02. The new world
1088 Words
Fran saw green everywhere. She uncociously rose her eyes towards the sky and gaped. Clear blue sky.
She saw such colors in old pictures over the screen. Real paper was destroyed by now and all data they could get from past was saved in huge saving memories.
With open mouth she inhaled the air that was almost as good as pure oxygen and almost started crying.
Luckily she chose to learn about the old world when she had time. She even saw living creatures like birds flying over her head and some smaller animals hiding in bushes.
Just when she was enjoying freshness of air, she realized something strange. Wait, bases on other nearby planets are just like on earth. In underground passages or domes.
None of the planets has such lush green plants and blue sky.
"Where am I?" She spoke.
"This is Earth." A voice spoke and made her almost jump from fear.
"Who are you?" She glanced around. "Where are you?"
There were only some broken buildings that were already covered with creepers and no one else.
"I'm your program. This world has power stations, but you are far from them so I will be able to answer your questions only when I have energy." He warned her in advance.
"I thought programs can last for long time." She was curious about his weak state.
"If you had chance to completely download my program, I'd be able. But unfortunately you downloaded it fragment of it and I will be able only to last few years. Afterwards I'll dissapear. My program will erase on its own. Let's stop wasting power and time."
She had no idea if such things are possible, but she could only accept it the way it said.
"Because of the broken gate, you did come to world that is perfect for living, but there has huge problem. This is... Earth in parallel universe. We passed strange variations and entered this place instead other planet. In this universe the humans live normal lives and never destroyed planet. As I don't have other details of this place I can only say that you should watch out. I scanned surrounding and saw humanoid life forms, but they are as it seems dead but walking. At the moment they are tracking other humans and... attacking them. There is settlement behind that group. I recommend to join the group and enter settlement with them. My energy is waning. When you recharge me we can speak again... Your space..."
Space? She glanced at her armband and tried it. With a gaping mouth she realized that all the space accessories she had became one and all the space got doubled for that reason.
She had twenty square meters given by the man, but the accessories gave her more, so she had now huge space.
Suddenly the armband changed into small tattoo on her finger and she gaped. These things rarely turn into tattoos. But they did in dome occasionally.
With a smile she glanced in the surroundings, found an old pipe and started walking towards the direction her program told her to go. Not far away she saw trough the bushes a group of four people that were fighting few of zombies that surrounded them and were quite fast.
Fran came closer and realized that her clothes are completely different than theirs. "Change appearance."
Her clothes turned into thattered mixture of various layered clothes. With swift move she took dry gras and mud and rubbed her face, hands and her short hair and inhaled. "Let's go."
The group of people saw another person slowly sneaking behind zombies and pulling back as one turned around and attacked her.
She rushed bit further away and started beating it with a big pipe. The sound was disgusting and she almost puked as she saw the head getting open and gray matter filled with maggots started flowing out and something strange fell as well.
A pretty pink stone. It was perfectly round. Huh? Stone?
She didn't show any surprise as many of those strange books spoke about power stones coming from zombies. With a swift move she took it and put into her pocket.
The group of four saw her move and one woman yelled. "Don't stand around, help us!"
Help you?
Fran saw that they truly had trouble and knocked on nearby metal vehicle with the pipe. With sound three turned around and rushed towards her.
Three are quite a lot, so she climbed onto the vehicle and zombies surrounded it, spreading evenly. With swift move she hit the one, but was grabbed by the other.
Fear spread in her eyes, as she slammed the one that held her, but just as he let go of her the third tried climbing the vehicle and she almost got bitten by him.
They were strong. And smelly.
Nasty smell spread from the rotting body, making her nauseous. With a kick she hit the zombie off the vehicle and jumped to break his head before it attacked her.
She saw that only couple zombies were left around that group and calmly gathered the pink stones from their heads.
A woman yelled. "Not gonna help us?"
Fran calmly looked at only couple zombies left and shrruged. "You are four. If you each kill one, you will be fine."
She realized that they stopped killing zombies as soon she started helping them. In books there are always people that used chances to be lazy.
With a smirk she just shrruged and started walking towards the base. But man's voice stopped her.
"Kill these and you can keep all the stones." He visibly was tiered as he tried saving the three women. The females on other hand just tried pushing the zombies away with big shield they were holding around, while the man killed most of those creatures.
"Deal." She smirked at him and swung to kill nearest zombie. A nasty thing with big open wound in his side and bunch of worms squirming inside.
A sound of bones braking could be heard and the thing fell down while two others rushed towards her.
With last power the man hit the one from back while she killed nearest with big swing.
He saw her calmly gathering every stone and put his hand into his pocket. "I promised to give you all."
His hand was filled with the stones in various colors and she accepted it calmly. "Then thank you as well."
She was not shy to accept gifts.
- Writer
