The Human Farm (The Human Farm Trilogy Book 1)

by Young, B. R.

  She was walking by one of the other houses and peering into some of the windows when she spotted an old abandoned A.I. Unit lying on the ground inside. She kicked the door in and went inside to investigate. She cautiously approached the unit but it had long since ran out of power. She looked it over and saw it was an upgraded model with better arms than she had now with built in lasers which could come in handy.

  She pulled the arms from the sockets of the A.I. and stuffed them into the sack she was carrying along with her. She left the house and headed on down the road making her way back into the woods and gathering more birch leaves as well as ginger root. She also spotted a bee hive high up in a tree and knew that honey was a good cure for infected wounds. Dawn set the sack down near the tree and easily climbed the tree to where the hive was.

  The bees swarmed around her angrily as she neared trying their best to sting her, protecting their hive, luckily for her she could not feel their sting. She simply ignored their onslaught and ripped the hive from the tree giving it a good shake to extract all the bees. They hovered over her head angrily making a mad attempt at her head with no luck. Dawn made her way back down the tree and shoved the hive into the sack.

  Once her bag was full of leaves, roots and bee hive she made her way back to the house. She slipped back inside to find that Lili had fallen back to sleep. Dawn emptied the contents from the bag onto the floor. She set the arms she had taken from the A.I. off to the side and piled up the leaves and roots in a corner.

  Dawn grabbed the bees hive and extracted some of the raw honey from inside, she untied the bandage from around Kev’s leg and smeared the honey on his wound then tied the bandage again. She did not care if he lived or died for what he had done to Lili but Dawn knew that Lili still cared about him and she would be heartbroken if he were to die. All she could do now was sit back and wait until they got better.

  Dawn grabbed the arms she had taken earlier and looked them over, they seemed to still be in good shape with only minor damage from the elements, and this could be easily fixed. She immediately got to work on cleaning and fixing the arms and weapon systems. Once she had the arms repaired and in working order she first took off her own right arm and attached the new one taking time to be sure it was attached properly. She flexed her hand and moved her arm around a bit to be assured it worked right. Once that arm was working properly she went to work switching the left arm.

  The biggest difference between the new arms and the old ones was there more robotic look. Once she had both arms attached and working properly she set the old arms off to the side. She wanted to test out the lasers to be sure they would work properly in case they ever needed them. She searched the house and found several empty containers lying around, she set them up on a shelf at the opposite end of the room. She held out her arms and extracted the laser from within the arm and took aim at the first container. She fired and the container immediately blew to bits and was set aflame. Lili heard the noise of the laser and jumped in her bed with fright.

  She looked all around the room in a panic, “What was that?”

  Dawn looked over, forgetting that Lili would probably be startled by the noise, “I am sorry, I did not think about the noise waking you. I found an old A.I. Unit that had worn out, it had laser arms, so I upgraded my arms. I figured we might need the weapons to help us if we are to get out of the city, away from the A.I. and we could also use it to hunt,”

  Lili scrunched up her nose, “I don’t eat meat,”

  “What about him?” Dawn asked pointing to Kev.

  “Yea he does, as much as I detest it, I cannot stand the thought of innocent animals being killed and eaten.”

  “Sometimes Lili you have to do things you do not like in order to survive. This is just the way of life, I have learned this from watching many things in this world in the time since my creation,” said Dawn

  “Yea I guess, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. So how long do you think we’ll have to stay here? How soon can we get into the wild areas you mentioned and farther away from the guardians?”

  “That will depend on how soon your ankle heals to where you can put some pressure on it, and on how quickly your friend will wake up and be well enough to travel. It could be hours or it could be days. I put something on his wound to help, it will take some time to heal and he will need more medication later.”

  “Oh, what if the guardians show up before we’re able to move?”

  “That is what the new laser arms are for,” said Dawn.

  Lili laid back down with a smile, she knew her friend would protect them from any dangers that might arise from the outside world. All she needed to do was to get some rest and wait for her ankle to get better so she could walk again and hope that Kev would wake up soon.

  21

  It was nearly two days of sitting around the house doing nothing but resting before Kev finally woke up. They would give him more of the ginger paste and cover his wound in honey every so often, his leg started to look better and the fever started to slowly subside. Near the end of that second day he opened his eyes and looked around, he felt weak from lack of food. “W..what happened?” he asked.

  “Kev you’re awake,” Lili yelled. “You showed up here, although I have no clue how or why you found us then you passed out from your injuries. How did you get hurt, what happened to you Kev? You’ve been passed out for nearly two days.”

  “Lili slow down and take a breath, he is weak and can barely speak.” said Dawn.

  Dawn handed him a bottle of water that he took with shaky hands and took a few sips letting his dry throat get a nice coat of water, he took a few more sips and licked his lips to get some moisture back into them. He looked around the room and saw Dawn first then his eyes fell on Lili and they opened wider “Lili, it’s really you, you’re here,” he said.

  She shook her head wiping a tear from her eye, “Yes it’s me Kev I’m here. Now why are you here and how did you find us?”

  “Oh Lili, I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” he said as he tried to sit up. His body was stiff from not moving for so long and pain shot through his body. Dawn knelt beside him and helped him to sit up. He looked up to her, “Thank you. Lili, I was so stupid, I hope you can forgive me, I was wrong I just didn’t want to see you get hurt but I see now I was wrong and stupid. I overheard the councilors talking, they were planning to kill you.”

  Lili’s face went into a mask of horror at what he’d just told her. “Now you see Lili why I got you away when I did instead of going back, I knew what they would do to you. There is much more going on there than you know, more even than I know.” Said Dawn

  Kev spent the next hour telling them everything he’d gone through to get away from the others, track them through the tunnels and then how he climbed the building and spotted Dawn from the top. He also told them of his injuries. Lili listened to every word he said with rapt attention, “Oh Kev you’ve been through so much just to come and find me, you have no idea how angry I’ve been at you this whole time. I could never stay angry at you. I’m just glad you’re ok and with us now and that you see the truth of things. This world above is so big and so beautiful,” said Lili.

  “Yes it is indeed, and also full of many dangers, we will need to be careful.” said Kev.

  “Not to worry too much about that, Dawn has some new weapons on her arms to protect us and she can use them to hunt for food so we can survive once we get farther away from this city. Once you are feeling better and if I can walk on my ankle we can leave this place,” said Lili.

  “I am feeling well enough to walk, but what happened to your ankle?”

  “When we came through the tunnels we made a hole in the collapsed section and part of it caved in on my ankle, it crushed it. Dawn had to carry me all the way here,” said Lili.

  “That would explain why there was only one set of footprints on this side of the tunnel then,” said Kev with a smile. “I was worried when it went from two sets to just one that something ba
d had happened.”

  “Here come and help me up you two and we’ll see how well my ankle is doing,” said Lili.

  Kev stood up and moved around a bit to stretch his stiff aching body. With Kev and Dawn at either side of Lili they helped her to stand up. She put all her pressure on her good leg and then slowly put pressure on the other leg, she felt the pain coursing through her quite a bit but it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been. “It still hurts but I think if I had something to lean on as I walk I could make it,” said Lili.

  “I think I may be able to find something that will help you with that,” said Dawn.

  She moved around the house looking all around in every room picking up scraps of wood and pieces of cloth and old cushions she found lying around. She laid them all out in a pile in the center of the room then grabbed her old arms and ripped out all of the wiring from them. Kev and Lili watched her work with fascination as she moved about with all these scraps. Dawn fit all of these pieces together and bound them tightly using the wiring from her old arms and in no time had a pair of makeshift crutches.

  “Here try these.” she said as she handed the crutches to Lili.

  Lili took the crutches but was not really sure what she was supposed to do with them, she just looked at them, studying them as if she was trying to figure out how they worked. “You use them like this,” Dawn said as she took them and demonstrated how they worked. “They will help to support most of your weight while you walk.”

  Lili took the crutches back and used them the way Dawn had showed her, she had a big smile on her face as she managed to move around the room without feeling any pain from her ankle. “This is great,” she said.

  “Well, now that we can all move again perhaps we should pack everything up and leave this place. We are too close to the guardians, I have already had one close encounter with them, I would rather not have any more,” said Kev.

  “Yes I would have to agree,” said Dawn.

  So they began packing everything they would need, they gathered all the herbs and vegetation Dawn had gathered as well as her old arms, just in case she needed spare parts, as well as the extra food and water. They left the house and started out down the street, coming across another house which had a garage with its door wide open. Kev looked in and saw a bunch of stuff, Kev wanted to stop and look inside so they detoured to scavenge for anything they might be able to use

  The first thing they found was what Dawn called a wheelbarrow, it had a wooden wheel and handles. They all figured it would come in handy to help them carry extra supplies along with them. They also found tools they might need, they picked up a hatchet, as well as a box of nails, a hammer, saw and various other tools. Some of these things seemed to have collected a bit of rust but were still useable. They loaded everything into the wheelbarrow along with the sacks of provisions they had been carrying. Dawn found some old garden hose in the back and used it to fashion a harness around the handles so they could use it to pull the wheelbarrow without having to use their arms and sparing them from the ache of gripping the handles for long periods of time.

  Now they had more supplies for their journey they started out heading south trying to gain as much distance as they could, putting as many miles between them and the guardians as they could.

  22

  They walked all day, staying off the road until they were clear of the city where the guardians would be roaming. Once they were free of the city and guardian patrols it was a little easier traveling but Dawn warned them there were still roving drones that did countryside patrols every now and then. If they found any traces of Kev’s blood around the building where he was cut they would be sure to send out drones in search of the source. It was near dark by the time they passed a sign that said welcome to Pennsylvania.

  The places they saw now looked much like the farm they were from with the exception of the sun and the sky all around them, there were lots of fields full of grass as far as the eye could see and plenty of deep wooded areas. Dawn figured this would be the best place to stop for the night. They walked deep into the forest so they could have a fire to cook some food without the possibility of the fire or smoke being seen from above.

  She had Lili sit on an open area in the woods and clear a spot on the ground to make a fire while she had Kev gather enough wood to last them the night. While they were doing that she went out into the woods to hunt for food that Kev and Lili would be able to eat.

  She came back to the campsite and Kev had a huge pile of dead wood piled up high near a tree and Lili had cleared a spot of leaves and managed to gather rocks to form a circle to help enclose the fire. Once they got the fire started, using the laser from Dawns new laser arm, they managed to skin and clean the rabbits Dawn had killed and started them cooking. The hard part now would be in getting Lili to eat the meat, but as Dawn had once explained to her, sometimes you had to do things you did not like in order to survive.

  The food had finished cooking and Kev cut off a big chunk and handed it to Lili, she took it and just stared at it. He took another piece for himself and bit into the juicy, tender meat savoring each bite as if it was his last. Lili watched him eat holding her own piece in her hand, “Lili you need to eat, you will never gain any strength and be able to keep moving if you do not eat,” said Dawn.

  Lili pulled the meat closer to her mouth and took a small bite out of it, she chewed and swallowed the piece and then she took another. She realized just how hungry she was and started biting into it as if it was the last meal on Earth. She ate it clean down to the bone, when she was finished she tossed the bone to the ground letting out a loud belch and leaned back with a smile, “that was actually really good.”

  Kev let out a loud laugh, “I told you, you were missing out by not eating meat for all these years, but yea there was something different about this meat compared to what we usually have back on the farm. I’m not sure what it is but it had a different flavor to it.”

  “That would be because the meat you have on your farms is from domesticated animals, animals that you raise and keep in pens. They are tame and used to being around humans and are fed by humans. These animals are wild and free, they know nothing of being cooped up in cages or being fed or even what a human is for that matter,” said Dawn.

  “Well whatever it is, it was really good,” said Lili as she stretched and let out a yawn.

  “It’s getting late and I’m tired, we should get some sleep. We need to figure out where we’re going and what we are going to do from here,” said Kev.

  Kev and Lili cleared spots on the ground and settled down to go to sleep, it didn’t take long before the two of them were fast asleep. Dawn stood guard as she always did, she knew it would not be long before she would need to find a city and get near a power unit to charge her battery, she only had enough charge left in her for a week at most and the laser arms had sucked more power from her than she thought they would.

  23

  They woke the next morning feeling refreshed and better than they’d felt since the day they’d fled from the farm. They quickly packed up their belongings and cleaned up the area. “We should head southeast from here, there is another farm located there in an old city called Washington D.C. it was once known as the capital of this land. I believe if you truly wish to find answers to why the A.I. keeps you on the farms that is where you will find your answers,” said Dawn.

  “That sounds like a good idea to me, perhaps we can find a way to shut them down and free our people from the farms showing them there’s a better world than the one they have been living in underground,” said Lili.

  “I’m up for it,” said Kev.

  “Then it is settled, but I warn you it is a long walk and we are bound to run into many A.I. patrols on the way and in that city. It will be heavily fortified, especially if they know we are coming so we must be careful,” said Dawn.

  The three companions made their way out of the woods, got their bearings and headed for the city of Washington D.C. Once
they got out onto the road Dawn looked for road signs that would point to the nearest city, the sign read Philadelphia 150 miles. “We have a long walk and I am afraid my friends I may not make it as far as I need to on my own.”

  “What do you mean you won’t make it?” asked Lili looking worried for her friend.

  “These lasers have drained more power from my batteries than I thought they would, I only have about a week left in my reserves and we have 150 miles to the nearest large city where we will find a charging station. I do not know if we can make it that far in a week and it will be extremely difficult getting near a power charging unit. If I should stop functioning before we get there you would never be able to carry me,” said Dawn

  “We have to at least try,” said Lili.

  “Then I guess we’d best get walking now,” said Kev as he grabbed the cart and started walking without wasting any more time.

  “What are we supposed to do if we don’t make it to a city before your batteries run down?” asked Lili.

  “You will need to find a heavily forested area like we just came from and live there, you will have to learn to survive. Teach yourselves to hunt, otherwise you will die or be captured by the guardians,” said Dawn.

  “Or you could just show me how to charge your battery and what I need to do. I could take your battery into the city and charge it, or I could get you another battery,” said Kev.

  “That would be far too dangerous for you,” said Dawn.

  “Not any more so than trying to survive on our own out here, we don’t know the first thing about this outside world. We couldn’t last long out here without you and you know it, we need you,” said Kev.

  “Very well, if you must do this I will show you,” she said as she stopped walking. “All A.I. power batteries are located here,” she lifted up the shirt she was wearing and opened a plate in her chest with a small button that was just barely visible. The battery was the size of a human fist. “All you will need to do is pull the battery out of me and find a power charger in the city. It is a machine that has a lot of buttons, it will also have wires dangling from it, and one larger main wire will have two prongs that connect to the holes in the battery. You plug it into the battery, the units are usually in barracks bays where A.I.s charge up, and they will be heavily guarded. Your best bet will be to go to the basement where they scrap old A.I. units, there is usually an abandoned charging unit there. You will need to let it charge for 24 hours.”