4 Chapter 4 Done Talking

Making his way down the trash mountain, the Uz'En below noticed him quickly, and started to assemble.

"Who are you?" the leader demanded, standing a hair shorter than Dustin.

"I am here to take all of you away from this awful place. There is a planet where others like us live, that is much better than this place."

"That is what the masters said, when they brought us here. Why should we believe you, stranger?"

"Do you have devices to aid you in surviving here?" he asked, in confusion. The PED's he had sent, should have explained things, and made it easier to collect them. They were acting very aggressive and hateful towards him, that made no sense. They should have felt that he was their king, on a spiritual level.

"We only have that which we find. I don't know what devices you may speak of."

Dustin looked around at them. They were filthy, starved, dehydrated, and sick. How did they not have the PED's?

"Are you open to the idea of leaving this hellhole for a better place, or not? You will all die, here."

"Everyone dies, sometime. Why not here, surrounded by loved ones?"

Dustin gritted his teeth. He had always sucked at talking to people who were intent on being asses. What was this idiot's problem?

"Are you hungry and thirsty?" asked Olivia, coming closer holding a bag of what looked like mushrooms and a jug of water.

Dustin didn't ask where she had gotten them, but figured that was why it taken her so long to join him.

They snatched the food and water from her, and immediately began passing it around. It wasn't nearly enough. They were fighting over the bag, even though it was empty, and ripped it to shreds. The jug met a similar fate.

"Dustin, this is bad."

He nodded. "There's plenty more, where that came from."

The leader, who was still chewing his piece of mushroom, narrowed his eyes.

"You will not be able to bribe us. Leave! We have nothing here for you."

Olivia stood there, waiting while Dustin mulled over his next course of action.

"Are you still hungry and thirsty?" he asked a small child that was sitting on the ground not to far from him.

"What are you doing?" growled a woman, rushing over and picking the child up.

"Are you trying to eat our children?" exclaimed the leader.

"Oh, for crying out loud! This is stupid!" cried Olivia, throwing up her hands.

"You're right, I'm done talking."

Dustin sent the few nanobots that were left to him, down into the trash to start replicating. Olivia noticed and started to back away.

"Dustin, I thought we agreed no nanobots? That's going to alert the locals and cause a shit-ton of trouble."

"I thought you were the one who said I needed to grow a backbone and just grab and go?" he growled, as the new nanobots began to assemble themselves into small pods.

The Uz'En, upon seeing the nanobots, turned tail and ran. They didn't get very far, though. Dustin sent the pods after them, snapping them up like metallic beasts. As soon as the pod was sealed it pointed itself to the sky and shot off. He would gather them later.

It only took a few minutes to grab them all, and the entire valley was empty. Every last man, woman, and child had been grabbed.

A rumble behind them, notified them, that the locals had sensed the nanobots. Before they could do much more than turn to look behind them, the entire mountain they were standing on began to heave and shift.

Ships flew into sight, spitting giant robots out that landed heavily, causing the mountain side to become unstable.

(INITIATING EVOLUTION)

(EVOLUTION COMPLETE)

They jumped into the sky, using their wings, and started to fly away. Bolts of plasma were being shot at them, and it took everything they had to dodge them.

Flying down into a valley, they both suddenly found themselves falling. A ship above them had turned on some kind of gravity well that made their wings useless. Hitting the ground hard, they slid down for a long way, until they found themselves out of the well.

"We need to hide, until they stop looking for us," suggested Olivia, folding her wings.

"We could just smash them?" suggested Dustin, glancing at the approaching robots.

They were made of a material he didn't recognize, and a device on their shoulder, made him pause. It was the new EMP he had heard about, that was specially designed to combat his nanobots.

Glancing around quickly, Dustin spied one of the tunnels from before, and after a moment's hesitation, he darted for it. Olivia followed right behind him.

"This is a bad idea," she cried, as they dived into it.

"I'm not really wanting to see what those new EMP things can do to my personal nanobots just yet," Dustin replied as they scrambled down the tunnel.

It was surprisingly well made, reinforced at just the right points, and just big enough that they didn't feel an immediate need to evolve into a different form. There were even small vent holes that allowed the air to not be too stale.

Far behind them, they could hear the robots digging, trying to follow them, but then there was a rumbled, and it was quiet.

"They just collapsed the tunnel, didn't they?" he asked, without stopping his descent.

"Sounds like it."

"Well, shit. This tunnel better travel back to the surface eventually, or we're going to have to dig out on our own."

"Yep."

Up ahead, they could see that the tunnel ended soon, so they slowed. It had been a huge descent, and they were both wary of new dangers. Stepping out of the tunnel, they found themselves on a platform high over a great open area. The entire chasm that spread out before them, was lit by groups of glowing blue lights.

Pillars littered the massive cave, with scaffolding around each one. Workers of some race were digging the blue glowing lights out of the rock and loading them into wagons that were then pushed away.

"It's a mining operation," said Dustin softly.

"But what are they mining? I've never seen anything like that before."