The Red Network. Page 2.

Professor Xapo walked over to a wall console in the lounge. "Console display daily news." He said. The console lit up with a picture of a pretty young woman with hair that flowed upwards in the shape of a fire and alternated colors so that it looked like an actual blue flame.

"This is Tira Johnson of the skyline news agency." She cheerfully chirped. The Skyline News Agency had been founded by her mother Amanda at about the time of the Great Split, and even though the rest of the world had been divided between the Rebel Collective and The Red Network holdouts which had United to defend what remained of traditional centralized civilization, Skyline had stayed committed to reporting independant unbiased news and only hired reporters who were neutral enough to be able to travel through both the rebel expanses and the bubble cities of the Red Network.

In the background Thisisall was singing an old song in her own voice: "to the left, to the left..."

"With the state of many roads in there territory falling into disrepair many Rebels have resorting to using a new technology to get around." Tira reported and the picture flashed over to an image of rebel forces dressed in all black riding Robohorses. "The Robohorses were developed after the Robodogs which are mostly only used for deliveries. The Robohorses are designed to mimic the mechanics of real horses and usually carry one passenger but can also be harnessed together to pull more weight and they don't have to use roads. They use a wide variety of fuels." She said.

The picture showed the riders crossing an expanse of desert going about 60 mph. Probably traveling between encampments. Within the bubble cities Robohorses would be redundant as the Rebels hadn't succeeded in capturing any of the mining complexes that made life in the city so easy and the Rebels had to rely on a lager number of smaller mines and in recycling.

Professor Xapo had gotten one of the new medical implants in his nose out of curiosity. Basically it functioned like a heightened sense of smell but could also be shut off just by thinking about it. Just out of curiosity he turned it on for a second just to see what he might detect in the lab building.

Instantly he knew something was wrong he couldn't actually smell it but the implant was also programmed to send a painful impulse to his brain in case of certain poisonous substances in the air.

Now his implant was sending a very strong pain message and he raced down the stairwell and out into the clean air before he consulted his smart watch to find out what it was.

The readout on his watch gave said CO 50%. He walked over to the exterior panel to speak to Thisisall and at the same time sent out an emergency message to the Emergency Command Center.

To be continued...