It was odd to feel the mech move without her controlling it—like she was along for the ride instead of driving the damn thing—but she could tell she would definitely get used to this. Sure, Mini would only have a select number of programmed actions she would be able to perform without Jessica13 making any input, but setting mines was a fairly simple procedure.
"So, you need me to tell you what has happened in the world over the past century or so?" she asked as the mech began to clear the earth from around one of the tripped mines. "What is the last thing that you remember?"
"My data banks are incomplete," Mini explained. "I do have data on the Day the Heavens Fell, as well as the effects of the Southpaw Defense. Relevant data is missing from the Second Invasion onward."
"You mean the day the Outsiders came and attacked the planet?" she asked. "Right. I don't actually know much about what happened since I wasn't there myself, as you said, but a fair amount was taught to us. After the Outsiders were repelled by the strength of the Seven, we thought we were safe. They could not have anticipated, however, that the ships they used carried not only the threat of nuclear attacks but also poison and disease. They called it the Reaping. With the Skyfall starting and the deaths of billions, people were forced to abandon the cities and take up residence in the bunkers."
"Correct, bunkers that were built as part of the Insurance Scheme," the AI said and contributed knowledge from her data banks.
Jessica13 wasn't sure what the Insurance Scheme was supposed to do, but she nodded and continued. "Sure, I suppose. Anyway, as the Reaping continued, we were all forced into the bunkers. Not everyone made it and I don't think we would have fit all the survivors. I still don't know how there are any survivors, though. They have the mech suits too, and while the idea is that they should be able to live in them almost indefinitely, they need a place to repair and regroup, restore their supplies, and all that. The Seven designed the mechs in order to make them almost self-sustaining, but I don't think anything is quite that. Not in our world, nor what it was before. Not that they needed it before."
"The Circle of Seven designed the mechs to help humanity survive outside the bunkers." Mini sounded like he was simply relaying information that was present in his core. "The Circle of Seven designed the concept of smaller, thorium-based nuclear power cores that could be carried inside a mech suit that was self-powering, all while providing protection from nuclear, chemical, and biological hazards."
Mini was quoting from what they had been taught as children at this point, but it was relaxing to hear it in the bland yet still pleasant voice of the AI.
"Mech designs were initially created with construction and heavy labor in mind," he continued. "These were useful but limited without an independent power source. Even those running on advanced batteries would not last more than a few hours. Only once the thorium cores were created were they seen as fit to assist in combat as well. It is why support mechs appear to have older designs while combat mechs support more recent builds."
"Anyway, my point is that even the people who can survive for long periods of time in their mechs—pirates and peddlers and the like—would need somewhere safe to get out of their mechs," Jessica13 continued. "And if there are areas in the world isolated from the toxic, radioactive clouds that would kill or horribly change and mutate them, none of the peddlers we've spoken to were willing to talk about that."
"Well, I do have data on what you call the Reaping available," Mini said. "The battle that occurred above the Earth's atmosphere caused most of what you call Skyfall—pieces of destroyed ships left to eventually fall to the ground as gravity acts on them. The radiation and the biological warfare the Earth suffered came from those ships. But that's crazy. Those clouds you're talking about dissipated decades before I was even on the assembly plant. There's still danger, of course, especially from falling debris—"
"Skyfall."
"Skyfall is now registered as your preferred terminology," the AI corrected himself. "There is still danger in the world since most of the radiation as well as the poison was in the runoff so the issue is mainly with the water. But there aren't any clouds of poison or radiation and most of the biological weapons have since killed themselves off."
"How does a weapon kill itself off?"
"Biological weapons consist of germ or viral warfare, living organisms that cause disease and death in the targeted individuals. In that case, the germs or viruses kill humans but when they run out of humans to kill, they die off."
"I…still don't understand," Jessica13 admitted.
"Think of it as the organisms being predators that feed on humans." The AI showed none of the annoyance and condescension she had heard in the voices of her previous teachers and even Armstrong7 sometimes. "They've been engineered to only feed on humans, so then when they run out of humans to feed on, they die themselves. They have nothing else to eat."
"I think I get it," she said finally and nodded. "I feel like it's a little more complicated than that, though."
"It is, but I don't think you need to understand it in its entirety since again, the organisms themselves have been dead for the past hundred years," Mini said. "So you really don't need to worry about it. Besides, people with Athena genes are generally engineered to have a mind for machines, not biology."
"What do you mean engineered?" Jessica13 asked as Mini finished installing another mine and moved on.
"Well, again, it is complex, but the condensed version is that the Circle of Seven designed the Athena genes to continue their work in machinery. They were made as insurance against
