Once I was inside the clink’s mainframe the entire physical world was erased, replaced by lines of code within the clink. I was looking for directives of some sort that could tell me where they could’ve taken Norman.

I’d mourned for him before, when he went missing for so many years, but seeing him die in front of me was too much for me to comprehend. It felt like an error in your programming that shouldn’t be happening but happens regardless.

The clinks had a reason to come this far from whatever factory they were created in, which must’ve been nearby and recently. I couldn’t give up hope that he was still alive, there would be no other reason to take him if not for his knowledge. Whoever or whatever was programming these machines had the clear intention of coming after a place where he would be and take him where they could.

Once I managed to access the directives I found hundreds of overwrites – overwriting the factory settings with more recent programming. The directives were simple: to find the target and extract to the marked location. The target was only indicted by a signal broadcast, not a name or image. The clink wasn’t aiming for Norman; it was aiming for Henry before its shot accidently veered too far right. The marked location wasn’t in the directives, it was accessed somewhere else deep in the clink’s code – almost like a direct connection to where the location was.

I dug through every file I code access – each one coming up blank. I needed to track its history.

The information regarding the clink’s past route was disjointed and missing information, as if periods of its travel weren’t recorded or erased. This particular clink had only been in the city for three days along with its unit. Its destination ended when it was terminated.

Re-tracing its previous route revealed a path that led North East of the city, on the outskirts of what was once the border of France. This must be its warehouse where it was either stored or manufactured, these new clinks were in much better condition compared to their decaying counter-parts whose rusting corpses can be found scattered across the ruins of Europe.

An image of a grey, symmetrical building appeared briefly in the clink’s memory bank, but before I could dig any further the clink’s mainframe shut down and powered off indefinitely. My vision returned back to the physical world around where I knelt on the street. The cable that connected us recoiled back into the slot in my wrist – running a diagnostic revealed that my system was clean from malware or corruption. I placed the image of the building and the map of the clink’s route into an easily accessible area of my memory.

Henry was sitting close to me, fumbling with that strange rifle left behind by the clink. Whatever propelled the projectile of that rifle had the capability of nearly levelling a building and thankfully passed through Norman instead of turning him into a pile of rubble. I hope that I may be able to see him again.

Once I stood up from the ground Henry turned towards me, seeing what I had found out.

“Did you find anything in there?” he asked.

I didn’t have much to go on except that there was a building where this clink came from, that wasn’t necessarily where they could’ve taken him.

“I traced it’s route – it originated from a warehouse outside of the city, a warehouse where it was built I think.”

He asked, “Do you think that’s where they could’ve brought him?”

“If he is still alive, they wanted his body for a reason.” I said, “it’s the only place that makes sense to bring him to, what other place could there be that’s still standing?”

Henry was contemplating this, most likely running the chances of making it there.

“If this is the case, there’s going to be an army between us and it.” He said.

“Then we better get ready.” 

Next Chapter: Chapter Thirteen: Nomad