The tribe become one

Behind a hut that has belched out a large tear gas cloud, Andy partially stands, doubled over and reaching the last of his vomit, only bile now dribbling out of his mouth on to the ground at his feet.  After straightening back up and wiping his mouth, he begins to feel healthier and more fit, but more all over than just in his legs.  He looks around seeing a few dead bodies laying on the ground, in some places they start to pile up, using the gas cloud that is still hanging near the hut, Andy moves away from the hut and goes on a scavenger hunt around the site, looking for some goodies amongst the dead bodies, the odd laser blasts that come his way he manages to dodge or avoid without any problems.  He manages to gather a couple of laser rifles along with a few jackets, the jackets are of an orange colour and has a high reflective coating.  Turning back towards the hut, Andy sees that the gas cloud seems to have finally vanished, so quickens up his pace to get back to the safety of the structure.  Bracing himself Andy now positions one of the laser rifles he picked up and begins to pick off the mutants.

Cooper finds that the obstruction that he is peering over is becoming a lot hotter and beginning to glow with all the laser blasts that are directed his way, the shots seems to mainly be coming from the Troubleshooters believing him to be one of the mutants.  ‘Hey! Its sticky fuel!’ Cooper directs at the shooters, trying to convince them that he is one of them, but the blasts keep coming.

Having no success with this ploy, Cooper tries a different tack, ‘Aarrrgghh!’ dropping back behind the cover making a lot of noise about it, pretending to have been shot and died, he then makes some more noise as if a canister has been delivered, pretending now to be his new clone.  The shooters don’t seem to have fallen for his drama, but they don’t waste any more time shooting in his direction either, only the occasional pot shot flies his way.

With this slight sway of luck his way he decides to sneak off, making his way to the far side of where the mutants are stationed, seeing the wide arched exit that they will likely go back through along with the Infrareds.  With seeing this exit and the archway Cooper formulates a cunning plan and sets to it, feeling that if he can get to the electrical wiring that may run along through the top of the arch, he could rig it to collapse on the precession moving beneath.  Once he has climbed up to the arch he begins to work his hands through to some wires he finds within there, unfortunately he feels a sharp spasm shoot through his body paralysing him for a few seconds, and as his eyes clear he finds himself looking back up at the archway that is moving away from him, and suddenly feels his back slam hard into the ground beneath, laying there with all his breath knocked out of him.

Seeing through the eyes of the large mutant, along with the rest of the group in the camp circle, Bruce sends thoughts to the large guy, instructing him to corral all the Infrareds in to the trucks.  “John” the large mutant, manages a good enough job of convincing A348 the bot truck to load up all the Infrareds, and save them from all this fighting.  As the truck starts up John jumps on board the truck and it speeds away towards where the Infrareds are held up.

As the fighting continues the mutant group slowly give ground, while at the same time forcing the agitated Infrareds to back slowly towards where the trucks will be coming from.  The truck slows down as it draws closer to the fighting, then speeds up again and spins to a halt near to the Infrareds, lowering the back door as it rocks from side to side with the momentum.  John jumps out and starts to coerce the mass of Infrareds in to the back of the trucks, Bruce instructing him to promise them vid screen viewing and TV programs, which John manages to get around his head and vocalise just so that the Infrareds can understand.

Upon seeing a dark safe place to hide from the fighting and noise, the Infrareds rush the trucks, scrambling and climbing over each other as they reach for the safety, put even this is too slow for John and he begins to pick some of the stragglers up by their belts, throwing them in to the back of the trucks.  But they soon begin to get unsettled by having nothing to occupy their senses, John however quickly closes up all the trucks, Bruce instructs him to move out of there as quickly and safely as he can, informing him to instruct the bot to head to the camp giving location.

John the mutant manages to inform the truck bot where to go, it remembering where to location was from when he took friend Bruce there.  Bruce brings himself back to his own self, amongst the others in the camp circle, slowly hearing the beat of the drum which is a lot slower than the last he remember.  The atmosphere seems a lot more relaxed and less tension than before.  Bruce just stays sat in the circle watching the others, seeing what is happening around them in the whole camp as well as the circle.

As the trucks rumble by through the archway, Cooper manages to roll himself out of the way, stopping himself from being another mess on the ground.  As they charge pass him he can hear a lot of muffled voices from within the trucks, and when he looks over at the Troubleshooters he sees that they have managed to put out the fire (that he had started).

Seeing that everyone else is busy with something or other, Cooper decides to sneak of after the fleeing trucks.  The other Mutants fighting with the Troubleshooters are still slowly giving ground to the advancing force, so no one notices Cooper vanish from sight.

Following the retreating trucks, Cooper finds many different mutants are still yet to get involved with the fighting, and are outside the area waiting.  He spots a six-foot tall tornado move across a lamp and heading his way, noticing that there seems to be a human form within.  ‘Greetings friend, I wish to be of some help’, upon hearing this the tornado vanishes to be replaced with a large mutant, holding a big weapon pointing directly at Cooper, ‘how do you see?’  Cooper tries to convince this mutant that he is a friend, and only wishes to help, but the mutant doesn’t have any of it, ‘this big shooter takes a long time to warm up’.  Cooper walks straight up to the mutant holding the gun at him, telling him that he is friends with friend Bruce and that he knows they have dealt with him, and that he is one of them.  The mutant corrects him by telling Cooper that they had a deal with Bruce, but he is not one of them, he is not a mutant.  They discuss that deals can be done, and that Cooper would like to deal with them, so the mutant takes him in to the knot of other mutants, they do not look very happy about it.

No one seems to be bothering with Andy, the mutants ignore him as he is not with the other Troubleshooters, and they are busy dealing with the mass of mutants.  The Troubleshooter can be seen slowly advancing on the mutants who are still slowly giving ground, and there are no signs of any Infrareds anymore, all that Andy can see of any trucks are a couple of manual drive vehicles, the only bots he can see are a few small ones milling about, he is unsure of what purpose they serve.

Andy decides to go scavenging around the battlefield, some Troubleshooters give him suspicious looks, whispering amongst themselves looking his way.  Giving what he feels is a nice friendly wave and a smile, Andy shouts out a greeting, unfortunately the sound that comes out of his mouth sounds more like ‘braaaaiiiinnnnssss!’.  Noticing his arm waving he sees that it does not look like his own, the flesh is all rotted , but he feels great.

A yellow Troubleshooter spots a mutant that looks like a zombie, going around the battlefield tidying up and picking all the weapons up, so he takes a pot shot at it, just as it bends over to pick something up catching a flap of loose flesh  on its head.  Andy bends over to pick up another item from the ground as a laser blast zips over head not feeling a thing, just thinking how great he feels, then notices that the Troubleshooters have started to shoot at him.  So thinking fast Andy dives in to a pile of already dead bodies, feeling that he should blend in well.  Flies start to swarm around the bodies, and they seem to be forming a crude shape of an arrow above him, before falling down on to the bodies.  With this he thinks it best to get out of there and heads towards the mutants, he gets shot in the leg as he flees, he feels and sees it hit but that is it, no pain, no nothing, he just carries on going towards where the mutants headed.

The mutants see this human lumbering towards them but don’t pay him any attention, however a very tall, glasses wearing mutant does, ‘haven’t seen you before, been separated from the main force have we’, he inquires as Andy comes closer, sniff ‘had a bath recently?’  All that Andy can vocalise is ‘uuuaahhh’ and the occasional ‘braaaaiinnssss’, but some how the mutant seems to understand everything that Andy is trying to say.  ‘Looks like you legs has gone a bit soggy,we should be able to sort that our for you when we get back to camp’, he points in the direction of where the mutants are heading, indicating the tracks ‘follow those and you will soon be there.’

The tall mutant with glasses lays down some covering fire to help with the retreat of this band of mutants, firing towards the direction of where the Troubleshooters are, then quickly catches up with the rest, walking up beside Andy, and he starts a conversation with him, about not having seen him before and how much brighter Andy is compared to the other mutants.

Bruce sat at the camp in the circle of others can gradually hear the commotion of the Infrareds arriving to the camp, hearing them complaining about being hurt and wanting to talk with the computer.  The others in the circle slowly start to come out of their trance, nod and smile at Bruce before leaving.  The mutant with the large cranium, who so far seems to be the one in charge, turns to Bruce ‘so, do you want to go Outside?’  Nodding ‘yeah I still want to go’ Bruce replies, ‘Well you will need to go to the Surface.’  He then goes on to explain that he will lead me there but not in person, explaining that he has a lot do to here, so will have to help out with the mind, then Bruce has a strong urge start in his mind to go in a certain direction.

Walking up to an opening that Bruce had not seen before, it is in between some vines that seem to part as he gets closer, it is has if he is being drawn in a direction by enchanted music, a sirens song.  The stairs he is walking up now seem to be made of some odd bone like, chalk like material, not remotely like the usual metal, Bruce stops and bends over to touch the new material, savoring the new experience, it is as hard as metal and cold to the touch and has a glitter to it.  Carrying on he now comes across some brown stuff hanging down like protein sticks, but damp and pliant, again Bruce stops to enjoy finding all this new materials.  Bruce can see a shimmering light above him as he slowly ascends the stairs, taking in all the glorious new sights and sensations.

Reaching the top and going through the doorway, Bruce finds himself walk in to a corridor that opens up to a very cavernous area, he can see all sorts of different greens everywhere, and browns under foot like a soft carpet, and as for the ceiling it looks such a long way away coloured a blue greyish hue.  He starts to look around at everything taking it all in, there is just too much, everything is so new to his senses, then he hears an odd noise that sounds like a bot breaking down and screeching.  A large green things runs pass him just missing knocking in to him, it has two legs and two small arms and a lot of sharp teeth in its mouth, and it slides to a halt and begins to turn facing him again.  Bruce quickly and instinctively draws his laser pistol taking aim, and as the creature begins to charge at him again he pulls the trigger.  The laser blast hits straight in the eye, boiling the eyeball and then it explodes out burning and singe the surrounding socket.  The creature falls and stops dead.

All that Bruce can now smell is a lovely aroma of what seems like cooked food, but a lot nicer, something like the meat that is seen within the blue room.  The smell is coming from the dead creature, and Bruce goes over to investigate taking a piece of the burnt flesh and gave it a lick.  The taste was beyond his imagination, so he takes a look around him to see if anything else is about, but there doesn’t seem to be any further threats so Bruce fires another blast at the flesh of the creature before him, basically cooking more of the meat and starts to tuck in.

Cooper is being led to the tribe’s camp, the mutant with the large weapon following behind him, they walk up un-maintained rusty corridors, ‘I heard friend Bruce was already with you’, Cooper inquires with so more small talk, ‘interesting’ the mutant mutters to himself more than to Cooper.  Eventually they come to the opening of the Tribe’s camp, and see all the Infrareds all sat around in silence appearing somewhat drugged looking in to the distance.  As Cooper draws near to where all the Infrareds are sat and some haggard looking mutants he feels a gun butt hit him hard on the side of the head, looking up seeing the mutant that lead him there standing over him.  Cooper over dramatise the hit making out that it hurt more than it did, but the mutant just informs him that he needs to stay put and not to move just relax and wait there, Cooper asks him about the deal and the mutant tells him that he will go see the Elder, ‘Stay here and don’t move’ and with this the mutant walks off.  Looking around Cooper can see that this area is large with a domed ceiling, and that there are many tents scattered about.

As he stands up a mutant quickly walks over to Cooper to stop him from moving, and Cooper quickly starts to talk to him about the camp, who is in charge and about all sorts of mundane things, the mutant’s eye gradually start to glaze over listening to him.  Soon a mutant with a large cranium walks up to Cooper, ‘why Richard bring you here?’, Cooper mentions Bruce in his usual manner, but quickly gets told that he is not here, ‘want to go Outside with Bruce?’

Cooper asks the Elder with the large cranium, if he could have something to clean clothes with, noticing that all the mutant’s clothes are not that clean actually, and seemed to be rather mismatched.  The Elder ignores the question and informs Cooper about what they are doing with the Infrareds, that they are absorbing them in to the tribe, educating them, in fact they are being educated now.  They spend a little time talking about the tribe and what Cooper wants to do, eventually the Elder states that he think the Cooper is fairly clever and whether he would like to stay, ‘oh and stop calling me friend, just call me elder’ the Elder frustratingly exclaims, continuing that he will need to keep in line and do as he is told, that they will be keeping an eye on him, ‘I know that you like to blow stuff up, and feel that you could make a good asset to our scavenging party, you could scout out ahead and cause some chaos before the rest arrive on the scene’, the Elder offers.  ‘We have a little test for you to do first.’

As Andy makes his way with the other mutants to the Tribe’s camp, he starts to feel more at home and also tries not to ooze everywhere from his leg.  ‘Here we are, this is the Tribe village’ the spectacled mutant informed him, he explains to Andy that the Tribe has only be going for a couple of years, and is still a small village, they try to recruit more to join when they can, to start their own colony separate from the rest of society.

While being lead through the Tribe’s camp, the other mutants are starting to look very interesting to Andy now, to look almost tasty!  ‘We seem to have a friend of yours here, that is how you call each other?’  ‘Oh we also may be able to help you with that infection of yours’, and informs him that they had better go see the Elders, Andy replies with some more grunts and nodding of head.

The Elder with the large cranium meets Andy, talking and asking questions, and of course Andy replying with grunts and moans along with head shaking and nodding, the Elder understands every word that Andy tries to say feeling all the emotions and sentiments.  Andy is instructed to join in with the Infrareds and the Tribe will show him what they are all about.

Cooper is shown a large explosive device with a button on it, instantly getting the urge to place the device amongst all the Infrareds, noticing that there seems to be a strange zombie like mutant amongst them.  Quickly Cooper grabs the device putting down amongst a group of the Infrareds and unravels the wire and button, bracing himself Cooper presses the button, waiting for the surge to run along the wire triggering the device…..nothing.

The Elder is now standing behind Cooper who can feel him looking down upon him, ‘it was a test to see if I was willing to do it I see’ Cooper states, the Elder shakes his head knowing that this was not a test, nor was the explosive device a dud.  Instinctively Cooper suddenly gets the feeling that he is about to die, aware that the Elder has a mind that he can use against him, so he grabs his knife out and plunges it into the Elder, blood spraying down over his hand.  Cooper now feels a lot of pressure build in his head, and as he gives the Elder more pain the more he feels himself in his head.  As it becomes more difficult to think and move Cooper has one more impulse, he lunges for the explosive device but dies as he reaches it, button in his hand.

A canister arrives outside a confession room and the occupant has a strong urge to tell the truth, even before he steps out of the can.  The future for Cooper’s seventh and last clone does not look good.

Andy saw some commotion going on between the Elder with the large cranium and his friend Cooper, seeing some of the mutants run over to help with the situation, but they are too late.  Now they are huddled around the downed Elder, chanting and then lifting the body handing it over to the Infrareds that seem to know instinctively what needs to be done.  Having a stronger urge now than ever, Andy looks upon the Elder’s body as lunch, lumbers over and starts to chow down on his flesh.  No one seems to be bothered by Andy’s behaviour, not are they shocked by it.

The Infrareds are now starting to mill about, and one walks over to a rugby shaped object with a dial on it, and then begins to turn it back and forth rhythmically.  The object starts to crack and a glow seeps from the fracture, brightening.

Andy watches all of the Tribe, mutants and Infrareds get incinerated, feeling that he as well as them are all becoming one, one with the Tribe.  The last sight that Andy sees is the mutant that wears a pair of glasses, standing without a scratch on him, everything all okay.