Covered by leaves and little tree branches, he laid there barely moving for ten hours when he decided to take a sneak peak and hide behind a bigger tree. The forest was the closest place he could run to hide when Mr. Andrews released the machines the very first time.
This memory stuck with Mike for all these years and when the story repeated itself, he knew the forest would be a great place to look for shelter. The one thing the machines hated most were wet leaves covered in mud. Their tentacle-like extremities would distort the rotor and bring the machine to halt. It was a tough but valuable lesson Mike learned on his very first encounter with one of these peculiar, inhumane creatures.
Mount Penra used to be a peaceful little town with friendly people who would give their souls for the community to thrive. One day a well-dressed gentleman from far away visited the town and since then, nothing has been the same anymore.
Mr. Andrews came to attend a funeral of a far distant relative who passed away and found in Mount Penra the perfect place for his new factory. He could finally start anew without anyone knowing anything about his background and what he used to do before. Eventually it might come out but until then, he could build something big enough and make tens of people dependent from the jobs he was offering, thus making it insurmountably more difficult for the mayor or any other government official to kick him out of their town so easily.
Fifty eight people were working at MaBa for Mr. Andrews. They were assembling parts for machines but the employees never got to see the final product. Everybody knew Mr. Andrews was a tech-savvy person with good manners but nobody sensed the ambiguous intentions this gentleman was hiding behind his tender personality which turned out to be extremely demonic.
Mike was a little boy when Mr. Andrews’ first prototype somehow escaped from the facilities and went out to destroy everything and everyone that got in its way. Not many people knew about the incident cause Mr. Andrews guards where quick to catch the prototype and deactivate it before he had done more damage to the things and people living in this town. Luckily nobody got injured and only a couple of cars had severe damages the owners of which got paid out fairly quickly and nicely by Mr. Andrews the very next morning after the incident.
Nobody talked about this incident. The local paper didn’t write about it and the radio didn’t report about it either. Not even the employees at MaBa knew what had happened that evening after they left the factory. Clearly Mr. Andrews didn’t want any bad press about his business so he moved swiftly ensuring everybody kept quiet.
What escaped the businessman was a ten year old boy who has seen the machine in action. Mike was actually chased by this strange looking metallic thing deep down into the forest while giving out strange noises. Fortunately for Mike, the guards who deactivated the prototype that night were so engrained in their task that they didn’t notice the boy.
Thirty plus years later and the story was repeating itself again; at least for Mike. As a forty-two year old man, he now had to distract an even more advanced prototype to follow him into the forest so that the machine doesn’t take out his beloved family.
Mr. Andrews had enough time to experiment on his models and was convinced that one day, he could finally reveal his fantastic invention to the world and everybody would be excited. What he didn’t envision though, was a machine so clever, it could program itself to perform certain activities without being powered on by a computer or chip.
It would use the properties of photosynthesis and recharge itself without the need of an electrical cord or a conventional power source. Basically, the prototype learned all the algorithms and reprogrammed itself according to new variables without the knowledge of his master.
Who could stop the machine this time around?
Mike knew instantly he was dealing with an upgrade. The machine looked more sophisticated, it had way more buttons, moved significantly faster and more smoothly. Furthermore, there were no noises being released while he was walking, running or engaging in other activities such as demolition.
Suddenly a metal clutch grabbed Mike from behind and threw him on the ground. The machine used one of his tentacle-like feet and stepped on him while turning his head left and right as if waiting for further instructions. What followed next was quite intriguing. A little door on the right side of the machines opened up and a little screen appeared with the following writing in red: “Run.”
Mike looked at the machine, managed to quickly release himself and roll out underneath his feet. He got up swiftly and started running without ever looking back. Only when he felt safe did he turn around to see whether this metallic box was chasing him or not. But there was no sign of the machine, nothing.
After the incident, Mike went straight to the police and reported everything. Despite all the good Mr. Andrews has done for the community by providing well paid jobs for so many people, he was asked to close the factory and leave Mount Penra.
Years passed by and there wasn’t a weekend Mike would not gather friends and volunteers to go into the forest to hunt down the machine. But they never found it. Not the slightest piece of metal, no parts, no electronic cables, not anything. The machine was gone forever and not a soul would ever find it.
Could a machine like that become an integral part of a laboratory or a new factory without the owner and the workers noticing it?
Creative art: AI-generated image by Daniela S. via Midjourney
