"You can trust me…sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Marcus," the pilot replied. "I appreciate your help. Do you need any supplies?"
"Some food and water would be nice."
He nodded and gestured for some of the civilians to help her. They didn't have much but she didn't need much.
"I'll be back soon," she said and mounted up.
“Be safe,” Marcus replied. “And remember, when you get within transmitting distance to the City-That-Was, radio that you are looking for Hammerhand. He’s the leader of the Knights and will be the one to ask for help.”
“I’ll remember that.” She closed her mech securely.
"So," Mini said as they moved into Bulletfoot mode, “we left one bunker and now we're helping another?"
"It’s not like there's anything else I can do," she grumbled. "They need my help. How could I say no?"
Chapter Twelve
Most of the day was spent traveling, but there was no way to miss the City-That-Was rising into the sky above them.
It was even more difficult to miss when they entered a reasonably clear area and the absence of greenery provided them with a better view of the city in the distance. They had moved through the night hours as well, but as the sun began to rise, the massive buildings towered not five klicks from where they had stopped.
"I can’t even begin to guess why all these buildings were needed," Jessica13 said in a tone of something approaching awe. “What did people actually do here?”
"My records indicate that this was once the thriving metropolis known as Séraphine," Mini said. "It was home to one of the largest open-air theaters in the world and one of the largest opera circuits in the world as well, with an influential and powerful high society. The city was known for its film production too, due to the tax benefits designed for cultural projects, but most of the GDP came from the thriving mech design work and production, thanks to the nearby iron ore mines."
"Okay," she responded with a laugh. "I think I understood about half of that. What the hell is a theater? Or an opera? Or a GDP? Film production?"
"GDP is the gross domestic product. It means what made the most money—think of it as canteen credits—for the people living in the city. As for your other questions… Well, films, theater, and opera were what people did for entertainment. When you had this many people to entertain, those who did the entertaining made considerable money too."
She shook her head and needed a while to grasp what Mini had explained. "How did they feed this many people? If there were so many of them entertaining and building mechs, who did all the farming? The…"
Jessica13 paused and tried to think of all the different kinds of jobs from the bunker that might be necessary. That led her to consider all the jobs that had been a part of the world she knew nothing about. There could be any number of things she had never heard of pursued by people who had their own lives and made their own choices.
"Mini?" she asked. "How many people lived in this city?"
"The latest census records state that fifteen million, seven hundred and eighteen thousand, four hundred and ninety-two people lived in Séraphine," the AI replied.
"Fifteen mi—holy shit." She gasped.
It was impossible for her to even comprehend how many people that was. How did you keep track of the reproductive cycles of fifteen million people? How did you feed that many? Questions flooded her mind, but she wasn't sure which one to start with.
Through all her confusion, however, one hung heavily over her head—one she knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid, even in thought, so she decided to simply ask it.
"What happened to all of them?"
Mini paused as if he sensed the weight of the answer. "The initial Skyfall came down in this area of the world. Orbital drops started about three hundred clicks from the center of the city. They sent a group of emergency relief workers thirty-eight days later, who reported a hundred percent fatality rate due to the biological weapons that had begun to spread. Then, the relief workers died too."
"That's horrible," she said softly and shook her head at the enormity of it.
"It was war," the AI pointed out. "We still don't know what the invaders hoped to gain when they attacked. It was possibly resources or maybe they merely saw humans as a threat. Either way, records indicate that they had no plans that involved humans surviving."
"I wonder if we might have simply talked to them and found a way to communicate," she said, unwilling to believe there hadn’t been another solution. "Kind of like…well, like I managed to finally get the Minato working and then you. It wasn't an immediate thing. It took work and a great deal of fiddling, but it worked in the end."
"It's hard to describe the kind of fear that comes from the unknown," Mini said. "I certainly don't know how to explain it as it's a uniquely human emotion. Maybe it applies to some animals and possibly even the invaders, but it’s not one I experience."
Jessica13 nodded and forced a small smile. "Well…it’s ancient history now, I suppose. We should keep moving. It shouldn't be long before we're in range to transmit to the Knights Mechanica."
"It’s odd but I don't have any resources regarding the name," the AI informed her. "Knights are fairly obvious and Mechanica, I suppose, indicates that they use mechs, but the combination holds no meaning."
"It’s hard to say what they are exactly," she agreed. "I suppose the bunkers closer to the City-That-Was would know about them but the peddlers have talked about them. They're apparently a group of mechslingers who have worked in the Outlands. The stories mostly involve how they helped bunkers in need, peddlers who were attacked, and handed out supplies that were needed when they were needed. Which is why the bunker was trying to call them
