Ten Minutes After Tomorrow by, Lauryn

Beep! Beep! Beep!

     I woke up that early Saturday morning on March 14^th with my curly auburn hair covering my face in tangled knots, eye boogers blocking my sight from seeing, and a massive headache coming on because of my bedroom light glaring in my currently imperfect face. I search all over my dresser to stop the excruciatingly annoying sound protruding from my phone. It stops, then my door bursts open.

     In comes my mum, great! “Wake up Nylacin, you have an assessment in a few hours! Chop chop chop!”

     What the…

     “Mum, did you put that alarm to go off?” I asked. “Bloody hell” I murmured.

      “Yes, now get up” and then she left the room before I could say anything else.

The fact that she thought it was OK to touch my phone and set an alarm to wake me up at near 4:00am set my nerves high.

I reluctantly pulled my beautiful, sheer sheets off my aching body all due to footy practice and headed straight to the shower.

Oh. Before I forget, let me explain what my mother meant by assessment.

My parents, Dania and Christian Cale, unfortunately, are the headmasters of the T.F.O.P. That stands for Termination of Foreign Objects Project. Yup you guessed it. It's the year 3042 and in England robots take possession of almost everything.To put this in smaller terms, if you are one of the two million people selected for this project (sadly I am because I’m the daughter of the headmasters), then you are able to help terminate the robots twice a year when there is war against robots and humans. We train to successfully kill year round because we need all the skills we could have in order to protect our country.This bloody program sucks.

Oh let me get ready before my mum pops in with a fit.

In thirty minutes I'm ready to leave.

Evaluation Day

   I walk in the facility where about 200 of us train, and the first thing I lay eyes on is something magnificent. Tall, about 6’2, short brown curly hair with blonde highlights that is ruffled, green eyes, medium toned skin, and the pearliest, most beautiful smile a lad could ever possess. For God’s sake, the boy has naturally slicked down sideburns and his profile just… gets me. His name is Crash. Crash Brown is a switched on laddy that shall, and will only belong to me. I always picture him with me, hands intwined, walking on the boardwalk in the moonlight as we laugh and make jokes. Then it starts raining lightly and I try to make a run for shelter but he stops me and pulls me towards him, stares into my eyes (but it feels like he’s staring into my soul) and then he pulls me in for a deep, passionate, mighty heated…

“Nylacin, it's time for you to get in the booth and show us how well you've been trained. You are scheduled to kill Robot 251!”

She always has to interrupt my thoughts. Sodding Ms. Hinder.

“Yes, Ms. Hinder” I say with an annoyed tone. Whatever you want just to get you to shut up.

I put on my black fitted training suit which also has special pockets for weapons, I tie my hair back and step in the booth. The booth is located outside and it stretches for about two miles, but everyone back at the facility is able to see me no matter how far I go due to the flat screens portraying what the cameras capture of me. The booth is set up just like a regular battlefield except for it’s just me and one robot

   The bell sounds and the lights shut off. We always fight in the dark with special vision glasses. I put on my glasses and then I begin running to find the robot I was told to kill. I run for a while and that's when I spot the number 251 glowing in the dark. The robot is minding its own business while I sneak up behind it. I'm about five inches away from the robot when it notices me and runs off.

Shoot!

I take off running behind the stupid robot with the fastest speed I could seem to muster up. The robot is dashing around corners, cutting between fences, and running through alleys in order to run from me but I stay on his tail through all his little stunts. There are points when I stumble and give myself a few bruises but I get back up and continue running. Eventually, the robot starts slowing down but then it turns around, faces me then lunges at me. We fall on the floor wrestling each other and the robot pulls out a knife and that’s when my training kicks in.

   I immediately grab him by the neck and use my other arm to push his arm back and this also allows me to get on top. I have him straddled between my legs and that’s when I give him the death he deserves for making me waste my breath. The crazy thing is that they resemble humans so much and I always feel as if I have murdered an innocent citizen.

    Right there, I slit his throat with my 9 inch knife and then cut his wrist. The pressure that is being put on his body from both these ends being open kills the stupid hog in approximately 15 seconds. My work is done, the light goes on and the bells sound to announce that I have completed the task.

   I take a nice long walk back to the facility and I receive some applause. I appreciate the claps from Crash and my best friend Amber the most. Ms. Hinder gave me an A on the assessment, and that means my stamina and skills are up to par and I am ready to go out and do my annual task.

Wait. Hold on. The god is walking towards me.

“You did a great job in there. You kicked his jacksie!”

 Oh. My. God. He's speaking. What do I say?

“Well I more so killed his jacksie, but I guess you could say kicked also.”

Haha! I managed to crack myself up there. He laughs and I swear the heavens started playing harmonies.

“You're actually funny, whether you know it or not.”

“Crash. It's time for you to get in the booth” yells Ms. Hinder

Jesus Christ! Does she always have to interrupt my moments with him whether it be imaginary or not?

“Alright. Well I guess we'll chat later Nylacin” he said waiting for my answer

“Yeah of course. See you later, I have to go”

He waves and then heads off to the booth. I turn and start walking outside. I can’t stay and watch him do an awesome job and then exit that booth like a boss with sweat dripping off his totally toned body while all the girls stand there with their tongues out like dogs staring at him. I sadly have footy practice.

    Footy practice goes for about two hours with Coach Reznur bossing us around like we're his little puppets. He tires us out with dynamic stretching, static stretching, and whole bunch of practice runs. He gave no breaks. For Christ sakes, war is in two days and I need all my energy. After practice finishes I head straight home. Before I know it, night has fallen and I'm ready to sleep. I do my nightly ritual which consists of taking a shower and washing away all the dirt and grime present on my body. I step out and I get dressed in a matching Papa Coppy tank top and shorts and then I go to the sink. I stare at myself in the mirror, weighing out all the imperfections starting from the pores present on my nose to the pimples forming on my forehead. I then wash my face with Proactiv (one of my best friends actually) and brush my teeth. After this, I'm ready to hop into bed. Just as I hop in bed, my phone vibrates. The phone reads unknown number. I answer.

-Hello

-Hey Nylacin. It’s Crash.

Oh. My. Guggenheim. He spoke.

-Uh hey! What’s up!

Whoa, I sounded way too excited there.

-Nothing. I said we would talk later, right? So, I got your number from Amber.

-Yeah so what’s up?

We went on and on talking about current issues such as Robot 13 attempting to completely overtake our economy, or our latest favorite bands such as Defy the Losers and latest teen sensation Kenzie. After talking with him for a while, we got very serious and started talking about War Day.

   He told me that Ms. Hinder announced that if we were unable to kill all the robots on the battle field by 12:10am on March 17^th, 3042, then the robots will gain control over everything and we will be enslaved with no privileges. That’s how I knew this war would be the most important one yet.

-Alright, well good night Crash. Sleep tight.

-Good Morning Nylacin. It’s 12am.

Wow! I stayed on the phone with him for two hours.

-Wow. Well good morning to you too.

-Ha-ha! Bye.

-Bye.

Afterwards, I call Amber and tell her everything.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

-Hello

She says it with a sleepy voice.

-Amber! I love you!

-I’m the best, aren’t I?

-Yes you are. We talked for about two hours. It was awesome.

Amber and I chatted for about an hour and we reassured each other that these robots were going to lose. After that, I finally went to sleep.

War Day

   It’s Monday, March 16^th, 3042 and today is the day we go to war with the foreign objects. All two million of us arrive at the indoor battlefield at 8am. Heavy duty guns and knives are present. The robots have the same weapons. We line up on our side and that’s when we spot the robots walking towards us. They stop, the bells sound, the lights shut off, everyone puts on their night vision glasses, and then war began.

    I rush towards my first enemy and we start fighting. I take out my gun and I shoot my first enemy in the head. More come towards me and encircle me with guns but I duck and started shooting up at all of them. I got back up and started running towards others. I’m shooting left and right, not really paying attention to what is coming in front of me. That’s when I’m pushed down to the floor and the robot is hovering over me with a straight face, staring into my eyes. It pulls out its gun and aims it at me. I’m struggling with this robot trying to get it off of me but it’s near impossible with its piercing stare and incredible strength. I cry out for help but it seems as if no one hears me. Suddenly, I hear a gunshot and the robot falls off of me. I look up and I see Crash standing there with a smirk. I look up at him and say

“Thank you”

“No problem”

“My body hurts”

“It’s all the fighting. Come on. Ten minutes after tomorrow and we never have to do this again.

I nodded my head and went back fighting.

We continued fighting all day and sometime during war I was shot in the leg. As I look around, there are many humans and robots dead on the ground but yet there are still so many of us standing. I look left and right and I spot Amber kicking robot jacksie. I take on my next robot and he falls instantly. Training is so essential for this. Fortunately, robots aren’t trained, they just know when danger is around and then they fight back. This means our skills are perfect.

   Time goes on and when I look at my watch, it reads 12:03am. We have seven minutes to kill twenty robots.

    I’m slashing robots down and I kill the last one in my sight with a violent blow to the head with my TAR-21. That’s when the bells sound and the lights go on. It’s 12:10am. As I look around, no robots are standing. It’s only humans.

WE WON!

   As soon as everybody notices that we’ve won, we all start rejoicing. The robots will not be able to rule England, UK. We’ve lost many, but most of those people were from different facilities. As soon as we get back to the facility, despite all my bruises and injuries, I limp to my parents and embrace them in a huge hug. I’ve never loved this program so much. Things will be so much better in the UK.

Aftermath

   Things were better in the UK, and my wounds have healed. The robots were nothing to humans anymore.

    Crash and I began connecting to each other on a deeper level. I mean dates, hanging out, and even though this causes eruptions in my stomach to admit, I have to tell you guys that Crash and I did kiss. It was on the boardwalk, in the rain, with the moonlight shining on us. The kiss was deep, passionate and mighty heated. I’m definitely floating on cloud 9 right now.

Amber is alive and we are best friends, and life is perfect.

Just always remember 12:10am as a very historical hour.