A Lasting Memory

The rain was coming down harder and harder now. It cleaned out her now turning crusted cut. She washed her face from the dirt. Her face didn't feel as tight as much. There was no plan when she left during the night. She had bandaged up the wounded hand with a piece torn from her shirt. That was all.

Since it was nighttime, the only problem she had to face was the Network's biggest drone. But, she had an advantage when It came to nighttime. Though the hovercraft seems menacing, which it was, it could only track what it saw. Being up so high meant the it could see all the buildings, then ground below, but it couldn't see what laid in the crashed objects that lined the city. In the buildings.That was the drones job.
For now she hid behind a yellow machine with black and white stripes on the side. What an odd way to design something so...useless. That didn't seem to be the right word for the thing, but it was all she could muster for the time being.

I didn't know what it was, nor did I really care. Besides from the way it hid me from the hovercraft, did it have little use to me. I have seen many of them before, when I so rarely roamed the streets for food. People like I must have used them. Why, I don't know.

She could hear the roaring of the engine of the hovercraft before she could even see it. As she was before sitting in a crouched position in the ditch, she now stands and move swiftly over the rocks that lay in the ground. She does not dare to step in the mud, which was dirt before the rain came, because if did, it would leave marks of mud on the street which were footsteps leading to her death. It was her golden rule, don't leave a trace for anyone to find. Become a ghost.

Hours before night fell, She covered her face in the wet mud. It has well hardened by the time she left. The same became of her arms, neck, and lower chest. Any flesh that was shown was covered in the brown mess. She wore a shirt that was a medium cut and no sleeves. With how fragile her body has become, it's longer than it should be. The shirt is a dark grey.
Her pants were also, like the shirt, long because of the lack of food that she consumed each month. The pants are a dark blue. She wore boots that were laced and short. They are black.

She was dressed to be able roam swiftly at night. Easily concealed by darkness, she could hide without worry. The last time she did this...
It was a close one at that. She was at the end of the ditch, which rose higher and higher to the ground. She waited minutes before removing the vines to hear the grumbling pass ahead of me.

The grumbling was ahead of her now. She removed the vines with ease, and placed them back as they were before. Today would have been the monthly trip to search for food. She knew she was extremely low. The little food that she had left, she carries in a little bag fastened from vines. They clang around in the bag, and every time she winced. The littlest noises...

She glanced back and forth.
The air was dewy and silent. She didn't know how she could have lost a hovercraft. It was as tall as 30 of those machines, as wide as 40 of them! She repeated the numbers in her mind. Four, two, four, six, three, and one. Four, two, four, six, three, one. Four, two, four, six, three, one...

What had been so different all of a sudden? What had she done wrong to upset them? They were always upset, the voices corrected her. Never happy with you, never happy. Always mad. They always looked for a reason, always mad, they were always mad. Forever mad. Forever there. Forever watching, forever waiting. Waiting and mad. Provocative child.

Was the code a way to provoke her? Beeping pulled her out of the zone she constantly drifted in. She quietly, and quickly, went behind the metal contraption. She opened the handle to the upper front right side, slipped into the unnervingly smoothed shaped...

Whatever she thought it was, the memory slipped away from her. But, it was meant for someone like her to sit in, the shape it fitting her perfectly. The other side of the metal contraption was covered with vine.

The glass in the front was covered in ash. The front of the car partly burned. Debris lay around the round, but hard, objects that hold the thing from falling to the ground. I don't know how they didnt pop when I got into the thing.

She maneuvered herself so that she wasn't sitting in the smooth archway but on the less smooth, but furry, ground. Her back against the door. Her hair tucked neatly in the back of her shirt. Next to where she sat, an old, burnt, rusted, piece of metal was coming off. She pried at it wit her left hand, and it snapped off easily.
She gripped it easily in her right hand easier than her left, switching it between one another. She put the rusted metal in her right hand and laid the rest in her lap. The hovercraft, she could hear and feel, was laying above the contraption she was sitting it. Besides the humming from the above, there was no noise.

Just the ringing in her ear was all she heard. A sharp ringing. Her gut churned. She was going to have to run, she felt. Just in time with the thought, the hovercraft started to shoot at her. It rippled through the ceiling, moving from the back to the front. She struggled to get out before the the bullets filled the space of where the ghost of her laid just a few seconds ago. I didn't mind to shut the door, the word came to her. Though, the bullets never hit the side of the machine she was sitting in.

She was ecstatic and fearful at the same time. She not dare to look back and look at the bullets that struck the ground. She was only a few steps ahead of where they hit. She still had the metal piece in her hand.
***
I knew that I couldn't outrun the Hovercraft. I needed something faster, something that could take me flying than any normal speed that someone could run. I ran into a tunnel to think. It was completely black and I couldn't see where I was. Where anything is. I used the metal like my eyes, to try to see or feel anything that was in front of me.

The metal struck something hard when I was pulled it down with force. It made a loud clanging noise. Could it be metal against metal? I dropped the metal bar into the loop of my belt, small enough on one side to go through, but big enough on the other so that it doesn't fall all the way through. It dangles at the side of my right leg.

I feel about the object. It feels smooth, but about the size no bigger of myself. It has the two round objects on the bottom of it, holding it up, like the other metal contraption. But, it had something I could grip.
I carefully started to roll it down to where I saw light...
***

"Give her the memory of the motorcycle. Let's speed things up, we don't have much time if they're going to cross paths." A tall woman, dressed in all black, said to her workers.

"But that would also give her the memory of..." one of the workers tried to retort, but with her stern look they knew they had no other choice. "Just give her enough of the memory that she knows how to ride. We have to time this just right."

An old worker, who looked young at the same time, nodded to the woman dressed in black. He tapped away at the keypad, and gave the memory of the motorcycle back to her.
***
I started to see the light at the almost edge of the tunnel when a pain shot through the left of my arm. The word came as motorcycle. It also came with the memory of how to ride. It was like simple instructions on how to do it. It seemed easy, like someone was guiding me through it.

When a smile was about to crack my lips, shooting from above made me crouch down. They were shooting at the top of the tunnel. The bullets were shooting hard, for I can see the cave like ceiling starting to crack.

Little by little. I got on the motorcycle, knowing now what I was doing. The wheels of the motorcycle were a black as the night. I started the motorcycle, and sped towards the light from the glistening moonlight.
I placed my hands on the rubber handles, my hands on the brakes, and raced forward. I swerved around the other machines. Wait, the voices said, the things that are holding up the machines are wheels! Somehow, are they kind of the same thing? The motorcycle and the other metal object! Could they work the same way?

My head slowly came back from looking past at the metal objects. I had to swerve around the trees as I went out of the cave like space, opening back into the night. The hovercraft speeds ahead of me, takes a sharp turn to look back at me, and let's me have a head start.

It had stopped shooting, and waited a minute before it followed. Luckly, it only took that minute for the hovercraft to get out of my vision.
The motorcycle sounded like a steady hum. It didn't last me very long, and when it did stop, for no reason, I was scared. I was scared of the sky and what can come from it. I was scared of where I was going to go. I was scared of not knowing. But my curiosity was more overpowering than any of those fears.