Mia Escapes
Part Two.
The machines are behaving asymmetrically, so where is the other one? Mia and Amilia are looking up at the roof of the sub-cab, without even bothering to duck down, they are listening to the avew on the roof. Mia and Amilia too, are out of ideas. Just as the two of them are about to individually ponder the blankness of their thoughts, the tool tray on Mia’s side slams closed.
This catches both the women’s attention. Now they know where the other avew is. As to why it would have any interest in that drawer, they’ll never know. It is the same draw Mia sent the can of yellow paint through earlier to Amilia.
Here Mia thinks fast, she grabs a crowbar and quickly pries it open. She thinks fast because she wants to make sure the drawer can be opened first, she grabs a grenade off her belt and presses the buttons “set” and “quick detonate”. She closes the drawer and jams the crowbar into the latches, holding it closed.
“Down!”
This time it is Mia who jumps on top of Amilia, covering her, protecting Amilia, protecting her life. The two of them fall down on the driver’s side of the sub-cab as the grenade detonates outside the vehicle, in the tool tray.
They are all the way down, the concussive blast of the grenade blows the rear of the tray, the latch and the crowbar across the cab at lethal speeds. The parts hit the driver’s side of the wall of the vehicle, missing Mia and Amilia. The crowbar, door panel, and latch fall to the floor, still lethal because of the position of the women’s heads. The parts fall to the floor and miss them. They are safe in this regard.
The drawer manages to relegate the blast of the grenade to the outside of the vehicle. This is not so for the concussive force it produces, producing a fast shock-wave that rocks the front of the vehicle. All three women are affected by this, Amilia the most because of her position. All three women survive.
They are disoriented, again. Another concussion on top of the numerous head injuries and concussions the three of them have already had. None of them can count, none of them can remember at this point.
The avew screams. This is the one on the tool tray side, the passenger side, seemingly on the factory floor. Mia thinks that it is unlikely that it was actually damaged in any meaningful way, she could be wrong. The one on top continues digging through the roof of the cab, the explosion of the grenade may have slowed it down a little bit, but not by much. It continues digging and scraping after only a brief pause.
The avew on the ground continues screaming. Mia thinks it is probably exaggerating it’s injuries, as they tend to do. But she cannot be certain. She thinks about having a look through the rectangle of the tool drawer, now vacant. She knows better than this. She sees fire and there is an odd mixture of severe cold and the heat of the fire coming through the open rectangle.
Mia backs away from the tray opening. She remembers how long the limbs of the avew are, and wants to be well out of reach of it. It continues screaming, but oddly climbs on the roof with the other one. Perhaps it’s first line of attack didn’t work, so it will help it’s counterpart. Symmetrical in their attack again. Mia and Amilia hear the fast footsteps on the roof as the avew goes to join the other one.
Mia and Amilia know to never trust anything they hear from these machines. The first machine stops digging at the vehicle. There are loud screaming from both avew. Mia does not know what this means. Loud slicing, loud punching of metal, hard enough that it sounds a lot like the blasting caps they have been using. Whatever the ground avew is doing to the other one, it is slowing their assault.
Xada knows what it is. If one is injured it wants to injure the other one, so that both of their new bloodlines arrive to the world at approximately the same time. Not impolite or immoral, by their standards, it is just how they function. Either way the attacked avew does not seem too happy about it. They both very stupidly have lost track of their mission to kill the three women inside the scout, if that was their intention anyway.
Killing the three of them isn’t exactly practical at the moment either. Xada has no idea what they are really doing or why, she just wants to get out of here now. She does not like them.
They’re insane.
Xada thinks that these machines are behaving irrationally even by the standards of whatever they are supposed to be. But she has no idea. From what she can tell, they don’t behave like animals, machines, or even the three of them. She does not have time to figure it out. Time to leave, finally. Whatever Mia just did may give them just the chance they need. Xada, barely able to think at all, puts the last of her winter clothing on. She considers the window again, grabs the pipe.
She kicks the windshield with both feet, and this time it moves. She is happy, but the windshield is not out of the way yet. She slides back and kicks it with more force with only her right leg. It breaks free. Fortunately for them, Mia’s trick with the hand grenade finally caused the sealing around the window to break loose.
Xada kicks it a third time, and a little more than half the windshield breads free and falls down. Xada takes Mia’s pipe, which no longer has a blast cap attached to it, and starts to break free the remaining glass. She breaks the glass away so they do not cut themselves or their parkas getting out. Or get stuck on it stupidly with their over-sized winter coats.