Mech

Chapter 20: The Future

We marched along with the sea of people. I held Max's hand. Jason now held Aaliyah's real body. We all marched together, us and the world, away from the death, the destruction, the agony, and the evil of the past. Moxi members, Cause members, Rebels..we all walked as one. General Trenton had found us, and we met up with Uncle Jeb and Anna Lynn along the way. Although I was more upset than ever, things increasingly got brighter. People banded together to build a structure up the drop and get people up the wall. We climbed the mass of metal and junk and saw our old camp again. Then, the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. The walls began to lower.

One by one, the gates came down. The shrieking of the grinding metal hurt my ears, but I didn't care. These gates hadn't opened in so long. No one had seen the outside world in so..so long. Everyone knew exactly who we were. What we didn't know was that Mitzi's message wasn't just a sound recording, but it captured all of our faces, too. Monitors everywhere displayed us, the heroes of Mech. I was taken aback when I was referred to as this from the crowds around us. A woman carrying a baby blessed me, men gratefully thanked us, children danced around us. The crowd split and they allowed us to be the first ones out of the gates once they all came down. Before the gates came down all the way, a group of men dragged a box over and asked Jason for a speech. He handed Aaliyah to his brother. The crowd grew quiet. I knew he probably didn't want to speak, after what had happened, but it seemed as though he had accepted it and had come to peace with the situation.

He knew what he wanted to say. He stood on the box and the crowd cheered. Motioning his hands, the commotion died down.

"Everyone. My name is Jason Conway. I'm a Rebel. The girl on the speakers who gave you that message was my girlfriend..she, uh..she didn't make it."

A wave of grief erupted from the crowd, but they fell silent again.

"The reason we were all trapped here was because of Alexander Petrocoff's oldest daughter, Sakura. Petrocoff did evil expiraments on his daughters and put their minds into robots. Sakura went mad and turned into what she called Synthia. She caused the massacre when Utopia was unveiled. She caused all the robots and Cycoffs to attack all of you innocent people and your families and friends. I'm happy to say that Micah Hapsbury," he held his hand out to me and pulled me up on the box with him, "Killed the evil psychopath and avenged her sister, and everyone Synthia ever harmed!"

Loud, excited cheering boomed as people celebrated my victory. Seeing this, this rave of happiness that I caused, made me so glad.

"Mitzi did not die in vein. She died protecting her little sister, and in turn they both saved human kind from this mechanical Hell! We're all free now! We can take back our world, just like Mitzi told you, and make our lives better than ever before! No more suffering!"

A wave of cheers.

"No more Cycoffs!"

Another louder wave.

"No more Mech!"

The crowd went wild.

"The new Utopia is out there! The perfect world is the one we already had, so let's take it back!"

His father looked more proud than ever. The final gate lowered and the seven of us turned and watched as the gate finally dropped. The brightest beam of sunshine I'd ever seen blazed inside. We walked to the edge of the wall and stood by the staircase leading down the the real world. I realized Mech had a sort of bubble-like filter over it that blocked out the true sky, and this was the first time I'd ever seen it. It was more blue than I could have ever imagined. For the first time in a long time I saw actual puffy clouds. A real live flock of birds zoomed past us and fluttered about in the metal landscape before looping around and zipping back out into the beautiful world. I stepped down the stairs and was shocked and almost scared because they were covered in kudzu. I blinked several times to focus my eyes and I saw it. Nature. Real Nature. The tallest trees, the thickest bushes, the most beautiful flowers. I raced down the stairs and threw off my boots, tore away my socks, and stood on the grass. I dug my toes into the soft earth and breathed in. That breath felt like the first one I had ever taken. I was no longer breathing stale, humid air. I smelled the flowers, I smelled the dew on the grass, I smelled the trees. I felt a cool breeze for the first time and my body swayed. I dropped to my knees and felt the grass with my hands to make sure it was real.

Jason came up behind me, Esclave's arm around his shoulder because she was losing energy. Anna Lynn patched her up, but she had been through a lot. Max approached and knelt down beside me. Aaliyah finally began to stir. I got up and walked over to Ian to make sure she was ok. Her red hair was so long it went to her waist, clearly because it was never given a chance to be cut. Her eyelids fluttered and her green eyes met Ian's, then mine, then Max's, Jason's, Esclave's, then back to Ian's.

"D-did we m-make it?" Her gentle voice uttered. Her real voice wasn't like her robot's. It was extremely delicate, light, and high-pitched, yet soft. Right now it was a bit raspy since she hadn't truly spoken in so long.

Ian nodded, "Yeah, you did it!"

She smiled, and closed her eyes again to rest. The people had been pouring out and only a handful remained. A loud, distant alarm rang and a massive explosion erupted from the Core. The ground shook and we watched as levels two and three rose and then collapsed, swallowed into the depths of the earth. The first level was barely affected, which meant it would always remain, a permanent reminder of what we had experienced and we we had overcome. Every machine and Cycoff was deactivated, leaving no more threats from Mech to haunt us. I turned around and felt an overpowering rush of freedom and joy. I took off running through the trees. I pushed past leaves, hopped over logs, I came across a river and simply splashed waist deep through it. I didn't care, I was free. I came to an open field of flowers and walked out. I removed Mitzi's jacket and gripped it to my chest. I heard bird songs, I saw deer prance through the flowers. Bunnies hopped along the tree line. The world was alive, and so was I, and my sister would always live on inside me and my book. In this field, very soon, houses would begin to appear. People would hunt and farm and eat real food. We'd have dances and sing and play. The parts of the world that stayed behind would rejoin us and re-teach us how to survive in the natural world. Our future was brighter and more promising than I ever imagined. I sat down and plucked a flower, placing it in my hair. Max came up behind me and sat down. One day we'd be married, have kids that would get a real life, they'd have kids and their kids would have kids, but right then, we were the closest friends sitting together in a field of real actual flowers. And we were happy

Something soft brushed against my arm. Catt appeared and crawled into my lap, sniffing my nose. It was in that moment that I knew our struggles were over. Our nightmare was over. We could finally stop surviving, and start living.

My name is Micah Hapsbury. I was a Mech Rebel, and my life story isn't over. It's truly just begun.