911 Chapter 12: Static

“I just can’t get this thing to work…” Sarah grumbled, twisting a military radio in her hands that she had stumbled across as the group made their way across the desolate terrain to meet back with Seven and the others.  Why she had bothered to collect it, Nine didn’t know.  She and her siblings already had one back at their dugout home and thus far little had been transmitting.

With the assistance of Five, Two had climbed free from her backpack, shuffled over her shoulder, and now balanced himself on her arm—securing himself by placing his foot in the fold of her thumb while Five mimicked his position from the other side—in order to examine the device.  Nine and Six had followed soon after, and shared a seat upon the right side of her neck as they watched on with intrigue.  It was amazing to see Five and Two work hand in hand once they were given a challenge that peaked their technological interests.   

“The wires seem fine, if not a little worn…” Five muttered more out of deep thought than as a statement of fact.  He then blinked over to Two, “Think it could be the battery?”

“Possibly,” the elder shrugged, “I don’t see any damage on this side either.  It’s actually is pretty good condition—considering everything.”

“The toy store should have a screwdriver to open it with,” the young girl chimed in, and so on did their discussion continue.

Nine grinned down at the scene before him, then turned to glance over at Six—who was busying himself by playing with a small collection of loose hairs that had been pressed flat against her skin by her mask.  “Thirteen…” he mumbled—almost humming the word, really—with a smile of his own, optics glistening with a childlike sort of fascination. 

As the younger-minded Stitchpunk explored the confines of Sarah’s pack, and then examined what he could of her outer anatomy, he had uttered that number off and on.  At first, Nine assumed he had been counting the spots that dotted across the child’s face, but now he wasn’t so sure.  “What do you mean?” he finally asked, though the other only flinched at the sudden interruption of his own musings before giving the former a small shrug and returning back to world inside his own mind.

“I’m thirteen!” Sarah exclaimed, almost proudly.  “I think I turned thirteen about four months ago.  That makes me a teenager.  I’m practically an adult.”

Nine looked over at Two—who the group had unspokenly dubbed the expert on human children—for confirmation, but the elder only gave him an smile in turn, shaking his head shaking his head with amusement.  The separation of ‘child’ and ‘adult’ at first seemed pretty distinct, or at least it was among their kind where there was nothing else to compare them to.  What was a teenager?  Since Nine had learned what a human child was, he had always defined Sarah as a child… so how was a teenager any different?    

“This world rushes you enough,” Two chided her good-naturedly as he scaled back up her arm, “Don’t be in any hurry to grow up.”

This time the girl didn’t answer, though Nine could almost sense her response.  As much as Two—as much as any of them—might’ve liked to guard her, letting her and her siblings run around and play, like Three and Four always did, and human children before them did, no one had any choice in the matter.  To survive in this world of dust and corroded metal meant being an adult, scrambling through the ruin and decay each day just to have a bit of food, and swallowing down fear when it felt like it would swallow them whole instead.  The actual adults, the ones who were supposed to act as both protectors and teachers, were no longer there for them: They had only themselves to rely on anymore. 

Just thinking about that depressing knowledge made Nine’s mind wander to other concerns.  What if the machines found the children’s home in the earth?  What if Sarah’s sickness took over and she couldn’t take care of the others?  What if Peter, Peggy, or Rosie got sick as well?  What if they ran out of food or water, and there was nothing left to find?  What if any of them got hurt, or taken, or killed? 

The humans might have had size and strength on their side, but in reality they were fragile creatures, no match for the machines.  Could they really survive?  For how long?  After what he had seen in such a short time—the hunger, the sickness, the exhaustion, the threat of the machines—he wasn’t so sure.  In the very least, he and the other Stitchpunks could hide almost anywhere: The humans didn’t even have that luxury.  He just wished he could do something to help keep them alive…

An unmistakable shout suddenly cut through the uneasy silence of an approaching dust storm, just as familiar as it was shocking to hear.  All heads immeadiately snapped in the direction of the voice and Six shrank behind Nine, taking hold of the latter’s arm.  “You’ve lasted without me for this long!” it continued to vex indignantly, “I’m not moving from this spot!”

“Sarah, that way!” Nine directed, pointing to the location the voice was coming from—a graveyard of scrap metal from the ruins of a crashed warplane.  As she scrambled over the wreckage, the Stitchpunks held on tight. 

“We didn’t even know you were still alive!” a perturbed, feminine voice retorted.  “After everything that’s happened, how can you still be this unreasonable?!”

“Unreasonable?!  When you mentioned the remote possibility of the others being alive, I could believe that!  Here I am!  But saying that the four of you have allied with a human—as if there were any to ally with in the first place—is nothing but pure insanity!”

Hearing that piece, Nine felt as though his insides were made of heavy lead.  Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea for One to meet Sarah just yet.  A part of him felt that—like Seven—if One were able to get to know the humans as they had, then they would grow on him.

The more logically sound part of him knew that One’s stubbornness and vehement hatred towards mankind would win over nonetheless. 

He was just about to warn Sarah to stay away and keep hidden for the time being when they stumbled over the last small hill of scrap and came into view of One, Seven, and the twins—the second group standing around one another as the elder and warrior argued heatedly.  As their party drew in sight—Sarah’s steps clumsily sending metal parts clattering down the pile as they approached—the two stopped their fighting in an instant as all four looked their way.  One cried out fearfully, bounding with surprising speed as he leapt atop of a machine gun turret that had miraculously stayed in one piece.  His forced weight upon it sent the barrel pointing upwards—right at Sarah—and the child collapsed to the ground with her own cry of terror, dropping the radio with reckless abandon and scuttling back across the earth as the Stitchpunks sitting upon her fought to keep hold all the while. 

Granted, there was no way of knowing if the turret was loaded, and even if it was there was no way for One to fire it with any accuracy on his own, but Sarah didn’t know that and the heavy threat was still there.  “Stay back you giant, misbegotten savage!” The former leader shouted defiantly, curling his still intact hand into a fist at his side.  Despite the panic that grated his voice, there was something hard that overwhelmed it.  “Stay far away from here!  I’m not afraid to fire!”

“Nine!” Sarah mewled in a half-tearful, half-frightened tone.  Were she without her mask, the look on her face might’ve been desperate. 

Forcing Six to unclench from his burlap skin, Nine leapt from the child’s shoulder and chest to the dirt—running towards One with his hands held up defensively.  Two and Five followed him soon after, the latter assisting the former in his gait.  “Step down from there, One!” he ordered, thought his voice sounded more like pleading, “She hasn’t hurt any of us and she’s not going to: She’s just a child!”

“Child?” scoffed One irritably, “In case you hadn’t forgotten, that’s a human!  Nevermind their age or size—all of them are a threat to us, just as they were to one another!  They’re impulsive, destructive, dangerous!  They could crush any of us without thought—and nearly have!  Get away from her!”

Even as One made his demand, Three and Four rushed over to where Sarah sat to unite, as well as comfort, an intimidated Six.  The twins grappled along Sarah’s jacket without hesitance in order to reach him, and shared his place at her shoulder.  Seven jogged to Nine and took his hand tightly in a defiant hold as they stood with Two and Five between the turret and the girl.                  

Time seemed to stand still as One sneered down at the group until an ominous laugh rose out of him.  “So this is what the lot of you have become,” he chortled, though he expression showed nothing but cold malice, “From survivors to traitors of your own kind—allies of the enemy!  Will you bow down to the machines next?”

“It’s not like that!”

“How are they any different?  The reason for mankind to build the machines in the first place was to destroy other humans.  And even once the machines turned on them, they weren’t afraid to sacrifice each other as body shields just to save themselves!”

“And what would that make you, One?!” Seven barked, more from grudging over past events than for the sake of the girl—surprising her companions but nonetheless forcing them to try and pacify her before the argument spiraled even further out of hand.

As the adult figures amid the group continued to argue, Nine glanced back only once to find Sarah—eyes swelling with unshed tears—gently scoop the young Stitchpunks off of her, place them on the ground, and reclaim the radio.  Three, Four, and Six stared at her inquiringly, but she did not return their glance and instead began to walk away from the scene of the fight and back toward the direction of the city.

“Sarah!” Nine called after her, abruptly silencing the others as he started to give chase.  However he could, in no way, keep up with the pace of a human being.  Though her much taller figure remained within sight for a great deal of time, she was too far gone to catch up to before he took his first steps after her.

“Good riddance…” One uttered under his breath. 

Nine’s brow furrowed.  He spun on his heel, prepared to give the other a harsh reprimanding, until another and far more dreadful sight entered his line of vision.  First came the dust, rolling in from the northern side of the warzone:  Then came the metallic clicks of worn gears and metal plates clashing together echoing across the broken land.  Scrambling up an empty bomb shell for a better view, Nine caught sight of none other than a herd of Scavengers.        

“What are those things…?” Five questioned in a scared whisper after shuffling next to his position.

“Nothing good,” the former returned with a shake of his head.  Turning once more to look over the others, he added in a louder tone, “We need to get out of here.  And we’re going to stick together.  Sarah said there’s a toy store and it might not be too far.  Since the machines are heading away from the city, we’ll take cover there are try to find Sarah in the meantime.”

“I told the lot of you I’m not coming!” One mouthed indignantly, expression contorted into stubborn rage.  “And I’m not going anywhere where that flesh-wearing beast might be!”

“I don’t see any other places to hide,” Nine retorted before giving a widened gesture to the approaching machines, “Those things are going to carve through here any minute, and all they do is rip whatever stands in front of them apart for scrap.  Do you really want to risk staying here?”

Without Sarah to carry them, it took much longer to reach the city than it had been to pass through it earlier in the day.  However, just at nightfall, they managed to make it into the turmoil of the ruined streets.  It might have been far more difficult to find the right shop were it not for its window display and the newly opened door marked by the clearing of dust in a wide arc beneath it.  The Stitchpunks’ footsteps mimicked the much larger prints already made upon the dirt-covered tile, and all was silent from within save an eerie cackle of static that none could recognize.  Nine was tempted to shout for the child to confirm her whereabouts, but the sound made him hesitate by the off chance a machine was there in her place. 

“…always glad to hear from the strong men and women of our mighty state who have put forth so much sacrifice into preserving the lives of all within and beyond our walls.  Their actions may give us strength, but their voices give us hope in this war and the struggles we face,” he heard a recorded voice say in the distance amid static. 

 Upon the interruption of the quiet of the building, all heads swiveled in the direction of the noise—a storage closet by the stairs with its door faintly agape.  The group looked to one another in half-shock before investigating.  Peering inside, they spotted Sarah curled up against a shelf loaded down with cardboard boxes, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around the radio nestled in her lap—a screwdriver and an open pack of batteries at her side—as if she meant to guard it.  Her eyes were blank and her mouth drawn in a solemn line, as though no life were left within her.

“And now for our next guest,” continued the radio, “One of our very own local heroines, Mrs. Anita Saunders, with wishes for her young children at home.  Here you are, Mrs. Saunders.”

There was a brief pause and the strange clamor of movement as the person speaking handed the mic over, and in his place a warm, feminine voice echoed through the speakers.  The heartbreak was obvious in her tone, but so was her tender endearment, and as they listened in the world seemed to go still.

“Hey kids,” she began with a faint sigh, “Sarah, Peter… I don’t really even know where to start, but I know you’re listening: I hope you are… I-I know the two of you are in a lot of pain right now, and… there’s nothing I can do to tell you how sorry we are.  But know that we didn’t leave you because we didn’t love you, or we thought you were a burden: We left because we had to, and we trust you enough to hang on for a little while until we can come back.  The four of you mean the world to your father and me.  Never forget that.

 “Sarah…” she sniffed, laughing softly despite the sorrow, “Do you remember when you were seven and we sent you away for summer camp for the first time?  I couldn’t stop crying and you were the one who had to console me—you were just so eager and so excited for it all.  You came back with a fractured arm, but you took it all in stride.  You’ve always been a strong, brave girl.

“Honey, I need you to listen to me: Whatever happens, you have to stay strong in this.  Not just for yourself, but for Peter and your sisters too.  They look up to you; rely on you.  We’re counting on you to watch after them.  Always stay inside the shelter, don’t leave for anything unless it’s an emergency, and don’t let anyone in.  I know you don’t understand.  I know we’re asking a lot.  But we need you to be strong now more than ever.

“Peter, the same goes for you.  Sarah may be the oldest, but she can’t take care of things alone and if I know my son then he’ll do whatever he can to always do what’s right.  You’ve so much of your father in you… It actually worries me a bit, but at the same time it’s reassuring.”  The woman speaking through the recording attempted to leave two other messages for her remaining daughters, but in the end grew too choked to finish.  “I love you… Your father and I love all of you so much… Please, just stay together and keep believing that we’ll come back for all of you soon.  We’ll make it through this…”

The shuffle of the mic returned as well as the man’s uplifting, hopeful voice before a song began to play, chanting ‘we’ll meet again.’  For a long while Sarah sat in the silence listening to the song, but slowly a trembling hand twisted a knob upon the radio and only faint static broke the still air.   

“They lied you know,” Sarah said aloud, startling all of the Stitchpunks by her sudden speech.  However, she kept her gaze upon the radio in her hands as if she were only talking to herself.  “That was the last message we got from them, and a few days later there were no more messages from anyone.  They didn’t come back:  I know they’ll never come back.”  Only then did her gaze shift to the crack in the doorway.

 “They’re dead.”