12 Hours

" We've already wasted one hour?!" I yelled.

" I mean I did keep telling you we had to go," Bryson said mockingly.

I put my hands on my head and let out a loud and long groan. We wasted a whole hour on nothing. All we did we dive through a portal, see a man get demolished, and survive an explosion.

I turned and stared at Bryson and crossed my arms and sighed.

" I've been holding us up big time and I'm sorry for that. I promise I'm 100% now." I said.

He sighed and nodded his head.

" Good, because we really need to head to the factory."

" I'm pretty sure the factory is more than a mile away, so how are we planning to get there?" I asked.

" By foot. Did you think we were gonna go in a blown-up car or something?" He said sarcastically.

I looked at him with a straight face. He looked at me awkwardly then looked side to side and rubbed his head.

" We need to get going because it's probably gonna take us an hour to get there, so might as well start walking there," Bryson said.

Bryson and I picked up some weapons we found in the bridge and began to head for the factory.

" You ok there?" Bryson asked.

I looked over at him and gave him a baffled look.

" Y-yeah. Why, do I not look ok?" I said.

" You're breathing really loud, and you're shaking." Bryson laughed.

" O-oh I'm fine, just hoping we don't get blown up," I said sarcastically.

After about 30 minutes of walking in silence, Bryson fell down to the ground and shouted,

" WHY IS THE FACTORY SO FAR?!"

I looked over at him and started laughing.

He looked up at me and frowned.

" Oh, so you think my pain is funny?" Bryson asked.

I rolled my eyes and held out my hand to help Bryson up. He rolled his eyes before grabbing my hand.

" No, of course not. I think it's hilarious." I snickered.

All of a sudden we started to hear a beeping sound.

Bryson looked over at me and gave me a worried look.

" What is that?" Bryon asked.

I looked down at Bryson's wrist and noticed his watch was flashing.

" It's your watch," I replied while pointing at the watch.

Bryson looked down at his watch and on it was a radar map. I forgot to mention that the boss man gave us high tech watches.

I looked down at his watch and caught sight of something.

" Look, there is a green dot in the top left corner," I said pointing at the screen.

" Why is it moving?" Bryson asked.

" Maybe because it's an object or a person," I said.

He looked over at me and gave me an unsettling look.

" What if it's a robot ...?" He said wearily.

Bryson and I slowly look over the left, and of course, there was a robot quietly drifting over the ground while pointing its arm at us.

" I think this is the part when we scream and run," Bryson whispered.

I looked at him and nodded my head.

" I think your right. I'll start screaming then we will start running."

As soon as I began to scream Bryson and I took off running towards the factory.

" Bryson! Try to get a gun or something out your bag." I yelled

" We're literally running Alex! How do you expect me to get a gun while we're running?!" He yelled back.

" I'll create a distraction while you get a gun," I said.

Bryson and I stopped running. He got on the ground and instantly started looking for a gun.

" Yo robot, you like chicken?" I asked.

Bryson looked up at me and scrunched his eyebrows.

" What?" Bryson said.

" Shut up Bryson, let me do my thing," I said as I put my hand in his face.

" Whatever, "

" I'm about to give you dance full of chicken goodness!" I said.

I began to do the chicken dance, then the macarena. I don't even know if the robot could tell what I was doing.

" Ok Alex, I found a gun. Let's go!" Bryson said.

He tossed me a gun, closed up his bag and we started running again.

I could hear the robot powering up its laser arm like how those characters power up in those shows.

" Bryson, when I say duck, drop to the ground," I yelled.

" What? Why?" Bryson yelled.

" If you value your life, then just do it!" I yelled with attitude.

I was trying to hear when the sound got exceedingly loud because I assumed that's when the laser would shoot out. It took the robot about five seconds to fully power up. On the 6th second, I yelled,

" DUCK!"

Bryson stopped and let his body plunge to the ground like a dummy. We stared at the laser as it flew over our heads and crashed into the ground in front of us.

" Ok, you've earned my trust," Bryson said with relief.

" You didn't trust me before?" I asked.

Bryson looked at me then looked side to side.

" Focus on the fact that I trust you now." He said.

" Whatever Bryson." I laughed.

" Is the coast clear?" Bryson asked while looking everywhere.

I looked behind us and scanned the area for any robots.

" Yeah, I think so," I said while looking behind us.

Bryson and I got up off the ground and dusted the dirt and specks of bones off of us.

" Ew, we were laying on dead people." Bryson gagged.

I looked at him and rolled my eyes.

" Thanks for bringing up a thought I didn't want to think about," I said.

Bryson began to look around with an uncertain look on his face.

" Wait where did that robot go?" Bryson asked.

" I don't--," I said.

Then all of a sudden a laser was shot through the middle of us. Both of us looked at where the laser was shot at then at each other.

" I'm guessing it's behind us," Bryson said.

I nodded my head.

" Run!" I yelled.

Bryson and I took off running. The fortunate thing is that we were really close to the factory. I realized that the factory was producing a tremendous amount of smoke. It explained why the sky was so dark and gloomy. I suddenly had a suspicion that something was behind me.

" Bryson there are five more robots behind us!" I yelled.

" Don't make jokes Alex, we are in a serious situation!" Bryson yelled.

" I'm not joking! Look behind you!" I yelled back.

Bryson looked behind him, and as soon as he saw the robots he fell to the ground.

" I think I understand why there are no humans left!" Bryson said while trying to catch his breath.

" We need to stall them or create a distraction!" I said while looking back at them.

" How in the world are we gonna distract six robots!?" Bryson asked.

" I don't know! Anything will work at this point."

Bryson proceeded to look through his bag.

He pulled out a cartridge full of bullets, and two Glocks.

" Hurry up Bryson, the robots are starting to catch up. I really don't wanna die today." I said nervously.

" Shoulda thought of that before you signed up to save the world," Bryson mocked.

" I didn't even know I was signing up for this!" I yelled while throwing my hands in the air.

Bryson quickly loaded the guns and looked up at me.

" Do you know how to shoot a gun?" Bryson asked while handing me a gun.

" A little bit? I know how to aim and shoot." I replied.

" Well put that knowledge into action, because we gotta start shooting if we wanna live," Bryson said.

Bryson and I turned around in unison, and put our fingers on the trigger. I closed my eyes and sighed and started to put pressure on the trigger. Then I heard a gunshot. I was confused because I thought it was me. I looked over and Bryson had his finger pushed all the way back on the trigger. He had a startled look on his face. I turned and looked at the robots, and one of them had a hole right in the center of its chest. It had a human-like reaction. It stopped, looked down at its gun wound, then looked back up and fell to the ground.

" How did you stop the robot with one hit?" I asked.

Before Bryson could reply, the other robots started to charge at us. Bryson began to shoot at them. I just stood there like an idiot watching him.

" You can start shooting them to Alex! I can't do this all by myself!" Bryson yelled.

" Uh-huh." I gulped.

I started to sweat and my mouth was getting really dry. I closed my eyes and pulled back the trigger as far as I could until I felt the pressure of the bullet spiral out of the barrel of the gun. The pellet went flying out of the gun and into the robot. I surprisingly made a perfect shot and killed the robot.

" Now that's what I call a perfect shot!" Bryson said.

" Or an accidental shot." I shrugged.

" Well do you think you can make a couple more of those?" Bryson asked while smiling at me.

I shook my head.

" No, not really," I said nervously.

Bryson began to shoot at the three robots on the left that were firing at us. He was hitting the robots, but it didn't affect them. They acted as if they were getting stung by bees. While all this was happening, I was not shooting a single robot. I was still in shock that I killed one of the robots. I thought of it as killing a human being. It was actually my first time shooting a real gun. I had shot based on the knowledge I had gained from watching action movies. I realized I needed to get over my childish fears and do what I had to do. I needed to hold up my gun and start shooting.

Bryson sighed and turned around towards me while looking at his gun.

" Alex, I'm out of bullets, mind tossing me some?" he asked.

I didn't even look or reply to Bryson. I put on my I just started shooting face. I hit all three robots in the right in the middle of their chest. They all fell out cold.

" Mind telling me how you perfectly killed four robots using four bullets?" Bryson asked.

" I would tell, but I honestly can't even explain to myself how I did that." I chuckled.

" I think something turned on a switch in you," Bryson said.

I nodded my head, and put my gun down. I sat down on the ground to catch my breath.

" You actually deserve a breather this time. You totally kicked some metal butt." Bryson said while looking at me.

" Thanks, Bryson." I laughed.

He sat down next to me and patted me on my thigh.

" When I first saw you, I never would have thought you could do anything you've done today," he said.

" And I never thought you could say something so meaningful." I smiled.

" I'm not sure if I should take that as an insult or compliment," Bryson said while looking into the distance.

" It can go both ways I guess," I said.

Bryson and I sat there for a minute while looking into the distance at the devastation the robots had caused.

I looked over at Bryson and sighed.

" How could someone do this?" I asked.

" It might've not been on purpose. It could have been an experiment gone wrong." Bryson said as he continued to look into the distance.

I sighed and nodded my head.

" I hope you're right."

Then it suddenly dawned on me. What were we exactly stopping? I looked over at Bryson, then down at his watch.

" Bryson, can you call the boss man on our watches?" I asked.

" Yeah, it actually has this cool 3D Virtual call thing," Bryson replied.

I immediately dialed the boss man.

" Hello?"

" Why are we here. What is our purpose? How is there going to be a World War if there are only robots?" I asked fiercely.

" I knew you would figure it out Alex. You were the smart one in this pair." He said.

Bryson threw his hands in the air.

" I am literally sitting right next to her." Bryson said.

" I sent you there to stop their robot launch." He said.

" Robot launch?" I asked.

" They are going to launch a series of rockets full of robots to Europe, Russia...pretty much every country other than America." He said.

Bryson moved closer to me and looked at my watch from over my shoulder.

" Why would they send robots to all the countries?" Bryson asked.

" They want to take over the world." He replied.

" When are they launching the rockets?" I asked.

" How much time do you guys have left?" He asked.

Bryson looked down at his watch and checked the timer.

" Eleven hours and some change," Bryson replied.

" Well, that's how much time you have left until they launch the rockets." He said.

" Wait, so we have exactly 12 hours to stop them?" I said.

" Yes. I created a time machine that would last the amount of time you would have to stop them." He said.

" So what exactly are we looking for? What will stop the launch?" Bryson asked.

" It's robots you have to stop. Their technology is so advanced so that all they have to do is use their energy source to launch their rockets." He said.

" Well, what's their energy source?" I asked.

" I'm sorry, but that is something I don't know. You'll have to find out yourselves." He said.

I looked up at the sky and groaned.

" Thanks, boss man, we should get going," I said.

" I agree. Good luck on your mission." He said.

I felt a lot more confident and comfortable. I knew what we had to find out, and what exactly we were stopping. But this also means we needed to find the energy source.

" Any ideas on what the energy source could be?" Bryson asked.

" No, I'm clueless," I replied.

I suddenly flashed back to when I had killed four of the robots. They would only die if we shot them in the middle of their chest.

" I have an idea on how we could possibly find out what their energy source could be," I said.

" Good because I was totally relying on you to figure it out." Bryson sighed.

" Remember when you shot the robot in the middle of its chest and it immediately died," I asked.

" Yeah, that was probably the most epic moment of my life." he gloated.

" Do you also remember when you would shoot it in its arm or leg or anywhere except its chest, and it wouldn't even flinch?" I asked.

" Yeah ...I'm not catching on here," he said.

" This could possibly mean the energy source is inside or attached to them in some way and hooked to their system," I said.

" In that case, it would probably be in its chest," Bryson said while nodding his head.

" Exactly," I said.

Bryson and I walked over to where the dead robots were lying and looked to see if we could find anything that looked like an energy source.

" Ugh, I think we busted the thing that held energy source every time we shot them in the chest," Bryson said.

" Wait no-look, I think I may have found something.

As I was inspecting each of the robots, one of them, fortunately, wasn't busted. In the middle of its chest, there was a busted tube with green liquid coming out of it.

" So you think they are running on green goo?" Bryson asked.

" That's the only logical explanation for this," I replied.

" It could be the laser fluid."

I looked over at Bryson and gave him a perplexed look.

" Then explain to me why they only died if we shot them in their chest right where this tube of green liquid is in?" I said.

" I just don't want to go looking around for the wrong thing," Bryson said.

" I know but we have hours left to do this. This is our best bet for now." I said.

" I'm only gonna trust you on this one because you're the smart one here," Bryson said.

" You put that journal in your bag right?" I asked.

" Yeah, why?"

" Maybe that man came across this too, and did research that could prove to us that this is the energy source," I said.

" Good thinking," Bryson said as he got the journal out his bag.

" Does that thing have a table of contents?" I asked as I looked at the journal.

" I don't think an old man's diary would have a table of contents."

Bryson opened up the journal, and it actually had something similar to a table of contents. It didn't have page numbers or a specific order. It only had a list of things he had found and researched. Lucky for us one of the things he researched was " Secret Goo"

" Boom! This has to be it!" said Bryson excitedly.

Bryson started flipping through the journal searching for the pages where he wrote down his research on the possible energy source. Of course in every situation, there is a problem. His journal was thick, and we had no idea where he wrote it down.

" We're never going to find the research on the goo," Bryson whined.

" Don't be such a downer Bryson, we'll find it," I said.

" What, do you feel it in your gut?" Bryson mocked.

Gimme that!" I said as I yanked the journal from Bryson.

I tried to act calm like everything was ok when it wasn't. We had no time to waste, and looking through this stupid journal for answers that may or may not be there is definitely wasting time.

" I have an idea," said Bryson.

" Does it have to do with finding this energy source?" I asked.

" It's even better than that!" Bryson said.

" What could possibly be better than trying to find the answers to stopping the robots?" I sighed.

" So I was thinking maybe I could head to the factory while you look through the journal," Bryson said.

" So when I find out something useful, how will I contact you?" I said.

" Through our watches, duh!" said Bryson.

" I have a better idea, why don't you give me five more minutes to look through this, then we can go," I said.

" Fine. You always shoot down my fabulous ideas," mumbled Bryson.

Five minutes had passed and Bryson being Bryson reminded me that my time was up.

" Ok smart one, your time's up," Bryson said.

I shut the journal and sighed.

" I know, I know."

" If you knew, you would've stopped before I even said anything," said Bryson with sass.

" Well, I can't look for answers and count to sixty-six times in my head at the same time."

" Well since you're so smart I automatically assumed you could do such things," said Bryson.

" Ok, what is your deal? We are on a serious mission and you're arguing about my intelligence?" I said angrily.

" You're picking the wrong things to focus on right now," Bryson said.

" How? If we can't find out what their energy source is, then World War III will happen and we're all gonna die."

" You know what, whatever. The smart ones are always right, so just find something to save your place and let's go." Bryson said.

Bryson stormed off, leaving me behind. I had no idea why he all of a sudden started acting like that. Maybe he had some thoughts in his mind that made him mad or something. I wanted to ask him, but he was already ticked. I did give what Bryson said some thought. We didn't have all the time in the world. So I decided to just go with what we saw on the robots, and say that their energy source was the green liquid. I put the journal in my bag and looked up for Bryson. He was way ahead of me, so I had to run to catch up with him.

" Bryson wait up!" I yelled.

" Use your scrawny legs to catch up with me then," yelled Bryson.

When I finally caught up with Bryson I shoved him. He almost fell to the ground. It took him a moment to realize that I'd pushed him.

" What's your deal? First, you screw up our mission, now this?" He said.

" Screw up our mission?! How in the world did I screw up anything." I yelled.

Bryson spun around and looked at me.

" You've been wasting time from the start. You tried saving a stupid old man, and you've practically been in La-la land all freaking day!" he yelled.

" It's only been an hour, probably 45 minutes!" I yelled.

" No one asked you to bring math into this!"

" No one asked you to argue about something pointless you idiot!" I yelled back.

Bryson got quiet and looked down at his feet.

" I'm not an idiot." He said quietly.

" I-I didn't mean it like that."

" You didn't mean to call me an idiot?" He asked.

" I didn't mean it. I was angry and it was in the heat of the moment."

" Moment? There was NO moment." He said.

" Why did you just start yelling at me? I mean you just went off for no reason." I said.

" When you do dumb things like that, you get to that side of me."

" I did nothing dumb Bryson, I was only trying to solve something. Obviously, you don't care if we live or die anymore." I said with my arms folded.

" No, I care if I live or die. You're just being so careless." He said.

I was fed up with his attitude. I had no idea why he was being such a pain in the butt, but he was not going to just talk to me any kind of way. He needed to know his place.

" Listen, Bryson, you don't get to tell me what I care about. You sure as heck don't get to criticize me for my actions and tell me what's with them. You may have lived in a world where you shoot guns and live an adventurous life."

" Hey hold on now," Bryson interrupted.

" I'm not finished." I interrupted. "My family is struggling like I am talking about both of my parents losing their jobs. Right now I'm the only one with a job." I said.

Bryson just stood there looking ashamed of what he had just said about me. He didn't know my story, he didn't know my life. I have real struggles and my family is probably struggling right now.

" Well, we definitely have different situations. I'm sorry Alex," said Bryson.

He gave me a crooked smile and walked up to me and gave me a hug. His hug actually felt like he meant it. He tried pulling back, but my body wouldn't let go for some reason. I could feel his toned chest, and his six-pack on me.

" Uh Alex," said Bryson.

" Yeah?"

" You mind letting go of me?" He asked.

" Oh um yeah, sorry," I said.

I immediately pulled back from Bryson and gave him an awkward smile. I looked down at my feet while rubbing my arm.

" Sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude. You were just holding on for a long time." Bryson said.

" No, I didn't think you were rude at all. To be honest, I didn't realize I was holding on to you...for a long time." I said.

Bryson laughed while stroking his hair.

" You kinda give weird hugs." He chuckled.

" Really?" I asked.

" All girls give weird hugs when they're nervous I guess." He said.

" Excuse me? Who said I was nervous? I am one hundred percent not nervous!"

Ok, maybe I was a little nervous. Bryson is actually really cute. It's not like I like him or anything, I just don't get hugs from guys on the daily. That was probably the first hug I've ever gotten from a cute, muscular guy.

" Alex.....?" Bryson said in a distant voice.

" Y-yeah?"

" You're swaying, are you ok? We should head to the factory now..."

" Y-yeah! I'm great actually." I said

I immediately snapped out of my zone and began walking towards the factory. We were actually extremely close to the factory.

" Ok, I asked if you were swaying not to take off without me," Bryson yelled.

I could hear Bryson coming up behind me.

" So while we're walking, we should discuss how we are going to get into the building," said Bryson.

" What do you mean? We can just walk in, but we'd have to be secret." I said.

" What if there's a keycard?" He asked.

" I don't know, we could use one of our tools the boss man gave us and hack the system," I said.

" I feel like you don't care," said Bryson.

" Of course I care, but I am not going to stress over something so small," I said.

" Hacking an entire system is not small," he said.

" You know what I mean," I said.

" Obviously I don't." He mumbled.

I ignored Bryson, because he kept bugging me, until we finally reached a door. Turns out Bryson's theory was right there was a keypad, which meant there was a digital passcode.

" Well well well, the dumb guy is finally right about something." Bryson mocked.

" You want me to give you a round of applause or something? I said mockingly.

" I'm not a five year old." He said while crossing his arms.

" You were asking a ton of questions like one," I added.

" Well, you know what the saying is, if you ask questions it means you actually care," Bryson said.

" I've never heard anyone but you say that Bryson," I said.

" Whatever. I am going to look for something that could help us hack their security system," said Bryson.

Bryson got down on his knees and started looking through his bag for any tools that could be helpful.

" You know you could help out by looking through your bag too," Bryson said.

" I could, but I really want to make sure we are looking for the right thing," I said.

Bryson knew exactly what I was talking about because he put his hand on his head and started shaking it.

" I was actually holding back. I've been wanting to look through the journal for the past fifteen minutes." I said.

" Fine Alex. I guess in a way that is being useful. And I guess I don't want to be searching for the wrong thing."

About fifteen minutes passed by and all of a sudden Bryson sighs and looks up at me.

" What happened?" I asked.

" We have ten hours left," he said.