Chapter 104 - Something Happened

When Mey was about to start taking the samples there was an announcement from the speakers sounding John's voice.

"Arther, I think you should come up and have a look. There seems to be some problem in front ahead."

The voice was loud and was heard in the entire MCV at the same time. Hearing the voice everyone was shocked and alerted.

After a pause of a few seconds, Arther was the first to react and hurried towards the driver's cabin followed by Abella. Even though he can use the cameras to easily get the picture anywhere from the MCV but he still wanted to be in the driver's cabin. 

Because the team was not yet accustomed to the ways of handling dangers and their combat experience was also very low. 

Hearing the announcement Mey was annoyed and a bit angry but she had no other choice than to follow. With a frustrated look, she hurriedly put all the instruments back inside the box and turned around to leave the room, before leaving she glanced at Jack who was also a bit shocked by the announcement,

"Sorry, Jack... looks like I will have to disturb you again some other time."

Hearing this Jack had a wry smile on his face. Since the time he has woken up, he had the feeling that the eyes of Mey on him were similar to that of a hunter's on its prey.

"All the women are dangerous....", with a sigh Jack also left the room and hurried to the driver's cabin.

At this time Arther and Abella were already standing behind John. John was sitting in the driver's seat but the situation seemed a bit odd as the MCV was not moving. 

Due to the modification and upgrades of the system when the MCV is moving or a sudden break situation doesn't cause any problem inside. There is not even a small vibration when starting the engine. 

This makes it impossible for the people inside to know the condition outside without actually watching out.

In the driver's cabin, Arther was in some contemplation.

Outside the wide windshield, the MCV was surrounded by dense forest on all four sides. The path on which they have come was also slowly filled with new plants and vines. 

The height of trees has increased to an astonishing degree that even the normal form of the MCV cannot be visible from a distance of a few dozen meters.

A few hundred meters ahead in the forest there was a dense black smoke billowing high into the clouds from the ground. 

This smoke indicated the presence of disaster that is- forest fire. And the amount of it didn't seem to be small for such an amount of smoke to be formed.

For a fire to occur in the forest, there can only be two possibilities, firstly it can be due to the falling of thunder and lightning on the trees in the storm or due to some natural phenomena. And secondly, man-made.

If it was just a natural forest fire Arther won't even need to care since the current MCV was more than enough to pass through it easily.

But what made him worried is that there had not been any storms or other climate changes that might cause a forest fire. Hence only one option remains, it was a man-made thing. 

If his guess is correct then those people who can appear in such dense forest at this time are either fools lost in the forest or some difficult personalities. 

But for any of this Arther didn't want to let anyone outside know about the MCV yet. Even though the MCV has very strong combat capabilities currently but it is not strong enough to face the human forces.

In the end, Arther decided to first find out about the situation, since it was in his path he had no other choice than to pass through.

'I hope whoever you are you don't cross me.'

"Let the drone pass by."

With the issue of his order, the AI in the cabin automatically deployed the drone, after a few minutes of flying the drone came near the border of the burning zone.

Due to dense black smoke and the high temperature of fire the drone was not able to get any more closer. 

It moved along the borders of the burning area while at the same time the footage was also sent to the MCV. 

The area under the fire was not much bigger in size, it was a circle of diameter of a few meters only. But the huge trees in the area acted as firewood to wind the fire. 

What shocked everyone in the MCV where the lush green vines growing at the border of the circle. 

It looked like dense crawling snakes, whenever a vine was burned another new vine took its place in a moment of time, this helped in suppressing the fire in this small area.

The lush green vines contained a large amount of moisture which reduced the fire in the area but also resulted in high black smoke.

"The fire doesn't seem to be burning for a long time."

When everyone was watching the footage, Mey came forward and spoke while keenly observing the trees and vines. 

"Look at the barks of those burning trees, even though the leaves are burnt and branches are scorched but the bark still seems to contain the moisture."

According to her explanation, everyone observed the barks and sure enough under the carbon black surface, there was the light brown wood without any signs of burning. 

After observing the area under fire and the surrounding area for some they didn't find any other clues of human activities. Hence Arther called back the drone since even if they increased the area of observation the result will be the same.

"Ok, everyone we will keep moving, according to our previous calculations if we followed the same route we can leave this forest till tomorrow morning, but I have some doubts that the area ahead being closer to the forest border might have certain human activities."

Hearing this everyone was a bit excited a bit, from the last time they left the military warehouse they are moving into this dead forest without anything. All-day long-only tree and leaves.

Human is a social animal, hence even though everyone knows that there are dangers from the other survivors there are still human bases formed with people leaving in. 

This is natural and cannot be changed. 

Arther was also a bit bored from this forest and was more than eager to leave here and find more opportunities to upgrade the MCV.

"Even though following the same path looks safe and beneficial, I think it is best not to come in contact with any survivors in this forest. Hence we will deviate a little bit from our route to the right. According to my knowledge, we will exit the forest till tomorrow evening at most."

After saying his idea Arther looked at everyone to find if there is any problem with anyone. After seeing that no one objected he nodded and then commanded the driving AI.

"Deviate the route by 15 degrees to the east."

Following Arther's command, the route on the screen was changed with a new one. After that John continued his driving.. While everyone else returned to their respective works.