Margo Flint and the Last Soldier

by Nick Mazmanian

  Chapter 6- ZiP’s Camp

  Margo wiped the sleep from her eyes and found the campsite empty. “Catcher, did you see where ZiP went?”

  “Yes, he said he was going to go on morning patrol.”

  “Patrolling what?”

  “Something? I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  She-who-had-bed-head sat up and stretched out her shoulders. “Sleeping on the ground hurts.”

  “An astute analysis.”

  “Be thankful you don’t have a body that aches in the morning.”

  “I’d be thankful to have the ability to move at all.”

  She conceded, “Good counter, Catcher.” Margo peeled herself out of her bedroll and attempted to tame her wild hair. Around them various bird calls were sounding off. “The bird songs down here are wonderful.”

  “Their octaves are genuinely unique.”

  A blue and grey bird with long flight feathers and orange legs flew down onto a mound just at the edge of the camp’s clearing. The mound looked like a clump of mud, but shortly after the bird landed on it the mound moved. Four legs sprouted from underneath it as the folded areas were the ‘mud’ dried shifted and looked more like fur.

  Margo and Catcher sat in silence as they watched the creature waddle into the forest. She turned to Catcher. “I wish the capture worked!”

  “As do I, but that is not the case, sadly.”

  As the frustration of their lack of equipment left her mind, Margo took out the comm gun from her backpack. The readout read: 56 Unread messages. She selected Messages with the dialer, nervously scrolled past the ones that started with ‘STOP’ or ‘YOU ARE IN VIOLATION’, highlighted the one marked: Dad, and pressed the dialer in to pull up the message:

  Dad: I am very glad to hear you are safe. Nane and everyone else is wondering if you’re okay. Will update a… selected few. Couple of the Eight’s guard came by, no trouble so far, though everyone is now very curious about your adventure. Funny how people’s opinions change so quickly? Point Echo? You really dove through that?! Listen to Catcher and update me when you get a chance. Love, Dad.

  A smile crept up on her face as she pulled up a new message field and typed: We went through the Cloud Sea, be careful, there be monsters! Don’t risk. Will figure out return soon with Catcher. I’ll updated Nane as well. Love you and be careful! -Margo.

  She raised the gun, tuned the frequency, braced herself, and fired it into the sun as it poked through the clouds for a moment. Putting the comm gun away, her green eyes glanced around her surroundings. She didn’t get to see much of it last night and after a day full of adrenaline dumps, sleep had been the first thing on her mind. It was a small encampment, having only a small container that housed what appeared to be a communications system with a large dish on the roof along with some various tools that all were foreign to the traveler and her companion. The camp sat in a well-kept clearing among the swaying green trees and bushes. In the center of the camp was a setup for a fire. “I get the metal shack with the doodads in it, but ZiP is a robot, he doesn’t need fire.”

  “My observations also indicate that the ‘doodads’ have been scanning constantly. Due to the size and the way the structure is set up, it appears that is a high-powered radio.”

  The comment made Margo’s eyebrows jump up in excitement. “I’ve heard of those! They make static sounds and move voice along the air, right?”

  Catcher’s camera lens adjusted with an audible humming. “Yes, it is a primitive form of communication, but it was an important step toward the light-based tech we use today.”

  “I wonder why he’s using it? Seems, beneath him tech wise.”

  “He found the comm gun to be strange too. It is possible the radio was the only sturdy tech he could find.”

  “Speaking of light…” She turned her head toward the muted grey sky that seemed to flatten out all the light in the the valley. “...it looks like the sky sea doesn’t let this place get that much. Unless it’s sunrise or sunset, then the clouds thin a bit for some light to cut through, so that’ll be the best time to send or receive messages. Got a message from Dad.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he was thankful we were safe and I told him we’ll figure out a way back.”

  “Which is why we need to be on our guard, Margo.” The comment caught her attention as she turned toward the blue case the A.I. was housed inside of. “We have no way for backup to get here. The cloud sea is… truly an unknown variable, and we barely survived traveling through it. With ZiP, we need to keep our relationship professional. As soon as we can fly again, we drop him off, and move on.”

  Conflicting thoughts bolted through her mind between what she was seeing, what she felt to be true, and what she had yet to learn. She shrugged and said, “That’s true, being prudent is usually the best course, but ZiP doesn’t seem that dangerous. And after he’s…”

  Catcher’s voice shot out of his small carrying case and echoed across the valley, “Not dangerous? It’s because of ZiP that we’re even here, need I remind you! He shot us down thinking we were the enemy, and once he’s dispatched the enemy at the top of that cliff-side…”

  “And got rid of the ghost.”

  “Of course, that too, what do you think his programming is going to do?”

  She shrugged. “Initiate gardener mode?”

  “Do you see me laughing?”

  “You don’t have a mouth.”

  “Exactly, which is how unfunny that comment is. Once a command that old is released, we truly do need to be clear of him.”

  “But…”

  “Margo, I’m okay with some risk, but this is one area where you do need to listen to me. I am here to make sure you are safe and this place is unknown territory to us.”

  A sigh exited her lungs as she looked at Catcher. She picked up the blue travel box and hooked the A.I. on her hip belt. “Okay, we’ll keep this professional.”

  “Professional is my middle name.” The chipped tan and green robot parted the branches surrounding the camp and entered the clearing. “Yep, professional every day.”

  ZiP’s electronic drawl caught Margo by surprise and threw her voice into high alert as she spun around to meet the red eye gaze of her mechanical guide, “Me too, I am super professional. Yep. That’s me. Never not professional!” A moment of silence fell over the group as she cleared her throat, knelt, and started to roll up her sleeping bag. “Heard you were on patrol.”

  “You heard right.” ZiP sat down on the stairs leading into the container. “Do it every morning. Checking my traps to ensure they are in working order and to keep a lookout for any dastardly foes.”

  “What foes? Don’t you have just the two?”

  The robot pointed one of his three fingers at Catcher. “Yes, but the sly devils might have built up friends or had descendants that are sworn to hunt me down or haunt me!” He straightened up and walked into the station. “Gotta stay sharp. Eternal vigilance will end the fight! Or at least that’s what Harry taught me, those are good books!”

  Margo slipped on her earpiece and plugged it into the top of the Catcher’s blue box. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Maybe? Of course...”

  “Of course, I’m right! I’ll have to lend you a copy from the library. Amazing stuff.”

  And audible remark of annoyance shot from Catcher’s chip, “We drop him the first chance we get.”

  “Drop him?”

  “Where are you dropping me?”

  “Anywhere in flight would work.”

  Nervously Margo replied to ZiP, “At your destination, of course.” Having finished packing her bag, Margo then hauled her pack onto her back, and walked toward the soldier. “Where are we heading?”

  The robot spun on the tiny stool from the control console to face Margo. “What in the what?”

  “You said you knew where we could get the parts needed to fix Pipsqueak.”

  ZiP’s red eye fluxed and pulsed before returning to
a solid glow as he turned off the radio. “I did say that, didn’t I? Must have purged part of that this morning.”

  “Purged?”

  “I have to wipe certain portions of my memory to keep space available for new data. Only keep the important stuff. Good thing I tagged this experience rather than deleting it outright. Would have made for an awkward morning. May have shot ya!” The robot folded his three-fingered hand into the shape of a gun and pointed it at Margo. “Pew pew! Ah, I’m kidding…” The fictitious gun vanished into a shrug. “...we would’ve just had to introduce each other all over again.” He then pulled the real gun out and pointed at some bushes that wrestled in the wind. After a minute, and seeing that nothing was there, he reholstered his gun and walked out of the shack. Throwing on his pack he padded around his body as if he was looking for something and stopped when he didn’t find the thing he was apparently looking for.

  Margo moved the conversation away from maybe being shot because of a memory purge or a ghost. “How far away are the supplies from here?”

  “About 10 klicks east. It’ll take us through mid-day to get there.”

  “Clicks?”

  “No, klicks, meaning kilometers.”

  The distance made Margo’s legs ache a bit just to thinking about it. “It took us nearly three hours to just to get here from the crash site and that was 4 klicks away.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say getting around here is easy. That’s why The Zenith was here, to help take and hold this area.

  “The Zenith?”

  “It was a carrier of over 8 thousand souls and my home until the those dirty Rys took her out of the sky.” The robot shook its head. “It also carried a large array of vehicles; some got propellers similar to yours, so they should work.”

  Margo snatched up her bag and returned to ZiP. The tech in the shed had her curiosity peaked as she asked, “Can you also show us some more of this tech? I would love to…”

  ZiP firmly cut her off, “Touch nothing. This is military hardware. You don’t know anything about it. Do not touch anything.” He quickly walked back into the radio shack and noticed her earpiece was plugged in, which prompted him to take out an ancient headphone. “Two can play at this game!” Plugging them into the device, he turned it on, and pressed the button on the stick microphone. “HQ, HQ, this is ZiP, come back now… Yes, I got the whirly bird yesterday and no the occupants are not spies. Repeat, not spies, over… Alright, over and out.”

  “Who were you talking to just now?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know? I can have secrets too! That was HQ, they said to take you to Outpost 521, which is handy because that’s where we’re already going. Me and HQ, almost always on the same page.” Finishing his statement he added a click-click sound effect to emphasis just how important that bit of information was to his audience who didn’t really get it. Leaving the shack, a puffy grey squirrel glided onto his pitted green armor and began squeaking. The way it spoke it sounded almost like a conversation as ZiP’s cylinder head turned toward this newcomer and listened. Finishing its statement, he nodded and responded, “Tell the planning commission that I will be there later this week to assist with the tree removal. I have some guests for HQ.”

  The squirrel nodded, leapt into the air on a gust of wind, and flew away. Margo looked at the robot slack jawed and said, “Did… did you have a conversation with an animal just now?”

  “Bushwhacked Squirrel, please, and yes I did. They need help from time to time.”

  “Do you actually talk to them or is that just for show?”

  “Let’s get moving. We have a lot of ground to cover.”

  Before she could poke further into what just happened, Catcher switched over to the external speaker. “You mentioned something about traps earlier?”

  “Don’t you worry your non-existent head about it. I placed them, I can avoid them.” ZiP turned away from his guests and pointed toward their destination. “Squad, move out!”

  Chapter 7- Rollin, rollin, rollin

  Shafts of light sliced through the grey world for moments only to vanish. The forest floor was varied as ancient roots wound and carved through the landscape. The ground itself wasn’t always even, and at times it had mounds and bumps that went on for what seemed to be miles. Careful footing and fatigue had begun to cut into Margo’s usual upbeat personality. “ZiP?”

  “If you ask me again how close we are, I will leave you here, we are within a klick.”

  “I don’t care, I need a moment. I’m starving and tired and that small grass mound looks too good at this moment.” Margo plopped herself down, dropped her gear, unplugged Catcher from her ear, and grabbed a water flask. “Unlike you, roboman, I need water and food.”

  “You wouldn’t have survived in this here military.”

  With feigned horror, she responded, “Oh no. Ah,” as she took out a tin of beans, carved it open, and shoveled the contents into her mouth with her camping spork. “Mmmmm.”

  “You don’t know what a portocom is but you have a spork?”

  “What, sporks are great.”

  “They neither work well as a fork or a spoon, they are terrible, so of course they’ve survived the passage of time; like most bad ideas.” Some beans fell on to her chin as she continued to shovel the food into her mouth. “You always eat like that?”

  “Yes, she does.”

  “You don’t have the endurance of the military, but you sure do eat like a soldier.”

  “Hey! I’m a growing girl! I need food because you won’t like me when I’m hungry.”

  “That too is true.”

  “Whose side are you on here?”

  “I am on neither on this particular topic, because the facts show that you eat like an animal. It has been documented and confirmed by your father, friends, and myself.” Catcher’s speaker clicked over and the voice of Gerard started to speak out of the blue box, “Margo, I love you, but you really need to slow down. The volume of food you intake might blow up your body.” The speaker clicked again. “Evidence A.”

  Her eyeballs had been rolling so hard during the cross-examination that if they had more mass they might have rolled her over the small mound she was currently sitting on. She took the now empty tin and placed it in an exterior bag attached to her pack. “I get, I get, esh.” She took another swig of water and looked around the area. “ZiP, has this place always been this difficult to navigate?”

  “It was difficult, yeah, but not always. The mounds throughout the forest floor were once gun emplacements and bunkers. Any moss towers were once battle rigs.”

  Margo looked at the mound she was sitting on and just then noticed a few more surrounding them. “You mean, this was a battlefield?”

  “Was? Lady, this is a battlefield, which is why I didn’t want you resting on top of AE32. That’s a resupply spot for our forward positions and is very dangerous. We just… haven’t had to use it for a long time, hence the overgrowth, but the supplies are still there just in case.”

  The comment made her snatch up her gear and move away from the mound. “What kind of supplies?”

  “...supplies.”

  “For?”

  “Resupplying, can’t tell you more, you would need clearance access level 1 to find out.” He pulled out his revolver slowly and kept it close to his waist. A look of concern grew on Margo’s face as her eyes glanced down at the gun that was now motioning for her to keep talking as ZiP said, “Tell me again why you came here?”

  A jumble of confusion fell out of her mouth as she said, “Wha, I, well, the sights of course. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be in this valley? Look at it.” She motioned toward the swaying treeline with her spork and shouted, “I mean, look at these trees! Are they not sincere?”

  With her voice still echoing from her observational comments ZiP’s torso spun instantly 45 degrees around and fired the revolver into some bushes. The sound of metal being pounded over took both her voice and the gunshot echo. The soldier bolted from his po
sition, leapt over the bushes, and fired the gun again in mid-jump. Margo dropped her spork and beans, grabbed Catcher, and rolled behind one of the mounds as the sounds of servos straining and several more gunshots reverated into silence. Catching her breath, the sounds of birds wings flapping finally caught up to her ears as she leaned around the corner from the mound to find ZiP signaling to her. “It’s clear!”

  Getting to her feet, she grabbed her pack, and made her way around the bushes. Rounding them, she found another robot laying on the ground. It was an odd looking robot because it looked a little more fragile than Zip, its skeletal structure was more exposed as it had fewer armor placements surrounding it. The other reason why it was odd looking was due to portions of it being missing. As if chunks of it were cut off so she could see straight through them to the forest floor. It was something that really confused Margo as she stared at the now deactivated robot. “Was this the…”

  ZiP ejected the spent shells from the revolver. “The ghost, yes. This is a Rys model GST-5, intel was its game, it was a slippery one, but I got it finally.”

  “Why are there pieces missing?”

  “Pieces missing?” ZiP looked down at robot. “Oh, that’s one of those smash optic ponchos.” He reached down and took it off of the robot. Pulling the invisible material away from the machine revealed the rest of bullet riddled frame. “Now you see me.” ZiP ducked his head behind the material, revealing only his hands. “Now you don’t.”

  “Invisibility?”

  “Oh yeah, they were slick fellows those Rys R&D dudes. Made anyone wearing it nearly invisible to even the hundreds of light wavelengths I can see. Haven’t seen one of these working for some time. Think I’ll keep it as a momento.”

  “Why did it take you so long to finally defeat the, uh, ghost?”

  “These 5ers we're always slick. Always took two take one down, so I didn't have that second till you showed up.” As ZiP stuffed the wrinkling reality into his pack Margo moved toward the still robot and noticed it had a hip bag. Opening it she found a worn cloth-covered journal that was predominately orange with strands of gold leaf pressed into it. The pages were a burnt brown color along the edges that faded into pure white that bordered the drawn images of the various flora and fauna inside of it.