Chapter 37

"Jake stop doing Aileron rolls!" 2B yelled at me as I for the tenth spins through the air.

"No! This is a barrel roll!" I cried back having lived my life playing star fox as a child on the Nintendo. I will not stand for whatever alien rolls they want to call my spins...

I could hear the sighs of irritation through the comms system, but I was truly having too much fun flying the mech as it was powered by some Nuclear/Maso system with no leaking radiation which allowed it too to have plenty of power at the ever so slight possibility of whenever I turn on the machine it would explode with the force of the nuke that landed on Hiroshima...

You know what? As a man I have shot three dozen Roman candles taped together with duct tape, I have ridden a motorcycle down a highway, and I have gone to Brazil more specifically the favelas for a school/mission trip. I have done plenty of stupid things in my life so riding a nuclear bomb that may explode when I rev the engine doesn't really match up to driving a four-wheeler over a frozen pond in terms of pure stupidity.

"Alright alright," I answered through the comms and then slowed down to join the formation of flight units which consisted of 2B 9S A2, and 6E. "So, are we in terms of the old world?" I asked not really being able to recognize any real landmarks as although large buildings survived through Maso and the amount of steel and concrete supporting it, it wasn't like we were passing by the likes of the Gateway Arche of Saint Louis or any other easily noticeable structure.

For a moment there was silence as the Androids were probably searching their databases and not surprisingly it was 9S who answered. "Well, we started more south of old Illinois, and with the distance, we have crossed at cruising at Mach two. We are certainly in what used to be Utah, I believe." 'Uhh wasn't that the state where all the Mormons lived?' I thought before mentally shrugging.

Another reason I was having major problems telling where the hell I was was the fact that it was already getting dark as we moved away from where the sun was eternally shining upon and a lot of the surface was lit up with bioluminescent wildlife whether it was plants or animals I had seen both as we stopped to take little breaks and let me tell you that there's nothing scarier than a silent owl dive bombing you as you ate some lunch and all of its feathers exploding with bright light like a flashbang.

But its sneak attack didn't matter when I filled the air with lightning which made the mutated owl crash into the ground...

--

"Alright, girls I need some rest," I said through the comms as it was getting tiring flying through the darkening twilight that didn't change for the last few hours and just like driving across country even in a flying mech.

"Jake the old city of Las Vegas isn't too far ahead why don't we camp there? Plus, it's supposed to be the official border of the Darkzone." 9S told me excitedly but I detected a bit of an odd tone to her voice.

"I imagine there's a lot of Machines there as well, right?" I asked dryly to which Nines just giggled innocently.

I will take the risk as someone born in the mid-nineties and growing up with Direct TV I wanted to see if a few buildings were there that I had seen on TV.

"Let's go explore a bit and Nines you have to write the report about our travel to Commander White for neglecting to mention the Machine presence," I ordered and we all adjusted our course lightly to angle ourselves towards where Las Vegas supposedly laid according to my heads-up display.

--

I couldn't help but deadpan and turn to 9S as I stared at the mayhem unfolding down in the decrepit streets of Las Vegas. "9S..." I said menacingly as the chaos of a massive worm-like Machine Goliath did battle with an acid-spittle Anaconda that could easily be more than one hundred meters long and more than twenty meters thick and wrestled with one another with the blood and venom from the snake melting through the already destroyed buildings that I hoped to tour. "You didn't warn us that Las Vegas was basically rubble..." Seriously like near Chicago where my bunker was although it was very old and touched by the war between Androids and Machines, the buildings still stood and buildings like the Chrysler Building still stood strong through the thousands of years of neglect.

Basically, it was Detroit...

But Las Vegas was just rubble and I couldn't see a single building that wasn't half collapsed plus the city was overgrown with utterly massive trees that stretched hundreds of meters into the air and a lot more wildlife hunting each other and machines poorly attempting to 'patrol' the city.

"Welcome to the Darkzone." A2 snickered making us look at her. "What you all know is I was on the run from YoRHa for a long time so I would spend most of my time running around the border of the Darkzone as no YoRHa models come here as the Maso saturating the flora and fauna scramble satellite feeds." A2 pointed at the barely functioning Goliath that was attempting to limp away from the battle as it finally managed to use its massive Maso beam to burn away the head of the snake didn't go out with a fight as the Goliath's inner mechanical pieces were visible from the distance as the acid ate through all the Machine's armor.

"Only Goliath and higher ranked Machine Lifeforms can reliably survive the mutated wildlife here as the Machines are too stupid to know to pick their fights as I promise within six hours another animal is going to see that wounded machine and kill it to establish its dominance for this area." She shook her head before shrugging. "Though that snake was certainly too large to here on the border of the Darkzone... Maybe there is some turmoil going on in the deeper parts that pushed that snake out of its territory deeper in."

"Well, this was a bust..." I groaned disappointed in how I couldn't try to loot something like the Gold and Silver Pawn Store, which is where the Pawn Stars TV show took place in and although the thought based through my head I knew trying to break into the casino vaults to get some gold would be stupid as the gold would be completely worthless unless I managed to train my space/darkness magic to connect to another world, as so far all I could do with my space magic was increase gravity dramatically in an area.