picture sorce: https://pixabay.com/photos/garden-flowers-butterfly-19830/
previous part: @restcity/the-war-on-the-moonor-the-field-part-5
Arrow rushed by lots of people and space ships, trying to find a vacant ship taxi to get home in. Everywhere his head turned a space ship was taken. He’d rush up to what looked like an empty spaceship only to find out a passenger was already inside. Everyone looked at Arrow like he was mad, and he probably was acting mad, but he didn’t care. He had to get home. He had to, no matter what it took.
“Screw it!” he yelled and ran to the back of the launch pad station where all the empty spaceships sat, waiting for their drivers to arrive.
Arrow hopped inside the aircraft, took a hold of the steering wheel and pressed a button on his left to start it. Lights came on, the nuclear engine wooshed to life.
Arrow had flown planes before in the war, so steering a plane withough bombs or guns attached would be quite easy. He drove the spaceship up and out of the station just as the driver was running over to the ship yelling “Hey! Get back here! That's my ship taxi!”
Once Arrow drove out of the MISS, and brang the ship to full speed. Stars in the endlessly black sky rushed by in the distance like shiny raindrops that fell sideways.
Arrow landed himself on one of the old landing pads in StarTech, his home city. He was a little disappointed to see that the helipad he landed on looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. What once was supposed to be a slick, modern, silver, magnetic helipad had turned out to be covered in rust. Even the landing H symbol on it was faded to a barely visible yellow. It still worked though, as the magnets inside the helipad dragged the magnets on the spaceship’s landing gear over to it.
Arrow sat in the ship for a minute, afraid to get out. Afraid of what he’d see. Just to his right was his home city, StarTech. A huge brown, rocky crater sat right in front of the buildings on the outskirts of the city. Rubble and old bent cars with missing windows or doors sat in front of buildings with torn off walls, so you could see right inside them to what was once someone’s kitchen, the stairs leading up to the next floor, or someones’ old bedroom.
In the distance, Arrow saw the tall business buildings and luxury apartments he once thought were invincible just sitting there, cracked and half-skeletons by erosion. The city for once was quiet. No annoying automated voices droning on in the distance, no cars whizzing by on the streets or highway system. No air ships whizzing to and from the city. No… life.
Had Arrow made a mistake coming here? Was everyone he ever knew actually dead? He swallowed, which sounded loud compared to the city. Marlene couldn’t be… she just couldn’t be…” Then he heard a weird insect-like bug noise. A black object as big as a crow was whizzing around the city. it seemed to turn to him, then speed over. Arrow turned to face the object as it got closer. Even though the ship doors were closed, he scooted back, his back against the door.
Ah, the object was a drone. Its two circle-encased props were spinning as fast as a humming bird’s wings.
He heard a beep he understood as a walkie-talkie noise, and then a voice started to speak.
“.......?”
The young, raspy voice seemed to ask Arrow a question, but he could not hear it, so he scooted over to the passengers door and opened the door to hear it better. The door smacked the object back, but the drone quickly side-stepped the door.
“Hey! Don’t hit my drone! I just got this thing!” the voice yelled.
Arrow noticed the kid’s voice sounded a lot like his when he was younger. Those were the days… anyway, this was a sign of life! So there were still people living in StarTech! If only he could get to them.
“Hey kid, sorry about your drone, but what did you say earlier? When your drone first got here?” Arrow asked.
The drone sat quiet. Then the walkie-talkie beeped again, and the kid began to speak.
“Oh, I just asked you why you flew to the old side of town. No one lives there.”
A bit of hope began to grow in Arrow’s soul. “So there’s a new side of town!? Is that where you live!?”
“Well, it’s not exactly new, it’s just… the non-broken side of town.” the boy explained. “My mom says this place used to be huge and hundreds of millions of people lived here… and then the war started and then people died or abandoned the city. Not everyone left though.”
“So, where are you!?” Arrow began to think of parts of the city on the other side of StarTech. “The Metro square? Mechron’s street? Near Makeit road, with all the factories and stuff?”
“...Yeah! I think it’s called Makeit road where I live…well, I don’t live there but I live near there. The place with all the green abandoned factories. Wait! Why do you want to know where I live, creeper!? You wanna steak!?”
“What?”
“You know what creepers do, they steak!”
Arrow raised an eyebrow in confusion before he said, “I think you mean stalk, and no I don’t want to stalk you. I just wanna find out where all the people live.”
“It sounds like you wanna steak - stalk- and my mother told me to stay away from creeps. Bye!” and with that, the drone zoomed to the left, then turned and went back on its way into the city.
“Darn!” yelled Arrow before he opened the door and hopped out of his ship. Though he didn’t tell him everything, that boy had given Arrow a burst of new energy… people did still live here… and one of those people could be Marlene!