Chapter 86 - The Ordinary World (9)

Zhang Xun's wrists were tied together and he was sitting on the speeding motorbike, his hands clutching the back of the bandit's shirt in front of him, feeling like he would be thrown off at any moment. James and Diego, surrounded by the mob, didn't choose to try and fight them off and like Zhang Xun, they were bound with rope and sat on the back of the bikes.

Originally the mob considered ditching Enoch, but the red-haired man took him with them, considering that Enoch might attract other hostile forces.

The red-haired man, Todd, was one of the bandit leaders based in Rhino Horn Town, but not the most senior. Calling themselves the Nameless Ones and led by a mysterious woman, the bandits in Rhino Horn Town were a Texas force that had begun to emerge in recent years. As the natural environment in Texas deteriorated dramatically after the Third World War, many of those who couldn't adapt to the new world Eden had created gradually settled in this sparsely populated land, with no single leader and only numerous settlements and groups fighting each other.

Yet the strangest thing was that, despite the many bandit groups, Eden's religion was still the strongest in Texas, as if the people naturally wanted to find some kind of balance. The extremists, who worshipped Eden as a god, had their own organisation and weapons, and often engaged in large-scale armed fights with local mobs.

It was hard to breathe with the dust in their faces and before long the four of them were all dusty and had eaten a mouthful of sand. Zhang Xun never imagined that he, a geek who spent his days building robots in his lab, would come all the way from Lost Paradise to the Mexican border and be drawn into the world of Mad Max ....... What was even more incredible was that he was surprisingly calm.

These mobs of people who robbed trucks for a living were likely to tear them apart at the drop of a hat, and he hadn't even pissed himself yet. Was it because he had been through so much in the past year that he had become...... used to it?

The group had travelled some distance when several more similar vehicles suddenly appeared in the distance, along with a jeep that came hurtling along with a long tail of sand and dust. Both sides braked in a hurry, but those who had just arrived were in a mess and one female biker, without even a helmet and with blood on her forehead, jumped out and rushed straight to Todd, "Todd! Todd! Those Edenites came again while you were away! They've wounded the boss and she's stuck in the town!"

Todd spat on the ground and cursed a very creative swear word before turning to everyone and yelling, "Load up your ammo and follow me to dump it all into them and their crappy fucking robots!"

Everyone around them let out wild, beastly cries, waving their guns, chains, machetes and other weapons in their hands as they rushed with all their might towards the scattered houses spreading across the slope in the distance.

Zhang Xun now began to panic a little.

What was going on?

He looked in disbelief at James, who also frowned deeply and shook his head at him, signalling him not to act rashly. Not only was Diego not anxious, but he was leaning forward a bit like he was watching a good show. Only Enoch sat upright behind a female bandit, as if completely unconcerned with what was going on around him.

It was only as they began to approach Rhino Horn Town that they really got to see what a real bandit firefight was all about.

Several huge but primitive war robots were moving slowly through the town, shooting a constant stream of deadly rays around them, setting all the nearby houses on fire. There were also countless drones buzzing in the air, firing bullets at the ground. The people on the ground fled in disarray, but many were still hit by the drones, their brains bursting out and splattering three paces across the ground. Some raised their guns and tried to return fire, but the drones were too fast to hit.

Outside the town, about two dozen men in silver and white metallic suits held up laser guns, shooting down anyone, man, woman or child, who tried to escape. Zhang Xun saw a woman shot dead and then a young girl, probably in her teens, lunged to her side, followed by a shot to the head and fell on top of her mother's body.

Seeing this, Todd, already blind with rage, roared and rushed forward on his motorbike. All his companions roared in unison, like the Indigenous peoples of the Americas who had rushed towards those who invaded the West hundreds of years ago.

The bandit carrying Zhang Xun took him by the collar and threw him aside, "Stay here before you get beaten to death." And then he too followed in the dust.

James and Diego weren't left behind, but Enoch jumped off one of the motorbikes himself and came running towards Zhang Xun. Zhang Xun noticed that the rope around his wrists was gone.

Zhang Xun watched in dismay as Enoch untied the restraints on his wrists, "How did you......"

"The rope isn't very strong, I can just pull it off." Enoch said simply, "But I analysed that if I pulled it off directly it might alert them, so I waited until now."

The corners of Zhang Xun's mouth twitched up, "You did the right thing." Then he got up from the ground, wiped his dusty eyes and looked down at the chaos below.

It had to be said that the red-haired man was extremely brave, it was almost as if he wasn't afraid of death, he went up and blew two Edenite's heads off. The group of Edenites spotted them approaching and immediately directed their drones at them. Dense laser rays descended like a rainstorm, leaving little room for dodging.

Zhang Xun's heart nearly jumped out of his throat in fear when he saw James fall off the motorbike. He saw James dodging through the rain of lasers, rolling around on the ground in a dangerous manner, but at that moment, Todd appeared out of nowhere, blocking the rain of bullets with a black shield and holding a knife in his other hand, cutting the bindings on James' hands.

James immediately rolled onto his back, grabbed a gun from the corpse next to him and began firing at the group of worshippers behind the shielded Todd.

On the other hand, Diego had also somehow broken free from his bonds, grabbed a chain in his hand and sharply strung it around the throat of one of the Edenites, using the man's body to block the beams of light descending from the sky.

Just watching made Zhang Xun break out in a cold sweat. He had to do something.

Zhang Xun pursed his lips tightly as his eyes suddenly fell on a few silvery figures on a hill a little further away, seemingly unconcerned with the matter. He narrowed his eyes and vaguely noticed that one of them was holding something square.

Zhang Xun's mind stirred and he said with realisation, "These drones aren't operated by Eden, it's those people."

Enoch followed Zhang Xun's line of sight and nodded slightly, "That seems likely."

How strange, if they called themselves the Edenites, why would they rely on themselves to manipulate small drones? Could it be that their actions weren't authorised by Eden?

Zhang Xun looked around and finally his eyes fell on Enoch, "Enoch, I need you to cooperate with me."

Enoch looked at him with open blue eyes, his expression was actually very pleased, "Cooperate with what?"

"You're the closest thing to a computer around me, I want to use your signal transceiver to block their control of the drones and robots." Zhang Xun said as he walked behind Enoch and began to work on helping Enoch take off his shirt without a minute's delay.

Unbeknownst to him, Enoch's face once again underwent something like a short circuit, its eyes began to roll about uncontrollably and two more ant-like things burst out of its nose and quickly crawled back through its eyes.

The back of the robot opened to either side along a thin seam, revealing a panel covered in buttons. This was the standard main control panel for a service robot, from which many of the expanded functions were turned on and off, and those buttons were coded with individual characters that were simplified and improved from the AI language.

He expertly pressed a series of button groups that only mechanics and engineers knew well, activating the robot's hidden functions. Two pale blue rays of light shot out from Enoch's eyes, creating a myriad of floating bubbles in the air, as well as a virtual keyboard.

Returning to Enoch's front, Zhang Xun quickly tapped a few bubbles and issued a voice command, "Search for nearby wireless signal emitters."

The scan yielded fifteen results, but after Zhang Xun's analysis of the models of the emitters, he determined that roughly three belonged to the fanatic believers in silver clothing. He began to rapidly tap lines of code onto the virtual keyboard, forgetting for a moment where he was and entering into a kind of absolute concentration that he could only have when facing machines.

The technology their opponents possessed wasn't even the latest and the signal encryption was so full of holes that it was easy for Zhang Xun to break. His fingers leapt through the air like playing a piano, the silent melody turning into characters floating in the air.

The first set of drones began to go out of control, the silvery-white killing machines suddenly seemed to have lost their minds and began to fire at the other drones around them. The drones exploded, one after the other, spreading like orange fireworks.

Todd wiped the blood from his face and looked at the strange events taking place in the sky in some confusion, turning his head to look at James, who was gasping for breath in the same way as he was. Only to see the latter turn his head to look at the hill they had come from a short distance away.

The nerd?

"What's going on?!"

The corner of James' mouth curled slightly, "Maybe he hacked those guys' controls."

Todd's eyes widened and he muttered, "He can fucking do that?"

Immediately afterwards a war robot went out of control, striding out of the town and rushing towards the group of Edenites who were fighting the Nameless Ones. The people were scattered and their advantage was gone.

Surrounded by a blue glow, Zhang Xun's eyes were bright and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, a far cry from his usual restrained and rigid appearance, with a hidden aggression. He clearly enjoyed the feeling of completely crushing the other side with technology.

Enoch mused while licking his lips.

Zhang Xun was setting out to take over the last remaining controls when he failed to notice a silvery shadow hiding behind a nearby, blown up jeep, silently raising a gun at him.

As the laser beam shot out, Zhang Xun suddenly felt Enoch reach out an arm around himself and turn around violently. The robot's body shook as the beam of light shot through its shoulder.

The robot had no change in expression; after all, it had no sense of pain, but a memory rushed extremely vividly into Zhang Xun's mind.

Adam rushing to him and blocking the poison that shot from the throat of the Feathered Serpent City General.

In an instant, a raging panic swept over him, sending him back in an instant to the Feathered Serpent City base, in front of the tank containing the big, fleshy lump. It was as if he could once again see Adam hissing in pain and rolling on the floor, while he could do nothing.

Zhang Xun's body froze completely as he stared blankly into Enoch's face, finding himself breathless and unable to react in a suitable manner.

Enoch suddenly hugged him tightly and rolled him to the ground, avoiding the constant death rays from the guns of the Edenites who were trying to attack them. As the sky spun, all Zhang Xun could smell was the chemical odour of the cooling solution flowing from the robot and his mind went blank.

James rushed towards them as hard as he could, lifting up his oversized laser gun when he was some distance away and killing the sneak attacker with a single shot.

Enoch stopped then and said in his usual light-hearted voice, "Are you all right?"

Zhang Xun gasped and lay on a hard stone boulder, looking somewhat dazedly at Enoch, who still had his usual expression, and he suddenly realised how close he had just come to death.

If Enoch hadn't shielded him in time, if Enoch had made a half-hearted error in judgement, he would have fallen to the ground with his brains bursting out, just like those who had just been killed in Rhino Horn Town.