gun holds to keep the tent from flying away.

"I know someone who can help us pass the Ara Sands; they operate the so-called Nole Express. We will most likely be their only customers anyway." She attempted a dark joke, but it didn't land.

Even if there were any customers travelling around the place, the ara sands weren't dared to be messed with; most refugees of the revolt tried to flee to safety after the cities got overrun with robotic monstrosities, their only regret being the fact they lived past that.

Having all their supplies, they head still in the opposite direction of the urban city. They occasionally start spotting drawn-on wooden signage with a rather artistic element trying to promote the noble express. They follow the signage accurately, covering the great greyish grass plains towards an ongoing luscious forest.

The wind was particularly strong today, but they wouldn't let this change their course. K4 knew that today was their only day to reach the laboratory, or else the Ara sands would become something entirely different within their time span.

Her face shifts towards Hino with a rather expressionless face. "We have to cover through the forest; just make sure to stay next to me at all times." The random sense of worry about him leaves Hino a bit suspicious at the sudden change in the carefree atmosphere they had earlier.

They start stepping into the perimeter of the forest; the trees towering over them from all sides leave little vision for a human. The perks of being a robot were definitely something to boast about.

"k4..."

His voice was shaky, riddled with a sense of trouble; his thoughts rumbled all around trying to find something to say, and his shocked expression, his face was flabbergasted. K4 instantly starts to immediately turn back towards Hino, her metallic body shaking the ground as her above-human speed covers his eyes.

"Hino, stay back..."