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Fan Fiction / Re: Return to the present - a novel fragment
« on: August 13, 2025, 01:52:41 am »
Chapter 35 - A Much Needed Rest
“Why does it have to be you, Crono?”
“There's no one else.”
It had become a daily routine between mother and son. The mother asking the responsible question, however aggravating, and the son responding with bravado – but also truth. No one else had experience with time-travel. No one else had seen the things he and his friends had seen. No one else would believe the story.
He swung his sword again. Empty air was parted cleanly.
Crono and Gina Lantree were in a basement level storeroom of Ashtear Manor, Crono having converted the space into a makeshift dojo for his practice sessions. And the practice was needed. Not just for the exercise and to give himself something to do, but because his life now depended on it.
He was going to war.
Two weeks had passed since Crono's return to Guardia. One week had passed since he had felt well enough to practice with his full vigor. Subsisting on regular food again, and a lot of it, had made him, Marle, and Lucca quite ill after less than two days on a normal diet, and then exhaustion had taken such a relentless hold that they were all effectively bedridden. Even Marle hadn't been much help, being no less exhausted than everyone else. Adrenaline had kept everyone going to a much greater extent than Crono had realized, and the crash had been absolute.
He needed to make up for it. Magus might be destined to destroy himself, but that wasn't good enough. Not with what Crono now knew. The Dark Lord had to be decisively defeated before the moment of self-destruction came, and that wouldn't happen – couldn't happen – until Crono and his friends went back in time to intervene in the Mystic War of the middle-ages and change history.
Meow!
Crono turned with a start. Minnow was at the door and trotting into the room, quickly getting under Crono's feet as the feline rubbed her face against his calf. He had no choice but to abandon his forms and knelt down to pet her.
“That's not fair,” he told his mother.
Gina looked at him evenly. “Fair, what's that? For over a month she was badgering me instead of you because you weren't there to feed her! Twice! And now you're planning on leaving again! You shouldn't have brought her home from the alleys if you were going to live this kind of life.”
“Now you're really not being fair,” Crono muttered.
“The prerogative of a mother. Get used to it.”
“This is the thanks I get for telling you everything? Not that I couldn't with your endless questions and badgering.”
“It's the thanks you get for causing trouble and getting yourself arrested. How is a mother supposed to react to that?”
Crono surrendered the argument and tried to go back to his forms. His mother had been a lot sweeter when he was a kid. Minnow's presence made his footwork decidedly awkward.
“Hey, Crono!”
He turned to see Lucca at the door. She looked excited, and also a bit uneasy.
“What? Is something wrong?”
Lucca shrugged. “I'm not sure. We just got today's paper, and the news... well, you should probably see it for yourself. And there's something else, too. We, uh, might want to think about starting to pack.”
Crono shared a look with his mother at the ominous statement. She only closed her eyes with resignation.
“Coming.”
Everyone met in the dining room. Lucca was attired much the way she always was at home, wearing nothing but a green undershirt and black shorts. Marle was in a new outfit that lacked the ostentatiousness of the old; a two-piece affair with a looser fitting white top of short sleeves and olive-colored bottoms that billowed out just above her ankles. Robo was also present, sporting a small steam engine on his back that Lucca had built to supplement his power systems, along with a few short leather skirts that helped to further protect his joints and actuators from dust and other debris. Taban looked on attentively from behind Lara Ashtear's wheelchair at the table, whose occupant wasn't so attentive but seemed to be having one of her better days. Crono and his mother regarded the newspaper that Marle had spread out on the tabletop for everyone to see.
“What's going on?” Crono asked.
“You're not going to believe this,” Marle said with a strange expression. “Look!”
Crono read the headline and his lungs froze:
King Malcolm decrees new Millennial Fair
He was so taken aback that he didn't trouble himself to read anything else.
“W, what?”
Marle shrugged with bafflement. “I don't know. Nothing daddy's been doing is making any sense. First he puts out new warrants for your arrest, then he cancels them without any explanation, then he redacts every newspaper and magazine that's been published since the first day of the Millennial Fair, and now this! It's like he wants to turn back the clock and do everything over! It's madness!”
“Not to mention expensive,” Lucca remarked. “The price for the first Millennial Fair was astronomical, not including all the crazy investigations and manhunts involving us during the whole affair. I can't imagine what a second fair is going to do to the Castle's coffers.”
“What about that other thing?” Crono asked. “You said we might have to pack. Why? We've barely even stepped outside since we got back, and no one's paid the manor a visit. We've been pretty circumspect.” No one had been willing to show themselves or return to some semblance of a normal life in Truce out of fear that the withdrawn arrest warrants were a trick to lure them out of hiding and then be captured by Chancellor Horus and his men. Crono's mother even went home every night to maintain appearances.
Taban brought out a letter from his vest pocket and set it on the table. The envelope looked elaborate, with a seal of red wax keeping the contents secure. “I received this early this morning from a courier, not the regular mail service,” Taban said. “I've seen an envelope like this once before, delivered to my dad at the height of the industrial revolution. From King Vandar.”
Everyone was quiet as the information set in.
“I never once got such a letter from King Malcolm,” Taban continued. “Not even during the recent troubles.”
“What does it mean?” Crono asked with trepidation. “What does the King want?”
“I don't know. It's not addressed to me. It's addressed to the Princess. By name.”
Crono suppressed a gasp and let his breath out slowly.
King Malcolm knew they were here.
“Curious,” Robo said. “King Malcolm is aware of your location, yet has refrained from sending officials to take you into custody. This is not consistent with his prior behavior. A further investigation into this action is warranted.”
Marle took a long forlorn look at the envelope from where she sat and then slowly extended her hand to take it. Crono saw a single word written on the envelope in an elegant hand: “Nadia”. Marle reluctantly broke the seal and examined the two documents inside. She blinked with uncertainty.
“Well? Do we make a run for it?” Lucca asked.
Marle was silent, shaking her head as she absorbed what the documents said. Crono noticed that one of the papers was badly crumpled.
“It's Crono's execution order,” Marle finally said. “...and a full pardon for his actions at the Millennial Fair! And for the prison break! Lucca's name's on it, too!”
A pardon?
Crono took the papers into his hands and read through them several times. The documents indeed appeared official, as well as he understood such things. They were signed by the King himself. The execution order had been crumpled at some point, but the pardon looked pristine, as if it had been penned yesterday. He spread them flat on the table for everyone to see.
“Is that it?” his mother asked, looking as if she couldn't believe the news. “Is Crono free?”
“Lucca is safe, Lucca is safe,” Lara intoned, looking as if she were about to cry. It was the most emotion Crono had seen out of Lucca's mother in years.
“Wow, what a reversal,” Lucca remarked. “I guess the withdrawal of our arrest warrants was genuine after all. And to think these papers were signed by the same guy.”
“Negative,” Robo said.
Everyone turned to the robot.
“What?” Marle blurted.
“These documents were not signed by the same individual. Forensic analysis indicates a 98.7% chance one of these documents was forged.”
Silence lingered around the table for a long moment.
“Which one?” asked Lucca.
“Unknown. I require several established examples of the King's signature to determine which one is authentic. I can only say these signatures are not the same.”
Marle looked lost. “A forgery?”
“If it is, it's the best I've ever seen,” Lucca said, taking a closer look at the documents and adjusting her glasses. “They look the same to me. But if Robo says they're not...”
“We can't afford to let our guard down,” Crono said. “Until we figure out which of these was truly signed by the King, we have to assume the pardon is a trick and stay holed up in the manor.”
“I don't know. The envelope and the seal looked real enough, and the sender obviously knew Marle was here. Why bother sending a fake pardon when they can simply send a squad of Castle soldiers to arrest us now?”
A glimmer of understanding suddenly broke though Crono's thoughts. “The sender included both orders! Why would they do that? If all they wanted to do was trick us, they wouldn't have sent the execution order at all. What purpose would that have served? We already know they wanted to kill me.”
“I held that order,” Marle said faintly. “The execution decree. That's why it's crumpled. I shoved it straight into daddy's chest when I confronted him.”
“The pardon isn't the message!” Crono said with realization. “The message is the forgery! The sender wanted us to know about the forgery!”
“An astute analysis, Master Crono,” said Robo. “Given these facts, I now calculate a 79.4% chance the execution order was not signed by the King.”
“And the pardon decree was,” Lucca added.
* * *
“This is the end, daddy! I will never trust you again! I hate you! I'll hate you forever!”
Marle wept silently in her room that night as she thought back to the incident that had changed her life and set her on a course to follow Crono and Lucca into the future. Had she been wrong all this time? Had her father really not sentenced Crono to die? She thought she knew the answer in her heart, but how could she trust that now? Her heart had been convinced her father was irredeemable.
But the evidence and the reasoning piled up to an undeniable conclusion. Marle – Princess Nadia – had been tricked. Utterly. She vaguely remembered her father looking genuinely confused when she had shoved the execution order at him, but she had been too consumed with rage for it to register in her mind. Whoever had forged the King's signature was singularly responsible for all of the chaos that followed, using the unwitting Princess of Guardia as their agent. How could she ever live this down?
“You shame your ancestors. You shame us all,” her father had told her.
He was right.
Thinking of Queen Leene, Marle was compelled to bring out her music box and wind the key. She didn't deserve to have it, but its song always managed to calm her down. The tears stopped coming, and her sobbing faded into an unsteadiness of breath. She had made a mistake. A terrible mistake. What was she going to do about it?
“You make a mistake, your subject suffers the consequences.”
No, daddy. If I make a mistake, I make up for it.
The decision made, Marle climbed out of her guestroom bed as quietly as she could and slipped on her new outfit. She preferred her Millennial Fair attire, but that outfit had taken a lot of abuse over the course of her journey, and several washings in the Ashtear's laundry room convinced her it would have to be replaced if she wanted to look at all presentable in public. This fully-shouldered short sleeve affair with the olive pants was presentable enough, and was probably better suited for adventuring anyway.
She was going on an adventure tonight.
Marle resolved to move as quietly as possible through the Ashtear's modest estate for what she needed. Crono would try to stop her. Lucca would try to talk her out of it. Robo would say it was illogical.
To blazes with logic. She had to do this. She had to know.
There were also a lot of unknowns, and the risks for anyone else accompanying her were too high. She crept to the door leading into the garage, unlocked it, and stepped through.
Credit the Ashtears for always being prepared, Marle thought. It didn't take long to find what she sought.
* * *
Marle relied on magical stamina boons at first, breaking into a run as soon as she was out of sight of Ashtear Manor and holding the brisk pace until she had made it all the way to Alistair Bridge several miles down the road. It was about 1:30 in the morning. Time being the most crucial factor, she sprinted across the mile-long span as soon as she confirmed it was deserted and ducked to the left onto the northern shore of Windmere Straight instead of heading into the city. She didn't know those streets nearly as well as Crono did, or at all, really, so she decided not to take the risk of being spotted in the town that never slept and simply stuck to the shore, cutting north through the countryside once she was fully outside of Truce. Not even a quarter of the way there, but she didn't intend to be on foot the whole time.
As she hoped, an opportunity presented itself shortly after she got to King's Way, and Marle ducked into the weeds by the side of the road. The delivery buggy came by at a speed just slow enough for her to grab onto the trailer when it went past, and she buried herself in the vehicle's open cargo bed. The driver, probably not fully attentive at this hour, saw nothing. Marle relaxed and concentrated where she hid, restoring herself from her exertions.
An hour later, Marle was again on foot, not intending to ride the buggy to its final destination. She trotted through the woods near the road and then turned northwest. The terrain became familiar.
She was then staring up at the moonlit spires of her former home, a place she never expected she would want to come back to. It was about three hours before dawn.
Marle wasted no time. She had the tools and plenty of rope.
She was soon on top of the northern castle wall, hidden in the darkness and well aware of the sentry schedule, having braved this path before. Only this time she was going up, not down. A crossbow bolt with a rope attached then flew and wedged itself inside the hollowed iron spike she had driven into the spire to facilitate her first escape. The Castle hadn't troubled itself to undo Marle's work, never expecting that anyone would be insane enough to try getting into the castle this way, not even the former princess herself. With a deep breath, she then swung on the wedged rope and slammed hard into the spire a good distance below the spike, using her feet to cushion the blow. She spent a moment concentrating to recover from the impact and she was then climbing up the rope.
It was the most dangerous moment of this whole endeavor, since there were no chiseled handholds this far down the spire, but the rope held and Marle shortly arrived at the “safe” point of the ascent, the rest of the journey assured by the handholds she had made during her former life. Only eight-hundred feet to go straight up.
Marle tittered to herself. Forget swimming, she was a climber.
* * *
The next leg of Marle's errand was almost academic. Even in the daytime she could traverse most areas of the castle without attracting notice if she chose to. The guards had altered their routine very little, the only detour Marle needed to make being on account of the collapsed bridge where Lucca's Dragon Tank had fallen to its explosive end. Before long she was on the ground level and cautiously made her way into the areas below. There was only one suitable place to have this meeting that wouldn't put the castle, and the unknown traitor behind the forgery, on notice.
The Guardian Archives.
By law, no one but the ruling monarch was allowed to descend to its lowest level, such were the secrets and the treasures held there. Even Marle had not dared to challenge this rule, having been put in place by Cedric Guardia himself and then affirmed by Anne the Divine following his death. To break the ancient edict meant a life sentence at the very least, and such prisoners never lived long. A fourth-century crown prince had even been stripped of his birthright for daring this, the mandate of succession passing to his much younger sister who then had him exiled.
Marle evaded notice of the few scholars and scribes working on the upper levels at this hour, keeping to the shadows and quietly continuing her descent. She then boldly strode in to the second to lowest level of the Archives and approached the two men standing guard at the stairway leading down, the time for stealth having passed. No one else was here.
“Halt! Who goes...?”
Marle put her hands on her hips and glared at the guards. “Keep your voices down!” she hissed.
This moment represented the greatest risk of all, assuming her father was true and that this wasn't some sort of an elaborate ruse to lure her back into captivity. If these men were at all affiliated with the traitor, this escapade would be for nothing.
The men's surprise was total.
“P, Princess?!”
“The King,” she said to the guard who had spoken. “Now. And keep it quiet!” She turned to the other guard. “You. Remain at your post and enforce the edict of Cedric on anyone else who tries to enter. That is a direct command from the Crown Princess.” Marle put every ounce of her former royal bearing into the order.
And then she descended the stairs behind them, the sheer audacity of this act telling the men how deadly serious she was.
“Princess, you can't...!”
Marle kept walking down as if the man hadn't spoken. She was committed.
A long exhale left her lips as her foot descended the final step to this most restricted of areas. The guards could not legally detain her now. Only her father could haul her out, and no way he wouldn't be coming for her after this stunt.
I'm really here.
Years ago she had fantasized about coming to this place, the first thing she would do after being crowned Queen to see what was down here.
There wasn't much. The bottom level was comparatively small, and the only light was coming from the stairwell leading up. Obviously, no one could come here to keep the torches lit, and it seemed as if even her father had not deigned to come to this place in years. Cobwebs and dust were everywhere.
Marle took out a packet of matches she had pilfered from the Ashtear's garage and lit the first torch she could find. It very slowly flickered to fiery life.
Her eyes were drawn to a black box tucked away in a corner by the rear wall.
What kind of treasure would be kept down here? Marle wondered. The chest was very ornate and very dark even under torchlight. It might have been made of ebony, but seemed even darker than that. On closer inspection, golden script leapt out at Marle's vision in the dim light. It read:
“Let he whosoever open this box be forever cursed and the contents within destroy thee.”
Queen Guardia XXII – Leene
Marle gaped. A treasure of Queen Leene! The brief temptation to open the box was squashed immediately. No way would she dishonor the wishes of Leene out of mere curiosity. She had already gotten a gift from her, and it was more precious to Marle than any mysterious treasure chest. That the warning said “he” didn't matter to her in the least. The chest would remain closed.
The rest of the dusty nearly forgotten space was dedicated to bookshelves that held volumes so ancient that Marle was afraid of even touching them, fearing that they would turn to dust the moment they were grasped. Some of the books were more recent, however, a couple of them being from the late middle-ages. She let herself succumb to this temptation. Anything she could find out about the Mystic War was in her direct interest, as she would soon have to go back to that era to confront Magus and his army. The prevention of Lavos' creation was paramount.
She flipped to the record of a knight named Cyrus, a name that intrigued her since there was a late seventh century king by the same name. It was a proposal for an expedition into the Denadoro mountains of South Zenan to recover an artifact of great power, said to have been enshrined there by the order of Anne the Divine herself at the dawn of the Guardian age. A weapon.
The Masamune.
Marle read on with fascination and felt her mouth fall open. The record said that the Masamune was the sword carried by none other than the South Zenanese warlord Antaeus Poore himself: the arch-enemy of Cedric Guardia during the War of Unification that brought the Kingdom of Guardia to fruition. The sword was said to have the ability to cut through any magical barrier, no matter how powerful, and was speculated to have been made by the Ancients. Cyrus believed that with this weapon lie the key to slaying Magus, whose magical defenses had proved impenetrable in every battle the Dark Lord had fought in.
The proposal was approved and authorized by King Aldren, the order dated April 12 of the year 591. Marle's shoulders sagged at the annotation that followed this report. The expedition had failed. The Knights Cyrus Cradmoore, Glenn Treygun, and Rachel Tandra were slain, and the artifact was unrecovered. Strangely the annotation was signed by Leene rather than Aldren, though it was dated 593, before Leene had even come of age. An asterisk was placed by Glenn Treygun's name, but there was no elaboration Marle could find. Just another casualty to be noted and then forgotten about.
There was a map.
Marle grimaced. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe there was nothing there to find anymore. The report said “unrecovered”, and that could mean anything. Regardless, she had nothing to write with and nothing to write on, and there was no possibility that her father would let her...
“What are you doing, daughter?”
Marle turned to the stairway with a start. She hadn't heard her father descend, so absorbed was she in the centuries-old report.
He looked grim, which was no surprise under almost any circumstance, let alone the one that saw his daughter in this most forbidden of places.
“Studying,” Marle said evenly.
“I can see that, but I had to hear it from your mouth to convince myself my eyes were not deceiving me. You've never expressed much interest in studying before. You've never expressed much interest in anything but gallivanting around and showing up the Guard with your crossbow.”
Marle resisted the urge to glare and tried to emulate the calm and authoritative expression she had seen Leene use. A lot rested on this moment.
“I won't deny it. But maybe I've changed. Maybe you don't know me as well as you think.”
“I hardly know you at all,” Malcolm countered. “You are never the same child from one moment to the next.”
That remark threatened to break her calm, and Marle felt her forced expression begin to shift. “I'm not a child anymore.”
“The words leave your lips, and yet my senses and recollection are loathe to believe them. Have you any idea how long you have been gone, child?”
“However long you think it's been, I've been gone a lot longer.”
The King of Guardia exhaled heavily though his nose. “I'm not sure I know what that means, but your absence has not gone unnoticed outside of the castle. Indeed, it has been quite the Cedrician effort to keep things quiet after the chaos you wrought.”
“You've redacted everything.”
Malcolm glared. “Yes. Quite right. There was nothing else to be done. The political situation in the kingdom is more fragile than you realize. Critics of the Royal Family are beginning to maneuver. Your actions served as the catalyst.”
She had to risk it. “Did they? What about the execution order?”
The King slowly advanced towards her. Marle held her position and composure, neither meeting his disdain nor retreating from it.
“In all of your sixteen years of life, daughter, I have never lied to you,” he said. “Not once. I never signed the execution order for the boy, nor did I even contemplate the action. The orders were false, my signature a forgery.”
Marle released the breath she was holding and closed her eyes in relief. It was the truth. He had never lied to her, though she had often hated him for it. The thirty-third monarch of Guardia had never been anything but direct and uncompromising with her.
“I know. I got the message you sent to Taban. I'm... sorry.”
It was all she could do not to burst into tears, but she would not embrace him. Theirs was not that kind of relationship, and hadn't been for a very long time. It was enough for her to say the words.
“It is well that you came here the way you did, seen by no one but the two guards above,” her father said after a long moment. “They are loyal, and not involved in the plot against me. Though it will not appear in the record, your trespass is hereby pardoned and no other will hear of it.”
Marle frowned. “Plot? Daddy, what is going on? I've heard stories. Prisoners being tortured in the prison tower, guards who are detached from the Castle's chain of command, misdemeanors elevated to felonies without trial, ministerial authority being consolidated with the Chan...”
“Silence, daughter,” Malcolm said with a hard look. “Say no more of these things. My enemy has ears everywhere, and they are becoming bolder with their actions.”
Marle thought furiously, considering all of the disparate incidents causing the kingdom to silently change its character in the shadows, and the man who appeared to be benefiting the most from them. “Is it...?”
“I said silence! This matter is beyond you, and any action you take will make matters worse.”
“What do you want me to do, then?” Marle asked, the question nearly hanging in her throat.
Malcolm paused, seeming to consider his next decision. “Nothing. Nothing except go to the new Millennial Fair I'm authorizing and be seen.”
Marle's knees almost gave out. “Huh? Be... seen?”
“Yes. But give no interviews and make no statements. Just loiter, gallivant, whatever pleases you, but do not make a scene. And under no circumstances are you to use your power.”
“Um... all right.” Go to the Millennial Fair? That was all?
“Remain here,” Malcolm said. “I'll make arrangements to smuggle you out of the castle and back to the Ashtear's residence. I will not have you here under these conditions. Draw no attention to yourself until the Millennial Fair begins.”
Her father then turned away without another word and strode up the stairs, leaving his daughter behind in the archive that felt more like a crypt. Marle shivered as the torch on the wall slowly died. She regarded the old book in her hands with deep thought.
* * *
“Well. This thing alone might have been worth your whole demented trip back to the castle,” Lucca remarked with grudging admiration, holding the book Marle had smuggled back with her in her hands.
“A demented trip you made without any of us,” Crono said with disapproval. “What if the King decided to keep you there? It's not like we can go in the way you did.”
“Precisely why you couldn't come, Crono,” Marle said earnestly. “That was something I needed to do on my own, and it's just as well. Now we know exactly where daddy stands with us and why, more or less.”
Maybe so, but that didn't mean Crono had to like it.
“The Mistress' unscheduled sojourn may have been of great aid to our mission,” Robo said. “A weapon capable of penetrating magical defenses without fail might prove to be crucial. This should be investigated without delay.”
“Yeah, but the general location described in this map gives me some concern,” Lucca said, pointing at the open page. “That area of the Denadoro mountains has been mined almost to the bone since this thing was written. If anything was there before, it would surely be gone by now.”
Crono thought back to his days in the mining community of Lorian. “Maybe the miners found it?” he said hopefully.
“I don't think so. The unearthing of an ancient sword would have warranted more than a passing mention in the newspapers of the time, and I don't remember hearing anything about that. And if the sword was proven to have belonged to Antaeus Poore, it would certainly be enshrined in a museum somewhere and we would know about it. I'll do some digging in our library just to make sure, but I doubt I'll find much.”
Crono nodded with disappointment. If only things were as easy as walking into a museum and simply taking what they needed.
“Perhaps it is better if I see to that task, Major,” Robo said. “King Malcolm requested that Mistress Marle attend the upcoming Millennial Fair, and the festivities begin in two days. You and Master Crono should also attend, so it is better to spend this time getting prepared for the celebration.”
“But we have a solid lead for dealing with the Lavos problem,” Crono argued. “And something that might help us deal with Magus if this 'Masamune' sword still exists. It's not the time for going off to play, and we've wasted quite enough time recuperating here as it is.”
“Your argument is illogical. Time is currently something in abundant supply, as it would seem we are under King Malcolm's protection. It was well established in the domes-era that excessive periods indoors was detrimental to human health and function. Continuing our mission in your current state may prove to be counterproductive. Recuperation requires the proper time interval and an environment conductive to relaxation and vigor.”
Lucca chuckled. “In simpler language he's telling us to go on a vacation, and I can't say I disagree. I'll admit to being a little stir-crazy being cooped up at home in the middle of summer, to say nothing of what a drain the Bangor enclave put on us. Maybe the three of us should go to the beach and give Marle some much-needed swimming lessons. I know she's gotta be itching to redeem herself after that epically pitiful display of aquatic competence at the land-bridge.”
“Forget it!” Marle said with a furious blush. “I'm never doing anything like that again! Swimming's for frogs!”
“Ah, you're no fun. But maybe a master display of marksmanship is more your speed.” Lucca tipped her glasses. “I've been meaning to make some GATO modifications that would actually give you a challenge, and another Millennial Fair gives me the perfect opportunity to try the... uh... 'Lucca Invulnerability Sphere', let's call it. It'll be the equivalent of the 'Lucca Knockout Special' for the melee contestants. How's that sound?”
Marle straightened proudly. “Now that is a challenge I'm willing to accept! But you'd better be ready for GATO to lose again!”
“Well, time will tell,” Lucca remarked with a playful smirk.
Crono found himself greatly looking forward to a new GATO exhibition, but couldn't help feeling a bit let down. He really wanted to give Marle that swimming lesson.
* * *
“I suppose you're proud of yourself?”
“Why not? I beat your 'knockout special',” Crono said smugly.
Lucca shrugged. “Yeah, congratulations for that. But I didn't make any changes to the program, so you knew exactly what was coming. The real trick is succeeding on the first try.”
“And I very nearly did. What would that have done to your ego?”
“...I would have found somewhere to hide.”
Crono and Lucca were sitting in the stands of GATO's arena, the sun shining down with all the intensity of a clear mid-August afternoon. It was the first day of the second Millennial Fair of Guardia, a display of the kingdom's extravagance that Crono still found difficult to accept after the purported cost of the first. King Malcolm was really straining the Castle's coffers with this. All to turn back the clock and forge a narrative that everything was fully under control and always would be. Personally, Crono thought it was bad policy, but he wouldn't complain. Just being at the Millennial Fair for the first few minutes this morning reminded him how badly he needed this. They all needed this. Hours later he was invigorated and gave a much stronger performance against GATO even considering his previous experience fighting against the same program. He had really put on a show, and Marle's delighted applause was almost enough to erase the disappointment of her not being at all interested in going on a swim date with him at the beach. She had rebuffed another subtle query into the prospect yesterday, and Crono decided to stop trying. Maybe someday.
The operators for GATO then approached the machine and made some changes inside its compartments, and the arms and crests Crono had had to deal with in his match repositioned themselves, and a new set of arms holding painted bullseye targets and shields folded out to prepare for the next contestant.
It promised to be a ranged match unlike any other.
Announcer Samuels then strode into the ring next to GATO and held his arms up to the crowd, an extremely large crowd, for quiet.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he cried. “For three years and more, you have seen young and old test their skills against the Gyrating Automated Training Opponent! But among all marksman who have dared challenge this mighty machine, one vision of loveliness stands apart! In her first match she seized for herself a perfect score at a range that defies all belief! Twenty consecutive hits without a miss! In this young woman is assuredly the embodiment of Queen Leene herself! Today, she will again attempt the impossible, but this time the machine is ready and eager for payback! Twenty shots! Five targets! Four hits on each, and a single miss spells defeat. Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you the Kingdom of Guardia's own... Princess Nadia!”
The crowd erupted. Everyone knew who Marle was now on account of her likeness having been plastered all over the newspapers during the manhunts for her, so there was no point keeping her former identity a secret. King Malcolm had wanted her to be seen here and she was obliging. Marle stood at a special podium set up for just this moment, its height and distance from GATO being the same as the top of the stands on either side of the machine. She was again dressed in her Millennial Fair outfit, but this one was completely new, the soiling and adventuring stains of the old garment a memory. Another expense footed by the Castle for this spectacle. The former princess – actual princess as far as the audience was concerned – waved at the crowd.
There were no silver points at stake for this match. It was strictly an exhibition to add to the Millennial Fair's spectacle.
Samuels then withdrew and GATO began singing a new introduction ditty in Lucca's voice:
“I am GATO the bold! My shields are strong! Nadia's crossbow will try to sound my gong!”
Crono couldn't help but laugh. “You are the worst singer in all the eras of Gaia's history.”
“Oh, hush and just watch,” Lucca said. “You're going to love this. I know I am.” She cackled with glee.
Marle, you had better be on your A+ game for this, Crono thought. That kind of expression from Lucca always signaled trouble.
“Begin!” Samuels said.
Marle's first shot was away and speared through a gap in the rotating shields to strike the first target. The gong sounded, and the crowd gasped. For many of them, this was their first time actually witnessing their princess' marksmanship. In two seconds Marle's next crossbow bolt was in the barrel of her weapon ready to fire at the next target. It was not long in coming. Marle hit it effortlessly through GATO's defenses.
The crowd had no idea how routine these kinds of shots were for her. Nothing was yet changed in GATO's defensive routine for ranged contestants, the only difference from other matches being the extreme range at which the shooter was firing.
Crono knew that would be changing.
The first change came with Marle's striking of the third target, and all of the shields started spinning a little faster. Crono actually anticipated this despite having no prior knowledge of the modifications Lucca had made. It was a suitable one step increase in difficulty to put the contestant on notice. It was only the third shot out of twenty. The challenge would escalate.
Shot five was responded to by the sudden opening of several new compartments in GATO's lower body. Balloons floated out of the openings, and they were the same color as the targets Marle was trying to hit. They also had the red bullseye pattern that was painted on the real targets. That was a simple yet novel idea to increase the challenge, Crono thought. Marle would now have to take more time between shots to make sure she wasn't aiming at one of the decoy balloons.
“Nice one, Lu.”
His best friend smiled. “Thank you.”
Shot seven changed the game. The impact on the target opened more panels on the upper part of GATO's body, and short pipes extended out of the openings. They blew smoke.
Marle seemed to be glaring more intently at her targets now. The contest had stopped being routine for her.
Crono had a pretty good idea what was going to happen with shot nine. He was right. More doors with smoke pipes opened below, and GATO's entire body was soon covered in a thick haze. This would be tough. Before long Marle wouldn't be able to see what she was aiming at, and she would be forced to anticipate where the targets were moving by memory and fire completely blind. With the balloons floating around to obscure things further, the difficulty of this challenge would skyrocket. A normal contestant wouldn't be able to hit anything under these conditions, and even Marle would be sorely tested.
Shot ten. The crowd was increasingly awestruck. They couldn't see anything either. Only the ringing of GATO's gong with the striking of a target indicated a point had been scored.
Shot eleven brought the rain. A stream of water suddenly blew out the top of GATO's obscured body and arced towards Marle. She was engulfed by the deluge, but somehow still made the next shot.
More balloons, more smoke, more rain. GATO had run out of new tricks to play, but the challenge became more and more extreme. Somehow Marle kept hitting targets.
“Think you might have to go home and hide, Lu,” Crono remarked. This performance was amazing even for Marle. The crowd had gone completely silent.
“Hm. I wonder.”
Crono turned to her. Lucca's confidence had not ebbed in the slightest.
Shot eighteen told him why.
It was an even-numbered shot. GATO had established the pattern that the difficulty would increase only on every odd shot after the first. It saved its last trick for the last even number.
Marle was then struck by a heavy stream of water aimed directly at where she was standing instead of being arced to fall on her head. She wasn't ready for the change in tactics and her crossbow was knocked off-center by the impact.
A decoy balloon popped.
The crowd groaned.
“Alas!” Announcer Samuels lamented. “GATO's treachery has robbed the Princess of her victory! What a dastardly deed!”
A new ditty rang out from the victorious machine. Lucca's voice crowed.
“A twenty bolt set! The Princess tried! I made her wet! Nadia don't cry!”
Lucca's laughter carried through the arena. “You gotta admit, the lyrics are good!”
* * *
Marle was drenched to the bone, her slender form and plastered ponytail now looking and feeling little different than they had after her hated underwater swim from Medina. Lucca! She should have known the far too clever inventor wouldn't make that contest easy for her. She might as well have gone to the beach!
“Look on the bright side, Marle,” Lucca said, the arena now left behind to brave the Millennial Fair bustle ahead of them. “The afternoon heat won't feel so bad now.”
“I'm not going to forget this, Lucca,” Marle grumbled, trying to dry herself off with a towel.
The inventor gave an uproarious laugh. “I'm not going to forget it either!”
“That was a most entertaining spectacle, Your Highness,” came a sudden voice to their right. “The end result was unfortunate, but the people appreciated you being openly in their presence at last. It will certainly be good for national morale.”
Marle, Lucca, and Crono turned to the voice with a start. It was a face Marle thought she recognized.
“Pierre!” Lucca exclaimed.
“It is good to see you again, Miss Lucca,” the old attorney said pleasantly. “And thankfully under much happier circumstances. The young should really be out and about instead of wasting away in confinement. You seem to be enjoying yourselves.”
“Very much,” Crono told him, taking his hand and shaking it. “It's good to see you, too. I never had a chance to thank you for... uh, almost getting me off on those ridiculous charges. We've been a bit busy with... other things,” he finished with a chuckle.
“Your second disappearance, yes. Quite the mystery the three of you left behind. It was as if you all just fell off the edge of Gaia itself.”
“That's one way of putting it,” Lucca said. “But we landed on our feet, more or less. Alive and well and ready to take on the world!”
“Are you, now?”
That was a second voice, and coming from directly ahead. People on the path suddenly parted in a nervous shuffle to let a short man in green robes pass through along with several accompanying men with hard expressions.
Marle grit her teeth and glared at the new arrival with something only a smidgen less than open hatred. Chancellor Horus!
Lucca pushed her crossbow down from where she had nearly brought it into a firing position. “No, no! Not here, not here!” she said urgently into her ear.
Crono stepped in front of Marle as the Chancellor and his men marched directly up to them. Everyone around looked tense and started whispering to themselves.
“What do you want?” Crono challenged, keeping his hand close to the hilt of his sword but not touching it.
“Is that any way to talk to a government official, young man?” the pointy-bearded Horus replied smoothly. “I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given your history of hooliganism. You, Miss Ashtear, and the Princess have led me on quite the merry chase. But that chase is over now.”
“There is no chase!” Lucca bit back. “The King withdrew the arrest warrants! We've all been pardoned, and we have the document to prove it!”
“Miss Ashtear is correct, Chancellor,” Pierre interjected. “All of the proper forms were applied. You have no basis for making an arrest here. Overriding His Majesty's decree will have dire consequences, even for you.”
Marle was suddenly elated that the old attorney was here.
Horus intimated shock. “Overriding His Majesty's decree? I wouldn't think of it! The law of this nation is paramount, and we are all sworn to obey it, including the King.” He spread his hands around looking at the gala. “And yet he authorizes another celebration like this, cancels arrest warrants for clear crimes against the kingdom, and then pardons the perpetrators. And all without any consultation with the ministers and the departments that actually keep our kingdom functioning. I wonder what His Majesty is thinking draining the kingdom's coffers so precipitously and letting dangerous criminals walk our streets?”
“If daddy wants to save money, he should dismiss you and your cronies and exile the whole lot of you to Medina,” Marle said. “I hear the mosquitoes are quite plentiful this year.”
“Exile the government? How would such an act be lawful? The Articles of Anne are quite clear on this. Government officials cannot be sentenced so without due and very thorough process.”
“You are not the government, Horus!”
“I am a law abiding citizen with the best interests of the kingdom at heart!” Horus said, sounding slightly hurt but with an air of what Marle was convinced was insincerity. “My every action is in the pursuit of this goal! Yet the Royal Family would seem to have different priorities, given the events of recent weeks, and I am not the only official who thinks this. Take the governor of Poore Province, for example. Have you not heard the news?”
Marle blinked, uncomprehending. Where was Horus taking this unwelcome discussion?
“What news?”
“There is talk of secession. There might even be a referendum. The people of Poore have been growing quite displeased with their excessive taxation, only to see it all go to fund a celebration thousands of miles away.” He again motioned to the festivities all around them.
The words and the implications did not go unnoticed by the people in the crowd, and they all started murmuring to themselves.
Marle shuddered, suddenly feeling out of her depth. Poore? Seceding? Her father had said nothing about this! Maybe the detestable little man was lying, but why would he? Dozens of people were listening in on the discussion, and the news of Poore's possible secession referendum would spread very quickly. If that news turned out to be false, Chancellor Horus would end up looking ridiculous, and there would be an outcry to remove him from his post.
She shook off her indecision, suddenly remembering her father's admonition to not make a scene. The situation was spiraling out of control and it was time to end it.
“Is this the time or the place to be talking about such rot?” Marle said loudly enough for everyone nearby to hear. “You're diminishing the morale of everyone here over a rumor! Why has there been nothing in the papers about this?”
“The papers are...”
“Enough! Save it for after the Millennial Fair, and after you have checked your sources of information more thoroughly. The homeland of Queen Leene would never break away from us! The very notion is absurd! Now be off with you, Horus! This is a happy time, and I want to share in it for as long as I'm here.”
Marle marched ahead, brushing right through Chancellor Horus and his men and not deigning to look at any of them as she did so. Crono and Lucca were right behind her, and they all kept up the brisk pace until they were well away from the arena area. The three friends later sat down on the lip of the fountain underneath Leene's Bell, nursing cold drinks that they had picked up on the way.
“What the blazes was that all about?” Crono finally offered.
“I don't know, but I think we better go home,” Lucca said. “Suddenly I'm not feeling all that relaxed.”
* * *
It was time.
There was nothing more to be done here. Robo's research in the Ashtear family library could not have been more comprehensive, the robot committing the contents of every book, magazine, pamphlet, and journal into his vast memory. There was no record anywhere of the 'Masamune' sword being unearthed by the mining communities that had sprung up in the Denadoro region over the past century, nor was there any mention of the find in the archeological journals the Ashtears had. That meant it was most likely not to be found in the modern-era. They had to go back in time to when the Denadoro mountains had not been ravaged by the needs of industry and then hope for the best. They had to go to the middle-ages anyway. Maybe Queen Leene would know something more about it. She had annotated the report on Cyrus' expedition.
Was Poore province really seceding?
Crono put the nagging question out of his mind. There was nothing they could do about it if it was happening, or about to happen. It wasn't their problem. Marle had been in complete agreement, and a follow-up letter to her from the King that evening had told her in no uncertain terms not to get involved in that business.
So all that was left for them were the final preparations and the goodbyes.
“When daddy sends his next courier, have him take this back to the King,” Marle said to Taban. She placed Queen Leene's music box into his hands.
Crono put a hand on her shoulder. “Marle, are you sure?”
The former princess nodded. “I won't be needing it where we're going. And I'd rest easier knowing it was safe in daddy's care.”
“Why are you leaving, Lucca?” Lara Ashtear asked her daughter without much inflection, her gaze unfocused on the floor.
“What? Are you afraid I won't come back, mom?” Lucca replied, kneeling down to her mother's level in the wheelchair and smiling at her. “When has that ever happened? When the world's in danger, put an Ashtear on the case, I say! I'll be fine. I'll return with a whole bunch of stories to tell you, and I have a whole bunch of blank diaries to write them on. Look forward to it.”
And then Crono had to make his own goodbye.
His mother's expression was wavering and seemed a hair's breath away from open tears. Crono forced himself to meet it.
“Hey. What Lucca said, all right?” he told her gently. “I'm coming back. That's a promise.”
“Of course you are,” she replied in an uneven tone. “Minnow's always waiting for you to feed her.”
The cat's poignant meow at his feet affirmed his mother's statement. Crono knelt down to feed her another morsel and scratch her chin.
“Take good care of them, alright?” Taban said to Robo. “They're just kids, you know?”
“Affirmative, Mister Ashtear,” the robot replied. “I will continue to serve and protect the Major and her companions for as long as I am functional.”
With the goodbyes finished, the impending time-travelers focused on the practicalities they had arranged earlier. Food. Supplies. Clothing. Gold coinage. It would be a long journey, and there was no excuse for them not to be as fully prepared as possible. Everything the year 1000 had to offer would be at their disposal, if they could only carry it.
The nearby clock then chimed midnight. It was now August 17th, 1000 G.D.
Time to go.
Crono, Marle, and Lucca felt a bit hot after leaving Ashtear Manor, even with a brisk breeze blowing in the summer night. It couldn't be helped. They were attired for fall, and possibly winter, knowing where they were going. Marle was wearing a pink longcoat over the modest two-piece outfit she had sported for most of the time since she had returned to Guardia, purchased for her by Crono's mother during one of her shopping trips in town. Lucca was wearing one of those rare outfits that kept her legs covered, along with a couple of thermal layers beneath her orange vest in addition to a thick scarf around her neck. Crono also sported a scarf, worn over a red cloak that spilled down his entire back, and he was wearing layers under his blue gi to guard against the coming chill.
They walked at a leisurely pace on the road between the manor and Alistair Bridge, then caught a late night steam tram into the sleepless city of Truce. Robo attracted a lot of stares from the passengers, understandably, but it was assumed by most that he was just another one of Lucca's bold and crazy inventions, and Crono's party were mostly left alone for the whole ride to Leene Square. Their unseasonal attire attracted more comments than anything.
Most of the Millennial Fair attractions were closed for the night, but there were still a good number of people here, many of them couples who didn't want to do anything but walk the brilliantly lit pathways of Leene Square and be in each other's company without distractions. Crono stole a look at Marle and braved a smile while her gaze was averted. Maybe they could be one of those couples someday after this whole Lavos business was done with. He could scarcely imagine life without her now.
He briefly thought of Zack Willard and his handmaiden girlfriend Marge. In the two weeks they had all been back in Guardia, no one had heard anything about them. Marge had not been seen in the castle during Marle's brief sojourn to meet her father, and the last word Taban had gotten from the handmaiden was over two weeks before Crono's return. Zack was just gone, none of his friends or family knowing anything about his whereabouts since his arrest that first day of the Millennial Fair. Crono felt bad about leaving that loose end hanging, but without solid information he couldn't do anything more about that than he could about the disturbing rumors of discontent in Poore Province. He could only hope the two of them were safely together somewhere and Zack was healing from his knee injury.
Ranlan Hill proved to be deserted, which was the main reason why they had waited to such a late hour to begin their journey. They didn't want anyone to know about the temporal gate who didn't strictly need to know. Crono, Marle, and Lucca had taken a nap in the early evening to refresh themselves after making the decision to leave, and now felt reasonably energetic.
Only one thing to do.
“Well? Ready to save the world, guys?” Lucca asked, tipping her glasses and brandishing the Chrono Trigger.
“Ready when you are,” Crono said with a nod.
“Affirmative,” Robo stated.
Marle raised her hand to the sky. “For Mary. For Director Doan. For everyone.”
The others all raised their hands to meet hers.
“Let's fly!” Lucca said. “And land safely, I hope.”
Lucca then pulled the trigger of the miraculous device that had led them to learn about the world's future doom, and would now lead them to the place where that doom could be undone. The temporal gate opened with a bright flash, painting the surrounding oaks in a cerulean glow.
We're coming back, Crono vowed. All of us.
And then their home and place of rest was left in the future.
* * *
The passage of time was hard to define in the temporal ether stretching between time-periods, but Crono sensed something was wrong only a few moments after entering the gate. The surrounding luminance was a different color than he remembered from his first two trips, and it had become noticeably dimmer ahead of them.
“Anomalous reading detected,” Robo reported.
“What's going on?” Marle asked with worry. “The ether ahead of us looks all weird.”
Lucca looked up from the Chrono Trigger's gauges with more than worry. “The wormhole has bent!” she cried. “We're no longer heading to the past! I... I don't know where we're going!”
Crono turned to her. “Why? I thought these things were supposed to be fairly stable!”
“They are! I don't understand it! Nothing in my research indicated something like this could happen!”
He gave her a grim look. “What do you think? Do we use the Chrono Trigger again? Dump ourselves out of the ether early like we did before?”
“That would be inadvisable, Master Crono,” Robo said. “Without precise calculations made in advance, utilizing the Chrono Trigger within the timestream would potentially result in an egress anywhere in the space-time continuum.”
“We can't risk it!” Lucca said. “We might not survive the exit, and I'm not sure we'd even be able to get back inside the wormhole at all. We would be forever stuck wherever we ended up!”
Marle moaned. “No... No, this can't be happening! Not now! Not when we know what we have to do to stop...”
“Solid mass detected in the wormhole's present course,” Robo interrupted. “It would appear to be our destination.”
“What, it's not a gate aperture?” Lucca asked.
“Negative.”
Crono tensed. He could see the mysterious mass now, and it looked to be quite large. More importantly they were closing the distance at what seemed to be a terminal velocity. It was like jumping off the spire of Guardia Castle and watching the ground come up to meet them. Not a survivable fall, perhaps not even for Robo.
“Guys?”
Marle grabbed hold of him. “No, no, no, no, no...”
“I... don't even know what to say,” Lucca muttered.
Melchior had remarked that their unlikely journey was possibly a cosmic prank on the part of Creaton's opaque design. A joke indeed, for their adventures to end like this. Crono just closed his eyes and pulled Marle into a tighter embrace, not knowing what else to do.
But the lethal impact never came.
Crono opened his eyes to see that they were no longer “falling”, but slowly floating downward to the large object that had somehow become the wormhole's destination. They all extended their feet and came to a silent agreement with the ground, managing to land as safely as Lucca had hoped before entering the gate. But...
Gravity had returned the moment their feet touched the ground, Crono stumbling slightly from the unexpected pull, but he couldn't fathom why there was gravity. They were not standing on the surface of Gaia, and the sky above them looked no different than the eternal sourceless glow they had become familiar with in their wormhole passages. They were in a small paved square surrounded by iron-wrought fencing on three sides, the fence being the only thing separating the square from a bottomless chasm that emulated the sky. It was like they were all standing on an artificial island that somehow floated in the sea of the larger timestream.
Everyone gazed around at their new environment in stunned silence. Only one thing was clear. This was not the middle-ages.
“Why does it have to be you, Crono?”
“There's no one else.”
It had become a daily routine between mother and son. The mother asking the responsible question, however aggravating, and the son responding with bravado – but also truth. No one else had experience with time-travel. No one else had seen the things he and his friends had seen. No one else would believe the story.
He swung his sword again. Empty air was parted cleanly.
Crono and Gina Lantree were in a basement level storeroom of Ashtear Manor, Crono having converted the space into a makeshift dojo for his practice sessions. And the practice was needed. Not just for the exercise and to give himself something to do, but because his life now depended on it.
He was going to war.
Two weeks had passed since Crono's return to Guardia. One week had passed since he had felt well enough to practice with his full vigor. Subsisting on regular food again, and a lot of it, had made him, Marle, and Lucca quite ill after less than two days on a normal diet, and then exhaustion had taken such a relentless hold that they were all effectively bedridden. Even Marle hadn't been much help, being no less exhausted than everyone else. Adrenaline had kept everyone going to a much greater extent than Crono had realized, and the crash had been absolute.
He needed to make up for it. Magus might be destined to destroy himself, but that wasn't good enough. Not with what Crono now knew. The Dark Lord had to be decisively defeated before the moment of self-destruction came, and that wouldn't happen – couldn't happen – until Crono and his friends went back in time to intervene in the Mystic War of the middle-ages and change history.
Meow!
Crono turned with a start. Minnow was at the door and trotting into the room, quickly getting under Crono's feet as the feline rubbed her face against his calf. He had no choice but to abandon his forms and knelt down to pet her.
“That's not fair,” he told his mother.
Gina looked at him evenly. “Fair, what's that? For over a month she was badgering me instead of you because you weren't there to feed her! Twice! And now you're planning on leaving again! You shouldn't have brought her home from the alleys if you were going to live this kind of life.”
“Now you're really not being fair,” Crono muttered.
“The prerogative of a mother. Get used to it.”
“This is the thanks I get for telling you everything? Not that I couldn't with your endless questions and badgering.”
“It's the thanks you get for causing trouble and getting yourself arrested. How is a mother supposed to react to that?”
Crono surrendered the argument and tried to go back to his forms. His mother had been a lot sweeter when he was a kid. Minnow's presence made his footwork decidedly awkward.
“Hey, Crono!”
He turned to see Lucca at the door. She looked excited, and also a bit uneasy.
“What? Is something wrong?”
Lucca shrugged. “I'm not sure. We just got today's paper, and the news... well, you should probably see it for yourself. And there's something else, too. We, uh, might want to think about starting to pack.”
Crono shared a look with his mother at the ominous statement. She only closed her eyes with resignation.
“Coming.”
Everyone met in the dining room. Lucca was attired much the way she always was at home, wearing nothing but a green undershirt and black shorts. Marle was in a new outfit that lacked the ostentatiousness of the old; a two-piece affair with a looser fitting white top of short sleeves and olive-colored bottoms that billowed out just above her ankles. Robo was also present, sporting a small steam engine on his back that Lucca had built to supplement his power systems, along with a few short leather skirts that helped to further protect his joints and actuators from dust and other debris. Taban looked on attentively from behind Lara Ashtear's wheelchair at the table, whose occupant wasn't so attentive but seemed to be having one of her better days. Crono and his mother regarded the newspaper that Marle had spread out on the tabletop for everyone to see.
“What's going on?” Crono asked.
“You're not going to believe this,” Marle said with a strange expression. “Look!”
Crono read the headline and his lungs froze:
King Malcolm decrees new Millennial Fair
He was so taken aback that he didn't trouble himself to read anything else.
“W, what?”
Marle shrugged with bafflement. “I don't know. Nothing daddy's been doing is making any sense. First he puts out new warrants for your arrest, then he cancels them without any explanation, then he redacts every newspaper and magazine that's been published since the first day of the Millennial Fair, and now this! It's like he wants to turn back the clock and do everything over! It's madness!”
“Not to mention expensive,” Lucca remarked. “The price for the first Millennial Fair was astronomical, not including all the crazy investigations and manhunts involving us during the whole affair. I can't imagine what a second fair is going to do to the Castle's coffers.”
“What about that other thing?” Crono asked. “You said we might have to pack. Why? We've barely even stepped outside since we got back, and no one's paid the manor a visit. We've been pretty circumspect.” No one had been willing to show themselves or return to some semblance of a normal life in Truce out of fear that the withdrawn arrest warrants were a trick to lure them out of hiding and then be captured by Chancellor Horus and his men. Crono's mother even went home every night to maintain appearances.
Taban brought out a letter from his vest pocket and set it on the table. The envelope looked elaborate, with a seal of red wax keeping the contents secure. “I received this early this morning from a courier, not the regular mail service,” Taban said. “I've seen an envelope like this once before, delivered to my dad at the height of the industrial revolution. From King Vandar.”
Everyone was quiet as the information set in.
“I never once got such a letter from King Malcolm,” Taban continued. “Not even during the recent troubles.”
“What does it mean?” Crono asked with trepidation. “What does the King want?”
“I don't know. It's not addressed to me. It's addressed to the Princess. By name.”
Crono suppressed a gasp and let his breath out slowly.
King Malcolm knew they were here.
“Curious,” Robo said. “King Malcolm is aware of your location, yet has refrained from sending officials to take you into custody. This is not consistent with his prior behavior. A further investigation into this action is warranted.”
Marle took a long forlorn look at the envelope from where she sat and then slowly extended her hand to take it. Crono saw a single word written on the envelope in an elegant hand: “Nadia”. Marle reluctantly broke the seal and examined the two documents inside. She blinked with uncertainty.
“Well? Do we make a run for it?” Lucca asked.
Marle was silent, shaking her head as she absorbed what the documents said. Crono noticed that one of the papers was badly crumpled.
“It's Crono's execution order,” Marle finally said. “...and a full pardon for his actions at the Millennial Fair! And for the prison break! Lucca's name's on it, too!”
A pardon?
Crono took the papers into his hands and read through them several times. The documents indeed appeared official, as well as he understood such things. They were signed by the King himself. The execution order had been crumpled at some point, but the pardon looked pristine, as if it had been penned yesterday. He spread them flat on the table for everyone to see.
“Is that it?” his mother asked, looking as if she couldn't believe the news. “Is Crono free?”
“Lucca is safe, Lucca is safe,” Lara intoned, looking as if she were about to cry. It was the most emotion Crono had seen out of Lucca's mother in years.
“Wow, what a reversal,” Lucca remarked. “I guess the withdrawal of our arrest warrants was genuine after all. And to think these papers were signed by the same guy.”
“Negative,” Robo said.
Everyone turned to the robot.
“What?” Marle blurted.
“These documents were not signed by the same individual. Forensic analysis indicates a 98.7% chance one of these documents was forged.”
Silence lingered around the table for a long moment.
“Which one?” asked Lucca.
“Unknown. I require several established examples of the King's signature to determine which one is authentic. I can only say these signatures are not the same.”
Marle looked lost. “A forgery?”
“If it is, it's the best I've ever seen,” Lucca said, taking a closer look at the documents and adjusting her glasses. “They look the same to me. But if Robo says they're not...”
“We can't afford to let our guard down,” Crono said. “Until we figure out which of these was truly signed by the King, we have to assume the pardon is a trick and stay holed up in the manor.”
“I don't know. The envelope and the seal looked real enough, and the sender obviously knew Marle was here. Why bother sending a fake pardon when they can simply send a squad of Castle soldiers to arrest us now?”
A glimmer of understanding suddenly broke though Crono's thoughts. “The sender included both orders! Why would they do that? If all they wanted to do was trick us, they wouldn't have sent the execution order at all. What purpose would that have served? We already know they wanted to kill me.”
“I held that order,” Marle said faintly. “The execution decree. That's why it's crumpled. I shoved it straight into daddy's chest when I confronted him.”
“The pardon isn't the message!” Crono said with realization. “The message is the forgery! The sender wanted us to know about the forgery!”
“An astute analysis, Master Crono,” said Robo. “Given these facts, I now calculate a 79.4% chance the execution order was not signed by the King.”
“And the pardon decree was,” Lucca added.
* * *
“This is the end, daddy! I will never trust you again! I hate you! I'll hate you forever!”
Marle wept silently in her room that night as she thought back to the incident that had changed her life and set her on a course to follow Crono and Lucca into the future. Had she been wrong all this time? Had her father really not sentenced Crono to die? She thought she knew the answer in her heart, but how could she trust that now? Her heart had been convinced her father was irredeemable.
But the evidence and the reasoning piled up to an undeniable conclusion. Marle – Princess Nadia – had been tricked. Utterly. She vaguely remembered her father looking genuinely confused when she had shoved the execution order at him, but she had been too consumed with rage for it to register in her mind. Whoever had forged the King's signature was singularly responsible for all of the chaos that followed, using the unwitting Princess of Guardia as their agent. How could she ever live this down?
“You shame your ancestors. You shame us all,” her father had told her.
He was right.
Thinking of Queen Leene, Marle was compelled to bring out her music box and wind the key. She didn't deserve to have it, but its song always managed to calm her down. The tears stopped coming, and her sobbing faded into an unsteadiness of breath. She had made a mistake. A terrible mistake. What was she going to do about it?
“You make a mistake, your subject suffers the consequences.”
No, daddy. If I make a mistake, I make up for it.
The decision made, Marle climbed out of her guestroom bed as quietly as she could and slipped on her new outfit. She preferred her Millennial Fair attire, but that outfit had taken a lot of abuse over the course of her journey, and several washings in the Ashtear's laundry room convinced her it would have to be replaced if she wanted to look at all presentable in public. This fully-shouldered short sleeve affair with the olive pants was presentable enough, and was probably better suited for adventuring anyway.
She was going on an adventure tonight.
Marle resolved to move as quietly as possible through the Ashtear's modest estate for what she needed. Crono would try to stop her. Lucca would try to talk her out of it. Robo would say it was illogical.
To blazes with logic. She had to do this. She had to know.
There were also a lot of unknowns, and the risks for anyone else accompanying her were too high. She crept to the door leading into the garage, unlocked it, and stepped through.
Credit the Ashtears for always being prepared, Marle thought. It didn't take long to find what she sought.
* * *
Marle relied on magical stamina boons at first, breaking into a run as soon as she was out of sight of Ashtear Manor and holding the brisk pace until she had made it all the way to Alistair Bridge several miles down the road. It was about 1:30 in the morning. Time being the most crucial factor, she sprinted across the mile-long span as soon as she confirmed it was deserted and ducked to the left onto the northern shore of Windmere Straight instead of heading into the city. She didn't know those streets nearly as well as Crono did, or at all, really, so she decided not to take the risk of being spotted in the town that never slept and simply stuck to the shore, cutting north through the countryside once she was fully outside of Truce. Not even a quarter of the way there, but she didn't intend to be on foot the whole time.
As she hoped, an opportunity presented itself shortly after she got to King's Way, and Marle ducked into the weeds by the side of the road. The delivery buggy came by at a speed just slow enough for her to grab onto the trailer when it went past, and she buried herself in the vehicle's open cargo bed. The driver, probably not fully attentive at this hour, saw nothing. Marle relaxed and concentrated where she hid, restoring herself from her exertions.
An hour later, Marle was again on foot, not intending to ride the buggy to its final destination. She trotted through the woods near the road and then turned northwest. The terrain became familiar.
She was then staring up at the moonlit spires of her former home, a place she never expected she would want to come back to. It was about three hours before dawn.
Marle wasted no time. She had the tools and plenty of rope.
She was soon on top of the northern castle wall, hidden in the darkness and well aware of the sentry schedule, having braved this path before. Only this time she was going up, not down. A crossbow bolt with a rope attached then flew and wedged itself inside the hollowed iron spike she had driven into the spire to facilitate her first escape. The Castle hadn't troubled itself to undo Marle's work, never expecting that anyone would be insane enough to try getting into the castle this way, not even the former princess herself. With a deep breath, she then swung on the wedged rope and slammed hard into the spire a good distance below the spike, using her feet to cushion the blow. She spent a moment concentrating to recover from the impact and she was then climbing up the rope.
It was the most dangerous moment of this whole endeavor, since there were no chiseled handholds this far down the spire, but the rope held and Marle shortly arrived at the “safe” point of the ascent, the rest of the journey assured by the handholds she had made during her former life. Only eight-hundred feet to go straight up.
Marle tittered to herself. Forget swimming, she was a climber.
* * *
The next leg of Marle's errand was almost academic. Even in the daytime she could traverse most areas of the castle without attracting notice if she chose to. The guards had altered their routine very little, the only detour Marle needed to make being on account of the collapsed bridge where Lucca's Dragon Tank had fallen to its explosive end. Before long she was on the ground level and cautiously made her way into the areas below. There was only one suitable place to have this meeting that wouldn't put the castle, and the unknown traitor behind the forgery, on notice.
The Guardian Archives.
By law, no one but the ruling monarch was allowed to descend to its lowest level, such were the secrets and the treasures held there. Even Marle had not dared to challenge this rule, having been put in place by Cedric Guardia himself and then affirmed by Anne the Divine following his death. To break the ancient edict meant a life sentence at the very least, and such prisoners never lived long. A fourth-century crown prince had even been stripped of his birthright for daring this, the mandate of succession passing to his much younger sister who then had him exiled.
Marle evaded notice of the few scholars and scribes working on the upper levels at this hour, keeping to the shadows and quietly continuing her descent. She then boldly strode in to the second to lowest level of the Archives and approached the two men standing guard at the stairway leading down, the time for stealth having passed. No one else was here.
“Halt! Who goes...?”
Marle put her hands on her hips and glared at the guards. “Keep your voices down!” she hissed.
This moment represented the greatest risk of all, assuming her father was true and that this wasn't some sort of an elaborate ruse to lure her back into captivity. If these men were at all affiliated with the traitor, this escapade would be for nothing.
The men's surprise was total.
“P, Princess?!”
“The King,” she said to the guard who had spoken. “Now. And keep it quiet!” She turned to the other guard. “You. Remain at your post and enforce the edict of Cedric on anyone else who tries to enter. That is a direct command from the Crown Princess.” Marle put every ounce of her former royal bearing into the order.
And then she descended the stairs behind them, the sheer audacity of this act telling the men how deadly serious she was.
“Princess, you can't...!”
Marle kept walking down as if the man hadn't spoken. She was committed.
A long exhale left her lips as her foot descended the final step to this most restricted of areas. The guards could not legally detain her now. Only her father could haul her out, and no way he wouldn't be coming for her after this stunt.
I'm really here.
Years ago she had fantasized about coming to this place, the first thing she would do after being crowned Queen to see what was down here.
There wasn't much. The bottom level was comparatively small, and the only light was coming from the stairwell leading up. Obviously, no one could come here to keep the torches lit, and it seemed as if even her father had not deigned to come to this place in years. Cobwebs and dust were everywhere.
Marle took out a packet of matches she had pilfered from the Ashtear's garage and lit the first torch she could find. It very slowly flickered to fiery life.
Her eyes were drawn to a black box tucked away in a corner by the rear wall.
What kind of treasure would be kept down here? Marle wondered. The chest was very ornate and very dark even under torchlight. It might have been made of ebony, but seemed even darker than that. On closer inspection, golden script leapt out at Marle's vision in the dim light. It read:
“Let he whosoever open this box be forever cursed and the contents within destroy thee.”
Queen Guardia XXII – Leene
Marle gaped. A treasure of Queen Leene! The brief temptation to open the box was squashed immediately. No way would she dishonor the wishes of Leene out of mere curiosity. She had already gotten a gift from her, and it was more precious to Marle than any mysterious treasure chest. That the warning said “he” didn't matter to her in the least. The chest would remain closed.
The rest of the dusty nearly forgotten space was dedicated to bookshelves that held volumes so ancient that Marle was afraid of even touching them, fearing that they would turn to dust the moment they were grasped. Some of the books were more recent, however, a couple of them being from the late middle-ages. She let herself succumb to this temptation. Anything she could find out about the Mystic War was in her direct interest, as she would soon have to go back to that era to confront Magus and his army. The prevention of Lavos' creation was paramount.
She flipped to the record of a knight named Cyrus, a name that intrigued her since there was a late seventh century king by the same name. It was a proposal for an expedition into the Denadoro mountains of South Zenan to recover an artifact of great power, said to have been enshrined there by the order of Anne the Divine herself at the dawn of the Guardian age. A weapon.
The Masamune.
Marle read on with fascination and felt her mouth fall open. The record said that the Masamune was the sword carried by none other than the South Zenanese warlord Antaeus Poore himself: the arch-enemy of Cedric Guardia during the War of Unification that brought the Kingdom of Guardia to fruition. The sword was said to have the ability to cut through any magical barrier, no matter how powerful, and was speculated to have been made by the Ancients. Cyrus believed that with this weapon lie the key to slaying Magus, whose magical defenses had proved impenetrable in every battle the Dark Lord had fought in.
The proposal was approved and authorized by King Aldren, the order dated April 12 of the year 591. Marle's shoulders sagged at the annotation that followed this report. The expedition had failed. The Knights Cyrus Cradmoore, Glenn Treygun, and Rachel Tandra were slain, and the artifact was unrecovered. Strangely the annotation was signed by Leene rather than Aldren, though it was dated 593, before Leene had even come of age. An asterisk was placed by Glenn Treygun's name, but there was no elaboration Marle could find. Just another casualty to be noted and then forgotten about.
There was a map.
Marle grimaced. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe there was nothing there to find anymore. The report said “unrecovered”, and that could mean anything. Regardless, she had nothing to write with and nothing to write on, and there was no possibility that her father would let her...
“What are you doing, daughter?”
Marle turned to the stairway with a start. She hadn't heard her father descend, so absorbed was she in the centuries-old report.
He looked grim, which was no surprise under almost any circumstance, let alone the one that saw his daughter in this most forbidden of places.
“Studying,” Marle said evenly.
“I can see that, but I had to hear it from your mouth to convince myself my eyes were not deceiving me. You've never expressed much interest in studying before. You've never expressed much interest in anything but gallivanting around and showing up the Guard with your crossbow.”
Marle resisted the urge to glare and tried to emulate the calm and authoritative expression she had seen Leene use. A lot rested on this moment.
“I won't deny it. But maybe I've changed. Maybe you don't know me as well as you think.”
“I hardly know you at all,” Malcolm countered. “You are never the same child from one moment to the next.”
That remark threatened to break her calm, and Marle felt her forced expression begin to shift. “I'm not a child anymore.”
“The words leave your lips, and yet my senses and recollection are loathe to believe them. Have you any idea how long you have been gone, child?”
“However long you think it's been, I've been gone a lot longer.”
The King of Guardia exhaled heavily though his nose. “I'm not sure I know what that means, but your absence has not gone unnoticed outside of the castle. Indeed, it has been quite the Cedrician effort to keep things quiet after the chaos you wrought.”
“You've redacted everything.”
Malcolm glared. “Yes. Quite right. There was nothing else to be done. The political situation in the kingdom is more fragile than you realize. Critics of the Royal Family are beginning to maneuver. Your actions served as the catalyst.”
She had to risk it. “Did they? What about the execution order?”
The King slowly advanced towards her. Marle held her position and composure, neither meeting his disdain nor retreating from it.
“In all of your sixteen years of life, daughter, I have never lied to you,” he said. “Not once. I never signed the execution order for the boy, nor did I even contemplate the action. The orders were false, my signature a forgery.”
Marle released the breath she was holding and closed her eyes in relief. It was the truth. He had never lied to her, though she had often hated him for it. The thirty-third monarch of Guardia had never been anything but direct and uncompromising with her.
“I know. I got the message you sent to Taban. I'm... sorry.”
It was all she could do not to burst into tears, but she would not embrace him. Theirs was not that kind of relationship, and hadn't been for a very long time. It was enough for her to say the words.
“It is well that you came here the way you did, seen by no one but the two guards above,” her father said after a long moment. “They are loyal, and not involved in the plot against me. Though it will not appear in the record, your trespass is hereby pardoned and no other will hear of it.”
Marle frowned. “Plot? Daddy, what is going on? I've heard stories. Prisoners being tortured in the prison tower, guards who are detached from the Castle's chain of command, misdemeanors elevated to felonies without trial, ministerial authority being consolidated with the Chan...”
“Silence, daughter,” Malcolm said with a hard look. “Say no more of these things. My enemy has ears everywhere, and they are becoming bolder with their actions.”
Marle thought furiously, considering all of the disparate incidents causing the kingdom to silently change its character in the shadows, and the man who appeared to be benefiting the most from them. “Is it...?”
“I said silence! This matter is beyond you, and any action you take will make matters worse.”
“What do you want me to do, then?” Marle asked, the question nearly hanging in her throat.
Malcolm paused, seeming to consider his next decision. “Nothing. Nothing except go to the new Millennial Fair I'm authorizing and be seen.”
Marle's knees almost gave out. “Huh? Be... seen?”
“Yes. But give no interviews and make no statements. Just loiter, gallivant, whatever pleases you, but do not make a scene. And under no circumstances are you to use your power.”
“Um... all right.” Go to the Millennial Fair? That was all?
“Remain here,” Malcolm said. “I'll make arrangements to smuggle you out of the castle and back to the Ashtear's residence. I will not have you here under these conditions. Draw no attention to yourself until the Millennial Fair begins.”
Her father then turned away without another word and strode up the stairs, leaving his daughter behind in the archive that felt more like a crypt. Marle shivered as the torch on the wall slowly died. She regarded the old book in her hands with deep thought.
* * *
“Well. This thing alone might have been worth your whole demented trip back to the castle,” Lucca remarked with grudging admiration, holding the book Marle had smuggled back with her in her hands.
“A demented trip you made without any of us,” Crono said with disapproval. “What if the King decided to keep you there? It's not like we can go in the way you did.”
“Precisely why you couldn't come, Crono,” Marle said earnestly. “That was something I needed to do on my own, and it's just as well. Now we know exactly where daddy stands with us and why, more or less.”
Maybe so, but that didn't mean Crono had to like it.
“The Mistress' unscheduled sojourn may have been of great aid to our mission,” Robo said. “A weapon capable of penetrating magical defenses without fail might prove to be crucial. This should be investigated without delay.”
“Yeah, but the general location described in this map gives me some concern,” Lucca said, pointing at the open page. “That area of the Denadoro mountains has been mined almost to the bone since this thing was written. If anything was there before, it would surely be gone by now.”
Crono thought back to his days in the mining community of Lorian. “Maybe the miners found it?” he said hopefully.
“I don't think so. The unearthing of an ancient sword would have warranted more than a passing mention in the newspapers of the time, and I don't remember hearing anything about that. And if the sword was proven to have belonged to Antaeus Poore, it would certainly be enshrined in a museum somewhere and we would know about it. I'll do some digging in our library just to make sure, but I doubt I'll find much.”
Crono nodded with disappointment. If only things were as easy as walking into a museum and simply taking what they needed.
“Perhaps it is better if I see to that task, Major,” Robo said. “King Malcolm requested that Mistress Marle attend the upcoming Millennial Fair, and the festivities begin in two days. You and Master Crono should also attend, so it is better to spend this time getting prepared for the celebration.”
“But we have a solid lead for dealing with the Lavos problem,” Crono argued. “And something that might help us deal with Magus if this 'Masamune' sword still exists. It's not the time for going off to play, and we've wasted quite enough time recuperating here as it is.”
“Your argument is illogical. Time is currently something in abundant supply, as it would seem we are under King Malcolm's protection. It was well established in the domes-era that excessive periods indoors was detrimental to human health and function. Continuing our mission in your current state may prove to be counterproductive. Recuperation requires the proper time interval and an environment conductive to relaxation and vigor.”
Lucca chuckled. “In simpler language he's telling us to go on a vacation, and I can't say I disagree. I'll admit to being a little stir-crazy being cooped up at home in the middle of summer, to say nothing of what a drain the Bangor enclave put on us. Maybe the three of us should go to the beach and give Marle some much-needed swimming lessons. I know she's gotta be itching to redeem herself after that epically pitiful display of aquatic competence at the land-bridge.”
“Forget it!” Marle said with a furious blush. “I'm never doing anything like that again! Swimming's for frogs!”
“Ah, you're no fun. But maybe a master display of marksmanship is more your speed.” Lucca tipped her glasses. “I've been meaning to make some GATO modifications that would actually give you a challenge, and another Millennial Fair gives me the perfect opportunity to try the... uh... 'Lucca Invulnerability Sphere', let's call it. It'll be the equivalent of the 'Lucca Knockout Special' for the melee contestants. How's that sound?”
Marle straightened proudly. “Now that is a challenge I'm willing to accept! But you'd better be ready for GATO to lose again!”
“Well, time will tell,” Lucca remarked with a playful smirk.
Crono found himself greatly looking forward to a new GATO exhibition, but couldn't help feeling a bit let down. He really wanted to give Marle that swimming lesson.
* * *
“I suppose you're proud of yourself?”
“Why not? I beat your 'knockout special',” Crono said smugly.
Lucca shrugged. “Yeah, congratulations for that. But I didn't make any changes to the program, so you knew exactly what was coming. The real trick is succeeding on the first try.”
“And I very nearly did. What would that have done to your ego?”
“...I would have found somewhere to hide.”
Crono and Lucca were sitting in the stands of GATO's arena, the sun shining down with all the intensity of a clear mid-August afternoon. It was the first day of the second Millennial Fair of Guardia, a display of the kingdom's extravagance that Crono still found difficult to accept after the purported cost of the first. King Malcolm was really straining the Castle's coffers with this. All to turn back the clock and forge a narrative that everything was fully under control and always would be. Personally, Crono thought it was bad policy, but he wouldn't complain. Just being at the Millennial Fair for the first few minutes this morning reminded him how badly he needed this. They all needed this. Hours later he was invigorated and gave a much stronger performance against GATO even considering his previous experience fighting against the same program. He had really put on a show, and Marle's delighted applause was almost enough to erase the disappointment of her not being at all interested in going on a swim date with him at the beach. She had rebuffed another subtle query into the prospect yesterday, and Crono decided to stop trying. Maybe someday.
The operators for GATO then approached the machine and made some changes inside its compartments, and the arms and crests Crono had had to deal with in his match repositioned themselves, and a new set of arms holding painted bullseye targets and shields folded out to prepare for the next contestant.
It promised to be a ranged match unlike any other.
Announcer Samuels then strode into the ring next to GATO and held his arms up to the crowd, an extremely large crowd, for quiet.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he cried. “For three years and more, you have seen young and old test their skills against the Gyrating Automated Training Opponent! But among all marksman who have dared challenge this mighty machine, one vision of loveliness stands apart! In her first match she seized for herself a perfect score at a range that defies all belief! Twenty consecutive hits without a miss! In this young woman is assuredly the embodiment of Queen Leene herself! Today, she will again attempt the impossible, but this time the machine is ready and eager for payback! Twenty shots! Five targets! Four hits on each, and a single miss spells defeat. Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you the Kingdom of Guardia's own... Princess Nadia!”
The crowd erupted. Everyone knew who Marle was now on account of her likeness having been plastered all over the newspapers during the manhunts for her, so there was no point keeping her former identity a secret. King Malcolm had wanted her to be seen here and she was obliging. Marle stood at a special podium set up for just this moment, its height and distance from GATO being the same as the top of the stands on either side of the machine. She was again dressed in her Millennial Fair outfit, but this one was completely new, the soiling and adventuring stains of the old garment a memory. Another expense footed by the Castle for this spectacle. The former princess – actual princess as far as the audience was concerned – waved at the crowd.
There were no silver points at stake for this match. It was strictly an exhibition to add to the Millennial Fair's spectacle.
Samuels then withdrew and GATO began singing a new introduction ditty in Lucca's voice:
“I am GATO the bold! My shields are strong! Nadia's crossbow will try to sound my gong!”
Crono couldn't help but laugh. “You are the worst singer in all the eras of Gaia's history.”
“Oh, hush and just watch,” Lucca said. “You're going to love this. I know I am.” She cackled with glee.
Marle, you had better be on your A+ game for this, Crono thought. That kind of expression from Lucca always signaled trouble.
“Begin!” Samuels said.
Marle's first shot was away and speared through a gap in the rotating shields to strike the first target. The gong sounded, and the crowd gasped. For many of them, this was their first time actually witnessing their princess' marksmanship. In two seconds Marle's next crossbow bolt was in the barrel of her weapon ready to fire at the next target. It was not long in coming. Marle hit it effortlessly through GATO's defenses.
The crowd had no idea how routine these kinds of shots were for her. Nothing was yet changed in GATO's defensive routine for ranged contestants, the only difference from other matches being the extreme range at which the shooter was firing.
Crono knew that would be changing.
The first change came with Marle's striking of the third target, and all of the shields started spinning a little faster. Crono actually anticipated this despite having no prior knowledge of the modifications Lucca had made. It was a suitable one step increase in difficulty to put the contestant on notice. It was only the third shot out of twenty. The challenge would escalate.
Shot five was responded to by the sudden opening of several new compartments in GATO's lower body. Balloons floated out of the openings, and they were the same color as the targets Marle was trying to hit. They also had the red bullseye pattern that was painted on the real targets. That was a simple yet novel idea to increase the challenge, Crono thought. Marle would now have to take more time between shots to make sure she wasn't aiming at one of the decoy balloons.
“Nice one, Lu.”
His best friend smiled. “Thank you.”
Shot seven changed the game. The impact on the target opened more panels on the upper part of GATO's body, and short pipes extended out of the openings. They blew smoke.
Marle seemed to be glaring more intently at her targets now. The contest had stopped being routine for her.
Crono had a pretty good idea what was going to happen with shot nine. He was right. More doors with smoke pipes opened below, and GATO's entire body was soon covered in a thick haze. This would be tough. Before long Marle wouldn't be able to see what she was aiming at, and she would be forced to anticipate where the targets were moving by memory and fire completely blind. With the balloons floating around to obscure things further, the difficulty of this challenge would skyrocket. A normal contestant wouldn't be able to hit anything under these conditions, and even Marle would be sorely tested.
Shot ten. The crowd was increasingly awestruck. They couldn't see anything either. Only the ringing of GATO's gong with the striking of a target indicated a point had been scored.
Shot eleven brought the rain. A stream of water suddenly blew out the top of GATO's obscured body and arced towards Marle. She was engulfed by the deluge, but somehow still made the next shot.
More balloons, more smoke, more rain. GATO had run out of new tricks to play, but the challenge became more and more extreme. Somehow Marle kept hitting targets.
“Think you might have to go home and hide, Lu,” Crono remarked. This performance was amazing even for Marle. The crowd had gone completely silent.
“Hm. I wonder.”
Crono turned to her. Lucca's confidence had not ebbed in the slightest.
Shot eighteen told him why.
It was an even-numbered shot. GATO had established the pattern that the difficulty would increase only on every odd shot after the first. It saved its last trick for the last even number.
Marle was then struck by a heavy stream of water aimed directly at where she was standing instead of being arced to fall on her head. She wasn't ready for the change in tactics and her crossbow was knocked off-center by the impact.
A decoy balloon popped.
The crowd groaned.
“Alas!” Announcer Samuels lamented. “GATO's treachery has robbed the Princess of her victory! What a dastardly deed!”
A new ditty rang out from the victorious machine. Lucca's voice crowed.
“A twenty bolt set! The Princess tried! I made her wet! Nadia don't cry!”
Lucca's laughter carried through the arena. “You gotta admit, the lyrics are good!”
* * *
Marle was drenched to the bone, her slender form and plastered ponytail now looking and feeling little different than they had after her hated underwater swim from Medina. Lucca! She should have known the far too clever inventor wouldn't make that contest easy for her. She might as well have gone to the beach!
“Look on the bright side, Marle,” Lucca said, the arena now left behind to brave the Millennial Fair bustle ahead of them. “The afternoon heat won't feel so bad now.”
“I'm not going to forget this, Lucca,” Marle grumbled, trying to dry herself off with a towel.
The inventor gave an uproarious laugh. “I'm not going to forget it either!”
“That was a most entertaining spectacle, Your Highness,” came a sudden voice to their right. “The end result was unfortunate, but the people appreciated you being openly in their presence at last. It will certainly be good for national morale.”
Marle, Lucca, and Crono turned to the voice with a start. It was a face Marle thought she recognized.
“Pierre!” Lucca exclaimed.
“It is good to see you again, Miss Lucca,” the old attorney said pleasantly. “And thankfully under much happier circumstances. The young should really be out and about instead of wasting away in confinement. You seem to be enjoying yourselves.”
“Very much,” Crono told him, taking his hand and shaking it. “It's good to see you, too. I never had a chance to thank you for... uh, almost getting me off on those ridiculous charges. We've been a bit busy with... other things,” he finished with a chuckle.
“Your second disappearance, yes. Quite the mystery the three of you left behind. It was as if you all just fell off the edge of Gaia itself.”
“That's one way of putting it,” Lucca said. “But we landed on our feet, more or less. Alive and well and ready to take on the world!”
“Are you, now?”
That was a second voice, and coming from directly ahead. People on the path suddenly parted in a nervous shuffle to let a short man in green robes pass through along with several accompanying men with hard expressions.
Marle grit her teeth and glared at the new arrival with something only a smidgen less than open hatred. Chancellor Horus!
Lucca pushed her crossbow down from where she had nearly brought it into a firing position. “No, no! Not here, not here!” she said urgently into her ear.
Crono stepped in front of Marle as the Chancellor and his men marched directly up to them. Everyone around looked tense and started whispering to themselves.
“What do you want?” Crono challenged, keeping his hand close to the hilt of his sword but not touching it.
“Is that any way to talk to a government official, young man?” the pointy-bearded Horus replied smoothly. “I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given your history of hooliganism. You, Miss Ashtear, and the Princess have led me on quite the merry chase. But that chase is over now.”
“There is no chase!” Lucca bit back. “The King withdrew the arrest warrants! We've all been pardoned, and we have the document to prove it!”
“Miss Ashtear is correct, Chancellor,” Pierre interjected. “All of the proper forms were applied. You have no basis for making an arrest here. Overriding His Majesty's decree will have dire consequences, even for you.”
Marle was suddenly elated that the old attorney was here.
Horus intimated shock. “Overriding His Majesty's decree? I wouldn't think of it! The law of this nation is paramount, and we are all sworn to obey it, including the King.” He spread his hands around looking at the gala. “And yet he authorizes another celebration like this, cancels arrest warrants for clear crimes against the kingdom, and then pardons the perpetrators. And all without any consultation with the ministers and the departments that actually keep our kingdom functioning. I wonder what His Majesty is thinking draining the kingdom's coffers so precipitously and letting dangerous criminals walk our streets?”
“If daddy wants to save money, he should dismiss you and your cronies and exile the whole lot of you to Medina,” Marle said. “I hear the mosquitoes are quite plentiful this year.”
“Exile the government? How would such an act be lawful? The Articles of Anne are quite clear on this. Government officials cannot be sentenced so without due and very thorough process.”
“You are not the government, Horus!”
“I am a law abiding citizen with the best interests of the kingdom at heart!” Horus said, sounding slightly hurt but with an air of what Marle was convinced was insincerity. “My every action is in the pursuit of this goal! Yet the Royal Family would seem to have different priorities, given the events of recent weeks, and I am not the only official who thinks this. Take the governor of Poore Province, for example. Have you not heard the news?”
Marle blinked, uncomprehending. Where was Horus taking this unwelcome discussion?
“What news?”
“There is talk of secession. There might even be a referendum. The people of Poore have been growing quite displeased with their excessive taxation, only to see it all go to fund a celebration thousands of miles away.” He again motioned to the festivities all around them.
The words and the implications did not go unnoticed by the people in the crowd, and they all started murmuring to themselves.
Marle shuddered, suddenly feeling out of her depth. Poore? Seceding? Her father had said nothing about this! Maybe the detestable little man was lying, but why would he? Dozens of people were listening in on the discussion, and the news of Poore's possible secession referendum would spread very quickly. If that news turned out to be false, Chancellor Horus would end up looking ridiculous, and there would be an outcry to remove him from his post.
She shook off her indecision, suddenly remembering her father's admonition to not make a scene. The situation was spiraling out of control and it was time to end it.
“Is this the time or the place to be talking about such rot?” Marle said loudly enough for everyone nearby to hear. “You're diminishing the morale of everyone here over a rumor! Why has there been nothing in the papers about this?”
“The papers are...”
“Enough! Save it for after the Millennial Fair, and after you have checked your sources of information more thoroughly. The homeland of Queen Leene would never break away from us! The very notion is absurd! Now be off with you, Horus! This is a happy time, and I want to share in it for as long as I'm here.”
Marle marched ahead, brushing right through Chancellor Horus and his men and not deigning to look at any of them as she did so. Crono and Lucca were right behind her, and they all kept up the brisk pace until they were well away from the arena area. The three friends later sat down on the lip of the fountain underneath Leene's Bell, nursing cold drinks that they had picked up on the way.
“What the blazes was that all about?” Crono finally offered.
“I don't know, but I think we better go home,” Lucca said. “Suddenly I'm not feeling all that relaxed.”
* * *
It was time.
There was nothing more to be done here. Robo's research in the Ashtear family library could not have been more comprehensive, the robot committing the contents of every book, magazine, pamphlet, and journal into his vast memory. There was no record anywhere of the 'Masamune' sword being unearthed by the mining communities that had sprung up in the Denadoro region over the past century, nor was there any mention of the find in the archeological journals the Ashtears had. That meant it was most likely not to be found in the modern-era. They had to go back in time to when the Denadoro mountains had not been ravaged by the needs of industry and then hope for the best. They had to go to the middle-ages anyway. Maybe Queen Leene would know something more about it. She had annotated the report on Cyrus' expedition.
Was Poore province really seceding?
Crono put the nagging question out of his mind. There was nothing they could do about it if it was happening, or about to happen. It wasn't their problem. Marle had been in complete agreement, and a follow-up letter to her from the King that evening had told her in no uncertain terms not to get involved in that business.
So all that was left for them were the final preparations and the goodbyes.
“When daddy sends his next courier, have him take this back to the King,” Marle said to Taban. She placed Queen Leene's music box into his hands.
Crono put a hand on her shoulder. “Marle, are you sure?”
The former princess nodded. “I won't be needing it where we're going. And I'd rest easier knowing it was safe in daddy's care.”
“Why are you leaving, Lucca?” Lara Ashtear asked her daughter without much inflection, her gaze unfocused on the floor.
“What? Are you afraid I won't come back, mom?” Lucca replied, kneeling down to her mother's level in the wheelchair and smiling at her. “When has that ever happened? When the world's in danger, put an Ashtear on the case, I say! I'll be fine. I'll return with a whole bunch of stories to tell you, and I have a whole bunch of blank diaries to write them on. Look forward to it.”
And then Crono had to make his own goodbye.
His mother's expression was wavering and seemed a hair's breath away from open tears. Crono forced himself to meet it.
“Hey. What Lucca said, all right?” he told her gently. “I'm coming back. That's a promise.”
“Of course you are,” she replied in an uneven tone. “Minnow's always waiting for you to feed her.”
The cat's poignant meow at his feet affirmed his mother's statement. Crono knelt down to feed her another morsel and scratch her chin.
“Take good care of them, alright?” Taban said to Robo. “They're just kids, you know?”
“Affirmative, Mister Ashtear,” the robot replied. “I will continue to serve and protect the Major and her companions for as long as I am functional.”
With the goodbyes finished, the impending time-travelers focused on the practicalities they had arranged earlier. Food. Supplies. Clothing. Gold coinage. It would be a long journey, and there was no excuse for them not to be as fully prepared as possible. Everything the year 1000 had to offer would be at their disposal, if they could only carry it.
The nearby clock then chimed midnight. It was now August 17th, 1000 G.D.
Time to go.
Crono, Marle, and Lucca felt a bit hot after leaving Ashtear Manor, even with a brisk breeze blowing in the summer night. It couldn't be helped. They were attired for fall, and possibly winter, knowing where they were going. Marle was wearing a pink longcoat over the modest two-piece outfit she had sported for most of the time since she had returned to Guardia, purchased for her by Crono's mother during one of her shopping trips in town. Lucca was wearing one of those rare outfits that kept her legs covered, along with a couple of thermal layers beneath her orange vest in addition to a thick scarf around her neck. Crono also sported a scarf, worn over a red cloak that spilled down his entire back, and he was wearing layers under his blue gi to guard against the coming chill.
They walked at a leisurely pace on the road between the manor and Alistair Bridge, then caught a late night steam tram into the sleepless city of Truce. Robo attracted a lot of stares from the passengers, understandably, but it was assumed by most that he was just another one of Lucca's bold and crazy inventions, and Crono's party were mostly left alone for the whole ride to Leene Square. Their unseasonal attire attracted more comments than anything.
Most of the Millennial Fair attractions were closed for the night, but there were still a good number of people here, many of them couples who didn't want to do anything but walk the brilliantly lit pathways of Leene Square and be in each other's company without distractions. Crono stole a look at Marle and braved a smile while her gaze was averted. Maybe they could be one of those couples someday after this whole Lavos business was done with. He could scarcely imagine life without her now.
He briefly thought of Zack Willard and his handmaiden girlfriend Marge. In the two weeks they had all been back in Guardia, no one had heard anything about them. Marge had not been seen in the castle during Marle's brief sojourn to meet her father, and the last word Taban had gotten from the handmaiden was over two weeks before Crono's return. Zack was just gone, none of his friends or family knowing anything about his whereabouts since his arrest that first day of the Millennial Fair. Crono felt bad about leaving that loose end hanging, but without solid information he couldn't do anything more about that than he could about the disturbing rumors of discontent in Poore Province. He could only hope the two of them were safely together somewhere and Zack was healing from his knee injury.
Ranlan Hill proved to be deserted, which was the main reason why they had waited to such a late hour to begin their journey. They didn't want anyone to know about the temporal gate who didn't strictly need to know. Crono, Marle, and Lucca had taken a nap in the early evening to refresh themselves after making the decision to leave, and now felt reasonably energetic.
Only one thing to do.
“Well? Ready to save the world, guys?” Lucca asked, tipping her glasses and brandishing the Chrono Trigger.
“Ready when you are,” Crono said with a nod.
“Affirmative,” Robo stated.
Marle raised her hand to the sky. “For Mary. For Director Doan. For everyone.”
The others all raised their hands to meet hers.
“Let's fly!” Lucca said. “And land safely, I hope.”
Lucca then pulled the trigger of the miraculous device that had led them to learn about the world's future doom, and would now lead them to the place where that doom could be undone. The temporal gate opened with a bright flash, painting the surrounding oaks in a cerulean glow.
We're coming back, Crono vowed. All of us.
And then their home and place of rest was left in the future.
* * *
The passage of time was hard to define in the temporal ether stretching between time-periods, but Crono sensed something was wrong only a few moments after entering the gate. The surrounding luminance was a different color than he remembered from his first two trips, and it had become noticeably dimmer ahead of them.
“Anomalous reading detected,” Robo reported.
“What's going on?” Marle asked with worry. “The ether ahead of us looks all weird.”
Lucca looked up from the Chrono Trigger's gauges with more than worry. “The wormhole has bent!” she cried. “We're no longer heading to the past! I... I don't know where we're going!”
Crono turned to her. “Why? I thought these things were supposed to be fairly stable!”
“They are! I don't understand it! Nothing in my research indicated something like this could happen!”
He gave her a grim look. “What do you think? Do we use the Chrono Trigger again? Dump ourselves out of the ether early like we did before?”
“That would be inadvisable, Master Crono,” Robo said. “Without precise calculations made in advance, utilizing the Chrono Trigger within the timestream would potentially result in an egress anywhere in the space-time continuum.”
“We can't risk it!” Lucca said. “We might not survive the exit, and I'm not sure we'd even be able to get back inside the wormhole at all. We would be forever stuck wherever we ended up!”
Marle moaned. “No... No, this can't be happening! Not now! Not when we know what we have to do to stop...”
“Solid mass detected in the wormhole's present course,” Robo interrupted. “It would appear to be our destination.”
“What, it's not a gate aperture?” Lucca asked.
“Negative.”
Crono tensed. He could see the mysterious mass now, and it looked to be quite large. More importantly they were closing the distance at what seemed to be a terminal velocity. It was like jumping off the spire of Guardia Castle and watching the ground come up to meet them. Not a survivable fall, perhaps not even for Robo.
“Guys?”
Marle grabbed hold of him. “No, no, no, no, no...”
“I... don't even know what to say,” Lucca muttered.
Melchior had remarked that their unlikely journey was possibly a cosmic prank on the part of Creaton's opaque design. A joke indeed, for their adventures to end like this. Crono just closed his eyes and pulled Marle into a tighter embrace, not knowing what else to do.
But the lethal impact never came.
Crono opened his eyes to see that they were no longer “falling”, but slowly floating downward to the large object that had somehow become the wormhole's destination. They all extended their feet and came to a silent agreement with the ground, managing to land as safely as Lucca had hoped before entering the gate. But...
Gravity had returned the moment their feet touched the ground, Crono stumbling slightly from the unexpected pull, but he couldn't fathom why there was gravity. They were not standing on the surface of Gaia, and the sky above them looked no different than the eternal sourceless glow they had become familiar with in their wormhole passages. They were in a small paved square surrounded by iron-wrought fencing on three sides, the fence being the only thing separating the square from a bottomless chasm that emulated the sky. It was like they were all standing on an artificial island that somehow floated in the sea of the larger timestream.
Everyone gazed around at their new environment in stunned silence. Only one thing was clear. This was not the middle-ages.
2
Fan Fiction / Re: Return to the present - a novel fragment
« on: August 12, 2025, 06:44:47 pm »
Chapter 34 - The Way Home
“So much adventure for ones so young,” Melchior said wistfully in the rustic comfort of his Medinan cottage. “And so much responsibility you have taken upon yourselves. What a sad state of affairs.”
Crono, Marle, and Lucca sat in rapt attention in three chairs that had been brought out of storage to accommodate Melchior's unexpected guests. The old man rarely had guests of any kind due to the remoteness of his dwelling, along with the centuries-old travel ban on citizens of Guardia from coming to this continent of the once greatly feared Mystics. The austere furnishings and simple comforts reminded Crono of Director Doan's office in Bangor, and the two men shared many of the same qualities in addition to their similar age. Just being in Melchior's presence, like with Doan, was a boon to one's confidence. This had become all the more apparent to Crono while he and the others were relating the tale of their time-traveling adventure on the road. Melchior had seemed to become even more sage-like during the telling. He never once doubted the veracity of their incredible story, but instead treated it as an incontrovertible fact and sought only greater understanding behind the choices they had made.
Of most interest to the swordsmith were Crono's choices, and the ways he had used and adapted Melchior's teachings in swordsmanship and strategy to survive his numerous ordeals, but he offered a share of commentary and wisdom to everyone else, too. For a man who lived such a solitary existence, he was remarkably cordial, as if he carried on these kinds of conversations every day. He also found a lot to laugh about.
But now the old hermit looked upon them with the utmost seriousness. “Many in this world would tell you to step back, if they believed the tale,” Melchior continued. “Tell you this mission should be left to the more experienced, the more fully trained, those with the blessing of the world's leaders to attempt the impossible and ensure the future. But the four of you, ironically, have more skills and practical experience than anyone to carry out this kind of endeavor. That you have survived to this point is testament enough of this. Whether that be to the world's benefit or merely as part of some cosmic prank on the part of Creation's opaque design remains to be seen.” He chuckled. “Perhaps it is fate. Stranger things have happened through the tapestry of time, I suppose. I have witnessed a few.”
“Are you implying, Mister Melchior, that my accompanying Mister Crono, Mistress Marle, and Major Lucca is the result of some larger hidden design?” Robo asked from where he stood behind the chairs of his companions. “This does not seem logical.”
“It certainly doesn't!” Melchior said with a twinkle in his eyes. “And that is the point, my mechanical friend. Your disparate backgrounds are so dissimilar that the odds of you coming together for any kind of endeavor approaches infinity, let alone saving the world from a threat like... Lavos.” Melchior almost shuddered at reciting the name, Crono noted, which seemed a bit odd for someone who could only visualize the tale he had been told. Nothing could compare with the lifelike imagery Crono had seen in the future, not even the way Lucca had described the thing in her telling.
Robo flashed the lights in his eyes in one of his unknown expressions. “Fate?”
“Perhaps it is best not to dwell on that thought. Your shared journey is only beginning, and the larger metaphysical implications behind it can not be easily grasped. Better to focus on the facts and improving yourselves for whatever trials await you.”
Crono couldn't disagree. His entire journey had been putting one foot in front of the other almost from the moment he had woken up that first morning of the Millennial Fair. That those steps had led to this moment and circumstance was not something anyone could have predicted in their most fanciful musings. You just had to handle things as they came and hope you had the knowledge and the skills to make the right choices.
And speaking of knowledge...
“Uh... Mel, about my sword?” Crono began. He had wanted to broach this topic for days, but the opportunity hadn't presented itself since there was so much else to tell.
“It is a replica, Master Crono, just like all of the other swords I have made,” Melchior said. “I didn't simply stumble across it in my wanderings. None of the original blades survive, I assure you.” He gave a knowing look at Marle, who must have related a part of the “rainbow blade” story to him over the past few days.
“Then how...?”
“Whatever the sword has done in your capable hands is on account of you alone, Crono. Consider the question of a piece of technology in Miss Lucca's hands, or that of your mechanical companion. With them it would show pure potential, while in yours or Miss Marle's hands it would become something only dangerous to yourself. By itself it does nothing, of course.”
“My sword changes color!”
Melchior laughed. “Yes. Quite the unique property, isn't it? And how did this happen? What does it mean for the one wielding it? Remember the tales from your own history. A thing can have power, but only the right person can bring it out to any meaningful degree.”
It sounded like wisdom, but it didn't really answer Crono's question either. It couldn't just be him. Marle had gotten it to change color just by sticking the blade into a fire, and it had somehow disabled Yakra's magic just by pressing it against his shield. Crono couldn't have done that himself. Nothing in Melchior's teachings described such a thing being possible, and Crono wasn't inclined to believe it was dumb luck. Yakra. The Guardian. Perhaps even Krawlie. There was plainly something different about Melchior's sword. Why would its maker deflect the question?
“I suppose you can just accept the fact that you're special, Crono,” Lucca said with a shrug. “That would be good enough for me.”
Crono couldn't help but be disappointed at the continuing mystery of his sword. Marle didn't seem satisfied with Melchior's explanation either.
“Getting back on point, we need to focus our energies on the obvious next step in our journey,” Lucca continued. “I need to reinforce Robo's sealants for the land-bridge trip. Our traipsing through the swamps probably degraded them, and I'd rather they be as strong as possible before moving further.”
“My workshop should have everything you need, Miss Lucca,” Melchior said. “Feel free to take all the time your task requires. Crono and Miss Marle, it seems, have more to discuss with me in the meantime.”
Lucca and Robo moved into Melchior's forge to take care of the maintenance issue the robot needed. Better sealants was probably a good idea knowing what the chambers of the Zealian land-bridge were like, and Crono could only assume and hope that would be enough to assure the robot's safety in that environment.
“You seem to lack confidence in yourself, lad.”
Crono blinked. “What?”
“Your focus is not where it needs to be,” Melchior continued calmly. “You are thinking of weapons and parlor tricks instead of the discipline a swordsman needs to succeed in his craft.”
The rebuke was not harsh, but Crono still reddened at the criticism.
“You're not being fair!” Marle said. “We just wanted to know how the sword works.”
“And how do your own abilities work, Miss Marle?” the swordsmith countered. “Ice by itself is merely an element, to be shaped and moved by nature's whims. The ability to heal is an act of compassion. From where does compassion originate? If you need to be reminded of these things, then your focus is also not where it needs to be. That would be dangerous given the importance of your errand.”
Marle wilted. “Um...”
“Swordsmanship and magic are similar in that the wielder's focus determines their reality. The Ancients knew this. The future is not a static thing, waiting to be experienced. It must be made. Is that not what your journey, your crusade against Lavos is all about?”
“You're saying we're focused too much on the external rather than the internal?” Crono asked him.
“Yes, quite right. That was why I gave you that wooden practice sword when you began walking the swordsman's path. A pretty enough thing, if I may say so, but a lifeless block of wood if not used with discipline and purpose. You are what gave that weapon its true beauty. That is no less true for the sword you now carry. You understood this once. Perhaps you need a reminder?”
Melchior came to his feet and reached for two swords hung over the fireplace. Crono recognized one of them as the sword he had practiced with for months between the time he had returned from Medina and the first day of the Millennial Fair. The other sword was one he also recognized, also made of wood, though plainer in appearance. The swordsmith tossed the ornate practice sword in Crono's direction, and he grabbed it out of the air. Melchior brandished the other practice weapon from where he stood.
Marle started. “Crono?
“It's all right,” he said, smiling at her. “I think I need this. Don't interfere, okay?”
Crono took a moment to remove his belt and the scabbard that held Melchior's sword, setting them on the cottage floor near the opposite wall where they wouldn't be in the way. This would not be a contest between weapons, but of swordsmen.
“I accept.”
There was nothing more that needed to be said. No ceremony or drawn out formalities. It was not a duel. Just training.
Crono was compelled to make the first move, as tradition dictated from the one who was challenged. The weight and balance of the practice sword was the same as the metal one, differing only in the feel of the grip, and the familiarity of the prized wooden blade took Crono back to the simplicity of technique and the joys of self-discovery. He began with a basic overhand slash, reinforced with a decisiveness he had lacked as a learner, and the blade moved unerringly to its target.
Melchior hardly moved at all, and the decisive but basic strike was met with opposing wood with a loud clack. No surprise there.
Marle gasped, which was also no surprise. She was about to see quite a show, if Crono had learned anything at all.
Because Melchior was not just a master maker of swords. He knew everything about swords. Including how to use them.
Crono responded to the old man's counterattack from both memory and instinct. He remembered the humiliation of being disarmed the very first time he had been put on the defense due to the stinging of his hands from Melchior's block, and this time he parried all three counterstrikes and held onto his sword without difficulty.
He wouldn't pat himself on the back, though.
Melchior's speed was not the product of vigor. That would have been counterproductive for a man of his years. It was all about technique, discipline, and economy of motion. Not so much as a breath that didn't have to be taken would be troubled with.
Crono attacked again, and this time he moved a step beyond basics and made a combination strike: high, low, high, cross. Melchior met them all.
The swordsmith's counterattacks were met as well.
Combination, counter, combination, counter. On and on the contest went, and Crono lost count of how many rounds there had been. That no longer mattered. He was living solely in the moment, treating each round as a self-contained event with no real bearing on the others. His technique was nearly flawless, and his youthful vigor was able to make up for any small errors, preventing Melchior from penetrating his guard and ending the match. He vaguely perceived that he was lasting longer against the swordsmith than he ever had. Could he actually win this thing and impress Marle? He remembered her doleful reaction when he had narrowly lost to GATO at the Millennial Fair and didn't want to disappoint her again.
And then it seemed like the silvery engravings on his practice sword were beginning to glow, or perhaps that was just his eyes playing tricks on account of the blade moving so fast across his vision. The blades clacked and sparks flew.
Sparks? The swords were made of wood, not metal!
Crono's confusion was brief, but the break in his concentration was enough to cause him to overcommit on his blocking motion, and Melchior took full advantage. Crono's side was slapped hard by the swordsmith's blade in the next instant.
The match was over.
“You still have much to learn, Master Crono,” Melchior said, barely breathing hard. “But you are close to a breakthrough. Very close. I can see it. If you trust yourself and trust your feelings, none will be able to overcome you.”
Crono frowned at his weapon. He hadn't imagined the spark, had he?
“Crono, are you okay?!” Marle said, rushing to him.
“Fine, fine,” Crono replied, waving off her concern. “Don't bother with that little bruise. I think its best if I feel it for a little while.”
I'm close to a breakthrough? What did Melchior mean? He lost because of a break in his concentration, and over something that probably didn't happen. The swordsmith was right. His focus wasn't where it needed to be.
But what did that have to do with the sword Melchior had given him at the Millennial Fair?
“To answer the question I know is on your mind, lad, and to satisfy Miss Marle's insatiable curiosity, I may be able to show you something,” Melchior said.
Crono shook off his internal incrimination. “What's that?”
“A technique that the Ancients used. Something I learned - academically speaking - from some surviving documentation I dug up awhile back. I've never had the opportunity to see it in use, but Miss Marle being here changes things.”
Marle perked up. “What, me?”
“You and Crono both, potentially. Crono, unsheathe the sword I made and hold it in front of you if you would.”
Frowning, Crono did so, wondering what the old swordsmith had in mind. The blue blade shone in the light from Melchior's fireplace.
“Now, Miss Marle, if you can, try to channel as if you were about to encase Crono's sword in a block of ice.”
“Encase Crono's sword?”
“Not quite. Just begin the channeling if you can.”
Shrugging in bewilderment, Marle narrowed her eyes and extended her hand. Her hair began to glow, and her ponytail rose slightly as the channeling of magical energies was begun. Crono then felt a good draft suddenly come in front of him, and his hands felt the increasing cold. Just what was Melchior trying to show them?
Melchior nodded. “Now, Crono, swing your sword in the direction of the fireplace.”
Crono's mouth fell open. “Huh?”
“Quickly, lad!”
At a loss, Crono did as he was told and made a quick overhand slash in the direction of the fireplace.
The entire mantle was instantly encased in a wintry block, extinguishing the fire and most of the room's light in the early evening hour.
Crono and Marle gaped at the sight. Melchior simply laughed.
“Magnificent!” he said with delight. “The technique actually works!”
“What technique?” Crono blurted. “What just happened?”
“You just increased the potency of Miss Marle's channeling and directed it at a different target.”
“I did? But... How did I...?”
Melchior looked at him sagely. “That is a question you will have to answer yourself, Master Crono. I cannot tell you how. Only that you must trust yourself and your feelings, like I said earlier. That is the key to unlocking anyone's potential, should they have the gift.”
Marle looked stunned. “My channeling can do that? Through Crono?”
“Indeed, and you should take pride in the accomplishment,” Melchior said. “This is something the Jes'aal – the Mystics – cannot do. They think only of dominating others, not working together.”
Lucca then rushed into the cottage's living room, followed by Robo to investigate the commotion. She was silent for a long moment regarding the scene.
“Uh... Are you guys having fun?”
* * *
“It is regrettable that you are declining to join us in our mission, Mister Melchior,” Robo said. “Someone of your evident knowledge and skill would be of great benefit to our task.”
They were all standing outside of Melchior's cottage, dawn's light shining down on the four adventurers and the mysterious hermit of Medina. The air was humid, but the stifling heat of the Medinan summer wouldn't make itself felt for many hours still.
Melchior laughed. “What's regrettable is that age catches up with all of us eventually! Had I been with you, you might have had to bury me somewhere in the wastes of that desolate future you all braved. Some tasks can only be accomplished by the young, I'm afraid. Fortunately, the youth arrayed before me have strength, skill, reason, and courage in equal measure by all accounts. If anyone has the ability to challenge the evils of this world, it's you. You certainly have good enough weapons at your disposal!”
“Thanks to you, old timer,” Crono said.
“Melchior, what are you going to do now?” Marle asked. “It feels bad just leaving you alone like this. If we don't come back, you'll have no way of knowing whether we succeeded in our mission.”
“Oh, I think you'll be seeing me again, Miss Marle. Perhaps sooner than you think. An old friend once spoke to me about the interconnectedness of time, and I think it no idle or unfounded claim. Besides, I'll have a fair bit to keep me occupied in the meantime. The destruction of Ozzimort's tribe has left a power vacuum in Medina that will not long go unfilled. The tribes will be maneuvering for advantage, and violent conflict is all but assured. It will take a lot to get the Jes'all to change their nature and find a better way.”
“Will you be okay?” Lucca asked.
“Perhaps. I have always been neutral in these conflicts, and they are nothing new. We have a bit of an understanding between us, the tribes and I, though it is grudging. Still, your being here has reminded me just how much I miss human company. The Millennial Fair was also no small factor. I think I might just pack up here and move to Truce. There are always people who need things fixed, even if the market for swords and the like is decidedly niche. I won't have any trouble making a living there. A life of humble service appeals to me.”
Crono raised his brow at this. Melchior was not one to muse openly about something and then not follow through on it. He was going to be leaving Medina for sure.
“Maybe one day we'll all meet at your new place and we can talk about all the adventures we had along the way,” Crono said. “The future might even be secured by then.”
“The Will of the World willing.”
“Huh?”
Melchior shrugged. “Oh, just another way of describing Creation. Now, be well, Master Crono, Miss Marle, Miss Lucca, Robo. Believe in yourselves, always.”
Crono and his adventuring companions then departed Melchior's humble abode and headed north. The coming heat would be an annoyance, but nothing the land-bridge cave wouldn't more than make up for.
* * *
Marle looked upon the entrance to the cave of this “land-bridge” she had heard so much about with a mixture of relief and trepidation. So close to finally leaving this miserable swamphole of a continent filled with mosquitoes, alligators, wretched dinners, blatant racism, and feuding Mystics behind and returning to the comparatively temperate climate of northern Guardia. On the other side of this mysterious Zealian artifact Lucca had reverse-engineered to build her Telepod devices was also the next leg of their mission to stop Lavos, and possibly added danger. Chancellor Horus and her father were there, and the passage of a few short weeks would hardly be enough for those men to simply forget about all the havoc she had caused helping Crono and Lucca escape Guardia Castle. Every constable in Truce Province and possibly all of North Zenan would be on the lookout for them.
She tried to put that out of her mind as everyone descended the unremarkable hillside to the cave. The land was a bit less swampy here, and she locked a nervous gaze on a pair of wild boars grazing not far away. Nothing they couldn't deal with given the gear and abilities they now had, but she couldn't help but put herself into Lucca's shoes remembering the tale she had told about being chased by these things while having no gear at all. Even Crono had been forced to run.
And then there was nothing on her mind but the smell coming out of the cave entrance.
“Creation, no wonder you guys left to find food somewhere else!” Marle said with a grimace. “I couldn't deal with this for more than a few minutes, it's so rancid!”
“We didn't.” Crono replied with a tense frown.
“No, not like this,” Lucca agreed. “Ugh! This is about ten times as bad! What could this stench be? We never found out our first time here.”
“Curious. My olfactory sensors are returning a negative result,” Robo said. “There is no record of this aroma in my memory banks.”
Lucca turned to him. “What, seriously? That would mean no one in the domes-era has a record of it, either.”
“Affirmative.”
“Maybe it's another casualty of that big war in the 16th century,” Crono speculated. “You said the climate of Medina was substantially changed by all those nuclear explosions.”
“I suppose,” Lucca said. “Dare I say the world wasn't better off for its loss?”
Marle and the others gingerly made their way inside the cave holding their noses, save for Robo who blessedly had no nose to appreciate how unpleasant the smell was. A short distance saw the cave expand into a cavern that was quite large, with numerous small waterfalls and pools of unknown depth below the path Crono and Lucca led them on. Narrow sunbeams illuminated the space. It was very humid. Marle resisted a sudden spike of anxiety at the wet environment. It was a very strange place to find an ancient Zealian relic. Why would the Ancients put such a thing here?
“Hey, Lu, you said you were doing back-and-forths on the land-bridge all the way to the day before the Millennial Fair, right?” Crono asked. “You didn't notice this stench then?”
Lucca shook her head. “No. I mean, we still have a little ways to go in here, but no way I wouldn't have known something was off if the smell was this bad in the cave proper. Whatever this change is, it had to have happened recently.”
Marle huffed. “Just our luck! Bad enough we have to dodge Horus and his goons once we reach the other side of this land-bridge thing, and we have to deal with this first? I hate Medina! I'd almost rather brave August 7th of 1999 for real than deal with this detestable...”
A deep and very loud growl at that moment reverberated through the cave and froze everyone in their tracks. Marle's heart started hammering in her chest, the horrid smell of the cave completely forgotten.
“Okay. That can't be good!” Lucca remarked.
“Auditory analysis inconclusive,” Robo said without any apparent panic. “Visual required to identify species. Stand by.”
They didn't have to stand by long.
The largest creature other than Lavos Marle had ever seen, larger than Krawlie, came around a big series of stalagmites in front of them, huffing in apparent agitation. It was the source of the smell. It was bipedal, stood slightly hunched on its thick legs, and was covered in bluish-gray skin. Golden spines adorned its back, and three-fingered claws of the same color extended wickedly from its hands. The creature's muscles rippled in the dim light of the cavern, and it directed two angry green eyes at them from a head resembling that of an ape. Even hunched, the beast was over ten feet tall and filled most of the space between floor and ceiling with its bulk.
“Visual analysis complete,” Robo stated. “Species: Heckran. Mammalian. Subterranean dweller. Believed to have gone extinct sometime in the eleventh-century. This would seem to be a fully grown adult of the species.”
Marle was too frozen with fright to comment or even to scream.
It charged them.
“Look out!”
Everyone scattered at Crono's barked command, and the giant beast passed between them narrowly missing Marle with a swipe of its huge claw. She lost her balance and tumbled to the floor.
“Threat assessment: serious,” Robo said. “Level five danger. Target non-sentient. Engaging with all available force.”
Marle scrambled to her feet and struggled to ready her crossbow. Robo pointed his left-arm-mounted plasma cannon at the “Heckran” and opened fire. It was the first time the robot had fired his newly installed weapon at anything, but the effect was immediate. The giant creature was thrown back with a searing wound across its chest to crash into the stalagmites behind it. Lucca was immediately at Robo's side and firing repeatedly at the huge monster with her pistol.
“Energy levels depleted,” Robo reported. “Recharging from capacitors. I will require fifteen seconds to complete the operation.”
Fifteen seconds without the most powerful weapon in their arsenal, Marle thought, but maybe that wouldn't be a problem. The hulking brute had eyes like most every other creature, and she could make quick work of those the moment it turned around to face her. Marle slapped a bolt to the side of her weapon and then slid another into the crossbow's barrel, ready to end this fight quickly.
There was no way the Heckran could have known the threat Marle represented, but its counterstroke was nonetheless perfect. It turned its massive body while swinging a huge broken stalagmite in its hand, sending the stony spear directly at where Marle was standing. The point was off the mark, but the shaft was all that was needed to defeat Marle's impending shot. It skidded across the floor nearly as fast as a gunshot, and Marle was forced to jump over it. Not quickly enough. The stalagmite slammed horizontally into her calves before she could clear it and she fell hard to the floor. She cried out in pain. The crossbow also left her hands and slid on the slippery cavern surface to splash into a nearby pool of water.
“No! My crossbow!”
Crono was at her side immediately and took her into his arms, narrowly avoiding a second charge by the Heckran. Lucca continued firing to little apparent effect.
“What are we going to do?” Marle asked him, wincing in her agony. She wasn't sure if her legs were broken, but she could barely feel anything below where the stalagmite had struck. “Robo can't...”
“I can think of one thing,” Crono said grimly. “That trick Melchior taught us. Can you still channel?”
Marle gaped at him. The one time they had done this it was in controlled conditions and with Marle being unhurt. If she messed it up, Crono's sword would be completely encased, or worse, Crono himself. Her despair at their rapidly deteriorating circumstances risked overwhelming her control.
“Can you?” he insisted.
“I... I think so.”
Crono sat her down near where Robo had stationed himself and brandished his sword, boldly approaching the angry Heckran. Marle was again reminded how much she had come to detest Medina.
* * *
Crono approached this latest threat to their lives and their mission with grim determination. The Heckran reminded him in many ways of Krawlie; not particularly intelligent, but possessed of superb instincts and aggression, using whatever there was at hand to attack its foes. It was bigger, less heavily protected but quicker, and not at all easy to engage in melee combat. The way it handled a broken stalagmite meant that the tactics that worked against Krawlie wouldn't be wise here. Even if Melchior's sword wasn't broken by a stalagmite strike, Crono himself certainly would be if he tried to block it.
No conventional tactics here, Crono decided. They had to use the best techniques at their disposal to survive this. Robo's cannon was powerful, but took a long time to recharge. Lucca's shots could inflict damage, but not quickly enough to matter much against this foe. Marle's crossbow had been taken out of the fight. That left just Crono's sword and Marle's magic – if she could manage it.
Whatever the sword has done in your capable hands is on account of you alone, Crono.
Was it really just him? Melchior seemed to think so, and who was Crono to question a man he had yet to best in a sparring match? He had made the sword, too. Who would know better?
There was no other move to make. He was committed.
“Marle, now! Strong as you can!” He turned to face his injured friend and held his sword aloft. The Heckran behind him almost seemed to be daring him to attack.
Marle's hair glowed. The temperature dropped. Crono's hands shivered gripping the hilt of his sword, colder than they had been before. Then he closed his eyes, thinking of his friends all lying dead or inoperative on the cavern floor, knowing that this singular moment was all that separated that fear from becoming the future.
He turned to the Heckran. “This... is... the end of you!”
Crono made a fierce overhand slash.
The Heckran and the entire cavern wall behind it was encased in a glacial prison.
The reprieve was brief. The wall of ice began to crack from within.
No! It wasn't enough!
“Ceiling, Robo!” Crono cried.
“Affirmative.”
The robot's recharging cycle complete, it fired its next shot where Crono commanded, directly over the breaking ice that held the Heckran. Stone rained down in explosive fragments all over the would-be icy tomb, but not nearly enough to accomplish what Crono had in mind.
Lucca didn't have to be told what to do next. She fired repeatedly into the ceiling around the place Robo had hit, and the stony rain then became a deluge. Everyone turned away as that whole section of the cavern's ceiling suddenly collapsed on top of the Heckran's prison.
Nothing moved in the dusty aftermath.
“This is a most unfortunate occurrence,” Robo said. “It is quite possible we have just terminated the last surviving member of this species.”
“Yeah,” Lucca said in a huff. “Tragic.”
* * *
Crono held Marle steady as she tested her now healed legs in a standing position. He let go at a gesture from her and then looked on as she spent a moment striding through the malodorous cavern. With some effort, he had also recovered her crossbow from where it had fallen in the pool, taking no trouble to undress knowing what was ahead for them. He hoped Marle's legs were strong enough for that final step.
“I think I'm good,” she finally told them. “Let's get the blazes out of Medina already!”
Crono and Lucca led the others deeper into the watery cavern, thankfully confirming that the Heckran apparently had no offspring or mate to bother them. Maybe that Heckran truly was the last, but Crono couldn't bring himself to feel much guilt over it. There was no other way to get home and continue their mission.
The humidity grew, and the elevation of the floor dipped as they continued their passage. After a short time, the natural walls of the cavern were replaced with the smooth stone of a man-made construction, an impossibly old one. The temperature also edged slightly up. They were close now.
The four adventurers then emerged into a modestly sized chamber that appeared to be a dead-end for anyone who hadn't been here before. The only thing of note was a deep pool to the rear of the chamber.
Marle looked around, confused. “Is this it? I don't see anything that looks like an ancient device.”
“Not yet,” Crono said. “The teleportation chamber is down there a bit.” He pointed into the pool.
Marle's expression at that moment froze in place, and she very slowly turned to face Lucca.
“This... This is joke, right?” Her voice sounded very small.
“From a certain point of view, I suppose,” Lucca said with a smirk. “Remember when I said that Crono jumped into a puddle to get us to Medina? This is it, a very deep puddle, albeit the one on the other side of the divide. Behold, the land-bridge between Medina and Guardia! The actual device is a ways back in the water.”
“I thought you were being figurative!”
“Nope. The way home is underwater. Has been for thousands of years. It's not that big a deal, though. We don't have to swim very far. It's about a thirty foot stretch on each side of the terminus. I've done it often enough while researching my Telepod experiment. One good breath is all we'll need, and... pop! We're home! Just like the Telepod. No worries.”
Marle gaped in something akin to a complete panic, quickly shaking her head from side to side. “I'm not getting in there!”
“Come on, Marle! Don't be such a princess! We're only a few hours from home now. Walking around in wet clothes for awhile isn't going to kill you. Besides, you need a bath.”
“We all do,” Crono laughed. “It's been a long trip.”
Lucca spent a few moments rechecking Robo's watertight sealants and then took off her gun belt and stuffed it and her entire satchel inside Robo's open chest compartment. Everything that water could damage or ruin had to be protected. She then placed her helmet inside and beckoned to Marle.
“Come on, you'll be wanting to put your stuff in here, too. And probably the Star of Guardia, just to be safe. We don't want that interfering with the teleport. Your quiver can fit in here, too, but everything else should be fine.”
Marle did what Lucca instructed, but it looked to Crono as though she wasn't truly there. Like she was just going through the motions without any conscious thought. Something was very wrong.
Lucca then stepped into the shallow end of the pool and waded deeper into the water, followed by Crono and then Robo. Marle remained standing where she was, seemingly paralyzed.
“You ready for this, Robo?” Lucca asked.
“Affirmative. The short distances involved make a sealant breach and general systems failure highly improbable,” the robot replied. “We can proceed when the Mistress is ready.”
But Marle wasn't ready, and it looked to all appearances she wasn't about to be so.
“Marle, what's wrong?” Lucca asked irritably. “It's only water. Everything worth protecting already has been. Just get yourself wet already so we can go home!”
Marle gingerly, and with great reluctance, took a few steps forward into the pool, but stopped when the water level was barely above her knees.
“But... it's so... deep!” Marle said, her voice barely carrying.
And that was when Crono knew. Creation, how could he have been so blind!
Lucca closed her eyes and her posture sagged from where she stood in the water, the truth clearly dawning on her, too.
“No, don't tell me...” she said slowly.
The silence of the land-bridge chamber endured for an uncomfortably long moment.
“Stop looking at me like that!” Marle finally said with reddened cheeks. “They kept me cooped up in the castle all the time! When was I supposed to learn how to swim?”
“This could present a problem,” Robo remarked in his always even tone.
That was putting it mildly. Marle couldn't swim! The signs had all been there back at the Bangor sewers, Crono realized, thinking back, and he hadn't suspected a thing. What were they going to do now? Teaching someone how to swim was not something that could be done quickly, and for someone with a phobia of deep water, as Marle clearly had, it was nearly impossible. Crono cursed King Malcolm for robbing his daughter of such an essential survival skill. The greatest marksman in the world and an incomparable user of magic laid low by a simple body of water. It was criminal!
There was no help for it. Crono would have to swim for them both. He was no lifeguard, but he had to manage somehow. He waded over to the terrified former princess.
“Okay, Marle. The most important thing is not to panic,” Crono told her with as much assurance as he could, lightly grasping her arms in the pool. “You don't have to do anything but take a deep breath and hold onto me. You can do that, right?”
Marle shivered. “I... I don't know.”
“All right, just lie on your back, then. I'm right here, and I'm not letting go. You need to get used to being in the water. Robo, could you hold onto my sword and Marle's crossbow for us? We need to be as unencumbered as possible for this.”
“Certainly, Master Crono,” Robo replied.
Crono did a brief double take at the honorific. Master Crono was something only Melchior had called him. Sometimes young men or boys were addressed as such, but that wasn't the impression Crono got from the robot.
He put that out of his mind and concentrated on Marle, who he maneuvered onto her back and then kicked them both to the deeper end of the pool. He began to tread water and held them in that position for several moments, Marle kicking and splashing her feet in her anxiety.
“You'll free-climb hundreds of feet down a castle spire, and you're scared of this?” Lucca remarked.
“Oh, quit making fun of me, Miss Terrified of Frogs!” Marle grumbled. “This is hard enough for me as it is!”
“Okay, I guess that's fair, but I'm still writing this down in my diary later.”
“Just relax, Marle,” Crono soothed. “Nothing's going to happen to you here, I promise.”
“Well, not that we're in that big a rush, but something may be happening to Robo if we waste too much time frolicking in the pool,” Lucca pointed out. “Thanks to that fight against Mister Heckran, Robo's power reserves are getting pretty low. He had to fire his cannon twice, and my pistol battery doesn't have much more energy to give him. And I'm going to need time to build the power core supplement he needs when we get home.”
“Energy reserves at 12%,” Robo added.
“Not helping, you guys!” Marle barked.
Even if they had a comfortable margin to work with, their adventures had proven that there was always something unexpected along the path that would consume valuable time or resources, like what was happening now. Crono was going to have to resort to even more of a deep end treatment for Marle to get things moving.
“We're going under, okay?”
“What?!”
“We're not going anywhere,” Crono assured her. “It's just an exercise. I need to know that you can make the distance. One minute to start with, and then we start extending it to two. That should give us more than enough time to swim both halves of the land-bridge.”
Of course, a one-minute breathhold was completely unrealistic for a novice swimmer with a deep water phobia, and Marle could manage no more than twenty seconds at first. He embraced her tenderly under the water with each exercise to keep her calm, suddenly wishing that they were alone to deal with this unexpectedly intimate situation. She really needed more time for this. In the end, Marle could only manage about a minute-and-a-half.
It would have to be enough. Marle had plateaued. Wasting any more time would just fray her nerves further and put Robo at risk. It was time to leave.
“Bathtime it is,” Lucca said cheerfully. “Don't worry, Marle, I've done this operation hundreds of times. I won't waste a single second down there.”
Marle just shuddered silently.
After a couple of false starts, the swimmers were finally off, Crono and Lucca the only ones actually swimming. Marle hung on to Crono's neck with her eyes tightly closed, while Robo steadily strode along the bottom of the underwater passage carrying everyone's belongings.
Just relax, Marle. Don't think of anything but holding your breath. We've got this.
Lucca indeed wasted no time, getting to the teleportation chamber well ahead of everyone else. The room was cube-shaped, with hundreds of smooth two-foot-square tiles along wall, floor, and ceiling, each covered in runes and “element-X” crystals. A great many of the crystals weren't there anymore, all of them having been pilfered for use in Lucca's Telepod chambers, but the Zealian chamber still worked well enough to serve the only other surviving hub of the ancient transport network. Lucca's movements were graceful as she tapped several of the intact tiles, touching one on the left wall, then pushing off to touch another on the right wall in a fully horizontal position, angling down to slap one on the floor, and then springing up with her hands to have both her upright feet connect with a ceiling tile. All of the runes on the touched tiles began glowing in sequence with a mysterious power. There were nine needed tiles altogether to trigger access to the Ashtear Island hub. Lucca showed Crono a thumb's up sign hanging almost upside-down in the water after hitting the last tile.
The first time they had made the return trip to Guardia, Lucca and Crono both had had to touch the tiles in the correct order to get the job done in the time their breath allowed. Lucca could do it herself now in only a fraction of the time, and was plainly showing off. Crono wouldn't complain under the circumstances. Every second saved was crucial.
In the next moment, the entire underwater chamber began to glow with an eerie light, and the continent of Medina was left behind.
* * *
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed midnight, and Taban Ashtear closed his eyes at the passage of another day without news of his daughter.
Lucca had just disappeared, following the chaotic events in Guardia Castle on the day of Crono Lantree's scheduled execution. The Castle had done its best to cover up the whole ordeal, and a few people even believed the story of a storeroom fire that had briefly spread out of control to cause an explosion on the lower levels. Taban didn't. Something had gone wrong with their prison escape plan, and Lucca had been forced to improvise. He was surprised his girl would dare take such a risk unless the plan had gone badly south, but it was possible she wasn't even directly responsible for what happened. That was on July 12th.
It was now July 31st.
A surreptitious letter from Princess Nadia's handmaiden said that Lucca and Crono had not been captured by Castle authorities, and that the Princess herself had aided their escape. That bit of news was confirmed a few days later by the issuing of arrest warrants for Lucca and Crono, along with a 100,000 gil reward for any information on the whereabouts of the Princess. The whole kingdom was in an uproar that surpassed the one caused by Princess Nadia's first disappearance. Constables had had some very hard questions for Taban in the following days, though his culpability had been deflected by his dismantling of the Telepod Lucca had used to infiltrate the castle, the parts now hidden all over the manor so that no one would ever know.
And then the warrants had suddenly been withdrawn a week ago without explanation.
No more letters from the handmaiden Marge were forthcoming, and Taban had been forced to query the old family attorney Pierre Arnaud to find out what was going on. Pierre had taken more than a passing interest in the matter of his former clients, but had no answers for Taban. No news of Lucca or Crono being arrested. No news of Princess Nadia being found. It was the talk of the town, but not very loud talk. The newspapers strangely had nothing to say, and all of the back-issues since the Millennial Fair had disappeared from the libraries. It was as if all of the events of the past few weeks had been conveniently forgotten and that nothing had happened at the Millennial Fair at all. It was bizarre.
“Why did you leave, Lucca?”
Taban turned to the listless voice of his wife. She had been repeating the question to herself endlessly since the morning of the 12th, that day that Guardia had somehow forgotten about.
“Lucca will come back, Lara. She always does,” said Gina Lantree with a soothing tone from a seat beside Lara's wheelchair. “She's just looking after Crono on one of his big adventures. You know how he is.”
Gina had become an unofficial resident of Ashtear Manor following the day of the prison escape, and the unexplained disappearance of Lucca, Crono, and the Princess. Taban often hired part-time servants to help take care of his disabled wife, and Gina had volunteered for the job one day out of the blue, leaving her house in the city temporarily unoccupied. A cat stirred on the floor nearby.
“Why did you leave, Lucca?” Lara repeated, oblivious to the world around her.
Taban sighed. The question was why she hadn't come back. He didn't want to believe the worst. Lucca was objectively a genius-level intellect, regardless of the boundless love Taban had for his daughter. He couldn't imagine any danger that could get the better of her, especially if Crono was by her side.
The doorbell rang.
Taban's heart skipped a beat. It was a strange hour to be getting visitors, or at least normal visitors. The handmaiden Marge had arrived like this, and then both before and after law-enforcement personnel had been coming at all hours during their investigations into his daughter's activities. It was news. It had to be. But news of what?
He reached for the doorknob of the manor's front entrance with his heart pounding. This would either be the happiest day of Taban Ashtear's life or the beginning of the end of it, depending on the news.
Taban opened the door and nearly fainted at what he saw.
Lucca. Crono. Princess Nadia. They we all alive! Thin, disheveled, and in crumpled clothing that looked like they had been walking in the rain, but alive. And something else.
A large machine, standing on two legs, covered in rounded and very sturdy-looking bronze plating, and with two glowing green lights shining down at him from its squatted top. It was almost as tall as the doorway, and even had arms.
What in Creation?
“Hey, dad,” Lucca said with a friendly wave. “Where's the food?”
“So much adventure for ones so young,” Melchior said wistfully in the rustic comfort of his Medinan cottage. “And so much responsibility you have taken upon yourselves. What a sad state of affairs.”
Crono, Marle, and Lucca sat in rapt attention in three chairs that had been brought out of storage to accommodate Melchior's unexpected guests. The old man rarely had guests of any kind due to the remoteness of his dwelling, along with the centuries-old travel ban on citizens of Guardia from coming to this continent of the once greatly feared Mystics. The austere furnishings and simple comforts reminded Crono of Director Doan's office in Bangor, and the two men shared many of the same qualities in addition to their similar age. Just being in Melchior's presence, like with Doan, was a boon to one's confidence. This had become all the more apparent to Crono while he and the others were relating the tale of their time-traveling adventure on the road. Melchior had seemed to become even more sage-like during the telling. He never once doubted the veracity of their incredible story, but instead treated it as an incontrovertible fact and sought only greater understanding behind the choices they had made.
Of most interest to the swordsmith were Crono's choices, and the ways he had used and adapted Melchior's teachings in swordsmanship and strategy to survive his numerous ordeals, but he offered a share of commentary and wisdom to everyone else, too. For a man who lived such a solitary existence, he was remarkably cordial, as if he carried on these kinds of conversations every day. He also found a lot to laugh about.
But now the old hermit looked upon them with the utmost seriousness. “Many in this world would tell you to step back, if they believed the tale,” Melchior continued. “Tell you this mission should be left to the more experienced, the more fully trained, those with the blessing of the world's leaders to attempt the impossible and ensure the future. But the four of you, ironically, have more skills and practical experience than anyone to carry out this kind of endeavor. That you have survived to this point is testament enough of this. Whether that be to the world's benefit or merely as part of some cosmic prank on the part of Creation's opaque design remains to be seen.” He chuckled. “Perhaps it is fate. Stranger things have happened through the tapestry of time, I suppose. I have witnessed a few.”
“Are you implying, Mister Melchior, that my accompanying Mister Crono, Mistress Marle, and Major Lucca is the result of some larger hidden design?” Robo asked from where he stood behind the chairs of his companions. “This does not seem logical.”
“It certainly doesn't!” Melchior said with a twinkle in his eyes. “And that is the point, my mechanical friend. Your disparate backgrounds are so dissimilar that the odds of you coming together for any kind of endeavor approaches infinity, let alone saving the world from a threat like... Lavos.” Melchior almost shuddered at reciting the name, Crono noted, which seemed a bit odd for someone who could only visualize the tale he had been told. Nothing could compare with the lifelike imagery Crono had seen in the future, not even the way Lucca had described the thing in her telling.
Robo flashed the lights in his eyes in one of his unknown expressions. “Fate?”
“Perhaps it is best not to dwell on that thought. Your shared journey is only beginning, and the larger metaphysical implications behind it can not be easily grasped. Better to focus on the facts and improving yourselves for whatever trials await you.”
Crono couldn't disagree. His entire journey had been putting one foot in front of the other almost from the moment he had woken up that first morning of the Millennial Fair. That those steps had led to this moment and circumstance was not something anyone could have predicted in their most fanciful musings. You just had to handle things as they came and hope you had the knowledge and the skills to make the right choices.
And speaking of knowledge...
“Uh... Mel, about my sword?” Crono began. He had wanted to broach this topic for days, but the opportunity hadn't presented itself since there was so much else to tell.
“It is a replica, Master Crono, just like all of the other swords I have made,” Melchior said. “I didn't simply stumble across it in my wanderings. None of the original blades survive, I assure you.” He gave a knowing look at Marle, who must have related a part of the “rainbow blade” story to him over the past few days.
“Then how...?”
“Whatever the sword has done in your capable hands is on account of you alone, Crono. Consider the question of a piece of technology in Miss Lucca's hands, or that of your mechanical companion. With them it would show pure potential, while in yours or Miss Marle's hands it would become something only dangerous to yourself. By itself it does nothing, of course.”
“My sword changes color!”
Melchior laughed. “Yes. Quite the unique property, isn't it? And how did this happen? What does it mean for the one wielding it? Remember the tales from your own history. A thing can have power, but only the right person can bring it out to any meaningful degree.”
It sounded like wisdom, but it didn't really answer Crono's question either. It couldn't just be him. Marle had gotten it to change color just by sticking the blade into a fire, and it had somehow disabled Yakra's magic just by pressing it against his shield. Crono couldn't have done that himself. Nothing in Melchior's teachings described such a thing being possible, and Crono wasn't inclined to believe it was dumb luck. Yakra. The Guardian. Perhaps even Krawlie. There was plainly something different about Melchior's sword. Why would its maker deflect the question?
“I suppose you can just accept the fact that you're special, Crono,” Lucca said with a shrug. “That would be good enough for me.”
Crono couldn't help but be disappointed at the continuing mystery of his sword. Marle didn't seem satisfied with Melchior's explanation either.
“Getting back on point, we need to focus our energies on the obvious next step in our journey,” Lucca continued. “I need to reinforce Robo's sealants for the land-bridge trip. Our traipsing through the swamps probably degraded them, and I'd rather they be as strong as possible before moving further.”
“My workshop should have everything you need, Miss Lucca,” Melchior said. “Feel free to take all the time your task requires. Crono and Miss Marle, it seems, have more to discuss with me in the meantime.”
Lucca and Robo moved into Melchior's forge to take care of the maintenance issue the robot needed. Better sealants was probably a good idea knowing what the chambers of the Zealian land-bridge were like, and Crono could only assume and hope that would be enough to assure the robot's safety in that environment.
“You seem to lack confidence in yourself, lad.”
Crono blinked. “What?”
“Your focus is not where it needs to be,” Melchior continued calmly. “You are thinking of weapons and parlor tricks instead of the discipline a swordsman needs to succeed in his craft.”
The rebuke was not harsh, but Crono still reddened at the criticism.
“You're not being fair!” Marle said. “We just wanted to know how the sword works.”
“And how do your own abilities work, Miss Marle?” the swordsmith countered. “Ice by itself is merely an element, to be shaped and moved by nature's whims. The ability to heal is an act of compassion. From where does compassion originate? If you need to be reminded of these things, then your focus is also not where it needs to be. That would be dangerous given the importance of your errand.”
Marle wilted. “Um...”
“Swordsmanship and magic are similar in that the wielder's focus determines their reality. The Ancients knew this. The future is not a static thing, waiting to be experienced. It must be made. Is that not what your journey, your crusade against Lavos is all about?”
“You're saying we're focused too much on the external rather than the internal?” Crono asked him.
“Yes, quite right. That was why I gave you that wooden practice sword when you began walking the swordsman's path. A pretty enough thing, if I may say so, but a lifeless block of wood if not used with discipline and purpose. You are what gave that weapon its true beauty. That is no less true for the sword you now carry. You understood this once. Perhaps you need a reminder?”
Melchior came to his feet and reached for two swords hung over the fireplace. Crono recognized one of them as the sword he had practiced with for months between the time he had returned from Medina and the first day of the Millennial Fair. The other sword was one he also recognized, also made of wood, though plainer in appearance. The swordsmith tossed the ornate practice sword in Crono's direction, and he grabbed it out of the air. Melchior brandished the other practice weapon from where he stood.
Marle started. “Crono?
“It's all right,” he said, smiling at her. “I think I need this. Don't interfere, okay?”
Crono took a moment to remove his belt and the scabbard that held Melchior's sword, setting them on the cottage floor near the opposite wall where they wouldn't be in the way. This would not be a contest between weapons, but of swordsmen.
“I accept.”
There was nothing more that needed to be said. No ceremony or drawn out formalities. It was not a duel. Just training.
Crono was compelled to make the first move, as tradition dictated from the one who was challenged. The weight and balance of the practice sword was the same as the metal one, differing only in the feel of the grip, and the familiarity of the prized wooden blade took Crono back to the simplicity of technique and the joys of self-discovery. He began with a basic overhand slash, reinforced with a decisiveness he had lacked as a learner, and the blade moved unerringly to its target.
Melchior hardly moved at all, and the decisive but basic strike was met with opposing wood with a loud clack. No surprise there.
Marle gasped, which was also no surprise. She was about to see quite a show, if Crono had learned anything at all.
Because Melchior was not just a master maker of swords. He knew everything about swords. Including how to use them.
Crono responded to the old man's counterattack from both memory and instinct. He remembered the humiliation of being disarmed the very first time he had been put on the defense due to the stinging of his hands from Melchior's block, and this time he parried all three counterstrikes and held onto his sword without difficulty.
He wouldn't pat himself on the back, though.
Melchior's speed was not the product of vigor. That would have been counterproductive for a man of his years. It was all about technique, discipline, and economy of motion. Not so much as a breath that didn't have to be taken would be troubled with.
Crono attacked again, and this time he moved a step beyond basics and made a combination strike: high, low, high, cross. Melchior met them all.
The swordsmith's counterattacks were met as well.
Combination, counter, combination, counter. On and on the contest went, and Crono lost count of how many rounds there had been. That no longer mattered. He was living solely in the moment, treating each round as a self-contained event with no real bearing on the others. His technique was nearly flawless, and his youthful vigor was able to make up for any small errors, preventing Melchior from penetrating his guard and ending the match. He vaguely perceived that he was lasting longer against the swordsmith than he ever had. Could he actually win this thing and impress Marle? He remembered her doleful reaction when he had narrowly lost to GATO at the Millennial Fair and didn't want to disappoint her again.
And then it seemed like the silvery engravings on his practice sword were beginning to glow, or perhaps that was just his eyes playing tricks on account of the blade moving so fast across his vision. The blades clacked and sparks flew.
Sparks? The swords were made of wood, not metal!
Crono's confusion was brief, but the break in his concentration was enough to cause him to overcommit on his blocking motion, and Melchior took full advantage. Crono's side was slapped hard by the swordsmith's blade in the next instant.
The match was over.
“You still have much to learn, Master Crono,” Melchior said, barely breathing hard. “But you are close to a breakthrough. Very close. I can see it. If you trust yourself and trust your feelings, none will be able to overcome you.”
Crono frowned at his weapon. He hadn't imagined the spark, had he?
“Crono, are you okay?!” Marle said, rushing to him.
“Fine, fine,” Crono replied, waving off her concern. “Don't bother with that little bruise. I think its best if I feel it for a little while.”
I'm close to a breakthrough? What did Melchior mean? He lost because of a break in his concentration, and over something that probably didn't happen. The swordsmith was right. His focus wasn't where it needed to be.
But what did that have to do with the sword Melchior had given him at the Millennial Fair?
“To answer the question I know is on your mind, lad, and to satisfy Miss Marle's insatiable curiosity, I may be able to show you something,” Melchior said.
Crono shook off his internal incrimination. “What's that?”
“A technique that the Ancients used. Something I learned - academically speaking - from some surviving documentation I dug up awhile back. I've never had the opportunity to see it in use, but Miss Marle being here changes things.”
Marle perked up. “What, me?”
“You and Crono both, potentially. Crono, unsheathe the sword I made and hold it in front of you if you would.”
Frowning, Crono did so, wondering what the old swordsmith had in mind. The blue blade shone in the light from Melchior's fireplace.
“Now, Miss Marle, if you can, try to channel as if you were about to encase Crono's sword in a block of ice.”
“Encase Crono's sword?”
“Not quite. Just begin the channeling if you can.”
Shrugging in bewilderment, Marle narrowed her eyes and extended her hand. Her hair began to glow, and her ponytail rose slightly as the channeling of magical energies was begun. Crono then felt a good draft suddenly come in front of him, and his hands felt the increasing cold. Just what was Melchior trying to show them?
Melchior nodded. “Now, Crono, swing your sword in the direction of the fireplace.”
Crono's mouth fell open. “Huh?”
“Quickly, lad!”
At a loss, Crono did as he was told and made a quick overhand slash in the direction of the fireplace.
The entire mantle was instantly encased in a wintry block, extinguishing the fire and most of the room's light in the early evening hour.
Crono and Marle gaped at the sight. Melchior simply laughed.
“Magnificent!” he said with delight. “The technique actually works!”
“What technique?” Crono blurted. “What just happened?”
“You just increased the potency of Miss Marle's channeling and directed it at a different target.”
“I did? But... How did I...?”
Melchior looked at him sagely. “That is a question you will have to answer yourself, Master Crono. I cannot tell you how. Only that you must trust yourself and your feelings, like I said earlier. That is the key to unlocking anyone's potential, should they have the gift.”
Marle looked stunned. “My channeling can do that? Through Crono?”
“Indeed, and you should take pride in the accomplishment,” Melchior said. “This is something the Jes'aal – the Mystics – cannot do. They think only of dominating others, not working together.”
Lucca then rushed into the cottage's living room, followed by Robo to investigate the commotion. She was silent for a long moment regarding the scene.
“Uh... Are you guys having fun?”
* * *
“It is regrettable that you are declining to join us in our mission, Mister Melchior,” Robo said. “Someone of your evident knowledge and skill would be of great benefit to our task.”
They were all standing outside of Melchior's cottage, dawn's light shining down on the four adventurers and the mysterious hermit of Medina. The air was humid, but the stifling heat of the Medinan summer wouldn't make itself felt for many hours still.
Melchior laughed. “What's regrettable is that age catches up with all of us eventually! Had I been with you, you might have had to bury me somewhere in the wastes of that desolate future you all braved. Some tasks can only be accomplished by the young, I'm afraid. Fortunately, the youth arrayed before me have strength, skill, reason, and courage in equal measure by all accounts. If anyone has the ability to challenge the evils of this world, it's you. You certainly have good enough weapons at your disposal!”
“Thanks to you, old timer,” Crono said.
“Melchior, what are you going to do now?” Marle asked. “It feels bad just leaving you alone like this. If we don't come back, you'll have no way of knowing whether we succeeded in our mission.”
“Oh, I think you'll be seeing me again, Miss Marle. Perhaps sooner than you think. An old friend once spoke to me about the interconnectedness of time, and I think it no idle or unfounded claim. Besides, I'll have a fair bit to keep me occupied in the meantime. The destruction of Ozzimort's tribe has left a power vacuum in Medina that will not long go unfilled. The tribes will be maneuvering for advantage, and violent conflict is all but assured. It will take a lot to get the Jes'all to change their nature and find a better way.”
“Will you be okay?” Lucca asked.
“Perhaps. I have always been neutral in these conflicts, and they are nothing new. We have a bit of an understanding between us, the tribes and I, though it is grudging. Still, your being here has reminded me just how much I miss human company. The Millennial Fair was also no small factor. I think I might just pack up here and move to Truce. There are always people who need things fixed, even if the market for swords and the like is decidedly niche. I won't have any trouble making a living there. A life of humble service appeals to me.”
Crono raised his brow at this. Melchior was not one to muse openly about something and then not follow through on it. He was going to be leaving Medina for sure.
“Maybe one day we'll all meet at your new place and we can talk about all the adventures we had along the way,” Crono said. “The future might even be secured by then.”
“The Will of the World willing.”
“Huh?”
Melchior shrugged. “Oh, just another way of describing Creation. Now, be well, Master Crono, Miss Marle, Miss Lucca, Robo. Believe in yourselves, always.”
Crono and his adventuring companions then departed Melchior's humble abode and headed north. The coming heat would be an annoyance, but nothing the land-bridge cave wouldn't more than make up for.
* * *
Marle looked upon the entrance to the cave of this “land-bridge” she had heard so much about with a mixture of relief and trepidation. So close to finally leaving this miserable swamphole of a continent filled with mosquitoes, alligators, wretched dinners, blatant racism, and feuding Mystics behind and returning to the comparatively temperate climate of northern Guardia. On the other side of this mysterious Zealian artifact Lucca had reverse-engineered to build her Telepod devices was also the next leg of their mission to stop Lavos, and possibly added danger. Chancellor Horus and her father were there, and the passage of a few short weeks would hardly be enough for those men to simply forget about all the havoc she had caused helping Crono and Lucca escape Guardia Castle. Every constable in Truce Province and possibly all of North Zenan would be on the lookout for them.
She tried to put that out of her mind as everyone descended the unremarkable hillside to the cave. The land was a bit less swampy here, and she locked a nervous gaze on a pair of wild boars grazing not far away. Nothing they couldn't deal with given the gear and abilities they now had, but she couldn't help but put herself into Lucca's shoes remembering the tale she had told about being chased by these things while having no gear at all. Even Crono had been forced to run.
And then there was nothing on her mind but the smell coming out of the cave entrance.
“Creation, no wonder you guys left to find food somewhere else!” Marle said with a grimace. “I couldn't deal with this for more than a few minutes, it's so rancid!”
“We didn't.” Crono replied with a tense frown.
“No, not like this,” Lucca agreed. “Ugh! This is about ten times as bad! What could this stench be? We never found out our first time here.”
“Curious. My olfactory sensors are returning a negative result,” Robo said. “There is no record of this aroma in my memory banks.”
Lucca turned to him. “What, seriously? That would mean no one in the domes-era has a record of it, either.”
“Affirmative.”
“Maybe it's another casualty of that big war in the 16th century,” Crono speculated. “You said the climate of Medina was substantially changed by all those nuclear explosions.”
“I suppose,” Lucca said. “Dare I say the world wasn't better off for its loss?”
Marle and the others gingerly made their way inside the cave holding their noses, save for Robo who blessedly had no nose to appreciate how unpleasant the smell was. A short distance saw the cave expand into a cavern that was quite large, with numerous small waterfalls and pools of unknown depth below the path Crono and Lucca led them on. Narrow sunbeams illuminated the space. It was very humid. Marle resisted a sudden spike of anxiety at the wet environment. It was a very strange place to find an ancient Zealian relic. Why would the Ancients put such a thing here?
“Hey, Lu, you said you were doing back-and-forths on the land-bridge all the way to the day before the Millennial Fair, right?” Crono asked. “You didn't notice this stench then?”
Lucca shook her head. “No. I mean, we still have a little ways to go in here, but no way I wouldn't have known something was off if the smell was this bad in the cave proper. Whatever this change is, it had to have happened recently.”
Marle huffed. “Just our luck! Bad enough we have to dodge Horus and his goons once we reach the other side of this land-bridge thing, and we have to deal with this first? I hate Medina! I'd almost rather brave August 7th of 1999 for real than deal with this detestable...”
A deep and very loud growl at that moment reverberated through the cave and froze everyone in their tracks. Marle's heart started hammering in her chest, the horrid smell of the cave completely forgotten.
“Okay. That can't be good!” Lucca remarked.
“Auditory analysis inconclusive,” Robo said without any apparent panic. “Visual required to identify species. Stand by.”
They didn't have to stand by long.
The largest creature other than Lavos Marle had ever seen, larger than Krawlie, came around a big series of stalagmites in front of them, huffing in apparent agitation. It was the source of the smell. It was bipedal, stood slightly hunched on its thick legs, and was covered in bluish-gray skin. Golden spines adorned its back, and three-fingered claws of the same color extended wickedly from its hands. The creature's muscles rippled in the dim light of the cavern, and it directed two angry green eyes at them from a head resembling that of an ape. Even hunched, the beast was over ten feet tall and filled most of the space between floor and ceiling with its bulk.
“Visual analysis complete,” Robo stated. “Species: Heckran. Mammalian. Subterranean dweller. Believed to have gone extinct sometime in the eleventh-century. This would seem to be a fully grown adult of the species.”
Marle was too frozen with fright to comment or even to scream.
It charged them.
“Look out!”
Everyone scattered at Crono's barked command, and the giant beast passed between them narrowly missing Marle with a swipe of its huge claw. She lost her balance and tumbled to the floor.
“Threat assessment: serious,” Robo said. “Level five danger. Target non-sentient. Engaging with all available force.”
Marle scrambled to her feet and struggled to ready her crossbow. Robo pointed his left-arm-mounted plasma cannon at the “Heckran” and opened fire. It was the first time the robot had fired his newly installed weapon at anything, but the effect was immediate. The giant creature was thrown back with a searing wound across its chest to crash into the stalagmites behind it. Lucca was immediately at Robo's side and firing repeatedly at the huge monster with her pistol.
“Energy levels depleted,” Robo reported. “Recharging from capacitors. I will require fifteen seconds to complete the operation.”
Fifteen seconds without the most powerful weapon in their arsenal, Marle thought, but maybe that wouldn't be a problem. The hulking brute had eyes like most every other creature, and she could make quick work of those the moment it turned around to face her. Marle slapped a bolt to the side of her weapon and then slid another into the crossbow's barrel, ready to end this fight quickly.
There was no way the Heckran could have known the threat Marle represented, but its counterstroke was nonetheless perfect. It turned its massive body while swinging a huge broken stalagmite in its hand, sending the stony spear directly at where Marle was standing. The point was off the mark, but the shaft was all that was needed to defeat Marle's impending shot. It skidded across the floor nearly as fast as a gunshot, and Marle was forced to jump over it. Not quickly enough. The stalagmite slammed horizontally into her calves before she could clear it and she fell hard to the floor. She cried out in pain. The crossbow also left her hands and slid on the slippery cavern surface to splash into a nearby pool of water.
“No! My crossbow!”
Crono was at her side immediately and took her into his arms, narrowly avoiding a second charge by the Heckran. Lucca continued firing to little apparent effect.
“What are we going to do?” Marle asked him, wincing in her agony. She wasn't sure if her legs were broken, but she could barely feel anything below where the stalagmite had struck. “Robo can't...”
“I can think of one thing,” Crono said grimly. “That trick Melchior taught us. Can you still channel?”
Marle gaped at him. The one time they had done this it was in controlled conditions and with Marle being unhurt. If she messed it up, Crono's sword would be completely encased, or worse, Crono himself. Her despair at their rapidly deteriorating circumstances risked overwhelming her control.
“Can you?” he insisted.
“I... I think so.”
Crono sat her down near where Robo had stationed himself and brandished his sword, boldly approaching the angry Heckran. Marle was again reminded how much she had come to detest Medina.
* * *
Crono approached this latest threat to their lives and their mission with grim determination. The Heckran reminded him in many ways of Krawlie; not particularly intelligent, but possessed of superb instincts and aggression, using whatever there was at hand to attack its foes. It was bigger, less heavily protected but quicker, and not at all easy to engage in melee combat. The way it handled a broken stalagmite meant that the tactics that worked against Krawlie wouldn't be wise here. Even if Melchior's sword wasn't broken by a stalagmite strike, Crono himself certainly would be if he tried to block it.
No conventional tactics here, Crono decided. They had to use the best techniques at their disposal to survive this. Robo's cannon was powerful, but took a long time to recharge. Lucca's shots could inflict damage, but not quickly enough to matter much against this foe. Marle's crossbow had been taken out of the fight. That left just Crono's sword and Marle's magic – if she could manage it.
Whatever the sword has done in your capable hands is on account of you alone, Crono.
Was it really just him? Melchior seemed to think so, and who was Crono to question a man he had yet to best in a sparring match? He had made the sword, too. Who would know better?
There was no other move to make. He was committed.
“Marle, now! Strong as you can!” He turned to face his injured friend and held his sword aloft. The Heckran behind him almost seemed to be daring him to attack.
Marle's hair glowed. The temperature dropped. Crono's hands shivered gripping the hilt of his sword, colder than they had been before. Then he closed his eyes, thinking of his friends all lying dead or inoperative on the cavern floor, knowing that this singular moment was all that separated that fear from becoming the future.
He turned to the Heckran. “This... is... the end of you!”
Crono made a fierce overhand slash.
The Heckran and the entire cavern wall behind it was encased in a glacial prison.
The reprieve was brief. The wall of ice began to crack from within.
No! It wasn't enough!
“Ceiling, Robo!” Crono cried.
“Affirmative.”
The robot's recharging cycle complete, it fired its next shot where Crono commanded, directly over the breaking ice that held the Heckran. Stone rained down in explosive fragments all over the would-be icy tomb, but not nearly enough to accomplish what Crono had in mind.
Lucca didn't have to be told what to do next. She fired repeatedly into the ceiling around the place Robo had hit, and the stony rain then became a deluge. Everyone turned away as that whole section of the cavern's ceiling suddenly collapsed on top of the Heckran's prison.
Nothing moved in the dusty aftermath.
“This is a most unfortunate occurrence,” Robo said. “It is quite possible we have just terminated the last surviving member of this species.”
“Yeah,” Lucca said in a huff. “Tragic.”
* * *
Crono held Marle steady as she tested her now healed legs in a standing position. He let go at a gesture from her and then looked on as she spent a moment striding through the malodorous cavern. With some effort, he had also recovered her crossbow from where it had fallen in the pool, taking no trouble to undress knowing what was ahead for them. He hoped Marle's legs were strong enough for that final step.
“I think I'm good,” she finally told them. “Let's get the blazes out of Medina already!”
Crono and Lucca led the others deeper into the watery cavern, thankfully confirming that the Heckran apparently had no offspring or mate to bother them. Maybe that Heckran truly was the last, but Crono couldn't bring himself to feel much guilt over it. There was no other way to get home and continue their mission.
The humidity grew, and the elevation of the floor dipped as they continued their passage. After a short time, the natural walls of the cavern were replaced with the smooth stone of a man-made construction, an impossibly old one. The temperature also edged slightly up. They were close now.
The four adventurers then emerged into a modestly sized chamber that appeared to be a dead-end for anyone who hadn't been here before. The only thing of note was a deep pool to the rear of the chamber.
Marle looked around, confused. “Is this it? I don't see anything that looks like an ancient device.”
“Not yet,” Crono said. “The teleportation chamber is down there a bit.” He pointed into the pool.
Marle's expression at that moment froze in place, and she very slowly turned to face Lucca.
“This... This is joke, right?” Her voice sounded very small.
“From a certain point of view, I suppose,” Lucca said with a smirk. “Remember when I said that Crono jumped into a puddle to get us to Medina? This is it, a very deep puddle, albeit the one on the other side of the divide. Behold, the land-bridge between Medina and Guardia! The actual device is a ways back in the water.”
“I thought you were being figurative!”
“Nope. The way home is underwater. Has been for thousands of years. It's not that big a deal, though. We don't have to swim very far. It's about a thirty foot stretch on each side of the terminus. I've done it often enough while researching my Telepod experiment. One good breath is all we'll need, and... pop! We're home! Just like the Telepod. No worries.”
Marle gaped in something akin to a complete panic, quickly shaking her head from side to side. “I'm not getting in there!”
“Come on, Marle! Don't be such a princess! We're only a few hours from home now. Walking around in wet clothes for awhile isn't going to kill you. Besides, you need a bath.”
“We all do,” Crono laughed. “It's been a long trip.”
Lucca spent a few moments rechecking Robo's watertight sealants and then took off her gun belt and stuffed it and her entire satchel inside Robo's open chest compartment. Everything that water could damage or ruin had to be protected. She then placed her helmet inside and beckoned to Marle.
“Come on, you'll be wanting to put your stuff in here, too. And probably the Star of Guardia, just to be safe. We don't want that interfering with the teleport. Your quiver can fit in here, too, but everything else should be fine.”
Marle did what Lucca instructed, but it looked to Crono as though she wasn't truly there. Like she was just going through the motions without any conscious thought. Something was very wrong.
Lucca then stepped into the shallow end of the pool and waded deeper into the water, followed by Crono and then Robo. Marle remained standing where she was, seemingly paralyzed.
“You ready for this, Robo?” Lucca asked.
“Affirmative. The short distances involved make a sealant breach and general systems failure highly improbable,” the robot replied. “We can proceed when the Mistress is ready.”
But Marle wasn't ready, and it looked to all appearances she wasn't about to be so.
“Marle, what's wrong?” Lucca asked irritably. “It's only water. Everything worth protecting already has been. Just get yourself wet already so we can go home!”
Marle gingerly, and with great reluctance, took a few steps forward into the pool, but stopped when the water level was barely above her knees.
“But... it's so... deep!” Marle said, her voice barely carrying.
And that was when Crono knew. Creation, how could he have been so blind!
Lucca closed her eyes and her posture sagged from where she stood in the water, the truth clearly dawning on her, too.
“No, don't tell me...” she said slowly.
The silence of the land-bridge chamber endured for an uncomfortably long moment.
“Stop looking at me like that!” Marle finally said with reddened cheeks. “They kept me cooped up in the castle all the time! When was I supposed to learn how to swim?”
“This could present a problem,” Robo remarked in his always even tone.
That was putting it mildly. Marle couldn't swim! The signs had all been there back at the Bangor sewers, Crono realized, thinking back, and he hadn't suspected a thing. What were they going to do now? Teaching someone how to swim was not something that could be done quickly, and for someone with a phobia of deep water, as Marle clearly had, it was nearly impossible. Crono cursed King Malcolm for robbing his daughter of such an essential survival skill. The greatest marksman in the world and an incomparable user of magic laid low by a simple body of water. It was criminal!
There was no help for it. Crono would have to swim for them both. He was no lifeguard, but he had to manage somehow. He waded over to the terrified former princess.
“Okay, Marle. The most important thing is not to panic,” Crono told her with as much assurance as he could, lightly grasping her arms in the pool. “You don't have to do anything but take a deep breath and hold onto me. You can do that, right?”
Marle shivered. “I... I don't know.”
“All right, just lie on your back, then. I'm right here, and I'm not letting go. You need to get used to being in the water. Robo, could you hold onto my sword and Marle's crossbow for us? We need to be as unencumbered as possible for this.”
“Certainly, Master Crono,” Robo replied.
Crono did a brief double take at the honorific. Master Crono was something only Melchior had called him. Sometimes young men or boys were addressed as such, but that wasn't the impression Crono got from the robot.
He put that out of his mind and concentrated on Marle, who he maneuvered onto her back and then kicked them both to the deeper end of the pool. He began to tread water and held them in that position for several moments, Marle kicking and splashing her feet in her anxiety.
“You'll free-climb hundreds of feet down a castle spire, and you're scared of this?” Lucca remarked.
“Oh, quit making fun of me, Miss Terrified of Frogs!” Marle grumbled. “This is hard enough for me as it is!”
“Okay, I guess that's fair, but I'm still writing this down in my diary later.”
“Just relax, Marle,” Crono soothed. “Nothing's going to happen to you here, I promise.”
“Well, not that we're in that big a rush, but something may be happening to Robo if we waste too much time frolicking in the pool,” Lucca pointed out. “Thanks to that fight against Mister Heckran, Robo's power reserves are getting pretty low. He had to fire his cannon twice, and my pistol battery doesn't have much more energy to give him. And I'm going to need time to build the power core supplement he needs when we get home.”
“Energy reserves at 12%,” Robo added.
“Not helping, you guys!” Marle barked.
Even if they had a comfortable margin to work with, their adventures had proven that there was always something unexpected along the path that would consume valuable time or resources, like what was happening now. Crono was going to have to resort to even more of a deep end treatment for Marle to get things moving.
“We're going under, okay?”
“What?!”
“We're not going anywhere,” Crono assured her. “It's just an exercise. I need to know that you can make the distance. One minute to start with, and then we start extending it to two. That should give us more than enough time to swim both halves of the land-bridge.”
Of course, a one-minute breathhold was completely unrealistic for a novice swimmer with a deep water phobia, and Marle could manage no more than twenty seconds at first. He embraced her tenderly under the water with each exercise to keep her calm, suddenly wishing that they were alone to deal with this unexpectedly intimate situation. She really needed more time for this. In the end, Marle could only manage about a minute-and-a-half.
It would have to be enough. Marle had plateaued. Wasting any more time would just fray her nerves further and put Robo at risk. It was time to leave.
“Bathtime it is,” Lucca said cheerfully. “Don't worry, Marle, I've done this operation hundreds of times. I won't waste a single second down there.”
Marle just shuddered silently.
After a couple of false starts, the swimmers were finally off, Crono and Lucca the only ones actually swimming. Marle hung on to Crono's neck with her eyes tightly closed, while Robo steadily strode along the bottom of the underwater passage carrying everyone's belongings.
Just relax, Marle. Don't think of anything but holding your breath. We've got this.
Lucca indeed wasted no time, getting to the teleportation chamber well ahead of everyone else. The room was cube-shaped, with hundreds of smooth two-foot-square tiles along wall, floor, and ceiling, each covered in runes and “element-X” crystals. A great many of the crystals weren't there anymore, all of them having been pilfered for use in Lucca's Telepod chambers, but the Zealian chamber still worked well enough to serve the only other surviving hub of the ancient transport network. Lucca's movements were graceful as she tapped several of the intact tiles, touching one on the left wall, then pushing off to touch another on the right wall in a fully horizontal position, angling down to slap one on the floor, and then springing up with her hands to have both her upright feet connect with a ceiling tile. All of the runes on the touched tiles began glowing in sequence with a mysterious power. There were nine needed tiles altogether to trigger access to the Ashtear Island hub. Lucca showed Crono a thumb's up sign hanging almost upside-down in the water after hitting the last tile.
The first time they had made the return trip to Guardia, Lucca and Crono both had had to touch the tiles in the correct order to get the job done in the time their breath allowed. Lucca could do it herself now in only a fraction of the time, and was plainly showing off. Crono wouldn't complain under the circumstances. Every second saved was crucial.
In the next moment, the entire underwater chamber began to glow with an eerie light, and the continent of Medina was left behind.
* * *
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed midnight, and Taban Ashtear closed his eyes at the passage of another day without news of his daughter.
Lucca had just disappeared, following the chaotic events in Guardia Castle on the day of Crono Lantree's scheduled execution. The Castle had done its best to cover up the whole ordeal, and a few people even believed the story of a storeroom fire that had briefly spread out of control to cause an explosion on the lower levels. Taban didn't. Something had gone wrong with their prison escape plan, and Lucca had been forced to improvise. He was surprised his girl would dare take such a risk unless the plan had gone badly south, but it was possible she wasn't even directly responsible for what happened. That was on July 12th.
It was now July 31st.
A surreptitious letter from Princess Nadia's handmaiden said that Lucca and Crono had not been captured by Castle authorities, and that the Princess herself had aided their escape. That bit of news was confirmed a few days later by the issuing of arrest warrants for Lucca and Crono, along with a 100,000 gil reward for any information on the whereabouts of the Princess. The whole kingdom was in an uproar that surpassed the one caused by Princess Nadia's first disappearance. Constables had had some very hard questions for Taban in the following days, though his culpability had been deflected by his dismantling of the Telepod Lucca had used to infiltrate the castle, the parts now hidden all over the manor so that no one would ever know.
And then the warrants had suddenly been withdrawn a week ago without explanation.
No more letters from the handmaiden Marge were forthcoming, and Taban had been forced to query the old family attorney Pierre Arnaud to find out what was going on. Pierre had taken more than a passing interest in the matter of his former clients, but had no answers for Taban. No news of Lucca or Crono being arrested. No news of Princess Nadia being found. It was the talk of the town, but not very loud talk. The newspapers strangely had nothing to say, and all of the back-issues since the Millennial Fair had disappeared from the libraries. It was as if all of the events of the past few weeks had been conveniently forgotten and that nothing had happened at the Millennial Fair at all. It was bizarre.
“Why did you leave, Lucca?”
Taban turned to the listless voice of his wife. She had been repeating the question to herself endlessly since the morning of the 12th, that day that Guardia had somehow forgotten about.
“Lucca will come back, Lara. She always does,” said Gina Lantree with a soothing tone from a seat beside Lara's wheelchair. “She's just looking after Crono on one of his big adventures. You know how he is.”
Gina had become an unofficial resident of Ashtear Manor following the day of the prison escape, and the unexplained disappearance of Lucca, Crono, and the Princess. Taban often hired part-time servants to help take care of his disabled wife, and Gina had volunteered for the job one day out of the blue, leaving her house in the city temporarily unoccupied. A cat stirred on the floor nearby.
“Why did you leave, Lucca?” Lara repeated, oblivious to the world around her.
Taban sighed. The question was why she hadn't come back. He didn't want to believe the worst. Lucca was objectively a genius-level intellect, regardless of the boundless love Taban had for his daughter. He couldn't imagine any danger that could get the better of her, especially if Crono was by her side.
The doorbell rang.
Taban's heart skipped a beat. It was a strange hour to be getting visitors, or at least normal visitors. The handmaiden Marge had arrived like this, and then both before and after law-enforcement personnel had been coming at all hours during their investigations into his daughter's activities. It was news. It had to be. But news of what?
He reached for the doorknob of the manor's front entrance with his heart pounding. This would either be the happiest day of Taban Ashtear's life or the beginning of the end of it, depending on the news.
Taban opened the door and nearly fainted at what he saw.
Lucca. Crono. Princess Nadia. They we all alive! Thin, disheveled, and in crumpled clothing that looked like they had been walking in the rain, but alive. And something else.
A large machine, standing on two legs, covered in rounded and very sturdy-looking bronze plating, and with two glowing green lights shining down at him from its squatted top. It was almost as tall as the doorway, and even had arms.
What in Creation?
“Hey, dad,” Lucca said with a friendly wave. “Where's the food?”
3
Site Updates / Re: Site Back Up
« on: August 12, 2025, 12:10:18 pm »
Unfortunately, it seems like there are still a lot of problems with the site. It takes upwards of thirty seconds just to load a page, and my efforts to upload a new chapter in my novel project have so far ended in failure. This is an ominous way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Chrono Trigger's American release.
(As I write this, I can't even be sure this small post will go through. Should we consider prayer?)
(Addendum: My chapter finally posted, but I had to completely refresh the page to get confirmation.)
(As I write this, I can't even be sure this small post will go through. Should we consider prayer?)
(Addendum: My chapter finally posted, but I had to completely refresh the page to get confirmation.)
4
Fan Fiction / Return to the present - a novel fragment
« on: August 12, 2025, 11:53:06 am »
(The following three chapters detail the events between the party's return to the year 1000 from the year 2300, to their second trip to the middle-ages from Truce. The End of Time event that normally takes place immediately after the party leaves the year 2300 has been moved three chapters forward in the story for narrative purposes. There will also be some hints as to how I intend to handle Crono's resurrection arc and Porre's rise much later in the story.)
Chapter 33 - The Mires of Medina
Crono's arms were aching more at this moment than from his most intense training sessions back home.
Up, down, bend, carry. Up, down, bend, carry. That was all his exhausted body had been doing since early this morning, and now for the third consecutive day since he and his friends had returned to the year 1000. Lucca's math, at least, had been spot on. They had been able to pry the approximate date, as the Mystics figured time, out of their captors shortly before being put to hard labor. It was the third week of July, roughly one week since their escape from Guardia Castle by the measure of their home time-period.
They had come to exactly the right time at exactly the wrong place.
The gate could not have deposited them in a less fortuitous locale. Ozzie! What a detestable change in fortune! But in retrospect it really shouldn't have been surprising. The site of the future city of Arris was only a few miles to the east of where Crono now slavishly worked. The first wormhole in Truce had led to exactly the same place in a different time period, while the second had sent him over a hundred miles further east, but still in the same region of the world. It wasn't reasonable to expect a third wormhole to send them thousands of miles away from the site of its opening aperture, presuming their early exit wasn't a factor in where they had ultimately ended up, and Crono berated himself for not considering that before leaving the future.
He was paying for it now. They all were. Crono again lifted his arms to raise a pickaxe above his head and chop it downward, chipping a few more shards of stone from the boulder in front of him. He crouched down to pick up the shattered rock and then shambled over to place the shards into waiting carts according to their size and shape, and was soon back at the boulder repeating the same back-breaking task for perhaps the 200th time today. He wasn't yet halfway done. Up, down, bend, carry, ad nauseam. Three green-skinned Imps regarded him from a short distance with a mixture of pleasure and disgust, all of them holding flickering flames in the air above their tiny hands, ready to channel them into something more dangerous at a moment's notice.
The thought of using the pickaxe against his captors was quickly squashed. Even if he had his sword, he wasn't quick enough to overcome all three of his diminutive watchers before one of them unleashed their hovering flames to roast his weary body. They had learned their lesson well from the first time Crono had been the Mystics' “indentured servant”, keeping themselves well apart from each other and watching their charge from three different directions. Besides, he had Lucca's and Marle's welfare to consider, hard at work on their own tasks elsewhere in the village, and the Mystics were not averse to punishing a girl for Crono's transgressions.
The lone blessing of their present circumstance was that the Mystic village's leader, Ozzimort, had no idea who Marle was. She had identified herself as Crono's “girlfriend”, which had buoyed his spirits to the clouds, briefly, before she was assigned her miserable labor along with everyone else. It would have been quite the irony if the Mystics ransomed the former Princess Nadia back to King Malcolm. Only their jailer would change if that happened.
Robo had not moved from the place he had come to rest outside of Ozzie's “mansion”, and Crono assumed something had been badly broken inside him when the opening temporal gate crashed him through a ground floor pantry of the gaudy residence, through the wall, and then carving a deep trough through the dirt outside to arrest his ballistic entry into the present. Another ill fortune. If Lucca had any insight into Robo's current condition, she couldn't tell Crono. The three of them had been kept apart ever since their labors had begun. Ozzie had called it a sentence.
Some things never changed.
The setting sun was nearly at the horizon when Crono's work was finally suspended by his minders, and he was harnessed up to the string of loaded carts to drag them all back to the village proper for tomorrow's labors. Lucca would be chipping away at these very stones in the morning to make them usable, and would then begin the arduous task of stacking and mortaring them together to rebuild the wall Robo had inadvertently destroyed on his arrival. It would only be the beginning of their shared labors. Crono reached his dismal destination with the last light of dusk, his legs now no less tired than his arms.
Ozzie's new village was a pitiful sight, even considering the recent damage done to his own residence. Most of the Imp dwellings were plain and ramshackle, the build quality well below that of a middle-ages house on the outskirts of Truce, and none of the structures Crono could see had any ornamentation or shutters. The thatch roofs were sagging in several places, and the handful of huts that had actual doors sported notable uneven gaps between the timber. Many of the tightly packed residences had curtains of braided leaves harvested from the local palm trees and shrubbery instead of proper doors. Ozzie's place was notably better, but far from being aesthetically equal to Crono's own modest house, let alone a Guardian home of comparable size to Ozzimort's. The village's largest residence was little more than an oversized shack of clashing colors and crude lumber. Ozzie apparently believed that a Mystic Lord's dwelling had to have as much color as possible to denote the importance of the one who resided within. Knowing what he did of the descendant of the infamous green-skinned Ozzimort of the middle-ages, Crono found the notion laughable.
He staggered past the now mostly repaired wall of Ozzie's place, dragging his multi-cart burden behind him, and again regarded Robo's dormant form not far away. The Mystics had done a fair bit of poking and prodding on the motionless robot on the day of their arrival, but the magic-endowed people hadn't the slightest notion what the machine was or what it could do. The nearest they could figure was that he was some kind of statue made of metal, and none of the Imps were strong enough or tall enough to move him or set him upright. Ozzie was, but he considered physical labor beneath his station, and so Robo was just left to collect dust and bake in Medina's notorious humidity where he lie. Crono tried to keep his growing dismay in check. The robot deserved a better fate than this.
Crono was then allowed to unburden himself of his cargo, and he was herded to his makeshift prison cell: one of the poorer built Imp dwellings that was just tall enough for him to sit up without brushing his hair against the underside of the roof. He hoped it wouldn't rain tonight. Last night he could barely keep himself out of the deluge on account of the shoddy thatch-work above.
He started as he saw a tied up Lucca resting against the wall inside. The Imps pushed him to the ground before he could comment and then bound his hands and feet together before departing. In this state he slithered to where the dispirited Lucca was propped up and struggled into a sitting position next to her. He waited a moment to speak, being mindful of the guards outside.
“How are you holding up?” Crono asked softly.
“Well enough,” she whispered back. “Nothing I haven't been through before, after all. I think they'd like to do worse to me, but worry about accidentally killing the one person here who actually knows how to put a house together.”
“I went by Ozzie's place. You did good work, looks like.”
“Like I could do less. They're always watching. Every waking moment. No rest, no conversation. Sometimes I can feel the heat of their stares on my back, and wonder if they might not be channeling actual heat to keep me on notice. It's making me... mad. Almost mad enough to, well, you know, trying a little of that myself.”
Crono looked away. Lucca had barely even talked about the magic she had somehow used to rescue everyone in the future, and the subject had faded to an uneasy taboo between them. She had almost no memory of the incident itself, just that a self-loathing rage had consumed her thoughts before losing recollection. Crono was as reluctant asking her about it as Lucca was describing it. The magic plainly frightened her.
“Better not,” Crono said. “The Imps would sense it right off.”
Lucca sighed. “Yeah, probably just as well. I don't need to be blacking out at a moment like this.”
Being gifted with magic, Mystics could sense the channeling of magical energies anywhere close to them. It was something of a defense mechanism. Tribes were always warring with one another, and no one wanted to take the risk of being ambushed by enemies. Crono's hasty whisper to Marle just after their first meeting with Ozzie had warned her of the dangers of channeling magic in their presence, and as far as he knew she hadn't made the attempt. He'd caught a few glimpses of Marle over the past few days, looking tired but unhurt.
“So why are they putting us together now, you think?”
“I doubt it's because they suddenly trust us or anything,” Lucca said. “I'm guessing they want to reduce the guard so the Imps can go do something else, like polishing Ozzie's tabletops or whatever else he bullies them into doing.” She snorted. “The big brute, thinking he's all that. Yakra was at least respectable in his villainy, not to mention the green Ozzie.”
Crono had to agree. The blue Ozzimort was endowed with magic much like every other Mystic that wasn't of the now extinct Heinchraw species. But despite the bloated Mystic Lord's heritage, his magic wasn't all that strong, truthfully not much stronger than the Imps he governed. Nothing like his ancestor's. Mostly he just used his massive girth to bully people.
The door in front of Crono and Lucca suddenly swung open with a loud creak, and Marle stumbled inside followed by a pair of blue-skinned Imps who bound her in the way of their other prisoners. The Mystics were quickly out of the prison hut and stationed themselves somewhere outside.
Marle lie shivering on the ground, barely suppressing a sob.
“Don't,” Crono warned. “Just hold it in. Don't risk it. It's over for now.”
Marle gingerly snaked herself next to Crono as well as she could in her bindings and snuggled against him. The air remained humid and warm, so she had maintained control of her feelings somehow.
“I'm trying to be angry and focusing on that,” Marle explained after a moment. “Keeps the sadness away.”
“Whatever works,” Lucca remarked.
“Not like it's hard. In all my life I've never been worked like this, not even when daddy was punishing me. Demeaning to royalty, you know?”
“What are they making you do? I haven't seen,” Crono said.
Marle huffed as if she were ready to explode. “Cutting wood.”
“That's it?”
“That's all! At first they wanted me to shore up the thatch of these worthless huts, but I didn't know how to do that, so they smacked me around a bit and then put a saw into my hands and sent me to a line of trees north of the village under a trio of dwarf chaperones. Said that was all I was good for, so I just started cutting and cutting.”
Crono scowled, feeling an anger that might have equaled what Lucca had been feeling before awakening to her magic. Though the light was quickly diminishing, he could tell Marle's outfit was badly soiled, much more than it had been following their desperate battle against the R-66 units.
“I never knew just cutting wood would be so tough,” Marle continued. “The trees weren't even all that big, and yet bringing down just one took hours. And then I had to cut the thing into logs that would actually work for these huts, and that took even longer.”
“Palm trees are pretty tough,” Lucca said. “Hard to cut if you don't know what you're doing. And the humidity doesn't help if your cut isn't clean.”
“And Ozzie probably knows that,” Crono said. “He doesn't just want us to work, he wants us to suffer.”
“Why? I don't understand!” Marle said. “I know they must hate us for winning the war in the middle-ages, but that was a long time ago. And even with the historical racial tensions, this abuse feels out of place. Almost like it's personal.”
Crono and Lucca both winced.
Marle picked up on it and looked at them both suspiciously.
“Hey, what did you guys do to make Ozzimort and his Imps so upset? You were his prisoners once before, right?”
Crono hesitated and tried not to look too hard at Lucca.
“Unjustly,” Lucca said. “We were just wandering around the swamp looking for any kind of food or civilization, and then Ozzie and his midget minions catch sight of us up on the outskirts of the forest and tie us up before we could even think of stealing anything.”
“That doesn't answer my question,” Marle pressed.
Lucca cocked her head to the side and worked her jaw, trying to think of what to say.
“We, uh... kinda burned his house down,” she finally admitted.
“You burned his house down, Lu. I had nothing to do with it,” Crono said.
“Why are you blaming me? Have you seen how densely they pack these rickety things together? Ozzie's little fiefdom doesn't conform to anything resembling a fire code. And it was his own fault for keeping us prisoner anyway. Maybe if Ozzie had thought to ally himself with, you know, a tribe of water casters, his old village would still be standing.”
Marle gaped at them. “You burned down his whole village?!”
Lucca shrugged. “Like I said; no fire code.”
The hut went quiet for a long moment.
“You're never calling me a tomboy again,” Marle said with narrowed eyes.
“Oh, come on!”
“No, you're cutting it out or I'm going to start calling you names! Lucca the Conflagration comes to mind.”
“You wouldn't do that!”
“Try me!”
Crono shushed them before their irritable banter got out of hand. The Mystics wouldn't need much of an excuse to heap more abuse on them. After all, they had burned down their old village. The new one was barely half the size and in a much more dilapidated condition than the former, most of the Imps now being forced to share living space. Doubtless all of their current and future labors were to help rebuild what had been lost.
“So what about Robo?” Crono asked after a moment, daring to broach the uncomfortable subject. “Is he...?”
“No, I'm not even going to think that,” Lucca said. “You saw for yourselves how much punishment he can take. I have no proof, but... I think he's going to be all right. I think he might already be.”
Crono and Marle looked at her questioningly.
“I believe in him,” was her simple response.
There was little else to be said, so the three of them fell quiet and tried to rest as well as they could. Everyone was sore and hungry. To add insult to injury, they had witnessed the Mystics ransack their supply packs and devour every piece of rat jerky they had been carrying. The Imps thought it a feast and celebrated their good fortune throughout that first night. Crono tried not to think of how much treasure that jerky represented to Bangor.
He jolted awake when he heard the door to their prison open again. It couldn't be morning already!
But no, it was still dark outside. Dark except for two glowing green orbs hovering near the top of the stunted open doorway. The owner of the orbs was crouching down as much as his bulky design would allow.
It was all Crono could do not to cry out with delight. “Robo!”
“Greetings, Mister Lantree,” the robot greeted in a low volume. “I am relieved to see you continue to function.”
Marle and Lucca stirred with considerable shock at their new visitor, and Crono shushed them before they could spoil the rescue, if that was what was happening.
“You're okay!” Lucca said with heartfelt relief. “Somehow I knew it, I just knew it!”
“My functionality is nominal under my current state of repair, Major. Your technical skill is no doubt a contributing factor to this unit's resilience. Please accept my apologies for the delay in coming to your aid. It was necessary to appear inoperative for an extended period while I conducted reconnaissance through auditory reception. The inability to take overt action greatly extended the time needed to complete the operation.”
“What about the guards?” Crono asked.
“The lone Jes'aal monitoring your place of confinement has been subdued by this unit, and will not wake for some time. Excessive aggression was not required.”
Marle blinked with confusion. “Jes'aal?”
“It is the proper designation for the collective demi-human tribes you refer to as Mystics. That term is considered archaic and disrespectful by the standards of the domes-era. The Jes'aal were a small minority of the world's population at that time, but they were afforded conditional rights by the Keepers on account of..."
Crono waved off the history lesson. “Wait, just the one? Where are the others?”
“Fortuitously, the remaining inhabitants of this village are all engaged in a ritualistic dance outside the village's boundaries to the east. That is why I am able to come to your aid now. More fortuitously, the particulars of this event are of great interest to us in our mission. From their chanting, it would seem they know something about Lavos.”
“What?!” they all blurted.
“Indeed, there is no mistake. But perhaps it would be prudent to remove you from confinement before discussing the matter further. Please allow me to assist.”
Robo dropped one of their supply packs just inside the door of the tiny prison hut and beckoned Crono to come close, since the robot was too large to enter. The dexterous fingers of Robo's remaining hand removed the bonds holding his wrists together, and Crono quickly undid the rest of his restraints himself. Inside the supply pack were all of their valuables and pieces of equipment the Imps had taken away, along with a few remaining rat-skin canteens of water. Crono freed Marle and Lucca in short order, and they were all armed and ready to move inside of a minute.
“Let's go,” Crono said.
The three friends crept outside and cautiously moved east to espy the ritual Robo had mentioned. There was no discussion, they all just went as one.
“I must advise caution,” Robo warned them. “I can relate in detail what I heard from the Jes'aal once we are at a safe distance from this village. Any delay in our departure could prove problematic in our escape.”
Crono ignored him. Some things needed to be seen in person.
* * *
Lucca wasn't sure how much she truly believed in divine providence, but this moment in their lives was Creation-sent. Robo was still functioning - no, alive! All of them were unbound and had their weapons back, and they had an unexpected lead on the matter of Lavos, too. What she had thought was an unmitigated disaster in their journey to save the world was in fact exactly what needed to happen to move their crusade forward. All of the pointless chores they had endured to sate Ozzie's dubiously justified need for vengeance had been worth it.
But what did the Mystics have to do with the unspeakable horror and destructive power of Lavos? Its emergence was still a thousand years away! She had to know more. Crono and Marle followed her side by side, not needing to be told to come along.
They darted between the Imps' huts one by one and at length ducked inside a dwelling where they could see the Mystics in a clearing just outside of the village through a shutterless window. Robo smartly kept his distance behind the hut where he wouldn't be seen if they happened to look in this direction. Crono and Marle crouched to either side of the window using the walls of the hut as cover while Lucca poked her head up from below. The Mystics were indeed dancing. The tribe of Imps were prancing in a tight rotating ring of many dozens of individuals in front of a large statue surrounded by torches of blue flame. Lucca recognized the effigy immediately. She had gotten a good look at the badly eroded statue once before, but now knew exactly how it was meant to look on account of her seeing an identical unmarred version of it in the middle-ages.
Magus.
Four-hundred years this man had been dead, and the Mystics continued to worship him as if he were more of a god than a historical figure who had lost a war. It was disconcerting, knowing how close Magus had come to actually achieving victory. The Battle of the Span had been a near thing, and the twelve years of intermittent fighting before Guardia's first major victory had nearly exhausted the kingdom. It remained a mystery why Magus had dithered so long after his decisive opening strokes of the conflict. That delay might have cost Magus everything, as numerous historians had pointed out after the middle-ages came to a close.
Lucca spotted the contemptible Ozzie standing in front of the statue with his hands raised to the sky, the light of the moon reflected off of his bald blue head. He seemed to be leading the chant, and his Imp followers responded in kind:
Your flashing eyes... Like stars... Your flowing hair... Like waves atop the sea... O' savior of Jes'aal... O' savior of ages... So long as you are near... There is nothing to fear... Magus! Oh, Magus! Ever your name be praised! Magus! Oh, Magus! The king of the world is raised!
It was the same chant she had heard as a prisoner in Ozzie's original village, and in the middle-ages spoken by Diablos working under Yakra. They were speaking in Mystic, of course, but that was no big drawback for Lucca, having learned a fair portion of their language over her now week and a half in Mystic captivity. She thought she understood a little more nuance this time thanks to the bother of the past three days, but now she was hearing some additional stanzas that were not part of the original litany:
Lavos! Lavos! Jes'aal will have their vengeance!
Lavos! Lavos! Magus will rise again!
Lavos! Lavos! Magus' creation!
Lavos! Lavos! The human race is doomed!
Lucca recoiled as if she had been shot with a plasma cannon. What did they just say?
“What? What is it?” Crono asked her.
Lucca pulled both of her friends down to sit out of sight below the window and then repeated the Mystics' translated litany as they chanted it again.
“That... can't be,” Crono said, disbelieving.
“Magus was defeated!” Marle agreed. “He lost the war! He couldn't have been responsible!”
Lucca was quiet for a moment. “Wasn't he?”
Crono and Marle stared at her.
“Think about it. We don't really know what happened to him in the end.”
“His castle on the coast of Denadoro province exploded!” Marle said. “All of the histories agree on that.”
“Yes, but why did it explode?” Lucca pressed. “It wasn't because of anything Guardia did. It exploded on its own.”
“Most of the accounts I've heard speculate on some kind of magical ritual that went badly wrong,” Crono said. “He didn't expect Ozzimort to lose to Leene at St. Dorino, and became desperate.”
“Desperate enough to do what, Crono? What was he trying to do?”
They all looked at each other.
“Is that it?” Marle asked, barely audible. “Do we have the answer?”
Crono nodded slowly. “Magus... created Lavos! Destroying himself in the process! Why else would the Mystics be saying such a thing? How else would they know?”
“Right,” Lucca said. “And so fourteen-hundred years later, Magus has his revenge. Something that nobody sees coming. Except for these followers of Ozzimort's descendant.”
“The Director of Bangor Dome seemed to know something about it, too,” Marle pointed out. “What's the connection there?”
Lucca shook her head. “Hard to say. He might have been privy to information no one else had. It could have been a case of knowing more about something than he thought he did, and only realized the full import when the world came crashing down around him.”
“Whatever he knew, we now know enough,” Crono said. “Magus creates Lavos in the middle-ages. The creature sleeps underground for 1,400 years. And then it wakes up to destroy everything in 1999.”
“And no one suspects anything because Magus was destroyed!” Marle said.
“Just not defeated,” Lucca finished with a nod.
The three of them listened to the Mystic litany for a while longer, keeping out of sight, committing the guttural sounds of the prophesied doom to memory.
“We're done here,” Crono said decisively. “It's time to go.”
Indeed it was, Lucca thought. They now knew what they needed to do. They had to go back to where their time-traveling adventures had begun. Somehow defeat the Dark Lord before he could destroy himself and secure the world's future doom.
And to do that, they needed to get home.
* * *
Marle's elation of being free from captivity and having an essential clue about Lavos' origins lasted about as long as it took them to reach the forest she had been working at this afternoon.
“What are you thinking, Crono? The pyramid?” Lucca asked.
“Yeah, too much risk in going anywhere but north,” Crono said. “Bogs are too deep to the west, and the eastern coast is Naga country.”
Marle looked ahead of them with dismay. When she was working here, she only saw a thick line of bald cypress trees rising from a swamp of indeterminate depth. The nighttime shadows of that thicket were impenetrable.
“Um, is this a good idea? Maybe we should head south,” she said.
“South is prime real estate for Medina,” Lucca said with a shake of her head. “Most of the bigger tribes live down that way, and they have no more love for humans than Ozzie does. We'd be inviting a fight for sure.”
“And it's too far out of our way, anyhow,” said Crono. “Our goal is the cave of the 'land-bridge' chamber, that place we were telling you about before.”
“That ancient Zealian device that teleports people? Like the Telepod?”
“Exactly like the Telepod,” Lucca said. “Once we activate the chamber inside that cave, it's bye bye Medina and hello home sweet Guardia. I was doing some research going back and forth between the two halves of the chamber right up until the day before the Millennial Fair, so I know it still works.”
“It's a good distance to the northwest of here,” Crono said. “We'll retrace our steps, head north through these bogs, turn west once we reach the pyramid, and then shadow the northern hills until we reach the cave.”
“Pyramid?”
“A... uh... structure of sorts,” Lucca said. “But not made of stone. It's one-hundred-percent Zealian, no mistake. Probably the most intact remnant of that whole civilization. You won't doubt its origins once you see it. Nothing else like it in the world.”
Marle couldn't help but be intrigued at this, but those bogs...
“Is it safe to attempt this in the dark?”
“Safer than relying on Ozzie's mercy once he no longer has a use for us.”
“If you are concerned about the depths of the swamplands ahead, Mistress, my sensors are able to reliably detect the floor of a wetland environment within short distances,” Robo assured her. “There should be no risk of unintended submersion.”
“That only happened to us in the swamps west of here,” Crono said. “We should be fine. The only thing that worries me is how fast we can move. Once Ozzie's little gala comes to a close, they'll see that Robo is missing immediately. And when they check on us...”
“We'll be on the clock,” Lucca said grimly. “We need to get as far away from the village as we can before that happens.”
Marle's anxiety spiked from the first moment her foot broke the water and sank into the swamp's squishy bottom. She held on tightly to Robo's sturdy form for the rest of the night.
* * *
The first indication of possible pursuit came with the breaking of dawn, or the dawn as well as Marle could figure it in the shadowy depths of this Medinan swamp. Several loud pops resembling firecrackers could be heard to the south, and the travelers turned to see muted flashes break through the gloom of the canopy above.
“Yeah, that can't be good,” Lucca remarked.
“Better than we could have hoped, honestly,” Crono said. “Looks like they partied through the night. We've got a good lead on them, anyway.”
“So they know we're gone now?” Marle asked.
“No doubt. Those little explosions were manifestations of fire magic,” Lucca said. “It's a general alarm for the village.”
“Robo, how far have we traveled?” Crono asked.
“Seven-point-six-five kilometers from the Jes'aal village boundary,” Robo replied.
“Four and three-quarter miles,” Lucca amended.
“Hm, that's not bad time for traipsing through a swamp,” Crono mused. “Still not as far as I'd like. We need to try picking up the pace.”
Marle slumped with weariness, standing nearly waist deep in the murk. This little jaunt was taxing her stamina, and her courage, more than her desperate flight from the robotic factory of the future had. She'd almost rather be facing hostile R-66 units than dealing with this. Four times she had nearly tumbled face-first into this mud posing as water, despite Robo's warnings. She would have been riding the robot if not for the danger of increasing the robot's load and possibly causing him to get stuck in the marsh. It was all Robo could do himself to maintain a steady pace through this gunk. Marle was glad that Lucca at least had the foresight to store their most delicate items, like Leene's music box and Lucca's own diary, inside a storage alcove in Robo's chest, which the robot assured would remain watertight even if his body submerged too deeply.
“Do we really need to, Crono?” she asked, her tone nearly matching the pleading whine she had often taken with her father. “None of Ozzimort's Imps are taller than three feet at the most. I don't see them making better time than us in this sludge.”
“You didn't see the Rolys?” Lucca asked.
“Rolys?”
“Little creatures the Imps sometimes use for transport. They roll up into these tight balls that the Imps 'ride' by running backwards atop them once the Rolys get rolling. Looks pretty comical at first, but the Imps can travel surprisingly quick once the Rolys get up to speed. More importantly for us, the Rolys float, and that makes the Imp riders a fair bit quicker than us even in a swamp.”
Marle groaned. “All I ever did was chop wood and then collapse in my prison hut! You're saying they can catch us, then?!”
“If they guess our direction right, yeah.”
Despite herself and Crono's earlier warning, Marle started shivering, and the air around her started to rapidly cool in her despair. If it came down to a fight, they would be in serious trouble. Marle didn't have enough crossbow bolts to fight off every Imp in Ozzimort's village, and she didn't think her newly learned elemental magics would be a match for Mystics who had been using such powers all their lives. The Imps would certainly be surprised facing magic from a human, but that surprise wouldn't be enough for facing more than a few of those midgets.
Worse, Robo wouldn't be able to do much to help. While he did have a weapon now, the limited power generated by the replacement “core” Lucca had installed made firing the heavy weapon more than once prohibitive without needing to recharge himself from Lucca's battery pack afterward, and that battery wasn't an unlimited resource. He might not make it all the way to the “land-bridge” chamber if they wasted too much energy fighting Mystics.
Crono sloshed over to her looking concerned. “Hey, calm down, okay? Channeling might not be entirely safe even at this range. We just need to keep moving. We'll be safer once we reach the pyramid. The Mystics won't go close to that place.”
“We can hope,” Lucca remarked. “Sometimes ancient taboos are no match for burning angers, and Ozzie's more than a little peeved at us now.”
“We don't have a better option,” Crono insisted.
“Perhaps not,” Robo said. “However, we may now have a fortuitous boon that can aid our travels under the current circumstance.”
“Boon? What boon?”
Marle directed her eyes to where the robot was pointing. The surface of the shallow water around her legs was frozen in a thin sheet.
Lucca turned to her with a twinkle in her bespectacled gaze. “Well, if you're going to be mopey anyway, why not use it for a good cause?”
* * *
Crono felt ambivalent about the progress they were making. They had covered a lot of ground in two days, far more than he and Lucca had managed their first time in the same swamp, but that speed carried a cost. Marle now looked more determined than dismayed as she used her increasingly potent powers to form a bridge of solid ice in the water in front of them. It was quite an accomplishment by any measure. After a few false starts, Marle had solved the problem of the ice sheet's stability in open water by anchoring it to the base of a tree, and then slowly extending the length of the makeshift bridge until it linked with another tree not far away. The strength of Marle's channeling was a bit of a risk, considering Mystic sensitivity to magical energies, but Crono judged that their increased speed more than justified the use of Marle's powers at this distance from the village. From tree to tree they strode, seldom ever touching the murky water around them, the ice sheet thick enough to hold even Robo's considerable weight once a bridge was finished.
But the sadness Marle had to experience to do this was an even heavier weight on Crono's heart. She insisted that she only needed to recall the sadness rather than experiencing it in the moment, but Crono couldn't be sure she wasn't just saying that for his benefit. He longed to think of a way of making this up to her.
It wouldn't come in the form of food. Like before, they were forced to subsist on frogs and whatever edible lizards and snakes they could find, much to Lucca's displeasure, but at least this time they had reliable means of hunting and cooking their game. Marle's crossbow was put to use at first, then she decided to simply freeze the unlucky swamp residents where they swam, and Crono would then carve them out of the ice with his sword to be cooked by whatever fire Lucca could manage to make with her versatile pistol. The taste of the meals were as unpleasant as he remembered from months ago, and he cursed Ozzie's name for stealing all of their somewhat more palatable rations of rat jerky. The clean water from their remaining canteens was nearly exhausted.
“There are also wondrous technologies of the future that did not come to fruition,” Robo was explaining, continuing the future history lesson on the domes-era he had started this morning. “In the year 1996, shortly before my first activation, a revolutionary scientific concept was proposed by a citizen of Arris Dome. According to his thesis, it was possible to replicate an existing human body in exacting detail, using nothing but a few skin or hair samples from the individual in question. This new science was to be called 'cloning'.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?” Crono asked with a frown. “Any person duplicated like that wouldn't have the mind or the memories of that person, would they?”
“That was the question posed to this citizen by the governing body of Keepers Dome. The answer given by the petitioner, a Dr. Norstein Bekkler, proved unsatisfactory. The memories of the duplicated individual would not be transferred to the clone, thereby making the product of the science a blank slate.”
“Sounds creepy,” Lucca remarked.
“That was in essence the attitude of the Council of the Keepers. The clone would have to be educated and trained to fulfill useful functions in society, and the means of accomplishing this were not made clear by Dr. Bekkler. The notion of duplicating a person that would in truth not be that person was also regarded as disturbing. The Council thus rejected Dr. Bekkler's proposal, and he was forbidden from pursuing the science any further. Doctor Bekkler subsequently retired from his position and returned to Arris Dome. His activities after this moment are no longer known to this unit.”
“Sometimes science blows up in your face. Or you run into the wrong bureaucrat.”
“Indeed, Major.” Robo rotated his head to face Crono. “If you would, Mister Lantree, since we are due to arrive at the pyramid structure you mentioned by nightfall at our present pace, would you relate the tale of why the Jes'aal find it taboo to approach this structure?”
“Sure. Ozzie delighted in telling me during one of his many diatribes about history,” Crono said. “This pyramid is where Magus first appeared. According to Mystic legend, the man just appeared out of thin air right in front of it, right at the moment Ozzie's ancestor was meditating nearby. The first Ozzie harbored an ambition to conquer Guardia and take over the Zenan continents, enslaving humans and bringing his own people out of the swamps of Medina to seize a greater future. And then Magus shows up, seemingly in answer to his prayer. He commanded Ozzie to gather the leaders of all the Mystic tribes to meet with him, and with all of the Lords gathered before him, Magus declared the pyramid sacred ground and that no Mystic would ever defile it with their presence on pain of death. In return, he would end all the tribal conflicts in Medina and solidify control under Ozzie's vision of conquering Guardia, but under his command. That was how the Mystic War had its genesis, from their perspective. And as far as I know, the Mystics stayed true to their word, never once approaching the pyramid after that.”
“Given the cultural significance of this place to the Jes'aal of the present age, it is indeed likely they will respect the purported promise made by their ancestors to Magus. However, it is also likely they will take great offense if we are seen on their 'sacred ground'. Their response to our trespass may prove to be less predictable.”
“That's why we've gotta be fast, Robo. They can't take offense if they don't know we're there. With any luck, they may already be searching in the wrong direction.”
“Which is why we're going to presume they're not,” Lucca said with a smirk.
Crono chuckled. “Right. So it's a race.”
The following hours passed with little of note. Crono was fascinated by Robo's tales of his native time-period, but also a little intimidated. The level of technical knowledge needed to make a living in such a society was daunting, especially without formal education of the era's standards. Poor Marle would be more miserable there than she was now.
During their next meal break, sitting on a fallen tree trunk, Crono thought he heard a large splash somewhere to the east. He resisted his normal impulse to reach for his sword and instead knocked twice on the log beneath him, their prearranged sign to stop any conversations or other activities and just listen to the sounds of the swamp for threats.
“Auditory analysis inconclusive,” Robo said quietly after a moment. “Thermal readings at this range also inconclusive. It might simply have been another alligator investigating our presence.”
“As long as it doesn't get too close,” Marle said, looking uneasy. “Those things are scary.”
Crono silently agreed, but meeting an alligator wasn't what worried him at the moment. Robo's sensors would immediately warn them if one of the big reptiles got close enough to be a danger. Of more concern were unfriendly eyes that didn't want to be spied in turn.
“I think we should move out now,” Crono told them. Maybe it was nothing, but his instincts advised caution.
As the daylight began to dim from the west, a new light began to reveal itself to the north, and Crono knew they were close. There was indeed nothing else like it in the world, as Lucca had said. Seeing it would surely lift Marle's spirits. It would be a small repayment for her many days of misery in Medina.
An hour later, the magically cheating swamp travelers passed through one more stand of wetland trees, and then the fabled place of Magus' purported arrival in this world was before them.
Rising over ten stories from a wide but relatively shallow ziggurat of stone at its base was a transparent pyramid of blue light, bright as a full-moon, stretching to end in a sharp point in the cloud-covered sky. The night was wholly banished on this side of the line of trees, and the grass shone as if it produced its own light from the pyramid's reflection.
Marle's expression was everything Crono could have hoped. “It's the same color as my pendant!” she said with wonder. “What is it? It's beautiful!”
“I'm not sure,” Crono said. “I'm not sure even Ozzie knows.”
“It's a barrier of pure magic, I think,” Lucca said. “Yakra used something similar against us during our battle with him, only this one's completely inert. There's no active channeling of magical energies, it's just there. Something in the ziggurat is giving the pyramid its form, but I won't pretend to understand how it works.”
“What's inside?”
Lucca gave a chuckle. “Absolutely nothing. That's the mystery. If anything was inside it before, we'll never know. The structure itself is a priceless treasure, if you ask me. The ziggurat is solid stone with no openings we've been able to see. Only the pyramidal wall of force is of any note. It's one of the great wonders of the world, and one of at least two on Medina that we know of, the other being the 'land-bridge' we're trying to get to. The architectural style of the ziggurat is similar to some of the stonework seen inside the land-bridge chamber, so they clearly share a common cultural origin. It's Zealian, without question.”
Marle ran up the remarkably clean and uneroded stairway of the ziggurat to regard the glowing azure surface of the pyramid. She placed both her hands against it and appeared to push, laughing at the feel of the barrier against her skin. Crono smiled. That had been him not so very long ago. She could push all she wanted. The barrier was completely impenetrable.
“Fascinating. My optics can see the pyramidal barrier, yet my sensors detect nothing,” Robo said. “It would seem this unit is unable to remotely distinguish magical energies beyond their immediate effect on the surrounding environment. It is paradoxically there, and yet not there. This is a matter worthy of further study.”
“No doubt,” Crono said. “But now isn't the best time for that. Five minutes and then we need to be heading west.”
Marle then slipped her pendant off of her neck and held it in her hands. “Hey! I think my pendant is... glowing!” she said.
Lucca stepped forward, plainly surprised. “What? Is it a gate?”
“I don't know. Maybe there's a gate inside.”
“Was it glowing before? Did you notice?”
“I don't think so.”
This was odd, Crono thought. Normally the pendant didn't glow unless a temporal gate was close, and it always gave plenty of advance warning. It was possible that Marle had simply been too focused on her ice channeling to notice, but Crono doubted it. Robo would certainly have taken notice of such a change.
Before Crono could say anything, Marle placed her pendant against the equally glowing surface of the pyramid.
And then Marle suddenly found herself on the other side of the barrier, her body pushing through as if it weren't even there. Marle barely recovered her balance enough to remain standing.
“Huh? How did I...?”
“What did you do, Marle?!” Lucca huffed, rushing up to the barrier.
“I didn't do anything! I just pushed the back of the pendant against the barrier and then I was through!”
Crono ran up to join Lucca and pushed his hands against the transparency. It remained solid to his touch. “Well, this is certainly a surprise,” he said. “Try using the pendant again and come back.”
Marle placed the back of the pendant against the barrier again and tried to walk through the divide. Nothing happened this time.
Marle's unease was palpable, and everyone was at a loss for words for a moment.
“Okay, don't panic,” Crono said. “Try placing the pendant's stone against the barrier instead of the back. That was the direction it was facing the first time.”
Marle did as instructed, pushing against the barrier with no more effect than before.
“Can we panic now?” Lucca said, her tone matching Marle's stricken expression.
“No, no, this is not happening!” Crono grumbled. This was the last thing they needed right now! “Try again. I'll push from the other side. There has to be some kind of trick to this.”
Crono pressed hard with both hands against the barrier right at the point where Marle was pressing her pendant.
He passed through so abruptly that he crashed straight into Marle and sent them both stumbling to the floor of the ziggurat. Crono looked behind him with a start. The barrier was still there.
“This doesn't exactly solve our problem,” Lucca remarked from the other side.
Crono scrambled back to the transparency and pushed against it again. It held firm.
Marle stood beside him looking dismayed. “Um, what are we going to do?”
“Perhaps it would be prudent to take no further action and conduct a more thorough analysis,” Robo said. “The Major and this unit might be of more productive use on this side of the barrier.”
Crono sighed. His rash action had only gotten himself trapped along with Marle. Now what? His mind went back to the splash in the swamp they hadn't been able to quantify. It was probably just his growing panic trying to force itself to the surface of his thoughts, but he hated not being sure. They really needed to get out of here.
Eight long hours later, the trapped and the untrapped had no insights. Lucca and Robo had checked every part of the outside of the ziggurat. Crono and Marle had checked the entire floor of the ziggurat within the barrier. Marle had even tried channeling magic on Crono's suggestion, which only resulted in blocks of ice being stacked against the pyramid's transparent wall and slowly melting to become expanding puddles on the floor. To put an exclamation point on their situation, Crono was getting hungry, too.
And then a much larger exclamation point made itself known.
A large ball of fire suddenly streaked up into the sky from a point just behind the stand of trees south of the ziggurat. The ball then exploded into a tango brilliance rivaling the azure of the pyramid, raining an artificial dawn across the swampy landscape.
Crono watched grimly as a Roly-mounted Imp rolled to a halt on the surface of the shallow water in front of the trees, then a second, then a third. Their situation might have just become terminal.
“Lucca! Robo! We've got company!” he cried out.
“And this is why we don't rely on luck,” Lucca grumbled, bounding up the steps of the ziggurat along with Robo.
They all watched as more Imps, both mounted and not, emerged from the forest. As Crono feared, the splash he had heard earlier was probably from a scout, who then went running – likely backwards on his Roly mount - to his allies to report on what he had seen.
And then, somewhat surprisingly, the brutish governor of the Imp tribe sloshed his white-robed bulk through the bald cypress line to regard the scene. Ozzie had traveled quite a long way, not at all typical for the fiend's lazy disposition and general decadence.
“Crono, Lucca, and Marle!” the Mystic leader boomed from where he stood. “Disgusting humans! Your audacity truly knows no bounds! You trespass on our people's most sacred site! Daring so much as to touch it, even! Slavery is too good for the likes of you! I hereby sentence you to death by immolation!”
“Oh, stick a melon in it, Ozzie!” Lucca cried back. “Or maybe two! We all know you were going to kill us anyway when you got bored playing slavemaster!”
Ozzie sneered, the effect greatly magnified by his huge fangs. “True. You always were a smart one. But now your deaths are going to be so much more painful and satisfying to watch! I look forward to taking apart that strange statue of yours to see how it works. Such deception!”
“The security of your village was insufficient,” Robo stated. “You also failed to properly analyze the situation. Leadership requires a degree of effort.”
Ozzie's mouth gaped so wide that Crono thought a couple of melons could indeed be stuffed between his jaws. “The statue talks?! What wizardry is this?”
“Something that'll long live past you, Ozzie!” Lucca countered.
“I think not,” the Mystic Lord said darkly. “I tire of this play! Imps! Carry out the sentence! Destroy them!”
“Marle, pendant!” Crono cried. “Lucca, Robo, inside!”
Everyone acted on instinct. Marle placed her pendant against the inside of the pyramidal barrier, and Lucca pressed her hands against the outside. Crono quickly pulled Lucca the rest of the way inside the barrier when her hands began to pass through, and Robo followed shortly after.
They all watched as fireballs slammed into the barrier in the next instant.
* * *
“What a distressing development,” Robo said.
Lucca couldn't agree more, and in different circumstances she would have laughed at Robo's evident gift for understatement. Over a hundred Imps, plus Ozzie himself, were now hurling magical fire at the pyramidal barrier, a barrier that was likely to be their doom as much as their salvation. They were all trapped now.
Better than being dead, she thought. Crono's quick thinking probably just delayed the inevitable, but at least they were alive to witness this spectacular sight. Lucca guessed that such a display of offensive magic hadn't been seen since the Mystic War. They could appreciate it because the barrier was holding up. For five minutes, then ten, then a half-hour, then for twice that. Lucca and the others barely even flinched now as fireball after fireball struck and exploded harmlessly against the transparent wall of force. The cacophony of magical fury was more painful to their ears than anything.
For better and for worse, the brutish assault confirmed to Lucca that Ozzie had no more idea how to open the barrier than she did. The pyramid was holding up so well that she figured the azure walls could endure this for hours more, or perhaps even days. She wondered if Ozzie would appreciate a victory in which his intended victims starved to death instead of being burned alive by magic.
“Keep casting, keep casting, my loyal Imps!” Ozzie cried, undaunted by the stubborn magical barrier before them. “Break it down! Remember our humiliation! Burn them to cinders!”
Creation, but Ozzie was mad, Lucca thought. So much for Mystic taboos. Ozzie's enraged tribe probably wouldn't stop casting until they all collapsed from exhaustion. The pyramid was no deterrent to them at all.
Then the flames of Imp fury were suddenly drowned out by a massive clap of thunder, followed by forked lightning that webbed across the entire sky above them. More distant fireballs popped off above the trees a short distance to the east, and a sizable wave of water crested over the forest about as far to the west. The Imps stopped their casting, looking around the clearing with apparent unease. At length, more Mystics came into view of the ziggurat, but these were not Imps. Lucca looked on as a whole company of slithery pink-haired Nagas formed a line on the eastern edge of the clearing, followed by another very different tribe of the magically endowed to the west. Nereids floated proudly on magically formed bubbles of water beneath them, their tails hovering just above the marshy ground in their watery cocoons, their webbed hands holding gleaming tridents.
A third tribe then appeared from directly above, sinking through the low cloud cover to reveal pale forms with small but potent wings. Diablos. More thunder arced across the sky as the initial company halted to hover in place, to be followed by a second company that maintained position a short distance above the first. Naga and Nereid reinforcements also began straggling in from their respective directions. Hundreds of Mystics from four different tribes were now present in the clearing around and above the ziggurat.
Crono and Marle looked upon the scene with growing dismay. On the surface it looked like an already hopeless situation had just become more so, but Lucca had a feeling. Ozzie may have just miscalculated, and badly.
One of the larger Nereids then moved forward, the bubble of water beneath moving along with the motion of its powerful tail. “Ozzimort!” it said in Mystic. “Once again you fruitlessly try to regain the glory of your lost ancestor. But you have gone too far this time!”
“What are they saying, Lucca?” Marle asked her. “What's happening?”
Lucca smiled. “I think Ozzie's in a jam.” She translated the Mystic speech for everyone as quickly as her mind could process it.
A Naga clad in elaborate robes slithered to the front of her line of sisters. “You have violated the ancient command of Lord Magus by coming to this place! Daring to strike the Shrine of Arrival with your unholy flames, no less!”
Ozzie looked all about him with a look of evident panic.
“But... but you have also come to this place!” the corpulent Mystic Lord pleaded. He pointed at where Lucca and her friends were watching from safely behind the barrier. “Do you not see...?”
“You were the first,” the Nereid leader said. “We are responding to your violation.”
“The humans are irrelevant,” one of the Diablo said. “Their doom is assured by the prophecy of Lord Magus. Their presence does not give you leave to violate the Dark Lord's most sacred command.”
“The impudence!” said the Naga.
“Imp treachery is a disgrace to all Jes'aal!” the Nereid said. “You must die!”
“Wait! The enemy are the humans!” Ozzie said desperately. “We must turn our wrath on them, not each other!”
“Die!” said the Diablo.
“Die!” said the Naga.
“Die! In the name of Lord Magus!” the Nereid finished.
And then a magical assault many times stronger than what the Imps unleashed was visited upon them. Fire, lightning, and water magics were blasted all across Ozzie's hapless Imp formation. To their credit, the Imps fought back hard, inflicting many casualties on their attackers, but the end result could not be in doubt. When it was all over, only a hand count of Roly-mounted Imps were still alive, all of them rolling for as fast as they were worth through the bogs to the south.
Lucca found herself gaping at the carnage. Mystic corpses lie everywhere. The Nereids seemed to come out the better of the four factions, but upwards of a dozen of the aquatic folk still wouldn't be returning home. Ozzie's company of a hundred-plus Imps was utterly obliterated. Ozzie himself was nowhere to be seen.
The Diablo leader then swooped down to hover above the stairway of the ziggurat, where it gave Lucca and her friends a hard look through the barrier.
“Hear this, humans!” it said in the common tongue. “When the great Lavos awakens from its long slumber, the human race is doomed! As was prophesied! The final victory shall belong to Lord Magus! Sleep lightly!”
And then the Diablo took to the sky, quickly followed by all of its surviving company to disappear into the clouds. The Naga and Nereid companies also began to withdraw, and within a quarter-hour there were no more Mystics left alive where Lucca could see.
Everyone was quiet for a long moment.
“Toma Levine had a saying,” Lucca finally braved. “'When you're in the mire, expect to get mired.'”
* * *
By noontime of the day of the great battle of the pyramid, Crono had to concede that he and his friends were in no less of a jam than Ozzie had been. Not surprisingly, Lucca and Robo didn't discover anything of note on the inside of the barrier, and the transparent wall was as impenetrable as ever. He briefly considered broaching the topic of Lucca's newfound magical potential, which seemed to be far greater than what the Imps had demonstrated on an individual level, but dismissed the notion almost as soon as he thought it. Whether she could control the power (or herself) or not, the most likely result would be the inside of the pyramid becoming an oven that would cook them all alive. Robo refrained from firing his plasma cannon for much the same reason, fearing a lethal ricochet.
Perhaps the now departed Mystic companies understood their predicament and left them alone for that reason. They wouldn't have to wait for Lavos' awakening to meet their doom. Marle sat alone in a corner with her head down, doubtlessly blaming herself for the situation they were all in. She couldn't have known. That the Star of Guardia would be a key of sorts to enter an otherwise impassable Zealian remnant couldn't have been known by anyone. What would a royal heirloom passed down by Anne the Divine have to do with ancient Zeal? That was many thousands of years before the great queen's time.
Crono's ruminations were interrupted by the sounds of laughter, and Crono came to his feet with a start looking to the source. At first he assumed some curious or lagging Mystic from the morning's battle had stayed behind to make sure the humans succumbed to their misfortune, but Crono realized he knew the laugh. He had heard it often enough during his first adventure in Medina.
Lucca was suddenly beside him gaping in disbelief. She recognized the laugh, too.
Emerging from the trees to the west was an old man on horseback, clothed in simple unadorned robes of blue with an orange sash across his chest and wearing a hat of similar coloring with two pronounced rounded ridges above each ear. A pair of small spectacles rested on the man's nose, and his otherwise sage-like bearing was overshadowed by a wide smile below his bushy mustache that dared the world to challenge his joviality. His “ho, ho, ho” of laughter echoed through the clearing as if in an attempt to wake the Mystic dead all around him.
Crono found himself laughing along with the new arrival. Of all of the people in history he most wanted to see right now, it was this man.
“Melchior!” he cried.
“Ah, if it isn't Master Crono, Miss Lucca, and Miss... Marle,” Melchior greeted with a chuckle. “When I heard that unholy magical conflagration a few hours ago, somehow your faces were the first thing to spring into my mind, knowing your uncanny knack for getting yourselves into trouble. And lo! It is so! I must say this is quite the predicament you have landed yourselves in this time.”
Crono reddened. “Yeah, you could say that.”
Melchior gingerly maneuvered his horse around the bodies of the slain Mystics, slipped out of his saddle, and climbed up the stairs of the ziggurat to regard them. “It seems you have added another companion to your little band of troublemakers,” he pointed out, directing a gaze at Robo. “Though this one is a bit difficult for even me to define.”
“Greetings, sir. My name is R-66-Y, designation 'Robo',” the robot said pleasantly. “I am gratified to make your acquaintance. Major Lucca has spoken kindly of you to this unit.”
“Please, tell me you can get us out of this, Melchior!” Lucca pleaded. “I was fresh out of ideas hours ago, and now my tummy is starting to ache!”
“I believe I have an insight into your problem, Miss Lucca, and it has to do with your other recently added companion,” Melchior said. “Miss Marle? I am guessing that pendant of yours is the reason behind this latest ill turn of fortune for you and your friends?”
Marle shifted uncertainly. “Um, yeah. But how did you know?”
“Oh, call it an educated guess. I have more than a passing knowledge of the Ancients and their many marvelous works. Among other things, that pendant and others like it were a key to opening many secure places in the ancient world. This pyramid, for example, was once a storehouse of treasure and forbidden knowledge. Its shielding was great enough to preserve its contents without fail for thousands of years, if need be.”
“Is that why you took such an interest in Marle's pendant at the Millennial Fair?” Crono asked.
“Yes, indeed. It is the only surviving example of such a piece that I know of. I was quite surprised to see it around the neck of a fine lady of this age. It's a treasure so great it would be worthy of being preserved in a place like this, ironically enough, though that would largely defeat its own purpose. People of great importance wore these to access secured locations as the need arose.”
Marle gaped. “My pendant is Zealian? I don't believe it! It once belonged to Anne the Divine, but I had no idea the Star of Guardia was that old! I'm not sure Anne herself knew.”
“Most likely not. Much knowledge was lost when the ancient world ceased to be. It is no small miracle the pendant itself survives to this day.”
“The pendant got us inside, but it doesn't seem able to get us out,” Crono said, deciding to get the otherwise fascinating discussion back on point. “We kept trying, but it won't do anything.”
“That is easily fixed. Miss Marle, please place the back of the pendant against the barrier and hold it there for a moment.”
“Okay.”
Melchior raised his hand to meet the location of the pendant on his side of the barrier. Crono frowned. The old man was about to do the same thing Crono himself had done to land him and everyone else inside this ancient storehouse. “Uh, Mel?”
“Hush, Master Crono!” Melchior scolded mildly. “There is no danger.”
The world's foremost expert on the ancient Zealian civilization then closed his eyes and muttered an indistinctive incantation of some sort. The next moment saw the azure pyramid that had existed for untold centuries in this swamp suddenly vanish without a trace. Only the ziggurat base of stone remained.
Crono was still. Had Melchior just used...?
The old man laughed at his expression. “No, lad, I did not use magic! I only recited a code phrase. It's a security precaution, you see. Someone unauthorized could steal or otherwise obtain the pendant to gain access into these places, so a second person would have to be stationed on the outside to disable the barrier and get them out. And the people who knew the right phrase to use were very few in order to prevent thefts.”
“And yet you happen to be one of those people?” Lucca said with a laugh. “Why am I not surprised? There's no one alive who knows Zeal better than you. I'm just going to stop asking how and save my breath.”
Crono passed through the now non-existent divide to grasp Melchior's hand in gratitude. This was the second time the man had saved him from certain disaster.
Melchior's eyes twinkled behind his spectacles. “You can repay me, Master Crono, by relating the story of how you came to be in Medina a second time. I would have thought you and Miss Lucca had your fill of the place the first time.”
Crono shared a look with his friends, wondering how he could possibly explain the events of the past month – as he had experienced time.
“That's going to take quite awhile, Mel,” Crono said.
“I'm sure it will, and it'll be no trouble since we're several days travel from my cottage on foot. Perhaps you could start at the beginning and give this old man some entertainment.”
Crono put his finger on his chin in thought. He wondered how amused his old friend would be when he heard the entirety of their dark tale.
Chapter 33 - The Mires of Medina
Crono's arms were aching more at this moment than from his most intense training sessions back home.
Up, down, bend, carry. Up, down, bend, carry. That was all his exhausted body had been doing since early this morning, and now for the third consecutive day since he and his friends had returned to the year 1000. Lucca's math, at least, had been spot on. They had been able to pry the approximate date, as the Mystics figured time, out of their captors shortly before being put to hard labor. It was the third week of July, roughly one week since their escape from Guardia Castle by the measure of their home time-period.
They had come to exactly the right time at exactly the wrong place.
The gate could not have deposited them in a less fortuitous locale. Ozzie! What a detestable change in fortune! But in retrospect it really shouldn't have been surprising. The site of the future city of Arris was only a few miles to the east of where Crono now slavishly worked. The first wormhole in Truce had led to exactly the same place in a different time period, while the second had sent him over a hundred miles further east, but still in the same region of the world. It wasn't reasonable to expect a third wormhole to send them thousands of miles away from the site of its opening aperture, presuming their early exit wasn't a factor in where they had ultimately ended up, and Crono berated himself for not considering that before leaving the future.
He was paying for it now. They all were. Crono again lifted his arms to raise a pickaxe above his head and chop it downward, chipping a few more shards of stone from the boulder in front of him. He crouched down to pick up the shattered rock and then shambled over to place the shards into waiting carts according to their size and shape, and was soon back at the boulder repeating the same back-breaking task for perhaps the 200th time today. He wasn't yet halfway done. Up, down, bend, carry, ad nauseam. Three green-skinned Imps regarded him from a short distance with a mixture of pleasure and disgust, all of them holding flickering flames in the air above their tiny hands, ready to channel them into something more dangerous at a moment's notice.
The thought of using the pickaxe against his captors was quickly squashed. Even if he had his sword, he wasn't quick enough to overcome all three of his diminutive watchers before one of them unleashed their hovering flames to roast his weary body. They had learned their lesson well from the first time Crono had been the Mystics' “indentured servant”, keeping themselves well apart from each other and watching their charge from three different directions. Besides, he had Lucca's and Marle's welfare to consider, hard at work on their own tasks elsewhere in the village, and the Mystics were not averse to punishing a girl for Crono's transgressions.
The lone blessing of their present circumstance was that the Mystic village's leader, Ozzimort, had no idea who Marle was. She had identified herself as Crono's “girlfriend”, which had buoyed his spirits to the clouds, briefly, before she was assigned her miserable labor along with everyone else. It would have been quite the irony if the Mystics ransomed the former Princess Nadia back to King Malcolm. Only their jailer would change if that happened.
Robo had not moved from the place he had come to rest outside of Ozzie's “mansion”, and Crono assumed something had been badly broken inside him when the opening temporal gate crashed him through a ground floor pantry of the gaudy residence, through the wall, and then carving a deep trough through the dirt outside to arrest his ballistic entry into the present. Another ill fortune. If Lucca had any insight into Robo's current condition, she couldn't tell Crono. The three of them had been kept apart ever since their labors had begun. Ozzie had called it a sentence.
Some things never changed.
The setting sun was nearly at the horizon when Crono's work was finally suspended by his minders, and he was harnessed up to the string of loaded carts to drag them all back to the village proper for tomorrow's labors. Lucca would be chipping away at these very stones in the morning to make them usable, and would then begin the arduous task of stacking and mortaring them together to rebuild the wall Robo had inadvertently destroyed on his arrival. It would only be the beginning of their shared labors. Crono reached his dismal destination with the last light of dusk, his legs now no less tired than his arms.
Ozzie's new village was a pitiful sight, even considering the recent damage done to his own residence. Most of the Imp dwellings were plain and ramshackle, the build quality well below that of a middle-ages house on the outskirts of Truce, and none of the structures Crono could see had any ornamentation or shutters. The thatch roofs were sagging in several places, and the handful of huts that had actual doors sported notable uneven gaps between the timber. Many of the tightly packed residences had curtains of braided leaves harvested from the local palm trees and shrubbery instead of proper doors. Ozzie's place was notably better, but far from being aesthetically equal to Crono's own modest house, let alone a Guardian home of comparable size to Ozzimort's. The village's largest residence was little more than an oversized shack of clashing colors and crude lumber. Ozzie apparently believed that a Mystic Lord's dwelling had to have as much color as possible to denote the importance of the one who resided within. Knowing what he did of the descendant of the infamous green-skinned Ozzimort of the middle-ages, Crono found the notion laughable.
He staggered past the now mostly repaired wall of Ozzie's place, dragging his multi-cart burden behind him, and again regarded Robo's dormant form not far away. The Mystics had done a fair bit of poking and prodding on the motionless robot on the day of their arrival, but the magic-endowed people hadn't the slightest notion what the machine was or what it could do. The nearest they could figure was that he was some kind of statue made of metal, and none of the Imps were strong enough or tall enough to move him or set him upright. Ozzie was, but he considered physical labor beneath his station, and so Robo was just left to collect dust and bake in Medina's notorious humidity where he lie. Crono tried to keep his growing dismay in check. The robot deserved a better fate than this.
Crono was then allowed to unburden himself of his cargo, and he was herded to his makeshift prison cell: one of the poorer built Imp dwellings that was just tall enough for him to sit up without brushing his hair against the underside of the roof. He hoped it wouldn't rain tonight. Last night he could barely keep himself out of the deluge on account of the shoddy thatch-work above.
He started as he saw a tied up Lucca resting against the wall inside. The Imps pushed him to the ground before he could comment and then bound his hands and feet together before departing. In this state he slithered to where the dispirited Lucca was propped up and struggled into a sitting position next to her. He waited a moment to speak, being mindful of the guards outside.
“How are you holding up?” Crono asked softly.
“Well enough,” she whispered back. “Nothing I haven't been through before, after all. I think they'd like to do worse to me, but worry about accidentally killing the one person here who actually knows how to put a house together.”
“I went by Ozzie's place. You did good work, looks like.”
“Like I could do less. They're always watching. Every waking moment. No rest, no conversation. Sometimes I can feel the heat of their stares on my back, and wonder if they might not be channeling actual heat to keep me on notice. It's making me... mad. Almost mad enough to, well, you know, trying a little of that myself.”
Crono looked away. Lucca had barely even talked about the magic she had somehow used to rescue everyone in the future, and the subject had faded to an uneasy taboo between them. She had almost no memory of the incident itself, just that a self-loathing rage had consumed her thoughts before losing recollection. Crono was as reluctant asking her about it as Lucca was describing it. The magic plainly frightened her.
“Better not,” Crono said. “The Imps would sense it right off.”
Lucca sighed. “Yeah, probably just as well. I don't need to be blacking out at a moment like this.”
Being gifted with magic, Mystics could sense the channeling of magical energies anywhere close to them. It was something of a defense mechanism. Tribes were always warring with one another, and no one wanted to take the risk of being ambushed by enemies. Crono's hasty whisper to Marle just after their first meeting with Ozzie had warned her of the dangers of channeling magic in their presence, and as far as he knew she hadn't made the attempt. He'd caught a few glimpses of Marle over the past few days, looking tired but unhurt.
“So why are they putting us together now, you think?”
“I doubt it's because they suddenly trust us or anything,” Lucca said. “I'm guessing they want to reduce the guard so the Imps can go do something else, like polishing Ozzie's tabletops or whatever else he bullies them into doing.” She snorted. “The big brute, thinking he's all that. Yakra was at least respectable in his villainy, not to mention the green Ozzie.”
Crono had to agree. The blue Ozzimort was endowed with magic much like every other Mystic that wasn't of the now extinct Heinchraw species. But despite the bloated Mystic Lord's heritage, his magic wasn't all that strong, truthfully not much stronger than the Imps he governed. Nothing like his ancestor's. Mostly he just used his massive girth to bully people.
The door in front of Crono and Lucca suddenly swung open with a loud creak, and Marle stumbled inside followed by a pair of blue-skinned Imps who bound her in the way of their other prisoners. The Mystics were quickly out of the prison hut and stationed themselves somewhere outside.
Marle lie shivering on the ground, barely suppressing a sob.
“Don't,” Crono warned. “Just hold it in. Don't risk it. It's over for now.”
Marle gingerly snaked herself next to Crono as well as she could in her bindings and snuggled against him. The air remained humid and warm, so she had maintained control of her feelings somehow.
“I'm trying to be angry and focusing on that,” Marle explained after a moment. “Keeps the sadness away.”
“Whatever works,” Lucca remarked.
“Not like it's hard. In all my life I've never been worked like this, not even when daddy was punishing me. Demeaning to royalty, you know?”
“What are they making you do? I haven't seen,” Crono said.
Marle huffed as if she were ready to explode. “Cutting wood.”
“That's it?”
“That's all! At first they wanted me to shore up the thatch of these worthless huts, but I didn't know how to do that, so they smacked me around a bit and then put a saw into my hands and sent me to a line of trees north of the village under a trio of dwarf chaperones. Said that was all I was good for, so I just started cutting and cutting.”
Crono scowled, feeling an anger that might have equaled what Lucca had been feeling before awakening to her magic. Though the light was quickly diminishing, he could tell Marle's outfit was badly soiled, much more than it had been following their desperate battle against the R-66 units.
“I never knew just cutting wood would be so tough,” Marle continued. “The trees weren't even all that big, and yet bringing down just one took hours. And then I had to cut the thing into logs that would actually work for these huts, and that took even longer.”
“Palm trees are pretty tough,” Lucca said. “Hard to cut if you don't know what you're doing. And the humidity doesn't help if your cut isn't clean.”
“And Ozzie probably knows that,” Crono said. “He doesn't just want us to work, he wants us to suffer.”
“Why? I don't understand!” Marle said. “I know they must hate us for winning the war in the middle-ages, but that was a long time ago. And even with the historical racial tensions, this abuse feels out of place. Almost like it's personal.”
Crono and Lucca both winced.
Marle picked up on it and looked at them both suspiciously.
“Hey, what did you guys do to make Ozzimort and his Imps so upset? You were his prisoners once before, right?”
Crono hesitated and tried not to look too hard at Lucca.
“Unjustly,” Lucca said. “We were just wandering around the swamp looking for any kind of food or civilization, and then Ozzie and his midget minions catch sight of us up on the outskirts of the forest and tie us up before we could even think of stealing anything.”
“That doesn't answer my question,” Marle pressed.
Lucca cocked her head to the side and worked her jaw, trying to think of what to say.
“We, uh... kinda burned his house down,” she finally admitted.
“You burned his house down, Lu. I had nothing to do with it,” Crono said.
“Why are you blaming me? Have you seen how densely they pack these rickety things together? Ozzie's little fiefdom doesn't conform to anything resembling a fire code. And it was his own fault for keeping us prisoner anyway. Maybe if Ozzie had thought to ally himself with, you know, a tribe of water casters, his old village would still be standing.”
Marle gaped at them. “You burned down his whole village?!”
Lucca shrugged. “Like I said; no fire code.”
The hut went quiet for a long moment.
“You're never calling me a tomboy again,” Marle said with narrowed eyes.
“Oh, come on!”
“No, you're cutting it out or I'm going to start calling you names! Lucca the Conflagration comes to mind.”
“You wouldn't do that!”
“Try me!”
Crono shushed them before their irritable banter got out of hand. The Mystics wouldn't need much of an excuse to heap more abuse on them. After all, they had burned down their old village. The new one was barely half the size and in a much more dilapidated condition than the former, most of the Imps now being forced to share living space. Doubtless all of their current and future labors were to help rebuild what had been lost.
“So what about Robo?” Crono asked after a moment, daring to broach the uncomfortable subject. “Is he...?”
“No, I'm not even going to think that,” Lucca said. “You saw for yourselves how much punishment he can take. I have no proof, but... I think he's going to be all right. I think he might already be.”
Crono and Marle looked at her questioningly.
“I believe in him,” was her simple response.
There was little else to be said, so the three of them fell quiet and tried to rest as well as they could. Everyone was sore and hungry. To add insult to injury, they had witnessed the Mystics ransack their supply packs and devour every piece of rat jerky they had been carrying. The Imps thought it a feast and celebrated their good fortune throughout that first night. Crono tried not to think of how much treasure that jerky represented to Bangor.
He jolted awake when he heard the door to their prison open again. It couldn't be morning already!
But no, it was still dark outside. Dark except for two glowing green orbs hovering near the top of the stunted open doorway. The owner of the orbs was crouching down as much as his bulky design would allow.
It was all Crono could do not to cry out with delight. “Robo!”
“Greetings, Mister Lantree,” the robot greeted in a low volume. “I am relieved to see you continue to function.”
Marle and Lucca stirred with considerable shock at their new visitor, and Crono shushed them before they could spoil the rescue, if that was what was happening.
“You're okay!” Lucca said with heartfelt relief. “Somehow I knew it, I just knew it!”
“My functionality is nominal under my current state of repair, Major. Your technical skill is no doubt a contributing factor to this unit's resilience. Please accept my apologies for the delay in coming to your aid. It was necessary to appear inoperative for an extended period while I conducted reconnaissance through auditory reception. The inability to take overt action greatly extended the time needed to complete the operation.”
“What about the guards?” Crono asked.
“The lone Jes'aal monitoring your place of confinement has been subdued by this unit, and will not wake for some time. Excessive aggression was not required.”
Marle blinked with confusion. “Jes'aal?”
“It is the proper designation for the collective demi-human tribes you refer to as Mystics. That term is considered archaic and disrespectful by the standards of the domes-era. The Jes'aal were a small minority of the world's population at that time, but they were afforded conditional rights by the Keepers on account of..."
Crono waved off the history lesson. “Wait, just the one? Where are the others?”
“Fortuitously, the remaining inhabitants of this village are all engaged in a ritualistic dance outside the village's boundaries to the east. That is why I am able to come to your aid now. More fortuitously, the particulars of this event are of great interest to us in our mission. From their chanting, it would seem they know something about Lavos.”
“What?!” they all blurted.
“Indeed, there is no mistake. But perhaps it would be prudent to remove you from confinement before discussing the matter further. Please allow me to assist.”
Robo dropped one of their supply packs just inside the door of the tiny prison hut and beckoned Crono to come close, since the robot was too large to enter. The dexterous fingers of Robo's remaining hand removed the bonds holding his wrists together, and Crono quickly undid the rest of his restraints himself. Inside the supply pack were all of their valuables and pieces of equipment the Imps had taken away, along with a few remaining rat-skin canteens of water. Crono freed Marle and Lucca in short order, and they were all armed and ready to move inside of a minute.
“Let's go,” Crono said.
The three friends crept outside and cautiously moved east to espy the ritual Robo had mentioned. There was no discussion, they all just went as one.
“I must advise caution,” Robo warned them. “I can relate in detail what I heard from the Jes'aal once we are at a safe distance from this village. Any delay in our departure could prove problematic in our escape.”
Crono ignored him. Some things needed to be seen in person.
* * *
Lucca wasn't sure how much she truly believed in divine providence, but this moment in their lives was Creation-sent. Robo was still functioning - no, alive! All of them were unbound and had their weapons back, and they had an unexpected lead on the matter of Lavos, too. What she had thought was an unmitigated disaster in their journey to save the world was in fact exactly what needed to happen to move their crusade forward. All of the pointless chores they had endured to sate Ozzie's dubiously justified need for vengeance had been worth it.
But what did the Mystics have to do with the unspeakable horror and destructive power of Lavos? Its emergence was still a thousand years away! She had to know more. Crono and Marle followed her side by side, not needing to be told to come along.
They darted between the Imps' huts one by one and at length ducked inside a dwelling where they could see the Mystics in a clearing just outside of the village through a shutterless window. Robo smartly kept his distance behind the hut where he wouldn't be seen if they happened to look in this direction. Crono and Marle crouched to either side of the window using the walls of the hut as cover while Lucca poked her head up from below. The Mystics were indeed dancing. The tribe of Imps were prancing in a tight rotating ring of many dozens of individuals in front of a large statue surrounded by torches of blue flame. Lucca recognized the effigy immediately. She had gotten a good look at the badly eroded statue once before, but now knew exactly how it was meant to look on account of her seeing an identical unmarred version of it in the middle-ages.
Magus.
Four-hundred years this man had been dead, and the Mystics continued to worship him as if he were more of a god than a historical figure who had lost a war. It was disconcerting, knowing how close Magus had come to actually achieving victory. The Battle of the Span had been a near thing, and the twelve years of intermittent fighting before Guardia's first major victory had nearly exhausted the kingdom. It remained a mystery why Magus had dithered so long after his decisive opening strokes of the conflict. That delay might have cost Magus everything, as numerous historians had pointed out after the middle-ages came to a close.
Lucca spotted the contemptible Ozzie standing in front of the statue with his hands raised to the sky, the light of the moon reflected off of his bald blue head. He seemed to be leading the chant, and his Imp followers responded in kind:
Your flashing eyes... Like stars... Your flowing hair... Like waves atop the sea... O' savior of Jes'aal... O' savior of ages... So long as you are near... There is nothing to fear... Magus! Oh, Magus! Ever your name be praised! Magus! Oh, Magus! The king of the world is raised!
It was the same chant she had heard as a prisoner in Ozzie's original village, and in the middle-ages spoken by Diablos working under Yakra. They were speaking in Mystic, of course, but that was no big drawback for Lucca, having learned a fair portion of their language over her now week and a half in Mystic captivity. She thought she understood a little more nuance this time thanks to the bother of the past three days, but now she was hearing some additional stanzas that were not part of the original litany:
Lavos! Lavos! Jes'aal will have their vengeance!
Lavos! Lavos! Magus will rise again!
Lavos! Lavos! Magus' creation!
Lavos! Lavos! The human race is doomed!
Lucca recoiled as if she had been shot with a plasma cannon. What did they just say?
“What? What is it?” Crono asked her.
Lucca pulled both of her friends down to sit out of sight below the window and then repeated the Mystics' translated litany as they chanted it again.
“That... can't be,” Crono said, disbelieving.
“Magus was defeated!” Marle agreed. “He lost the war! He couldn't have been responsible!”
Lucca was quiet for a moment. “Wasn't he?”
Crono and Marle stared at her.
“Think about it. We don't really know what happened to him in the end.”
“His castle on the coast of Denadoro province exploded!” Marle said. “All of the histories agree on that.”
“Yes, but why did it explode?” Lucca pressed. “It wasn't because of anything Guardia did. It exploded on its own.”
“Most of the accounts I've heard speculate on some kind of magical ritual that went badly wrong,” Crono said. “He didn't expect Ozzimort to lose to Leene at St. Dorino, and became desperate.”
“Desperate enough to do what, Crono? What was he trying to do?”
They all looked at each other.
“Is that it?” Marle asked, barely audible. “Do we have the answer?”
Crono nodded slowly. “Magus... created Lavos! Destroying himself in the process! Why else would the Mystics be saying such a thing? How else would they know?”
“Right,” Lucca said. “And so fourteen-hundred years later, Magus has his revenge. Something that nobody sees coming. Except for these followers of Ozzimort's descendant.”
“The Director of Bangor Dome seemed to know something about it, too,” Marle pointed out. “What's the connection there?”
Lucca shook her head. “Hard to say. He might have been privy to information no one else had. It could have been a case of knowing more about something than he thought he did, and only realized the full import when the world came crashing down around him.”
“Whatever he knew, we now know enough,” Crono said. “Magus creates Lavos in the middle-ages. The creature sleeps underground for 1,400 years. And then it wakes up to destroy everything in 1999.”
“And no one suspects anything because Magus was destroyed!” Marle said.
“Just not defeated,” Lucca finished with a nod.
The three of them listened to the Mystic litany for a while longer, keeping out of sight, committing the guttural sounds of the prophesied doom to memory.
“We're done here,” Crono said decisively. “It's time to go.”
Indeed it was, Lucca thought. They now knew what they needed to do. They had to go back to where their time-traveling adventures had begun. Somehow defeat the Dark Lord before he could destroy himself and secure the world's future doom.
And to do that, they needed to get home.
* * *
Marle's elation of being free from captivity and having an essential clue about Lavos' origins lasted about as long as it took them to reach the forest she had been working at this afternoon.
“What are you thinking, Crono? The pyramid?” Lucca asked.
“Yeah, too much risk in going anywhere but north,” Crono said. “Bogs are too deep to the west, and the eastern coast is Naga country.”
Marle looked ahead of them with dismay. When she was working here, she only saw a thick line of bald cypress trees rising from a swamp of indeterminate depth. The nighttime shadows of that thicket were impenetrable.
“Um, is this a good idea? Maybe we should head south,” she said.
“South is prime real estate for Medina,” Lucca said with a shake of her head. “Most of the bigger tribes live down that way, and they have no more love for humans than Ozzie does. We'd be inviting a fight for sure.”
“And it's too far out of our way, anyhow,” said Crono. “Our goal is the cave of the 'land-bridge' chamber, that place we were telling you about before.”
“That ancient Zealian device that teleports people? Like the Telepod?”
“Exactly like the Telepod,” Lucca said. “Once we activate the chamber inside that cave, it's bye bye Medina and hello home sweet Guardia. I was doing some research going back and forth between the two halves of the chamber right up until the day before the Millennial Fair, so I know it still works.”
“It's a good distance to the northwest of here,” Crono said. “We'll retrace our steps, head north through these bogs, turn west once we reach the pyramid, and then shadow the northern hills until we reach the cave.”
“Pyramid?”
“A... uh... structure of sorts,” Lucca said. “But not made of stone. It's one-hundred-percent Zealian, no mistake. Probably the most intact remnant of that whole civilization. You won't doubt its origins once you see it. Nothing else like it in the world.”
Marle couldn't help but be intrigued at this, but those bogs...
“Is it safe to attempt this in the dark?”
“Safer than relying on Ozzie's mercy once he no longer has a use for us.”
“If you are concerned about the depths of the swamplands ahead, Mistress, my sensors are able to reliably detect the floor of a wetland environment within short distances,” Robo assured her. “There should be no risk of unintended submersion.”
“That only happened to us in the swamps west of here,” Crono said. “We should be fine. The only thing that worries me is how fast we can move. Once Ozzie's little gala comes to a close, they'll see that Robo is missing immediately. And when they check on us...”
“We'll be on the clock,” Lucca said grimly. “We need to get as far away from the village as we can before that happens.”
Marle's anxiety spiked from the first moment her foot broke the water and sank into the swamp's squishy bottom. She held on tightly to Robo's sturdy form for the rest of the night.
* * *
The first indication of possible pursuit came with the breaking of dawn, or the dawn as well as Marle could figure it in the shadowy depths of this Medinan swamp. Several loud pops resembling firecrackers could be heard to the south, and the travelers turned to see muted flashes break through the gloom of the canopy above.
“Yeah, that can't be good,” Lucca remarked.
“Better than we could have hoped, honestly,” Crono said. “Looks like they partied through the night. We've got a good lead on them, anyway.”
“So they know we're gone now?” Marle asked.
“No doubt. Those little explosions were manifestations of fire magic,” Lucca said. “It's a general alarm for the village.”
“Robo, how far have we traveled?” Crono asked.
“Seven-point-six-five kilometers from the Jes'aal village boundary,” Robo replied.
“Four and three-quarter miles,” Lucca amended.
“Hm, that's not bad time for traipsing through a swamp,” Crono mused. “Still not as far as I'd like. We need to try picking up the pace.”
Marle slumped with weariness, standing nearly waist deep in the murk. This little jaunt was taxing her stamina, and her courage, more than her desperate flight from the robotic factory of the future had. She'd almost rather be facing hostile R-66 units than dealing with this. Four times she had nearly tumbled face-first into this mud posing as water, despite Robo's warnings. She would have been riding the robot if not for the danger of increasing the robot's load and possibly causing him to get stuck in the marsh. It was all Robo could do himself to maintain a steady pace through this gunk. Marle was glad that Lucca at least had the foresight to store their most delicate items, like Leene's music box and Lucca's own diary, inside a storage alcove in Robo's chest, which the robot assured would remain watertight even if his body submerged too deeply.
“Do we really need to, Crono?” she asked, her tone nearly matching the pleading whine she had often taken with her father. “None of Ozzimort's Imps are taller than three feet at the most. I don't see them making better time than us in this sludge.”
“You didn't see the Rolys?” Lucca asked.
“Rolys?”
“Little creatures the Imps sometimes use for transport. They roll up into these tight balls that the Imps 'ride' by running backwards atop them once the Rolys get rolling. Looks pretty comical at first, but the Imps can travel surprisingly quick once the Rolys get up to speed. More importantly for us, the Rolys float, and that makes the Imp riders a fair bit quicker than us even in a swamp.”
Marle groaned. “All I ever did was chop wood and then collapse in my prison hut! You're saying they can catch us, then?!”
“If they guess our direction right, yeah.”
Despite herself and Crono's earlier warning, Marle started shivering, and the air around her started to rapidly cool in her despair. If it came down to a fight, they would be in serious trouble. Marle didn't have enough crossbow bolts to fight off every Imp in Ozzimort's village, and she didn't think her newly learned elemental magics would be a match for Mystics who had been using such powers all their lives. The Imps would certainly be surprised facing magic from a human, but that surprise wouldn't be enough for facing more than a few of those midgets.
Worse, Robo wouldn't be able to do much to help. While he did have a weapon now, the limited power generated by the replacement “core” Lucca had installed made firing the heavy weapon more than once prohibitive without needing to recharge himself from Lucca's battery pack afterward, and that battery wasn't an unlimited resource. He might not make it all the way to the “land-bridge” chamber if they wasted too much energy fighting Mystics.
Crono sloshed over to her looking concerned. “Hey, calm down, okay? Channeling might not be entirely safe even at this range. We just need to keep moving. We'll be safer once we reach the pyramid. The Mystics won't go close to that place.”
“We can hope,” Lucca remarked. “Sometimes ancient taboos are no match for burning angers, and Ozzie's more than a little peeved at us now.”
“We don't have a better option,” Crono insisted.
“Perhaps not,” Robo said. “However, we may now have a fortuitous boon that can aid our travels under the current circumstance.”
“Boon? What boon?”
Marle directed her eyes to where the robot was pointing. The surface of the shallow water around her legs was frozen in a thin sheet.
Lucca turned to her with a twinkle in her bespectacled gaze. “Well, if you're going to be mopey anyway, why not use it for a good cause?”
* * *
Crono felt ambivalent about the progress they were making. They had covered a lot of ground in two days, far more than he and Lucca had managed their first time in the same swamp, but that speed carried a cost. Marle now looked more determined than dismayed as she used her increasingly potent powers to form a bridge of solid ice in the water in front of them. It was quite an accomplishment by any measure. After a few false starts, Marle had solved the problem of the ice sheet's stability in open water by anchoring it to the base of a tree, and then slowly extending the length of the makeshift bridge until it linked with another tree not far away. The strength of Marle's channeling was a bit of a risk, considering Mystic sensitivity to magical energies, but Crono judged that their increased speed more than justified the use of Marle's powers at this distance from the village. From tree to tree they strode, seldom ever touching the murky water around them, the ice sheet thick enough to hold even Robo's considerable weight once a bridge was finished.
But the sadness Marle had to experience to do this was an even heavier weight on Crono's heart. She insisted that she only needed to recall the sadness rather than experiencing it in the moment, but Crono couldn't be sure she wasn't just saying that for his benefit. He longed to think of a way of making this up to her.
It wouldn't come in the form of food. Like before, they were forced to subsist on frogs and whatever edible lizards and snakes they could find, much to Lucca's displeasure, but at least this time they had reliable means of hunting and cooking their game. Marle's crossbow was put to use at first, then she decided to simply freeze the unlucky swamp residents where they swam, and Crono would then carve them out of the ice with his sword to be cooked by whatever fire Lucca could manage to make with her versatile pistol. The taste of the meals were as unpleasant as he remembered from months ago, and he cursed Ozzie's name for stealing all of their somewhat more palatable rations of rat jerky. The clean water from their remaining canteens was nearly exhausted.
“There are also wondrous technologies of the future that did not come to fruition,” Robo was explaining, continuing the future history lesson on the domes-era he had started this morning. “In the year 1996, shortly before my first activation, a revolutionary scientific concept was proposed by a citizen of Arris Dome. According to his thesis, it was possible to replicate an existing human body in exacting detail, using nothing but a few skin or hair samples from the individual in question. This new science was to be called 'cloning'.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?” Crono asked with a frown. “Any person duplicated like that wouldn't have the mind or the memories of that person, would they?”
“That was the question posed to this citizen by the governing body of Keepers Dome. The answer given by the petitioner, a Dr. Norstein Bekkler, proved unsatisfactory. The memories of the duplicated individual would not be transferred to the clone, thereby making the product of the science a blank slate.”
“Sounds creepy,” Lucca remarked.
“That was in essence the attitude of the Council of the Keepers. The clone would have to be educated and trained to fulfill useful functions in society, and the means of accomplishing this were not made clear by Dr. Bekkler. The notion of duplicating a person that would in truth not be that person was also regarded as disturbing. The Council thus rejected Dr. Bekkler's proposal, and he was forbidden from pursuing the science any further. Doctor Bekkler subsequently retired from his position and returned to Arris Dome. His activities after this moment are no longer known to this unit.”
“Sometimes science blows up in your face. Or you run into the wrong bureaucrat.”
“Indeed, Major.” Robo rotated his head to face Crono. “If you would, Mister Lantree, since we are due to arrive at the pyramid structure you mentioned by nightfall at our present pace, would you relate the tale of why the Jes'aal find it taboo to approach this structure?”
“Sure. Ozzie delighted in telling me during one of his many diatribes about history,” Crono said. “This pyramid is where Magus first appeared. According to Mystic legend, the man just appeared out of thin air right in front of it, right at the moment Ozzie's ancestor was meditating nearby. The first Ozzie harbored an ambition to conquer Guardia and take over the Zenan continents, enslaving humans and bringing his own people out of the swamps of Medina to seize a greater future. And then Magus shows up, seemingly in answer to his prayer. He commanded Ozzie to gather the leaders of all the Mystic tribes to meet with him, and with all of the Lords gathered before him, Magus declared the pyramid sacred ground and that no Mystic would ever defile it with their presence on pain of death. In return, he would end all the tribal conflicts in Medina and solidify control under Ozzie's vision of conquering Guardia, but under his command. That was how the Mystic War had its genesis, from their perspective. And as far as I know, the Mystics stayed true to their word, never once approaching the pyramid after that.”
“Given the cultural significance of this place to the Jes'aal of the present age, it is indeed likely they will respect the purported promise made by their ancestors to Magus. However, it is also likely they will take great offense if we are seen on their 'sacred ground'. Their response to our trespass may prove to be less predictable.”
“That's why we've gotta be fast, Robo. They can't take offense if they don't know we're there. With any luck, they may already be searching in the wrong direction.”
“Which is why we're going to presume they're not,” Lucca said with a smirk.
Crono chuckled. “Right. So it's a race.”
The following hours passed with little of note. Crono was fascinated by Robo's tales of his native time-period, but also a little intimidated. The level of technical knowledge needed to make a living in such a society was daunting, especially without formal education of the era's standards. Poor Marle would be more miserable there than she was now.
During their next meal break, sitting on a fallen tree trunk, Crono thought he heard a large splash somewhere to the east. He resisted his normal impulse to reach for his sword and instead knocked twice on the log beneath him, their prearranged sign to stop any conversations or other activities and just listen to the sounds of the swamp for threats.
“Auditory analysis inconclusive,” Robo said quietly after a moment. “Thermal readings at this range also inconclusive. It might simply have been another alligator investigating our presence.”
“As long as it doesn't get too close,” Marle said, looking uneasy. “Those things are scary.”
Crono silently agreed, but meeting an alligator wasn't what worried him at the moment. Robo's sensors would immediately warn them if one of the big reptiles got close enough to be a danger. Of more concern were unfriendly eyes that didn't want to be spied in turn.
“I think we should move out now,” Crono told them. Maybe it was nothing, but his instincts advised caution.
As the daylight began to dim from the west, a new light began to reveal itself to the north, and Crono knew they were close. There was indeed nothing else like it in the world, as Lucca had said. Seeing it would surely lift Marle's spirits. It would be a small repayment for her many days of misery in Medina.
An hour later, the magically cheating swamp travelers passed through one more stand of wetland trees, and then the fabled place of Magus' purported arrival in this world was before them.
Rising over ten stories from a wide but relatively shallow ziggurat of stone at its base was a transparent pyramid of blue light, bright as a full-moon, stretching to end in a sharp point in the cloud-covered sky. The night was wholly banished on this side of the line of trees, and the grass shone as if it produced its own light from the pyramid's reflection.
Marle's expression was everything Crono could have hoped. “It's the same color as my pendant!” she said with wonder. “What is it? It's beautiful!”
“I'm not sure,” Crono said. “I'm not sure even Ozzie knows.”
“It's a barrier of pure magic, I think,” Lucca said. “Yakra used something similar against us during our battle with him, only this one's completely inert. There's no active channeling of magical energies, it's just there. Something in the ziggurat is giving the pyramid its form, but I won't pretend to understand how it works.”
“What's inside?”
Lucca gave a chuckle. “Absolutely nothing. That's the mystery. If anything was inside it before, we'll never know. The structure itself is a priceless treasure, if you ask me. The ziggurat is solid stone with no openings we've been able to see. Only the pyramidal wall of force is of any note. It's one of the great wonders of the world, and one of at least two on Medina that we know of, the other being the 'land-bridge' we're trying to get to. The architectural style of the ziggurat is similar to some of the stonework seen inside the land-bridge chamber, so they clearly share a common cultural origin. It's Zealian, without question.”
Marle ran up the remarkably clean and uneroded stairway of the ziggurat to regard the glowing azure surface of the pyramid. She placed both her hands against it and appeared to push, laughing at the feel of the barrier against her skin. Crono smiled. That had been him not so very long ago. She could push all she wanted. The barrier was completely impenetrable.
“Fascinating. My optics can see the pyramidal barrier, yet my sensors detect nothing,” Robo said. “It would seem this unit is unable to remotely distinguish magical energies beyond their immediate effect on the surrounding environment. It is paradoxically there, and yet not there. This is a matter worthy of further study.”
“No doubt,” Crono said. “But now isn't the best time for that. Five minutes and then we need to be heading west.”
Marle then slipped her pendant off of her neck and held it in her hands. “Hey! I think my pendant is... glowing!” she said.
Lucca stepped forward, plainly surprised. “What? Is it a gate?”
“I don't know. Maybe there's a gate inside.”
“Was it glowing before? Did you notice?”
“I don't think so.”
This was odd, Crono thought. Normally the pendant didn't glow unless a temporal gate was close, and it always gave plenty of advance warning. It was possible that Marle had simply been too focused on her ice channeling to notice, but Crono doubted it. Robo would certainly have taken notice of such a change.
Before Crono could say anything, Marle placed her pendant against the equally glowing surface of the pyramid.
And then Marle suddenly found herself on the other side of the barrier, her body pushing through as if it weren't even there. Marle barely recovered her balance enough to remain standing.
“Huh? How did I...?”
“What did you do, Marle?!” Lucca huffed, rushing up to the barrier.
“I didn't do anything! I just pushed the back of the pendant against the barrier and then I was through!”
Crono ran up to join Lucca and pushed his hands against the transparency. It remained solid to his touch. “Well, this is certainly a surprise,” he said. “Try using the pendant again and come back.”
Marle placed the back of the pendant against the barrier again and tried to walk through the divide. Nothing happened this time.
Marle's unease was palpable, and everyone was at a loss for words for a moment.
“Okay, don't panic,” Crono said. “Try placing the pendant's stone against the barrier instead of the back. That was the direction it was facing the first time.”
Marle did as instructed, pushing against the barrier with no more effect than before.
“Can we panic now?” Lucca said, her tone matching Marle's stricken expression.
“No, no, this is not happening!” Crono grumbled. This was the last thing they needed right now! “Try again. I'll push from the other side. There has to be some kind of trick to this.”
Crono pressed hard with both hands against the barrier right at the point where Marle was pressing her pendant.
He passed through so abruptly that he crashed straight into Marle and sent them both stumbling to the floor of the ziggurat. Crono looked behind him with a start. The barrier was still there.
“This doesn't exactly solve our problem,” Lucca remarked from the other side.
Crono scrambled back to the transparency and pushed against it again. It held firm.
Marle stood beside him looking dismayed. “Um, what are we going to do?”
“Perhaps it would be prudent to take no further action and conduct a more thorough analysis,” Robo said. “The Major and this unit might be of more productive use on this side of the barrier.”
Crono sighed. His rash action had only gotten himself trapped along with Marle. Now what? His mind went back to the splash in the swamp they hadn't been able to quantify. It was probably just his growing panic trying to force itself to the surface of his thoughts, but he hated not being sure. They really needed to get out of here.
Eight long hours later, the trapped and the untrapped had no insights. Lucca and Robo had checked every part of the outside of the ziggurat. Crono and Marle had checked the entire floor of the ziggurat within the barrier. Marle had even tried channeling magic on Crono's suggestion, which only resulted in blocks of ice being stacked against the pyramid's transparent wall and slowly melting to become expanding puddles on the floor. To put an exclamation point on their situation, Crono was getting hungry, too.
And then a much larger exclamation point made itself known.
A large ball of fire suddenly streaked up into the sky from a point just behind the stand of trees south of the ziggurat. The ball then exploded into a tango brilliance rivaling the azure of the pyramid, raining an artificial dawn across the swampy landscape.
Crono watched grimly as a Roly-mounted Imp rolled to a halt on the surface of the shallow water in front of the trees, then a second, then a third. Their situation might have just become terminal.
“Lucca! Robo! We've got company!” he cried out.
“And this is why we don't rely on luck,” Lucca grumbled, bounding up the steps of the ziggurat along with Robo.
They all watched as more Imps, both mounted and not, emerged from the forest. As Crono feared, the splash he had heard earlier was probably from a scout, who then went running – likely backwards on his Roly mount - to his allies to report on what he had seen.
And then, somewhat surprisingly, the brutish governor of the Imp tribe sloshed his white-robed bulk through the bald cypress line to regard the scene. Ozzie had traveled quite a long way, not at all typical for the fiend's lazy disposition and general decadence.
“Crono, Lucca, and Marle!” the Mystic leader boomed from where he stood. “Disgusting humans! Your audacity truly knows no bounds! You trespass on our people's most sacred site! Daring so much as to touch it, even! Slavery is too good for the likes of you! I hereby sentence you to death by immolation!”
“Oh, stick a melon in it, Ozzie!” Lucca cried back. “Or maybe two! We all know you were going to kill us anyway when you got bored playing slavemaster!”
Ozzie sneered, the effect greatly magnified by his huge fangs. “True. You always were a smart one. But now your deaths are going to be so much more painful and satisfying to watch! I look forward to taking apart that strange statue of yours to see how it works. Such deception!”
“The security of your village was insufficient,” Robo stated. “You also failed to properly analyze the situation. Leadership requires a degree of effort.”
Ozzie's mouth gaped so wide that Crono thought a couple of melons could indeed be stuffed between his jaws. “The statue talks?! What wizardry is this?”
“Something that'll long live past you, Ozzie!” Lucca countered.
“I think not,” the Mystic Lord said darkly. “I tire of this play! Imps! Carry out the sentence! Destroy them!”
“Marle, pendant!” Crono cried. “Lucca, Robo, inside!”
Everyone acted on instinct. Marle placed her pendant against the inside of the pyramidal barrier, and Lucca pressed her hands against the outside. Crono quickly pulled Lucca the rest of the way inside the barrier when her hands began to pass through, and Robo followed shortly after.
They all watched as fireballs slammed into the barrier in the next instant.
* * *
“What a distressing development,” Robo said.
Lucca couldn't agree more, and in different circumstances she would have laughed at Robo's evident gift for understatement. Over a hundred Imps, plus Ozzie himself, were now hurling magical fire at the pyramidal barrier, a barrier that was likely to be their doom as much as their salvation. They were all trapped now.
Better than being dead, she thought. Crono's quick thinking probably just delayed the inevitable, but at least they were alive to witness this spectacular sight. Lucca guessed that such a display of offensive magic hadn't been seen since the Mystic War. They could appreciate it because the barrier was holding up. For five minutes, then ten, then a half-hour, then for twice that. Lucca and the others barely even flinched now as fireball after fireball struck and exploded harmlessly against the transparent wall of force. The cacophony of magical fury was more painful to their ears than anything.
For better and for worse, the brutish assault confirmed to Lucca that Ozzie had no more idea how to open the barrier than she did. The pyramid was holding up so well that she figured the azure walls could endure this for hours more, or perhaps even days. She wondered if Ozzie would appreciate a victory in which his intended victims starved to death instead of being burned alive by magic.
“Keep casting, keep casting, my loyal Imps!” Ozzie cried, undaunted by the stubborn magical barrier before them. “Break it down! Remember our humiliation! Burn them to cinders!”
Creation, but Ozzie was mad, Lucca thought. So much for Mystic taboos. Ozzie's enraged tribe probably wouldn't stop casting until they all collapsed from exhaustion. The pyramid was no deterrent to them at all.
Then the flames of Imp fury were suddenly drowned out by a massive clap of thunder, followed by forked lightning that webbed across the entire sky above them. More distant fireballs popped off above the trees a short distance to the east, and a sizable wave of water crested over the forest about as far to the west. The Imps stopped their casting, looking around the clearing with apparent unease. At length, more Mystics came into view of the ziggurat, but these were not Imps. Lucca looked on as a whole company of slithery pink-haired Nagas formed a line on the eastern edge of the clearing, followed by another very different tribe of the magically endowed to the west. Nereids floated proudly on magically formed bubbles of water beneath them, their tails hovering just above the marshy ground in their watery cocoons, their webbed hands holding gleaming tridents.
A third tribe then appeared from directly above, sinking through the low cloud cover to reveal pale forms with small but potent wings. Diablos. More thunder arced across the sky as the initial company halted to hover in place, to be followed by a second company that maintained position a short distance above the first. Naga and Nereid reinforcements also began straggling in from their respective directions. Hundreds of Mystics from four different tribes were now present in the clearing around and above the ziggurat.
Crono and Marle looked upon the scene with growing dismay. On the surface it looked like an already hopeless situation had just become more so, but Lucca had a feeling. Ozzie may have just miscalculated, and badly.
One of the larger Nereids then moved forward, the bubble of water beneath moving along with the motion of its powerful tail. “Ozzimort!” it said in Mystic. “Once again you fruitlessly try to regain the glory of your lost ancestor. But you have gone too far this time!”
“What are they saying, Lucca?” Marle asked her. “What's happening?”
Lucca smiled. “I think Ozzie's in a jam.” She translated the Mystic speech for everyone as quickly as her mind could process it.
A Naga clad in elaborate robes slithered to the front of her line of sisters. “You have violated the ancient command of Lord Magus by coming to this place! Daring to strike the Shrine of Arrival with your unholy flames, no less!”
Ozzie looked all about him with a look of evident panic.
“But... but you have also come to this place!” the corpulent Mystic Lord pleaded. He pointed at where Lucca and her friends were watching from safely behind the barrier. “Do you not see...?”
“You were the first,” the Nereid leader said. “We are responding to your violation.”
“The humans are irrelevant,” one of the Diablo said. “Their doom is assured by the prophecy of Lord Magus. Their presence does not give you leave to violate the Dark Lord's most sacred command.”
“The impudence!” said the Naga.
“Imp treachery is a disgrace to all Jes'aal!” the Nereid said. “You must die!”
“Wait! The enemy are the humans!” Ozzie said desperately. “We must turn our wrath on them, not each other!”
“Die!” said the Diablo.
“Die!” said the Naga.
“Die! In the name of Lord Magus!” the Nereid finished.
And then a magical assault many times stronger than what the Imps unleashed was visited upon them. Fire, lightning, and water magics were blasted all across Ozzie's hapless Imp formation. To their credit, the Imps fought back hard, inflicting many casualties on their attackers, but the end result could not be in doubt. When it was all over, only a hand count of Roly-mounted Imps were still alive, all of them rolling for as fast as they were worth through the bogs to the south.
Lucca found herself gaping at the carnage. Mystic corpses lie everywhere. The Nereids seemed to come out the better of the four factions, but upwards of a dozen of the aquatic folk still wouldn't be returning home. Ozzie's company of a hundred-plus Imps was utterly obliterated. Ozzie himself was nowhere to be seen.
The Diablo leader then swooped down to hover above the stairway of the ziggurat, where it gave Lucca and her friends a hard look through the barrier.
“Hear this, humans!” it said in the common tongue. “When the great Lavos awakens from its long slumber, the human race is doomed! As was prophesied! The final victory shall belong to Lord Magus! Sleep lightly!”
And then the Diablo took to the sky, quickly followed by all of its surviving company to disappear into the clouds. The Naga and Nereid companies also began to withdraw, and within a quarter-hour there were no more Mystics left alive where Lucca could see.
Everyone was quiet for a long moment.
“Toma Levine had a saying,” Lucca finally braved. “'When you're in the mire, expect to get mired.'”
* * *
By noontime of the day of the great battle of the pyramid, Crono had to concede that he and his friends were in no less of a jam than Ozzie had been. Not surprisingly, Lucca and Robo didn't discover anything of note on the inside of the barrier, and the transparent wall was as impenetrable as ever. He briefly considered broaching the topic of Lucca's newfound magical potential, which seemed to be far greater than what the Imps had demonstrated on an individual level, but dismissed the notion almost as soon as he thought it. Whether she could control the power (or herself) or not, the most likely result would be the inside of the pyramid becoming an oven that would cook them all alive. Robo refrained from firing his plasma cannon for much the same reason, fearing a lethal ricochet.
Perhaps the now departed Mystic companies understood their predicament and left them alone for that reason. They wouldn't have to wait for Lavos' awakening to meet their doom. Marle sat alone in a corner with her head down, doubtlessly blaming herself for the situation they were all in. She couldn't have known. That the Star of Guardia would be a key of sorts to enter an otherwise impassable Zealian remnant couldn't have been known by anyone. What would a royal heirloom passed down by Anne the Divine have to do with ancient Zeal? That was many thousands of years before the great queen's time.
Crono's ruminations were interrupted by the sounds of laughter, and Crono came to his feet with a start looking to the source. At first he assumed some curious or lagging Mystic from the morning's battle had stayed behind to make sure the humans succumbed to their misfortune, but Crono realized he knew the laugh. He had heard it often enough during his first adventure in Medina.
Lucca was suddenly beside him gaping in disbelief. She recognized the laugh, too.
Emerging from the trees to the west was an old man on horseback, clothed in simple unadorned robes of blue with an orange sash across his chest and wearing a hat of similar coloring with two pronounced rounded ridges above each ear. A pair of small spectacles rested on the man's nose, and his otherwise sage-like bearing was overshadowed by a wide smile below his bushy mustache that dared the world to challenge his joviality. His “ho, ho, ho” of laughter echoed through the clearing as if in an attempt to wake the Mystic dead all around him.
Crono found himself laughing along with the new arrival. Of all of the people in history he most wanted to see right now, it was this man.
“Melchior!” he cried.
“Ah, if it isn't Master Crono, Miss Lucca, and Miss... Marle,” Melchior greeted with a chuckle. “When I heard that unholy magical conflagration a few hours ago, somehow your faces were the first thing to spring into my mind, knowing your uncanny knack for getting yourselves into trouble. And lo! It is so! I must say this is quite the predicament you have landed yourselves in this time.”
Crono reddened. “Yeah, you could say that.”
Melchior gingerly maneuvered his horse around the bodies of the slain Mystics, slipped out of his saddle, and climbed up the stairs of the ziggurat to regard them. “It seems you have added another companion to your little band of troublemakers,” he pointed out, directing a gaze at Robo. “Though this one is a bit difficult for even me to define.”
“Greetings, sir. My name is R-66-Y, designation 'Robo',” the robot said pleasantly. “I am gratified to make your acquaintance. Major Lucca has spoken kindly of you to this unit.”
“Please, tell me you can get us out of this, Melchior!” Lucca pleaded. “I was fresh out of ideas hours ago, and now my tummy is starting to ache!”
“I believe I have an insight into your problem, Miss Lucca, and it has to do with your other recently added companion,” Melchior said. “Miss Marle? I am guessing that pendant of yours is the reason behind this latest ill turn of fortune for you and your friends?”
Marle shifted uncertainly. “Um, yeah. But how did you know?”
“Oh, call it an educated guess. I have more than a passing knowledge of the Ancients and their many marvelous works. Among other things, that pendant and others like it were a key to opening many secure places in the ancient world. This pyramid, for example, was once a storehouse of treasure and forbidden knowledge. Its shielding was great enough to preserve its contents without fail for thousands of years, if need be.”
“Is that why you took such an interest in Marle's pendant at the Millennial Fair?” Crono asked.
“Yes, indeed. It is the only surviving example of such a piece that I know of. I was quite surprised to see it around the neck of a fine lady of this age. It's a treasure so great it would be worthy of being preserved in a place like this, ironically enough, though that would largely defeat its own purpose. People of great importance wore these to access secured locations as the need arose.”
Marle gaped. “My pendant is Zealian? I don't believe it! It once belonged to Anne the Divine, but I had no idea the Star of Guardia was that old! I'm not sure Anne herself knew.”
“Most likely not. Much knowledge was lost when the ancient world ceased to be. It is no small miracle the pendant itself survives to this day.”
“The pendant got us inside, but it doesn't seem able to get us out,” Crono said, deciding to get the otherwise fascinating discussion back on point. “We kept trying, but it won't do anything.”
“That is easily fixed. Miss Marle, please place the back of the pendant against the barrier and hold it there for a moment.”
“Okay.”
Melchior raised his hand to meet the location of the pendant on his side of the barrier. Crono frowned. The old man was about to do the same thing Crono himself had done to land him and everyone else inside this ancient storehouse. “Uh, Mel?”
“Hush, Master Crono!” Melchior scolded mildly. “There is no danger.”
The world's foremost expert on the ancient Zealian civilization then closed his eyes and muttered an indistinctive incantation of some sort. The next moment saw the azure pyramid that had existed for untold centuries in this swamp suddenly vanish without a trace. Only the ziggurat base of stone remained.
Crono was still. Had Melchior just used...?
The old man laughed at his expression. “No, lad, I did not use magic! I only recited a code phrase. It's a security precaution, you see. Someone unauthorized could steal or otherwise obtain the pendant to gain access into these places, so a second person would have to be stationed on the outside to disable the barrier and get them out. And the people who knew the right phrase to use were very few in order to prevent thefts.”
“And yet you happen to be one of those people?” Lucca said with a laugh. “Why am I not surprised? There's no one alive who knows Zeal better than you. I'm just going to stop asking how and save my breath.”
Crono passed through the now non-existent divide to grasp Melchior's hand in gratitude. This was the second time the man had saved him from certain disaster.
Melchior's eyes twinkled behind his spectacles. “You can repay me, Master Crono, by relating the story of how you came to be in Medina a second time. I would have thought you and Miss Lucca had your fill of the place the first time.”
Crono shared a look with his friends, wondering how he could possibly explain the events of the past month – as he had experienced time.
“That's going to take quite awhile, Mel,” Crono said.
“I'm sure it will, and it'll be no trouble since we're several days travel from my cottage on foot. Perhaps you could start at the beginning and give this old man some entertainment.”
Crono put his finger on his chin in thought. He wondered how amused his old friend would be when he heard the entirety of their dark tale.
5
Fan Fiction / Re: The Day of Lavos - a novel fragment
« on: July 30, 2025, 10:32:20 pm »
Chapter 28 - The Vow
Lucca couldn't say how much time had passed before she was aware of where she was. One moment she was in the classified computer archive on the lowest level of the enclave, the next she was on the surface, walking the shattered streets of ruined Bangor surrounded by late afternoon shadows. There was a plasma pistol in her hand. She stared at it in confusion. When did she get the gun? Lucca hadn't brought one into the archive, and she had no memory of stopping by the armory. She only remembered saying that she was in the mood to shoot something.
She certainly was, Lucca thought, if her memory was blacking out like this. Rage did terrible things to her mind. At the best of times she often lost awareness of her surroundings when she was singularly focused on a problem. Adding anger to that focus often seared her memory to the point where she couldn't even remember what she was supposed to be focusing on.
Lucca stopped where she was and went to her knees, letting out an unsteady breath. She had been walking hard, if not outright running. Her legs tingled with exhaustion. Checking the tiny charge display set just above the grip of the futuristic pistol she held, it read 100% in bright blue numerals, which meant she hadn't fired it at anything, so she couldn't have been running from anything, either. What was she doing out here? It was dangerous being in the ruins alone. She wondered how she had even left the enclave, one of its weapons in hand, without being noticed or stopped by the Protectors. Perhaps everyone was too busy celebrating the results of today's scavenging run to pay attention to her. It wasn't like she left the enclave often since her arrival in Bangor.
She wondered where Crono and Marle were.
And then, thinking of her friends, the afternoon's preceding hours came back to Lucca in a flood. The destruction of Arris. The terror felt by Bangor's then operators. The emergence of an impossible horror – Lavos - from the earth. Marle's determination to somehow do something about it and change history, no matter the cost. There was a lot to be angry about.
Or was there? It had all happened a very long time ago. Lucca didn't know any of the people who died, it was hard to be angry at a creature whose motives couldn't be understood, and Marle was just acting on the dictates of her bold conscience, as she often did. Why give into anger for any of those things?
Maybe... that thought was the problem.
Excuses.
It was her own voice, heard from the cauldron of her brain. Lucca shot to her feet and quickly started heading in the direction she had been walking, vaguely thinking she could escape the source of the cutting rebuke if she just kept moving. It was useless, of course.
You always have to be the smartest person in the room, the voice said. The know-it-all who sees everything. The risks. The consequences. Changing the past will obliterate this timeline and everyone in it. Well, congratulations! You're right! And burn the world to ash! What matters is that you can live with yourself.
Shut up, Lucca told the voice.
You could be the greatest scientist of all time. With the knowledge you've gained here, you can become greater than dad. Greater than grandpa, even. So what if the world ends in a thousand years? Just go home and build your next toy. You don't have to worry about anything. As long as you're right.
“Shut up!” Lucca cried aloud. She then increased her pace to a run, bounding over an endless carpet of stony debris and pointing her gun into every shadow she passed on reflex. Lucca distantly realized that that was what she had been doing all along before stopping for breath. Running from the voice. Running from herself.
She hated what she had become.
Well and good to be the responsible one, she thought, but what did that profit anyone if it robbed you of your courage? Your moral center? It was as Marle said. This future was doomed. Everyone would die anyway, and long before their time, not to mention the whole human race along with its millennia of history. What Lucca really wanted to do was fight.
But how? It was a childish notion. This Lavos thing was beyond comprehension. Who knew how long it had lived under the earth's crust? How old it really was? How they could hope to find and fight it if they managed to travel back to the past?
Shut up, Lucca told herself again. More excuses.
She skidded to a halt when her shame-addled mind suddenly recognized where she was in the ruins. Much of Bangor's surface was indistinguishable, each flattened city block being little different from any other, but this place she knew. She had been here twice before. The first time she had almost become glasser food, the second she had been part of a small well-armed scavenging squad seeing to an errand. Her errand. Scanning the ground beneath the shale of fallen concrete, Lucca found the manhole cover leading down.
It couldn't be a coincidence, she thought. She wasn't so brainless as to run all this way if she wasn't looking for something in particular. Instinct had led her to this place for a reason. Lucca shoved the manhole cover aside with some effort and climbed down into the dark.
The Shrine of the Protector, as Lucca herself had named it, looked no different than it had three weeks ago. The lily pads in the corner were still there. The water that surrounded the concrete dais was dark and motionless. The skulls, painstakingly set up in a semicircle well away from the water, remained undisturbed where Lucca and her party had left them. And in the center of the makeshift shrine was the thing her spirit had apparently been drawn to after her conscience had been shaken in a long moment of self-loathing.
Lucca made a cursory examination of the artificial cavern, checking for lurking mutants, before kneeling in front of the precious artifact of the pre-Lavos era. There was just enough natural light coming through the cracks and the manhole above to see it. The Protector's helmet of old Bangor stared back at her, faceless. Battered and tarnished from the unimaginable forces that had surely killed the person who once wore it: her future cousin, T. Eleckson.
She was so ashamed. The eloquent speech she had given in her cousin's memory now seemed like it had come from the lips of someone else. It was good to be able to speak from the heart, but history was built by doers, not talkers. What would Eleckson have done in Lucca's place? With technical know-how, historical knowledge, the means to travel through time, and a weapon in their hand, he or she would have done whatever it took to make Bangor whole again. Duty, not excuses.
But Eleckson wasn't here. Lucca was. All of the tools necessary to begin this grand endeavor Lucca already possessed. All that was missing was the will.
Lucca Ashtear had built a means of traveling through time, journeyed into the past to save history, sprung her best friend out of prison, and helped to uncover the tragedy of the future using nothing but her own talents. That didn't take will. That took sheer unmitigated gall.
Lucca's soft chuckles echoed through the sewer. Gall would do. She took the helmet into her hands and made a solemn vow.
* * *
Crono decided not to get the enclave involved.
He and Marle both assumed that Lucca would take more target practice in the armory. She had intimated as much in the archive. Or she would just find a quiet corner of the enclave to stew in while she tried to make sense of the convoluted mess all of their lives had become. Crono couldn't rightly blame her. If anything, Lucca had made the most sane decision among the three of them. She didn't say no, but she also didn't say yes. What other sensible answer could anyone give based on what they knew and what they were capable of? They didn't even know if they would be able to travel through time again. That required a gate, and the only one they knew of was a dismally improbable option. If Director Doan didn't think that gate could be reached, then it wouldn't be. He was not a man to be second-guessed.
But Lucca wasn't anywhere in the enclave. A concerned Protector Terrance had come to visit Crono and Marle in Dormitory 7, thirty minutes after they had decided to retire from the archive, relating the tale of Lucca coming to the armory, absconding with a plasma pistol, and then walking at a brisk pace straight into the enclave's main entrance shaft and heading up without speaking a word. Terrance had described the aura around her at the time as “dangerous”, so no one challenged her departure. Lucca had now been gone for an hour, and there was little more time than that before the sun descended below the mountains and plunged all of Bangor into a darkness that the stars did nothing to mitigate. A single pistol was scant protection in a Bangorian night, and even a full squad of Protectors knew better than to conduct a mission in the ruins without the sun's aid. The sewers were arguably safer.
So Crono and Marle were waiting alone, sword and crossbow at the ready, a short distance from the enclave's main entrance shaft on the surface, staring into the bleak cityscape for any sign of Lucca. Crono had given Terrance instructions to keep the matter to himself and not to alert the rest of the enclave unless the three of them hadn't returned by nightfall. Lucca's strange absence would invite unwelcome questions from the residents if it became general knowledge, and Crono didn't want to have to deal with that considering the burden he and Marle shared about the Day of “Fire”. Lavos was something these people could not be allowed to know about.
Lucca would be getting a serious scolding once Crono found her.
“I really should get Mary to put one of those flashlight things on my crossbow,” Marle mused. “I think I've earned enough credits for the job if she thinks it's doable.”
“That'll be expensive,” Crono replied with a levity he didn't really feel. “You'll have to bribe her with a dozen ice cubes, I think.”
Marle tittered shortly. “She's not that bad. Three's usually more than enough. We made such a big profit today she might be willing to settle for two.”
“Give her five, then. Lucca's losing her share today for putting us through this.”
“Not just for today,” Marle agreed.
The light mood quickly descended along with the dipping sun. Whatever uncertainty Lucca was feeling about changing history didn't justify this kind of behavior from her. Maybe the burden of Lavos along with the burden of the dying enclave populace had finally caused her to snap. Lucca had worked harder than anyone adapting to life in the enclave and making herself useful to Director Doan. It was a wonder she had as much energy as she did. Crono feared he and Marle would have to brave nightfall if Lucca didn't turn up soon.
“Let's climb up one of the buildings,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe we'll see something from the windows. I'll go first. You cover me.”
“Right.”
“You two were going to come after me after dark by yourselves?” came a familiar voice. “Well color me touched. Noted in my diary. I'll make the space somewhere.”
Crono rolled his eyes in agitation as he turned to his right. Lucca was coming around the corner of a building bathed in dusk's shadow.
“Lucca!” Marle cried out. “We were really worried! Why did you run off like that?”
“Eh, you know. Had to rattle a few things around my brain,” Lucca replied. “Like the end of the world and all that. And for all my trouble I didn't even get to shoot anything. I guess you guys really are making Bangor safer.”
Crono's tongue was ready to give his childhood friend a lashing worthy of an angry parent, but his planned diatribe fell back into his lungs when Lucca stepped out of the shadows. Snugly fit on Lucca's head was the helmet they had all enshrined in Krawlie's lair. Green and bronze, set atop a wave of purple, with blue eyes twinkling through the oversized glasses that gleamed below the tarnished and much-abused rim. It was a ridiculous look, but one that was entirely in keeping with Lucca's esteemed fashion sense. Crono and Marle could only stare.
“Well, no sense in standing around here,” Lucca said cheerfully with a tip of her glasses. “Let's go save the world!”
* * *
The second stint in the classified archive was very different from the first.
The first time was pure discovery, the inputting of only four words sending the three of them on a journey to see firsthand how the world was destroyed in the year 1999. This time they were doing actual work, or at least Lucca was. Crono and Marle could do little more than move the hovering displays of light around and report to Lucca what they said while she worked.
Lucca had one of the access panels below the central computer station open. The Chrono Trigger was lying on the floor next to the open panel, a handful of wires extending out the back of the time-traveling device where Marle's pendant would normally be inserted and connected to something deep inside the innards of the big computer. Lucca herself was crawled halfway into the thing.
Crono noticed a change to the display he was monitoring.
“Satellite six just changed from yellow status to green, Lu,” he said. “Looks like it's getting the signal finally.”
It was good news, and better than Crono dared hope. The world's satellite network, comprised of hundreds of machines roughly the size of a Dragon Tank and situated in low orbit of Gaia, was barely functioning at all. So far only five had responded to commands. The satellite network was a legacy of the domes, a sophisticated grid of advanced detection equipment that had once monitored every corner of the globe, delivering reports on the weather, radiation levels on the surface, and stellar phenomena beyond the stratosphere. That network was now the key to discovering where any temporal disturbances, indicating gates, may exist on the planet. There was no other way of getting this information from the safety of Bangor. Unfortunately, most of the satellites had broken down or exhausted their fuel over the course of 300 years, and the enclaves had stopped using the network long ago. Lucca needed an absolute minimum of seven of these ancient machines to narrow down where they needed to go, assuming any other temporal gates existed in this time-period.
“Great!” Lucca said from under the panel. “That should at least tell us enough to know if the Chrono Trigger modifications are working. Let's look at it on the big screen.”
The forward viewscreen then displayed an image on Lucca's typed command. It was a map of the world from before the Day of Lavos. The North Zenan and South Zenan continents in the western hemisphere. Gendis situated to the east. The island continent of Choras to the south. Medina in the center. Various island chains near the equator, including the El Nido Archipelago, a sparsely populated region in Crono's time known for its tropical climate and treacherous seas. All of it was on the screen in flawless precision, better than any conventional map Crono had ever seen.
A green blip appeared on the eastern portion of North Zenan.
“I think we just found the ZDF gate,” Lucca said with satisfaction. She zoomed in the image to get a better idea of the blip's location. Crono saw most of the devastated pre-dome city of Quintadis highlighted in green. “Pretty big bloom around the Quintadis region, but it's precise enough. That's the ZDF gate all right. Objective one accomplished. Now we just need to get two more satellites under our control and hope they have enough fuel to do what we need.”
“Can you tell if the ZDF gate is accessible?” Crono asked. “The room it's in might have been crushed by that collapsing building. It would be good for us to know one way or the other.”
Lucca shook her head. “I'd have to bring the satellite dangerously close to the stratosphere's terminus to get that precise a reading. Not a good idea when they have so little fuel to correct their course. Best to assume the gate's closed to us.”
Marle grunted at that news. She still blamed herself for what happened there.
“Oh! Satellite twenty-eight just turned green!” Marle quickly added.
“Now we're getting somewhere,” Lucca said. “That one's just south of Medina. That should give us enough coverage to receive a general reading if anything else is out there, if not a precise location.”
Lucca typed a few commands into the central computer. A rather large green blob interposed itself around Medina and the depleted seas near the central continent. Southeast of Bangor by a good distance, Crono thought, assuming the Chrono Trigger was actually picking something up over there.
“Looks like a hit to me,” Lucca remarked. “I'm going to try moving number 61 from over Choras in the direction of Medina to tighten the window.”
“There really is another one!” Marle said with relief. “I was beginning to think we'd be forced to try the ZDF gate and pull our hair out figuring out how to get back there.”
“It'll be hard enough to get into that green zone,” Crono pointed out. “If the gate is somewhere within Medina, we're looking at a really long trip.”
“Oh, yeah,” Marle said with glum realization. “And we'd have to cross the Tylair Ocean to get there, wouldn't we? Or what's left of it. How are we going to do that?”
The global sea level had plummeted in the aftermath of the Day of Lavos. All that now remained of the Tylair Ocean was a scattering of shallow seas and mud. The emergence of Lavos had been so violent that much of the vaporized water of Tylair had been expelled into space rather than returning to the surface in the form of rain. It was one of the reasons why the world was in a perpetual drought.
Lucca sniffed with amusement. “And this is what happens when you don't study, Marle. The Transcontinental Highway, that big road we were on when we came into Bangor, is a direct route between Bangor and Arris. That means it goes directly over the Tylair Ocean into Medina. Most of that road takes the form of a giant bridge that makes the Span of Zenan look puny. I'm talking about a bridge that spans over 2000 miles. It was how Director Doan got from the Arris enclave to here, so we know it survived the Day of Lavos. Getting to Medina won't be that big of a headache.”
“Still a long trip,” Crono said. He was already considering the logistical challenges of walking so far, even in a straight line. It would take months. How much of the enclave's food would they have to carry? And would they even be able to carry enough for the trip? The last thing he wanted was to have to rely on Marle's magic again to keep everyone from starving. He didn't know how Director Doan had managed it.
“Another satellite just turned green!” Marle said excitedly. She shifted a few floating displays around to get a closer look at the data. “Looks like it's number 118.”
“Pretty far from Medina, but we can still use it.” Lucca said, taking a look at the display Marle was focused on. “That gives us seven. I'd prefer it if more satellites came online to give us a cushion, but I've already committed number 61 to a flyover of Medina, and it's running on fumes. That one's only going to get one pass, and only two of the seven satellites have enough fuel for stationkeeping. We'll have to assume this reading's going to be the best we're going to get.”
“How long until we know?” Crono asked.
“Eighty-four minutes.”
Hearing that pronouncement, Crono's body suddenly started paying back the fatigue it had earned today. Nothing really to do but wait. One look at Marle said she felt much the same, and wasn't inclined to show her normal impatience waiting for something to happen. They both walked over to the chairs that operators Sarah and Gann had occupied 300 years ago and sat down heavily. Crono could only imagine the despair and helplessness those two people must have felt when the full weight of what had happened fell upon them. How much heavier was the burden Crono and his friends now carried? All of human history, everyone's future, depended on what he, Marle, and Lucca could discover in this room in the next couple of hours. And that was just the first step. How many steps, how many challenges, would it take to undo what Lavos had done here? Could it even be undone?
Crono shook his head. That last thought was his fatigue talking. Stopping Lavos would take as many steps as it needed to. He wouldn't turn away from the burden. He would just take the challenges as they came and not worry about a future he couldn't yet see. Crono thought that was the attitude Frog would have taken, were he here. For now, the surface of the old workstation called out to his head and he surrendered to the call, splaying his arms out on the desk above the keyboard and leaning forward. Just a few minutes to clear his thoughts and then he would...
“One minute to go, sleepyheads.”
Crono abruptly came to, and Marle groaned herself awake in the chair next to him. For once, Crono was really looking forward to a session in the enertron. “How's it looking?”
“Like it's somewhere in eastern Medina,” Lucca said. “The bloom's shrinking pretty fast now. I think the reading's going to be solid.”
The three time-travelers stood in front of the main viewscreen while the seconds ticked down. The green “bloom”, indicating the area the temporal gate could be found in, grew smaller and smaller. Crono looked on with increasing trepidation. It was beginning to look like...
“There!” Lucca exclaimed. The bloom had narrowed to a tiny bright point on the screen and began to flash insistently. “Positive coordinates! 34.978 degrees north, by 35.747 degrees east. Depth: 160 meters.” Lucca's jubilance disappeared almost as soon as she rattled off the numbers. “Uh oh.”
“Yeah, that's a big 'uh oh',” Crono agreed with a grim nod.
The flashing point of green light was directly over Arris Dome.
“It's in the Arris enclave!” Lucca said. She brought up a three-dimensional map of the old shelter community on a floating display and began manipulating the image. “Looks like the coordinates correspond with the granary.”
“Wait! Isn't that the place where those robot things went crazy and started killing everyone?” Marle asked with alarm.
Lucca deflated. “Yeah. That was Arris.”
And so their misfortunes continued, Crono thought. The Transcontinental Highway would take them almost all the way to where the gate was located, but that was small comfort when they knew homicidal machines surely lie between them and the pathway out of the year 2300.
Crono steeled himself. “We'll just have to deal with it. I think the bigger question is where exactly that gate will take us. If it doesn't lead into the past, there's no reason to even go to Arris. What do you think, Lu? Can you tell?”
Lucca got back onto the floor and examined the Chrono Trigger's readouts closely. She started nodding after a moment. “It goes to the past...I think. One piece of good news.”
“Will it take us home?” asked Marle.
“It would be quite the coincidence if a third wormhole led to the same time-period,” Lucca said after a moment's thought. “Statistically, that would be mind-boggling. But even if it doesn't, I think there might be a way of altering the wormhole's path to bring us where we really want to go. Better to go to the year we know, right?”
Marle started. “You can do that?”
Lucca shrugged a bit uncomfortably. “In theory. I didn't give the idea any thought before we came to this time-period. No reason to. But knowing that we might have to find a third gate to get us out of here, I started banging the idea around in my noggin.”
“You don't sound as confident as I'd like,” Crono remarked.
“It's a bit on the risky side, I'll admit, but not as dangerous as some of the things we've already been through. I'd be willing to bet all my worthless gil on it, anyway.”
They were all quiet for a moment.
“I say we do it,” Marle said. “There's no other way back, and anything's better than staying here and watching everyone die. I'd rather die myself than see anything happen to Mary.”
Crono lowered his eyes. Even if the three of them somehow succeeded in changing history, something would be happening to Marle's young friend anyway. But there was no other way. At least if history changed, the little girl wouldn't have to suffer.
“I couldn't agree more,” Lucca said.
“You said it,” Crono agreed.
“Let's make it official, then,” Marle said eagerly. “You said you made a vow to that helmet, right, Lucca? We should all make a vow. Right here. Right now. That we aren't going to run away from this. We saved history once before, and we can do it again! In the name of Anne the Divine and all Creation, we're going to save this world from the destruction Lavos would bring, and create a new future full of hope! Together! We're the only ones who can!” She raised her hand into the air, palm forward.
Lucca grinned. “Oh, I'm getting an epic vibe from this moment. I'm game.” She raised her own hand into the air and pressed her palm against Marle's. “I, Lucca Eleanor Ashtear, do solemnly swear that I will use all of my boundless brainpower to... Oh, wait, I already gave that speech!” She snickered. “Can't have me spouting shameless clichés at a time like this, can we? Sorry. Try this:” Lucca made a show of clearing her throat. “We three visitors of destiny were given a vision. A vision of calamity, suffering, and death; of a wondrous potential cast into the mud and turned to ash. To this, we say no! That this will not be our fate! Through sword, spell, and ingenious fortitude, we challenge the path of dreams. Passing a gateway to a brighter tomorrow. With Creation as our witness, we'll stand strong against all who oppose the dream of this world! And to blazes the wicked souls who get in our way!”
Crono and Marle could only stare at Lucca.
“Did I overdo it?” she asked with a smirk.
“I won't complain,” Crono laughed. “You might have waited until my hand was joining yours, though.”
“What, you don't want to make a speech? I thought that was the point of all this? We each take our turn to say something profound when we raise our hand. Go ahead, Crono. I'll promise not to laugh.”
Crono then raised his hand to join Marle's and Lucca's, trying to think of something to say. It was hard to compete with Lucca's curious combination of cheek and eloquence, and no one could assert her intentions more nobly or in clearer language than Marle. Probably best to just be himself and to get on with their business. It wasn't likely this speech was going to be remembered anywhere other than Lucca's diary, anyway.
“I don't know what it was I saw,” Crono began. “I don't know where it came from. I don't know what it was thinking. I only saw what it did, and my soul was shaken to its core. An entire people, an entire history doomed to a false dream of survival. We've seen where this story began, and we see where it will end. But we won't let this story come to be. We'll fight! We'll resist! We'll stop that spiked monstrosity whatever it takes, or die trying!”
Marle smiled at him. It must have been at least okay, Crono thought.
“That was serviceable, I guess,” Lucca remarked. “Except for the dying part. What are you trying to do, jinx us before we even get started?”
“Let's not be under any delusions,” Crono said seriously. “This is going to be a hard fight. We don't even know what it will entail, really. It'll be hard enough just to make it home and plan for our next move. If we do this, we do it all the way. No holding back. No turning back. Let's make sure we're fully prepared before we head out for Arris.”
Lucca nodded. “Yeah, that's better.”
“Spoken like a true victor of The Gauntlet,” Marle said with approval. “You're the right man to lead this fight.”
Crono blushed. “Uh, Marle, I'm just a swordsman, not a hero. I'm not doing this for fame.”
Marle took his hand in both of hers. “Exactly.”
“Butter him up some more, why don't you?” Lucca said, rolling her eyes.
* * *
“You have made your decision,” Director Doan said.
“We have,” Crono replied.
They were in the Director's office, the room as clean and spartan as it always was. Crono noted that Doan seemed to have fewer personal effects than most enclave residents. It wasn't because he valued nothing, though. It was because he had everything he wanted in this life. For Frank Doan, knowledge itself was a priceless treasure, and that was not something that could be easily taken away. He would carry it with him for all of his days. What the mysterious traveler Belthazar had given him was worth more than all the gold and silver in Guardia Castle. It was a shame that circumstances had robbed him of the ability to make the fullest use of it.
“I'm sorry, Director, but I can't stay,” Marle said with complete sincerity. “I know I took an oath to defend this enclave from all threats, and to support my fellow citizens as well as I could. But I can't do that now. Not after what I saw in the archive. I can't protect anyone by staying here.”
“Apologies are unnecessary, Miss Marle,” Doan said graciously. “I know well what it is you saw. It is a terrible burden for anyone to bear, even for a director of one of humanity's remaining communities. I trust you understand your own purpose in life, for having been exposed to this knowledge?”
“I've made my choice. I won't let things stay as they are.”
Doan nodded. “Then let that be an end to it. You need not worry about your fellow Protectors. I will give them a suitable explanation for your departure. For others, however, it might be best if that explanation came from you personally, as much for your own peace of mind as for theirs.”
Marle grimaced. Doan was clearly referring to little Mary. “Yeah, I know.”
“We have to go to the Arris enclave, Frank,” Lucca said, apparently seeing no need for preamble. “It's the first step to... making everything right. We're going to need a lot of help. You were the last person to be in Arris. Is there anything you can tell us? Beyond what we already know?”
“Only that the machines you encounter, should you be so unfortunate, cannot be reasoned with. Those that are still active follow a singular directive: the termination of all humans. And they execute that directive with chilling efficiency. You must not hesitate to destroy them if you are able, or they will continue hunting you. They always continue until their directive has been fulfilled.”
“How could this have happened?” Lucca asked with genuine, and heartfelt, bewilderment. “Machines don't just become evil on their own. People have to make them that way. They do whatever they are programmed to do. What kind of person, what kind of monster would program the robots to do this?”
“Monsters come in varying forms, Miss Lucca. Not all take on the visage of men or beasts. Some cannot be defined by common knowledge, as you are now no doubt aware. Madness can take on an identity of its own. Indeed, it could be said that this has always been so. What makes the villains among men what they are? Everything has a genesis. Some cannot help but be swept along the path.”
Crono frowned at the vagueness of this answer, but the origins of the machines' madness mattered less to him than how to deal with it. This timeline would be obliterated anyway, if they succeeded in preventing the Day of Lavos.
“How did you escape from Arris, Director Doan?” he asked. “And why didn't the robots follow you? If this 'directive' of theirs demands they destroy all humans, why wouldn't they try and storm the other enclaves? They have to know you are here if they're intelligent at all.”
Doan nodded. “They do, but they cannot act on that knowledge. Through a desperate bit of subterfuge on my part, I was able to introduce something called a 'worm' into each robot's core process all at once. It was unable to destroy them completely, but it did create a situation in which any afflicted machine would immediately self-destruct if it attempted to leave the confines of the old city. They know the fault is present in their system, but the nature of the worm also makes it impossible for them to detect. Therefore, they can do nothing to remove it and thus place the other enclaves in danger. Outside of Arris, the robots are no threat.”
“I'd love to know how you did that, Frank,” Lucca said with a laugh. “Maybe I could come up with a modification to your worm that would cause those lunatic machines to run away from us instead of hunting us. At least until we get where we need to go.”
“Alas, even I would be incapable of such a feat now,” Doan said soberly. “I succeeded in installing the worm only because the robots were unprepared for it. Their programming architecture had insufficient security safeguards at the time, due to the assumption that humans could not interfere with them so. This has changed. While the original worm remains in their system, it is now quite impossible to slip any more malicious code into their processes. Any attempt to do so will only alert the robots to your presence. Using your weapons would agitate them less.”
Crono shook his head. Pretty much all of that might as well have been spoken in Mystic for all he understood of it. “So there's no easy way to deal with them,” he said. “We'll just have to be smart and avoid the things as much as possible.”
“Prudence is always the best course in my humble experience. Speaking of which, you are no doubt contemplating the prudence of traveling all the way to this dangerous place on foot?”
“That's what we most need to talk to you about, actually. It's a three month journey to Arris, even setting a good pace and assuming we don't run into any problems. It's going to take a lot of provisions, I'm afraid. Much more than we can easily carry.”
“Quite so. Even being generous with our food stores, which I have no reason not to be under the circumstances, you would be in a difficult situation on the road. Exhausting your strength on the journey to Arris would not be a course of wisdom. As you say, getting to your destination is only a first step. You will surely have burdens to follow.”
Crono nodded. Just the act of getting home was something of a leap of faith. They then had to figure out how they could even learn about what Lavos was, how they could find it, and what they would do to stop it once that moment came. Burdens, all of it.
“You will be pleased to know, then, that I have a rather simple solution for this problem,” Doan said with a twinkle in his eye. “Machines are quite the specialty of mine, as I have told you. I've worked on many since my youth. It so happens that I employed one during that unpleasant situation in Arris to help facilitate my escape.” He chuckled. “Contrary to popular belief, I am not superhuman.”
Lucca's jaw dropped, and Crono tried not to laugh at the sudden revelation. Of course. Director Doan was a man with secrets.
“You have a vehicle?!” Lucca blurted.
“The term 'vehicle' scarcely does it justice. Regrettably, there was no practical justification for keeping it operable after my arrival in Bangor, and I couldn't bring myself to dismantle it, so I sealed it away in a place of relative safety in the ruins. The mutants take no interest in it. Should you make use of this machine, you will be able to get to Arris rather quickly.” Doan's tone was quite dry with that last, Crono noticed. The Director then took an object out of his desk and slid it across to where his guests were seated.
Crono's quick reflexes defeated Lucca's attempt to grab it first. He turned it over in his hand with interest. It was a key. More elaborate than any key he had ever seen. It was nearly half the length of his forearm and seemingly made of platinum, the grooves cut with an exceptional quality and in a geometric pattern worthy of a work of art. The top of the key was lacquered in blue and gold, and was imprinted with a single yellow lightning bolt superimposed over a fireball with pretentious intention. Under the bold imagery was written the name “Comet” in flaming script. What kind of a vehicle was this key for?
“And now there is just one more matter to address,” Doan continued. “Miss Lucca, your capacity to learn new skills quickly is something few words exist to adequately describe. In the space of a day you have achieved a degree of proficiency with a plasma arm that is the envy of most of the defenders of this enclave. This on top of everything else you have learned and done for us. Presenting you with a new weapon is the very least Bangor can provide, along with a battery pack that will allow you continuous use of the weapon with proper care. Accept this pistol with my blessing. I think you will have much more need of it than I.” He took a plasma pistol out of his desk and passed it over to Lucca. To Crono's eyes it looked newer than the ones in the armory.
Lucca put both her hands over her mouth in shock. “It's your gun?!”
Doan smiled at her. “Please, Miss Lucca, do not think of refusing. You lost your own weapon during your desperate journey here, and you will need another if you hope to survive long in your future endeavors. This is a weapon I have long cared for personally. I know it will suit you well.”
“Well, you always did have a way of making me feel special, Frank,” she said with a bashful chuckle. “Thanks. I'll always treasure it.”
“Treasure instead the peace of mind and the knowledge it enables you to obtain on your journey. Now, I think it time for the three of you to address any unfinished business you have in the enclave and then retire to your rooms. You have had a busy day. Use the enertrons however long you deem fit and then meet Assistant Director Morris at the main entrance to the surface at first light. Your supply needs will be seen to.”
The three time-travelers departed Doan's office after making a few final gestures of gratitude for everything the enclave had done for them over the past month. It felt strange that they would be leaving soon, Crono thought. The enclave, for all that it was surrounded by ruin and a place of great hardship, had begun to feel like a real home. It was the people, he decided. Bangor's community of survivors was small enough that most everyone knew each other, and that no person would be left for wanting whatever the enclave had to provide. To its last day Bangor would live as one people, fighting against the fate Lavos had bestowed upon them. A thing worth preserving. If not for the enertron tragedy, Crono could not have brought himself to consider changing this future at all.
“I think I'll spend a little time with Mary,” Marle said. “She should almost be done with my crossbow by now. I have no idea what I'll tell her, but...”
“Go on, Marle,” Crono said. “Don't worry about us. We'll have plenty of time to be together on the road.”
Marle waved at him as she left for the foundries. Crono was sure that she had also found a reason to preserve this future, if only fate had not been so cruel.
* * *
The foundries of Common Area 3 were mostly quiet.
There was no shortage of work that an enclave needed to have done, and the Makers of Bangor took it as a point of pride that the forges and fabrication stations of their domain had not gone completely silent in over 250 years. But only a handful of men and women were laboring at the moment. To celebrate the first successful scavenging run to the Geshar District in decades, Director Doan had authorized the release of a small portion of the enclave's precious food supply for everyone to partake in this evening. It was a luxury to be cherished slowly, but it was also a luxury that had to be recovered from. The ingestion of real food was a rare event for the people here, and most were so unaccustomed to it that they became sick to their stomachs within an hour of the meal, requiring a session in the enertron just to keep themselves from throwing up what they had just eaten. That was where most of the workers probably were right now. There wouldn't be an empty enertron in the whole enclave aside from those now reserved for Marle and her friends.
Naturally, Chieko Vals was one of the workers still here. The always hardworking Assistant Director turned to Marle with her perpetual glower as she strode into the expansive room. Vals never looked friendly at the best of times, but the woman's evident disdain toward Marle had ebbed away over the weeks, at least after Marle had offered a portion of her daily credit balance to pay for the repairs of the plasma rifle she had damaged.
“You're leaving,” Vals said simply.
“Director Doan told you already?” Marle inquired.
“He didn't have to. People with more courage than sense, like you, never stay in one place for very long. It's like the very act of standing still makes your feet hurt more than from running clear across the ruin. Mary's old man was like that, always traveling between the enclaves, trading for whatever junk or rat carcass he scrounged up on the road.” She snorted. “'Save money, it'll do ya good?' Fat lot of good that does you when you're dead. It's just as well you're leaving. You're a bad influence on the girl. She'll save more money staying right here.”
Marle wasn't fazed by the rebuke. It only reinforced what Marle had come to know about the stern Assistant Director during her time here. The woman cared about Mary. Deeply. She might never let it show in a smile or an empty compliment, but the feeling was clearly there. Vals made Mary work hard, though never on a task that was beyond her abilities or put her at risk of bodily harm. Through their shared labors, Vals was slowly teaching Mary everything she knew about her craft. Given enough time, Mary would take her place as a full-fledged Maker, and perhaps be elevated to Chieko's assistant directorship someday. It would be a much safer life than her parents had led.
If only that future could actually happen.
Mary didn't seem to be around, though. “Did she get done with my job already?” Marle asked with a frown.
“Finished about twenty minutes ago, after I gave her work a look-over. It's acceptable. Shouldn't bend or break unless you slam that toy of yours against something. Topped off your quiver, too. Never seen the girl work so fast on those bolts. You pay her your whole credit balance or something?”
She had, actually, though she hadn't told Mary as much. Twenty-one thousand three-hundred and thirty credits was everything she had in her credit account, and she had offered all but the three-hundred and thirty to prevent Mary from becoming suspicious to the fact she was leaving. That for both the flashlight modification and the 29 crossbow bolts she needed replaced. Mary had done the whole job in a single night! Marle hadn't expected the bolts to be finished until she was ready to leave in the morning. She more than suspected Chieko had lent a helping hand with the bolts to get them all done so fast, but the Assistant Director's expression gave no sign of it.
“It's what the job was worth to me,” Marle said. “High quality demands a high premium. You can put the rest of my balance toward weapon maintenance. I won't be needing the money where I'm going. Is she back in her hideaway?”
Vals nodded. “Mind what you say to her.” She then returned to whatever always needed to be done job she was working on without a backward glance.
Marle found her crossbow and her filled quiver lying on the shelf next to Leene's music box in Mary's little alcove. Mary was sound asleep on her old enertron bed, facing toward the wall and completely oblivious to her visitor. Marle took a moment to examine her newly modified weapon. Two tiny flashlights, each encased in a waterproof steel shell, had been installed directly below the crossbow's barrel and just in front of the foregrip. She clicked the on/off switch at the very front of the foregrip, causing an explosion of illumination to lance out into the corridor. She smiled with satisfaction. Darkness would no longer be any obstacle to her shooting what needed to be shot in the shadowy places of the world. Even better, the little flashlights were light enough that they didn't seem to affect the weapon's balance at all, and the one-touch function meant Marle didn't have to think about what she was doing while using the modified weapon. Just like a good weapon should be. She clicked the lights off and turned to the young Maker who had done the work. Mary didn't stir.
For a long time Marle just stood there looking at the slumbering child. Mary was usually quite alert, which was a sign of just how tired she had to be, completing the job so fast. A small untouched strip of rat jerky rested on the floor just to the side of her enertron mattress, and four empty mugs of solid tin lay stacked by her pillow. Mary had scrounged up two of the mugs and forged a third and a fourth in order to better accept ice cube payments from Marle in lieu of credits, though Marle had paid her in both for the past two weeks.
She then spent the next hour condensing cubes of magical ice between her hands sitting just outside of Mary's alcove, filling all four mugs to the top with frozen treasure. It was far more than the job had called for, but the premium was more than justified by the warm feelings in Marle's heart. The ice had come easily, and she didn't even have to remember being sad as she usually did when doing this. The sadness was very real in the moment. Marle would never be seeing this precious innocent soul again after tonight. Whatever happened in her audacious crusade to end Lavos, that truth was set in stone.
Marle set the filled mugs of ice one by one by Mary's pillow and then forced herself to gaze at Queen Leene's music box sitting silently on the shelf. There was nothing she could say. Nothing that would make the sting of an absent friend hurt less. She wouldn't dream of telling Mary the truth of why she was leaving. No one needed the nightmare of Lavos always being in the back of their minds, especially not a ten-year-old girl. The people of this time had suffered enough.
So she would communicate her thoughts by actions rather than words. Marle took the music box gently into her hands and wound the key, letting the lullaby chime its soft tune before placing it back on the shelf. The music continued to play as Marle gathered the rest of her belongings and quietly stepped out of Mary Limova's humble dwelling, continuing through the narrow cramped corridor of the underground until the faint melody was consumed by the continuous hum of the nearby power generator.
Marle found her way back to the foundry room not even feeling hot. Her sorrow had chilled the air around her enough to mostly banish the heat. Assistant Director Vals was waiting for her by the exit.
“You will look after her, won't you Chieko?” Marle croaked.
“Always,” the Assistant Director said softly.
A few minutes later, Marle was back in Dormitory 7. Like in the foundries, the activity in the main lobby was muted. A few residents were lounging at the tables and on the sofas, munching on rat jerky and holding cups of cold water to wash it down. Almost none were at the computers. Everyone who could be in an enertron likely was. Only the enertrons assigned to Marle, Crono, and Lucca were reserved, and of those only Marle's remained open. Lucca had been busy converting her makeshift lab back to the way it originally was, and had since gone to sleep in one of the enertrons. Crono had retired some time earlier in the adjacent room and was also sleeping away his cares inside the miraculous device that had both saved and killed humanity's remnants. Marle stepped into the shower and let the water caress her - and hide her remaining tears - for the next fifteen minutes while she wrestled herself back into emotional balance, then changed into drab enclave clothing before laundering her Millennial Fair outfit in those odd washing machines. It was almost 2:00 in the morning when Marle was finally ready to brave the enertron one last time, hers being in the same room as Crono.
Amelia Evans was waiting for her, standing next to her assigned machine.
Oh, great. I can't wait to hear what Miss Junior Assistant Director has to say about me this time.
“How can I be of service, Miss Marle?”
Marle raised her eyebrows. The polite tone was not something she would have envisioned coming out of this woman's mouth, based on her month-long experience with the bothersome bureaucrat.
“I need to sleep for about five hours,” Marle said carefully. “I'm supposed to wake up with Crono and Lucca at 7:00. We'll be leaving on a mission from Director Doan almost immediately. He should have made all the arrangements.”
“Then it wouldn't do for you to oversleep,” Evans replied in the same courteous tone she began with. “I will make sure your enertron is programmed properly so you can fulfill your duty at the assigned hour. I'll be here at seven to see to any needs you have in the morning.”
This was the same Junior Assistant Director who had tormented her ever since the first time she had witlessly violated an enclave regulation? Who complained about her not going to sleep, then actually going to sleep, then begging for help with the computers (when Lucca wasn't around), and on several occasions lambasting her for using too much of the water that the enclave had in abundance and could easily cleanse and reuse anyway? Who in Creation was this person?
Perhaps Director Doan had had some words with her. Lucca had mentioned something Doan had said to her in passing, about a promotion made too soon. Marle would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in Doan's office whenever that conversation happened.
The lid on Marle's enertron descended smoothly as soon as she was comfortably inside. As she lie there, her thoughts again turned to the little girl who had aided her so much in establishing herself in this future of ruin. Mary Limova would either live for the next six years and witness everyone around her succumb to enertron sickness, or she would never be at all. Why did it have to be this way? Was there no way for Mary to live a full life? Did Creation have no answer? Could Mary not wake up one day in a new world and realize it was the one she had somehow been a part of all along, and had only just woken up from a nightmare that felt real?
Marle's last waking thought was to make a fervent prayer for Creation to answer at the appointed hour, if Marle could only fulfill the vow she had made with her friends.
* * *
Crono awoke the following morning feeling oddly refreshed and full of calm purpose. The enertron had renewed him for the last time, salvation and death all in the same package, and he wouldn't miss it, but he knew he owed the futuristic technology his life and he patted the top of his now closed capsule in silent gratitude. To his surprise, Junior Assistant Director Evans was right there in the room when his capsule opened, looking pleased and curiously willing to help, especially when Marle's capsule opened right after his. He thought he sensed a slight grudging from the young woman; a too tight smile in one moment, a fleeting narrowing of her eyes in another, but Crono paid her little mind once both he and Marle were on their feet and collecting their belongings. They met up with Lucca in the library, who was gazing at the computers with a degree of nostalgia and unconsciously adjusting the fit of the old Protector's helmet she now wore on her head. The handful of residents in the room were giving her strange looks, but otherwise didn't comment on her odd fashion statement.
“This helmet actually serves a purpose other than being a symbol for my wanting to change the future,” Lucca explained after they had left Dormitory 7 behind. “That's the beauty of it. This thing's the product of a ruined future. Once we're back in the past, it would ordinarily be very difficult to determine if we've done something to change the future and prevent the Day of Lavos. But if we have this helmet with us, we would know immediately if the domes were saved from destruction. The helmet would either transform into something that looks almost new, or, more likely, it would disappear entirely. We could then stop whatever it is we're doing to try and change history and go back to our normal lives.” She chuckled. “Or what passes for normal for the three of us.”
“Normal? I'm not even sure what that is,” Crono quipped. “The last seven months have been pretty crazy. And with what went on in Guardia, I'm not sure there ever will be a normal for us.”
“We'll travel the world,” Marle said with a hopeful smile. “Go visit Bangor when it was still a small town in the mountains. Go to the marketplace of Choras and haggle for clues about the famed rainbow shell. Hike the Denadoro mountains of South Zenan and climb all the way to the top of Mount Raslin to touch the clouds, and I mean touching the clouds for real and not playing with crazy technological projections. Or maybe we could sail all the way to the El Nido Archipelego. There have been human colonies there for about seventy years, and most of it's sparsely populated. If we needed to go someplace in our time we couldn't easily be found, that would be it.”
“If you could survive the weather,” Lucca pointed out. “There's a reason those colonies are sparsely populated, you know. Anyone who dares sail around El Nido has to feel the wind with their very being to avoid disaster, even on a steamship. Good fishing, though. Swimming all year 'round. Stake your claim in the right place and your life will be so idyllic that you'll struggle to get any work done.” She shrugged. “Probably not a good place for me.”
“Something to think about, I guess,” Crono said. Zack had always talked about one day buying himself a sailboat. For all Crono knew, Zack might even be on a boat sailing away from Guardia and heading to El Nido in their own time under an assumed name, since he was also a wanted fugitive. With his crafty “handmaiden” girlfriend, Marge. He wondered if he would ever see those two again.
Arriving at the main entrance shaft leading up to the surface, Crono was brought back to reality seeing Assistant Director Morris standing next to a trio of large beige backpacks spread out on the floor, bulging with packed goods. Morris nodded curtly at the time-travelers' approach, and not as a sign of approval.
“That's a month's worth of food and water for the three of you,” Morris said. “Just as the Director ordered. You'll find the three blankets you carried in here from the wastes, too.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Landis. Seriously. Right in the yellow zone and you lot stride in there like there ain't no radiation at all. Before two weeks ago I'd have never believed it. Stamina and stupidity in equal measure. I'd almost think you'd have come through Quintadis being so stupidly fortuitous.”
Crono, Marle, and Lucca couldn't hold back their snickers. Stupidly fortuitous was about right.
“We'll... um... try to be more careful this time,” Marle said.
“You'd better. That's a lot of the enclave's treasure you have in those packs. Combine that with the celebration Doan authorized last night and our granary might never recover! I don't know what the Director's thinking, authorizing an excursion after all these years, and with a quarter squad at that.”
“He has his reasons, I'm sure,” Crono said evenly.
“Yeah? Well, I've said my piece. You certainly trained my people well, Lantree, and that scores points with me. Terrance, Andrews, and Menda are up top with the Director waiting to see you off. Try not to get yourselves killed, all right?”
Morris walked off, and Crono, Marle, and Lucca hefted the backpacks and slung them over their shoulders with a bit of effort. They were heavy. Much of the weight of the backpacks was on account of the many canteens of water stuffed inside. Clean water was not something to be found in abundance outside of the enclaves, or water of any sort unless one was lucky, so a traveler had to bring whatever they thought they would need to last the whole trip. Ironically, water was now the least of their worries, with Marle's growing talent for conjuring magical ice out of the air. But Marle had to use a portion of her strength to channel magic in this way, almost as much as for healing, so they couldn't afford to be without a more conventional source of water. Crono wouldn't begrudge the weight. This was the first time they had been properly outfitted for a journey since all of this craziness with time-travel had begun. It would be good to be well prepared for a change.
The stairway leading out of the enclave was a tight spiraling affair, stretching up nearly 350 feet to the surface of Bangor. The shaft was narrow enough to tug at Crono's claustrophobia, the reminder that so much earth lay looming behind so little, waiting to crush you with the slightest shift of the earth's mood, but he had grown accustomed to this ascent since beginning his scavenging runs with Marle and the Protectors, and he turned away from the fear without difficulty. The depth and the narrowness of the enclave's points of egress was what had enabled the emergency shelter to survive the savage attacks of Lavos. As it was, only a tiny portion of the shafts leading to the underground from the surface still remained intact, and this shaft was the only one that remained in active use.
At length, the three time-travelers came to the shaft's apex, where a pair of heavy steel doors normally rested atop the passage. They were open. Climbing out of the shaft, they were met by Terrance, Andrews, and Menda, plasma rifles slung across their backs but ready to employ them instantly if any trouble made itself known. Director Doan was standing a few paces away, both hands resting atop his cane and staring at the sunrise just now lifting above the city's shattered pinnacles.
Crono suppressed a chuckle looking at the old man. Not superhuman, he claimed? Climbing that long stairway would make a man half his age short of breath. Crono wondered if Doan even really needed his cane. He barely looked tired.
“If I didn't know better, I'd think you were getting ready for a trip yourself,” Crono quipped.
“Oh, I think not, young Crono,” Doan replied with a light chuckle. “My traveling days are well behind me. Though it helps that I passed my weapon on to Miss Lucca, and that three of my Protectors stand ready to drag me back downstairs should I develop a sudden case of wanderlust. This really is a task for the young.”
Doan then gave a nod to the three Protectors, and the men stepped backward a good distance to allow for some privacy. Crono was pleased to note the men kept their heads on a swivel. Terrance, Andrews, and Menda were fine fighting companions, men who could always be relied upon to watch your back and carry you through to your goal to matter how tough the road. It was a shame they couldn't join them on the journey to Arris and beyond, but Crono would always remember the three fondly. He thought they would make for good soldiers in any era.
“So where do we find this vehicle you were talking about?” Crono asked softly enough that his voice wouldn't carry.
“It's in sector 32, within a red zone boundary to deter any curious scavenging parties,” Doan said. “Make your way eighteen blocks directly north from here, then turn east for seven blocks, turn north again when you reach the impassable rubble, and proceed six more blocks until you find a red sign in the road. To the right of this you will see a descending ramp that leads into an alcove in perpetual shadow. What you seek is within. Insert the key I gave you into the center console of the front seat. Your course will then become apparent.”
Lucca took a moment to write all of this down in her diary. Crono noticed that instead of using new pages, of which very few remained, she was jotting things down wherever she could find space on already used pages. The diary was becoming so cluttered that Crono doubted anyone else reading it would make heads or tails of even the non-scientific portions. There was probably enough information on those pages to transcribe into four diaries of the same size. Paper was not something the enclave could produce, so Lucca was forced to make do with what she had.
“A straight shot to Arris once we get on the main road,” Crono said with a nod. “That's simple enough. I'm assuming this thing has enough fuel to make the trip? What about the condition of the road?”
“Fuel will not be an issue, nor will you need to concern yourself with the road. Your course will be apparent.”
That was an odd answer, Crono thought. And why did it feel like the Director was trying too hard to keep his expression neutral?
“Are there any dangers on the road we should know about, Frank?” Lucca interjected. “The satellite network couldn't tell us much beyond where the gate was located. Only that we get a bit close to that caldera where you-know-who spat itself out of the ocean floor. I'm almost afraid to ask, but... I couldn't find any information on... it after 1999. Do we need to worry?”
Director Doan was silent for a moment.
“The creature, I think, has achieved its purpose on our world,” he finally said. “It is not at the place from where it emerged, nor do I believe it is anywhere now where it could be confronted – foolish as that notion is. That being said, I must stress the importance of staying well away from Death Peak.”
“Death Peak?” Marle inquired.
“The highest portion of the caldera that thrust itself out of the sea floor on that day. From that vantage point you would be able to fully appreciate the destructive power of what you seek to impede. There is perhaps no more intimidating vista on all of the earth. Or more dangerous. You would find it difficult to even make the ascent, were you so inclined. The depth and size of the caldera makes the weather extraordinarily potent and unpredictable. It will profit you nothing to go there.”
“Drive by. Got it,” Lucca said, jotting a note in her diary with an amused quirk to her mouth.
Everyone then paused, Crono, Marle, and Lucca gazing into Director Doan's eyes, and he at them. There seemed to be nothing more to say. This was goodbye, then.
“Director Doan, thank you so much for taking care of us while we were here,” Marle said with sincerity. “One day I hope it will be our turn to take care of you. This world. Everyone in it. The future won't always look like this. I promise.”
“We all do,” Crono amended.
“No, I think it won't,” Doan agreed with a slight smile.
With that, the time-travelers secured their belongings, adjusted the packs on their backs, then began walking north into the devastated cityscape of Bangor. Crono wondered what this place would have been like to live in before the day the flames fell.
“Marle!”
Crono quickly looked behind him to see the diminutive form of Mary Limova, rushing past the three Protectors guarding the enclave access, sidestepping Director Doan, and bounding straight toward where Marle had frozen in shock. She looked to be carrying something wrapped in a blanket in both hands.
Marle dropped her backpack and crossbow and met the child halfway, wrapping her arms around the red-headed girl. Crono and Lucca trotted up to meet them.
“I'm sorry,” Marle told the girl in a husky tone. “I didn't know how to tell you. I have to go away now. There are lots of people who need my help, I can't turn away from them.”
Mary took a moment before answering, clearly fighting back tears.
“Yeah, I know,” the girl said. “You came to Bangor for a reason. And now you have to go somewhere else for a reason.”
“It's a good reason.”
“But you won't have any money!” Mary pleaded. “You paid me too much for the job! You have to save money for it to do you good!”
“Keep it. You deserve it.”
“I don't want it! Not if its going to make you sad. I've come to pay you back.”
Mary then unwrapped the blanket she was holding. Inside was an object Crono immediately recognized. Leene's music box! Marle had given that to Mary? When did this happen?
Marle's mouth fell open. “Mary, I can't take this! It means so much to you!”
“Not as much as you do. I know you'll be sad if you don't have it. And you didn't really want to give it to me. You had nothing else to trade. But you've given me lots since then. I don't need the box anymore. I'll just drink all of your ice water and call it even. That sounds like a fair deal.”
It was a while before Marle could even speak.
“Mary... Thank you,” she finally managed, taking the precious heirloom into her hands. “I'll think of you every time I play this box.”
“And so let this be the time of our final parting,” Director Doan interjected pleasantly. “You need not fear for the welfare of this child. She will be well cared for. Think now only on the task that lies before you, and do what must be done. The rest shall see to itself.”
“We'll do everything we can,” Crono promised. “Take care of yourselves.”
Crono, Marle, and Lucca then gathered themselves once more, Marle with some reluctance, and again made their way north into the ruins of Bangor. This time nobody looked back.
* * *
Frank Doan, as he had come to be called, gazed on the departing forms of the past, present, and future time-travelers with satisfaction. It was begun. Again. The great hope of the world returned at last, just as The Plan said it would. Nothing greater could possibly be at stake, or at risk, now that this point was reached. Yet at the same time nothing could be more certain. He had no anxiety. All was now as it needed to be. The path of reason always found the way in the fullness of time. No exaggeration was that. He had waited so long. He had not always been conscious of the wait, just as so few were conscious of what was really happening to the tapestry of being, but he was ready for what was coming. Nothing would stop it. The Ideal would become the real. The Break would be the catalyst. All according to The Plan. He would be proven right in the end, and all would rejoice.
“What was that, Director Doan?”
The follower of reason paused. Had he just said something aloud that was meant only for his own internal musing? A sign of his age, perhaps. He had waited a long time, after all. It wouldn't have been the first time. No matter.
“There is a plan at work, young Mary,” he said to the child, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Those three remarkable souls were meant to come to us, just as they were meant to depart. They are the key to the future.”
Mary Limova frowned up at him. “How do you know that?”
Frank Doan walked back to the shaft that led down into his domain, guiding the Maker girl at his side. Useful, and yet also of no significance, she. Nothing would stop what was coming.
“Call it... fate,” he said.
Lucca couldn't say how much time had passed before she was aware of where she was. One moment she was in the classified computer archive on the lowest level of the enclave, the next she was on the surface, walking the shattered streets of ruined Bangor surrounded by late afternoon shadows. There was a plasma pistol in her hand. She stared at it in confusion. When did she get the gun? Lucca hadn't brought one into the archive, and she had no memory of stopping by the armory. She only remembered saying that she was in the mood to shoot something.
She certainly was, Lucca thought, if her memory was blacking out like this. Rage did terrible things to her mind. At the best of times she often lost awareness of her surroundings when she was singularly focused on a problem. Adding anger to that focus often seared her memory to the point where she couldn't even remember what she was supposed to be focusing on.
Lucca stopped where she was and went to her knees, letting out an unsteady breath. She had been walking hard, if not outright running. Her legs tingled with exhaustion. Checking the tiny charge display set just above the grip of the futuristic pistol she held, it read 100% in bright blue numerals, which meant she hadn't fired it at anything, so she couldn't have been running from anything, either. What was she doing out here? It was dangerous being in the ruins alone. She wondered how she had even left the enclave, one of its weapons in hand, without being noticed or stopped by the Protectors. Perhaps everyone was too busy celebrating the results of today's scavenging run to pay attention to her. It wasn't like she left the enclave often since her arrival in Bangor.
She wondered where Crono and Marle were.
And then, thinking of her friends, the afternoon's preceding hours came back to Lucca in a flood. The destruction of Arris. The terror felt by Bangor's then operators. The emergence of an impossible horror – Lavos - from the earth. Marle's determination to somehow do something about it and change history, no matter the cost. There was a lot to be angry about.
Or was there? It had all happened a very long time ago. Lucca didn't know any of the people who died, it was hard to be angry at a creature whose motives couldn't be understood, and Marle was just acting on the dictates of her bold conscience, as she often did. Why give into anger for any of those things?
Maybe... that thought was the problem.
Excuses.
It was her own voice, heard from the cauldron of her brain. Lucca shot to her feet and quickly started heading in the direction she had been walking, vaguely thinking she could escape the source of the cutting rebuke if she just kept moving. It was useless, of course.
You always have to be the smartest person in the room, the voice said. The know-it-all who sees everything. The risks. The consequences. Changing the past will obliterate this timeline and everyone in it. Well, congratulations! You're right! And burn the world to ash! What matters is that you can live with yourself.
Shut up, Lucca told the voice.
You could be the greatest scientist of all time. With the knowledge you've gained here, you can become greater than dad. Greater than grandpa, even. So what if the world ends in a thousand years? Just go home and build your next toy. You don't have to worry about anything. As long as you're right.
“Shut up!” Lucca cried aloud. She then increased her pace to a run, bounding over an endless carpet of stony debris and pointing her gun into every shadow she passed on reflex. Lucca distantly realized that that was what she had been doing all along before stopping for breath. Running from the voice. Running from herself.
She hated what she had become.
Well and good to be the responsible one, she thought, but what did that profit anyone if it robbed you of your courage? Your moral center? It was as Marle said. This future was doomed. Everyone would die anyway, and long before their time, not to mention the whole human race along with its millennia of history. What Lucca really wanted to do was fight.
But how? It was a childish notion. This Lavos thing was beyond comprehension. Who knew how long it had lived under the earth's crust? How old it really was? How they could hope to find and fight it if they managed to travel back to the past?
Shut up, Lucca told herself again. More excuses.
She skidded to a halt when her shame-addled mind suddenly recognized where she was in the ruins. Much of Bangor's surface was indistinguishable, each flattened city block being little different from any other, but this place she knew. She had been here twice before. The first time she had almost become glasser food, the second she had been part of a small well-armed scavenging squad seeing to an errand. Her errand. Scanning the ground beneath the shale of fallen concrete, Lucca found the manhole cover leading down.
It couldn't be a coincidence, she thought. She wasn't so brainless as to run all this way if she wasn't looking for something in particular. Instinct had led her to this place for a reason. Lucca shoved the manhole cover aside with some effort and climbed down into the dark.
The Shrine of the Protector, as Lucca herself had named it, looked no different than it had three weeks ago. The lily pads in the corner were still there. The water that surrounded the concrete dais was dark and motionless. The skulls, painstakingly set up in a semicircle well away from the water, remained undisturbed where Lucca and her party had left them. And in the center of the makeshift shrine was the thing her spirit had apparently been drawn to after her conscience had been shaken in a long moment of self-loathing.
Lucca made a cursory examination of the artificial cavern, checking for lurking mutants, before kneeling in front of the precious artifact of the pre-Lavos era. There was just enough natural light coming through the cracks and the manhole above to see it. The Protector's helmet of old Bangor stared back at her, faceless. Battered and tarnished from the unimaginable forces that had surely killed the person who once wore it: her future cousin, T. Eleckson.
She was so ashamed. The eloquent speech she had given in her cousin's memory now seemed like it had come from the lips of someone else. It was good to be able to speak from the heart, but history was built by doers, not talkers. What would Eleckson have done in Lucca's place? With technical know-how, historical knowledge, the means to travel through time, and a weapon in their hand, he or she would have done whatever it took to make Bangor whole again. Duty, not excuses.
But Eleckson wasn't here. Lucca was. All of the tools necessary to begin this grand endeavor Lucca already possessed. All that was missing was the will.
Lucca Ashtear had built a means of traveling through time, journeyed into the past to save history, sprung her best friend out of prison, and helped to uncover the tragedy of the future using nothing but her own talents. That didn't take will. That took sheer unmitigated gall.
Lucca's soft chuckles echoed through the sewer. Gall would do. She took the helmet into her hands and made a solemn vow.
* * *
Crono decided not to get the enclave involved.
He and Marle both assumed that Lucca would take more target practice in the armory. She had intimated as much in the archive. Or she would just find a quiet corner of the enclave to stew in while she tried to make sense of the convoluted mess all of their lives had become. Crono couldn't rightly blame her. If anything, Lucca had made the most sane decision among the three of them. She didn't say no, but she also didn't say yes. What other sensible answer could anyone give based on what they knew and what they were capable of? They didn't even know if they would be able to travel through time again. That required a gate, and the only one they knew of was a dismally improbable option. If Director Doan didn't think that gate could be reached, then it wouldn't be. He was not a man to be second-guessed.
But Lucca wasn't anywhere in the enclave. A concerned Protector Terrance had come to visit Crono and Marle in Dormitory 7, thirty minutes after they had decided to retire from the archive, relating the tale of Lucca coming to the armory, absconding with a plasma pistol, and then walking at a brisk pace straight into the enclave's main entrance shaft and heading up without speaking a word. Terrance had described the aura around her at the time as “dangerous”, so no one challenged her departure. Lucca had now been gone for an hour, and there was little more time than that before the sun descended below the mountains and plunged all of Bangor into a darkness that the stars did nothing to mitigate. A single pistol was scant protection in a Bangorian night, and even a full squad of Protectors knew better than to conduct a mission in the ruins without the sun's aid. The sewers were arguably safer.
So Crono and Marle were waiting alone, sword and crossbow at the ready, a short distance from the enclave's main entrance shaft on the surface, staring into the bleak cityscape for any sign of Lucca. Crono had given Terrance instructions to keep the matter to himself and not to alert the rest of the enclave unless the three of them hadn't returned by nightfall. Lucca's strange absence would invite unwelcome questions from the residents if it became general knowledge, and Crono didn't want to have to deal with that considering the burden he and Marle shared about the Day of “Fire”. Lavos was something these people could not be allowed to know about.
Lucca would be getting a serious scolding once Crono found her.
“I really should get Mary to put one of those flashlight things on my crossbow,” Marle mused. “I think I've earned enough credits for the job if she thinks it's doable.”
“That'll be expensive,” Crono replied with a levity he didn't really feel. “You'll have to bribe her with a dozen ice cubes, I think.”
Marle tittered shortly. “She's not that bad. Three's usually more than enough. We made such a big profit today she might be willing to settle for two.”
“Give her five, then. Lucca's losing her share today for putting us through this.”
“Not just for today,” Marle agreed.
The light mood quickly descended along with the dipping sun. Whatever uncertainty Lucca was feeling about changing history didn't justify this kind of behavior from her. Maybe the burden of Lavos along with the burden of the dying enclave populace had finally caused her to snap. Lucca had worked harder than anyone adapting to life in the enclave and making herself useful to Director Doan. It was a wonder she had as much energy as she did. Crono feared he and Marle would have to brave nightfall if Lucca didn't turn up soon.
“Let's climb up one of the buildings,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe we'll see something from the windows. I'll go first. You cover me.”
“Right.”
“You two were going to come after me after dark by yourselves?” came a familiar voice. “Well color me touched. Noted in my diary. I'll make the space somewhere.”
Crono rolled his eyes in agitation as he turned to his right. Lucca was coming around the corner of a building bathed in dusk's shadow.
“Lucca!” Marle cried out. “We were really worried! Why did you run off like that?”
“Eh, you know. Had to rattle a few things around my brain,” Lucca replied. “Like the end of the world and all that. And for all my trouble I didn't even get to shoot anything. I guess you guys really are making Bangor safer.”
Crono's tongue was ready to give his childhood friend a lashing worthy of an angry parent, but his planned diatribe fell back into his lungs when Lucca stepped out of the shadows. Snugly fit on Lucca's head was the helmet they had all enshrined in Krawlie's lair. Green and bronze, set atop a wave of purple, with blue eyes twinkling through the oversized glasses that gleamed below the tarnished and much-abused rim. It was a ridiculous look, but one that was entirely in keeping with Lucca's esteemed fashion sense. Crono and Marle could only stare.
“Well, no sense in standing around here,” Lucca said cheerfully with a tip of her glasses. “Let's go save the world!”
* * *
The second stint in the classified archive was very different from the first.
The first time was pure discovery, the inputting of only four words sending the three of them on a journey to see firsthand how the world was destroyed in the year 1999. This time they were doing actual work, or at least Lucca was. Crono and Marle could do little more than move the hovering displays of light around and report to Lucca what they said while she worked.
Lucca had one of the access panels below the central computer station open. The Chrono Trigger was lying on the floor next to the open panel, a handful of wires extending out the back of the time-traveling device where Marle's pendant would normally be inserted and connected to something deep inside the innards of the big computer. Lucca herself was crawled halfway into the thing.
Crono noticed a change to the display he was monitoring.
“Satellite six just changed from yellow status to green, Lu,” he said. “Looks like it's getting the signal finally.”
It was good news, and better than Crono dared hope. The world's satellite network, comprised of hundreds of machines roughly the size of a Dragon Tank and situated in low orbit of Gaia, was barely functioning at all. So far only five had responded to commands. The satellite network was a legacy of the domes, a sophisticated grid of advanced detection equipment that had once monitored every corner of the globe, delivering reports on the weather, radiation levels on the surface, and stellar phenomena beyond the stratosphere. That network was now the key to discovering where any temporal disturbances, indicating gates, may exist on the planet. There was no other way of getting this information from the safety of Bangor. Unfortunately, most of the satellites had broken down or exhausted their fuel over the course of 300 years, and the enclaves had stopped using the network long ago. Lucca needed an absolute minimum of seven of these ancient machines to narrow down where they needed to go, assuming any other temporal gates existed in this time-period.
“Great!” Lucca said from under the panel. “That should at least tell us enough to know if the Chrono Trigger modifications are working. Let's look at it on the big screen.”
The forward viewscreen then displayed an image on Lucca's typed command. It was a map of the world from before the Day of Lavos. The North Zenan and South Zenan continents in the western hemisphere. Gendis situated to the east. The island continent of Choras to the south. Medina in the center. Various island chains near the equator, including the El Nido Archipelago, a sparsely populated region in Crono's time known for its tropical climate and treacherous seas. All of it was on the screen in flawless precision, better than any conventional map Crono had ever seen.
A green blip appeared on the eastern portion of North Zenan.
“I think we just found the ZDF gate,” Lucca said with satisfaction. She zoomed in the image to get a better idea of the blip's location. Crono saw most of the devastated pre-dome city of Quintadis highlighted in green. “Pretty big bloom around the Quintadis region, but it's precise enough. That's the ZDF gate all right. Objective one accomplished. Now we just need to get two more satellites under our control and hope they have enough fuel to do what we need.”
“Can you tell if the ZDF gate is accessible?” Crono asked. “The room it's in might have been crushed by that collapsing building. It would be good for us to know one way or the other.”
Lucca shook her head. “I'd have to bring the satellite dangerously close to the stratosphere's terminus to get that precise a reading. Not a good idea when they have so little fuel to correct their course. Best to assume the gate's closed to us.”
Marle grunted at that news. She still blamed herself for what happened there.
“Oh! Satellite twenty-eight just turned green!” Marle quickly added.
“Now we're getting somewhere,” Lucca said. “That one's just south of Medina. That should give us enough coverage to receive a general reading if anything else is out there, if not a precise location.”
Lucca typed a few commands into the central computer. A rather large green blob interposed itself around Medina and the depleted seas near the central continent. Southeast of Bangor by a good distance, Crono thought, assuming the Chrono Trigger was actually picking something up over there.
“Looks like a hit to me,” Lucca remarked. “I'm going to try moving number 61 from over Choras in the direction of Medina to tighten the window.”
“There really is another one!” Marle said with relief. “I was beginning to think we'd be forced to try the ZDF gate and pull our hair out figuring out how to get back there.”
“It'll be hard enough to get into that green zone,” Crono pointed out. “If the gate is somewhere within Medina, we're looking at a really long trip.”
“Oh, yeah,” Marle said with glum realization. “And we'd have to cross the Tylair Ocean to get there, wouldn't we? Or what's left of it. How are we going to do that?”
The global sea level had plummeted in the aftermath of the Day of Lavos. All that now remained of the Tylair Ocean was a scattering of shallow seas and mud. The emergence of Lavos had been so violent that much of the vaporized water of Tylair had been expelled into space rather than returning to the surface in the form of rain. It was one of the reasons why the world was in a perpetual drought.
Lucca sniffed with amusement. “And this is what happens when you don't study, Marle. The Transcontinental Highway, that big road we were on when we came into Bangor, is a direct route between Bangor and Arris. That means it goes directly over the Tylair Ocean into Medina. Most of that road takes the form of a giant bridge that makes the Span of Zenan look puny. I'm talking about a bridge that spans over 2000 miles. It was how Director Doan got from the Arris enclave to here, so we know it survived the Day of Lavos. Getting to Medina won't be that big of a headache.”
“Still a long trip,” Crono said. He was already considering the logistical challenges of walking so far, even in a straight line. It would take months. How much of the enclave's food would they have to carry? And would they even be able to carry enough for the trip? The last thing he wanted was to have to rely on Marle's magic again to keep everyone from starving. He didn't know how Director Doan had managed it.
“Another satellite just turned green!” Marle said excitedly. She shifted a few floating displays around to get a closer look at the data. “Looks like it's number 118.”
“Pretty far from Medina, but we can still use it.” Lucca said, taking a look at the display Marle was focused on. “That gives us seven. I'd prefer it if more satellites came online to give us a cushion, but I've already committed number 61 to a flyover of Medina, and it's running on fumes. That one's only going to get one pass, and only two of the seven satellites have enough fuel for stationkeeping. We'll have to assume this reading's going to be the best we're going to get.”
“How long until we know?” Crono asked.
“Eighty-four minutes.”
Hearing that pronouncement, Crono's body suddenly started paying back the fatigue it had earned today. Nothing really to do but wait. One look at Marle said she felt much the same, and wasn't inclined to show her normal impatience waiting for something to happen. They both walked over to the chairs that operators Sarah and Gann had occupied 300 years ago and sat down heavily. Crono could only imagine the despair and helplessness those two people must have felt when the full weight of what had happened fell upon them. How much heavier was the burden Crono and his friends now carried? All of human history, everyone's future, depended on what he, Marle, and Lucca could discover in this room in the next couple of hours. And that was just the first step. How many steps, how many challenges, would it take to undo what Lavos had done here? Could it even be undone?
Crono shook his head. That last thought was his fatigue talking. Stopping Lavos would take as many steps as it needed to. He wouldn't turn away from the burden. He would just take the challenges as they came and not worry about a future he couldn't yet see. Crono thought that was the attitude Frog would have taken, were he here. For now, the surface of the old workstation called out to his head and he surrendered to the call, splaying his arms out on the desk above the keyboard and leaning forward. Just a few minutes to clear his thoughts and then he would...
“One minute to go, sleepyheads.”
Crono abruptly came to, and Marle groaned herself awake in the chair next to him. For once, Crono was really looking forward to a session in the enertron. “How's it looking?”
“Like it's somewhere in eastern Medina,” Lucca said. “The bloom's shrinking pretty fast now. I think the reading's going to be solid.”
The three time-travelers stood in front of the main viewscreen while the seconds ticked down. The green “bloom”, indicating the area the temporal gate could be found in, grew smaller and smaller. Crono looked on with increasing trepidation. It was beginning to look like...
“There!” Lucca exclaimed. The bloom had narrowed to a tiny bright point on the screen and began to flash insistently. “Positive coordinates! 34.978 degrees north, by 35.747 degrees east. Depth: 160 meters.” Lucca's jubilance disappeared almost as soon as she rattled off the numbers. “Uh oh.”
“Yeah, that's a big 'uh oh',” Crono agreed with a grim nod.
The flashing point of green light was directly over Arris Dome.
“It's in the Arris enclave!” Lucca said. She brought up a three-dimensional map of the old shelter community on a floating display and began manipulating the image. “Looks like the coordinates correspond with the granary.”
“Wait! Isn't that the place where those robot things went crazy and started killing everyone?” Marle asked with alarm.
Lucca deflated. “Yeah. That was Arris.”
And so their misfortunes continued, Crono thought. The Transcontinental Highway would take them almost all the way to where the gate was located, but that was small comfort when they knew homicidal machines surely lie between them and the pathway out of the year 2300.
Crono steeled himself. “We'll just have to deal with it. I think the bigger question is where exactly that gate will take us. If it doesn't lead into the past, there's no reason to even go to Arris. What do you think, Lu? Can you tell?”
Lucca got back onto the floor and examined the Chrono Trigger's readouts closely. She started nodding after a moment. “It goes to the past...I think. One piece of good news.”
“Will it take us home?” asked Marle.
“It would be quite the coincidence if a third wormhole led to the same time-period,” Lucca said after a moment's thought. “Statistically, that would be mind-boggling. But even if it doesn't, I think there might be a way of altering the wormhole's path to bring us where we really want to go. Better to go to the year we know, right?”
Marle started. “You can do that?”
Lucca shrugged a bit uncomfortably. “In theory. I didn't give the idea any thought before we came to this time-period. No reason to. But knowing that we might have to find a third gate to get us out of here, I started banging the idea around in my noggin.”
“You don't sound as confident as I'd like,” Crono remarked.
“It's a bit on the risky side, I'll admit, but not as dangerous as some of the things we've already been through. I'd be willing to bet all my worthless gil on it, anyway.”
They were all quiet for a moment.
“I say we do it,” Marle said. “There's no other way back, and anything's better than staying here and watching everyone die. I'd rather die myself than see anything happen to Mary.”
Crono lowered his eyes. Even if the three of them somehow succeeded in changing history, something would be happening to Marle's young friend anyway. But there was no other way. At least if history changed, the little girl wouldn't have to suffer.
“I couldn't agree more,” Lucca said.
“You said it,” Crono agreed.
“Let's make it official, then,” Marle said eagerly. “You said you made a vow to that helmet, right, Lucca? We should all make a vow. Right here. Right now. That we aren't going to run away from this. We saved history once before, and we can do it again! In the name of Anne the Divine and all Creation, we're going to save this world from the destruction Lavos would bring, and create a new future full of hope! Together! We're the only ones who can!” She raised her hand into the air, palm forward.
Lucca grinned. “Oh, I'm getting an epic vibe from this moment. I'm game.” She raised her own hand into the air and pressed her palm against Marle's. “I, Lucca Eleanor Ashtear, do solemnly swear that I will use all of my boundless brainpower to... Oh, wait, I already gave that speech!” She snickered. “Can't have me spouting shameless clichés at a time like this, can we? Sorry. Try this:” Lucca made a show of clearing her throat. “We three visitors of destiny were given a vision. A vision of calamity, suffering, and death; of a wondrous potential cast into the mud and turned to ash. To this, we say no! That this will not be our fate! Through sword, spell, and ingenious fortitude, we challenge the path of dreams. Passing a gateway to a brighter tomorrow. With Creation as our witness, we'll stand strong against all who oppose the dream of this world! And to blazes the wicked souls who get in our way!”
Crono and Marle could only stare at Lucca.
“Did I overdo it?” she asked with a smirk.
“I won't complain,” Crono laughed. “You might have waited until my hand was joining yours, though.”
“What, you don't want to make a speech? I thought that was the point of all this? We each take our turn to say something profound when we raise our hand. Go ahead, Crono. I'll promise not to laugh.”
Crono then raised his hand to join Marle's and Lucca's, trying to think of something to say. It was hard to compete with Lucca's curious combination of cheek and eloquence, and no one could assert her intentions more nobly or in clearer language than Marle. Probably best to just be himself and to get on with their business. It wasn't likely this speech was going to be remembered anywhere other than Lucca's diary, anyway.
“I don't know what it was I saw,” Crono began. “I don't know where it came from. I don't know what it was thinking. I only saw what it did, and my soul was shaken to its core. An entire people, an entire history doomed to a false dream of survival. We've seen where this story began, and we see where it will end. But we won't let this story come to be. We'll fight! We'll resist! We'll stop that spiked monstrosity whatever it takes, or die trying!”
Marle smiled at him. It must have been at least okay, Crono thought.
“That was serviceable, I guess,” Lucca remarked. “Except for the dying part. What are you trying to do, jinx us before we even get started?”
“Let's not be under any delusions,” Crono said seriously. “This is going to be a hard fight. We don't even know what it will entail, really. It'll be hard enough just to make it home and plan for our next move. If we do this, we do it all the way. No holding back. No turning back. Let's make sure we're fully prepared before we head out for Arris.”
Lucca nodded. “Yeah, that's better.”
“Spoken like a true victor of The Gauntlet,” Marle said with approval. “You're the right man to lead this fight.”
Crono blushed. “Uh, Marle, I'm just a swordsman, not a hero. I'm not doing this for fame.”
Marle took his hand in both of hers. “Exactly.”
“Butter him up some more, why don't you?” Lucca said, rolling her eyes.
* * *
“You have made your decision,” Director Doan said.
“We have,” Crono replied.
They were in the Director's office, the room as clean and spartan as it always was. Crono noted that Doan seemed to have fewer personal effects than most enclave residents. It wasn't because he valued nothing, though. It was because he had everything he wanted in this life. For Frank Doan, knowledge itself was a priceless treasure, and that was not something that could be easily taken away. He would carry it with him for all of his days. What the mysterious traveler Belthazar had given him was worth more than all the gold and silver in Guardia Castle. It was a shame that circumstances had robbed him of the ability to make the fullest use of it.
“I'm sorry, Director, but I can't stay,” Marle said with complete sincerity. “I know I took an oath to defend this enclave from all threats, and to support my fellow citizens as well as I could. But I can't do that now. Not after what I saw in the archive. I can't protect anyone by staying here.”
“Apologies are unnecessary, Miss Marle,” Doan said graciously. “I know well what it is you saw. It is a terrible burden for anyone to bear, even for a director of one of humanity's remaining communities. I trust you understand your own purpose in life, for having been exposed to this knowledge?”
“I've made my choice. I won't let things stay as they are.”
Doan nodded. “Then let that be an end to it. You need not worry about your fellow Protectors. I will give them a suitable explanation for your departure. For others, however, it might be best if that explanation came from you personally, as much for your own peace of mind as for theirs.”
Marle grimaced. Doan was clearly referring to little Mary. “Yeah, I know.”
“We have to go to the Arris enclave, Frank,” Lucca said, apparently seeing no need for preamble. “It's the first step to... making everything right. We're going to need a lot of help. You were the last person to be in Arris. Is there anything you can tell us? Beyond what we already know?”
“Only that the machines you encounter, should you be so unfortunate, cannot be reasoned with. Those that are still active follow a singular directive: the termination of all humans. And they execute that directive with chilling efficiency. You must not hesitate to destroy them if you are able, or they will continue hunting you. They always continue until their directive has been fulfilled.”
“How could this have happened?” Lucca asked with genuine, and heartfelt, bewilderment. “Machines don't just become evil on their own. People have to make them that way. They do whatever they are programmed to do. What kind of person, what kind of monster would program the robots to do this?”
“Monsters come in varying forms, Miss Lucca. Not all take on the visage of men or beasts. Some cannot be defined by common knowledge, as you are now no doubt aware. Madness can take on an identity of its own. Indeed, it could be said that this has always been so. What makes the villains among men what they are? Everything has a genesis. Some cannot help but be swept along the path.”
Crono frowned at the vagueness of this answer, but the origins of the machines' madness mattered less to him than how to deal with it. This timeline would be obliterated anyway, if they succeeded in preventing the Day of Lavos.
“How did you escape from Arris, Director Doan?” he asked. “And why didn't the robots follow you? If this 'directive' of theirs demands they destroy all humans, why wouldn't they try and storm the other enclaves? They have to know you are here if they're intelligent at all.”
Doan nodded. “They do, but they cannot act on that knowledge. Through a desperate bit of subterfuge on my part, I was able to introduce something called a 'worm' into each robot's core process all at once. It was unable to destroy them completely, but it did create a situation in which any afflicted machine would immediately self-destruct if it attempted to leave the confines of the old city. They know the fault is present in their system, but the nature of the worm also makes it impossible for them to detect. Therefore, they can do nothing to remove it and thus place the other enclaves in danger. Outside of Arris, the robots are no threat.”
“I'd love to know how you did that, Frank,” Lucca said with a laugh. “Maybe I could come up with a modification to your worm that would cause those lunatic machines to run away from us instead of hunting us. At least until we get where we need to go.”
“Alas, even I would be incapable of such a feat now,” Doan said soberly. “I succeeded in installing the worm only because the robots were unprepared for it. Their programming architecture had insufficient security safeguards at the time, due to the assumption that humans could not interfere with them so. This has changed. While the original worm remains in their system, it is now quite impossible to slip any more malicious code into their processes. Any attempt to do so will only alert the robots to your presence. Using your weapons would agitate them less.”
Crono shook his head. Pretty much all of that might as well have been spoken in Mystic for all he understood of it. “So there's no easy way to deal with them,” he said. “We'll just have to be smart and avoid the things as much as possible.”
“Prudence is always the best course in my humble experience. Speaking of which, you are no doubt contemplating the prudence of traveling all the way to this dangerous place on foot?”
“That's what we most need to talk to you about, actually. It's a three month journey to Arris, even setting a good pace and assuming we don't run into any problems. It's going to take a lot of provisions, I'm afraid. Much more than we can easily carry.”
“Quite so. Even being generous with our food stores, which I have no reason not to be under the circumstances, you would be in a difficult situation on the road. Exhausting your strength on the journey to Arris would not be a course of wisdom. As you say, getting to your destination is only a first step. You will surely have burdens to follow.”
Crono nodded. Just the act of getting home was something of a leap of faith. They then had to figure out how they could even learn about what Lavos was, how they could find it, and what they would do to stop it once that moment came. Burdens, all of it.
“You will be pleased to know, then, that I have a rather simple solution for this problem,” Doan said with a twinkle in his eye. “Machines are quite the specialty of mine, as I have told you. I've worked on many since my youth. It so happens that I employed one during that unpleasant situation in Arris to help facilitate my escape.” He chuckled. “Contrary to popular belief, I am not superhuman.”
Lucca's jaw dropped, and Crono tried not to laugh at the sudden revelation. Of course. Director Doan was a man with secrets.
“You have a vehicle?!” Lucca blurted.
“The term 'vehicle' scarcely does it justice. Regrettably, there was no practical justification for keeping it operable after my arrival in Bangor, and I couldn't bring myself to dismantle it, so I sealed it away in a place of relative safety in the ruins. The mutants take no interest in it. Should you make use of this machine, you will be able to get to Arris rather quickly.” Doan's tone was quite dry with that last, Crono noticed. The Director then took an object out of his desk and slid it across to where his guests were seated.
Crono's quick reflexes defeated Lucca's attempt to grab it first. He turned it over in his hand with interest. It was a key. More elaborate than any key he had ever seen. It was nearly half the length of his forearm and seemingly made of platinum, the grooves cut with an exceptional quality and in a geometric pattern worthy of a work of art. The top of the key was lacquered in blue and gold, and was imprinted with a single yellow lightning bolt superimposed over a fireball with pretentious intention. Under the bold imagery was written the name “Comet” in flaming script. What kind of a vehicle was this key for?
“And now there is just one more matter to address,” Doan continued. “Miss Lucca, your capacity to learn new skills quickly is something few words exist to adequately describe. In the space of a day you have achieved a degree of proficiency with a plasma arm that is the envy of most of the defenders of this enclave. This on top of everything else you have learned and done for us. Presenting you with a new weapon is the very least Bangor can provide, along with a battery pack that will allow you continuous use of the weapon with proper care. Accept this pistol with my blessing. I think you will have much more need of it than I.” He took a plasma pistol out of his desk and passed it over to Lucca. To Crono's eyes it looked newer than the ones in the armory.
Lucca put both her hands over her mouth in shock. “It's your gun?!”
Doan smiled at her. “Please, Miss Lucca, do not think of refusing. You lost your own weapon during your desperate journey here, and you will need another if you hope to survive long in your future endeavors. This is a weapon I have long cared for personally. I know it will suit you well.”
“Well, you always did have a way of making me feel special, Frank,” she said with a bashful chuckle. “Thanks. I'll always treasure it.”
“Treasure instead the peace of mind and the knowledge it enables you to obtain on your journey. Now, I think it time for the three of you to address any unfinished business you have in the enclave and then retire to your rooms. You have had a busy day. Use the enertrons however long you deem fit and then meet Assistant Director Morris at the main entrance to the surface at first light. Your supply needs will be seen to.”
The three time-travelers departed Doan's office after making a few final gestures of gratitude for everything the enclave had done for them over the past month. It felt strange that they would be leaving soon, Crono thought. The enclave, for all that it was surrounded by ruin and a place of great hardship, had begun to feel like a real home. It was the people, he decided. Bangor's community of survivors was small enough that most everyone knew each other, and that no person would be left for wanting whatever the enclave had to provide. To its last day Bangor would live as one people, fighting against the fate Lavos had bestowed upon them. A thing worth preserving. If not for the enertron tragedy, Crono could not have brought himself to consider changing this future at all.
“I think I'll spend a little time with Mary,” Marle said. “She should almost be done with my crossbow by now. I have no idea what I'll tell her, but...”
“Go on, Marle,” Crono said. “Don't worry about us. We'll have plenty of time to be together on the road.”
Marle waved at him as she left for the foundries. Crono was sure that she had also found a reason to preserve this future, if only fate had not been so cruel.
* * *
The foundries of Common Area 3 were mostly quiet.
There was no shortage of work that an enclave needed to have done, and the Makers of Bangor took it as a point of pride that the forges and fabrication stations of their domain had not gone completely silent in over 250 years. But only a handful of men and women were laboring at the moment. To celebrate the first successful scavenging run to the Geshar District in decades, Director Doan had authorized the release of a small portion of the enclave's precious food supply for everyone to partake in this evening. It was a luxury to be cherished slowly, but it was also a luxury that had to be recovered from. The ingestion of real food was a rare event for the people here, and most were so unaccustomed to it that they became sick to their stomachs within an hour of the meal, requiring a session in the enertron just to keep themselves from throwing up what they had just eaten. That was where most of the workers probably were right now. There wouldn't be an empty enertron in the whole enclave aside from those now reserved for Marle and her friends.
Naturally, Chieko Vals was one of the workers still here. The always hardworking Assistant Director turned to Marle with her perpetual glower as she strode into the expansive room. Vals never looked friendly at the best of times, but the woman's evident disdain toward Marle had ebbed away over the weeks, at least after Marle had offered a portion of her daily credit balance to pay for the repairs of the plasma rifle she had damaged.
“You're leaving,” Vals said simply.
“Director Doan told you already?” Marle inquired.
“He didn't have to. People with more courage than sense, like you, never stay in one place for very long. It's like the very act of standing still makes your feet hurt more than from running clear across the ruin. Mary's old man was like that, always traveling between the enclaves, trading for whatever junk or rat carcass he scrounged up on the road.” She snorted. “'Save money, it'll do ya good?' Fat lot of good that does you when you're dead. It's just as well you're leaving. You're a bad influence on the girl. She'll save more money staying right here.”
Marle wasn't fazed by the rebuke. It only reinforced what Marle had come to know about the stern Assistant Director during her time here. The woman cared about Mary. Deeply. She might never let it show in a smile or an empty compliment, but the feeling was clearly there. Vals made Mary work hard, though never on a task that was beyond her abilities or put her at risk of bodily harm. Through their shared labors, Vals was slowly teaching Mary everything she knew about her craft. Given enough time, Mary would take her place as a full-fledged Maker, and perhaps be elevated to Chieko's assistant directorship someday. It would be a much safer life than her parents had led.
If only that future could actually happen.
Mary didn't seem to be around, though. “Did she get done with my job already?” Marle asked with a frown.
“Finished about twenty minutes ago, after I gave her work a look-over. It's acceptable. Shouldn't bend or break unless you slam that toy of yours against something. Topped off your quiver, too. Never seen the girl work so fast on those bolts. You pay her your whole credit balance or something?”
She had, actually, though she hadn't told Mary as much. Twenty-one thousand three-hundred and thirty credits was everything she had in her credit account, and she had offered all but the three-hundred and thirty to prevent Mary from becoming suspicious to the fact she was leaving. That for both the flashlight modification and the 29 crossbow bolts she needed replaced. Mary had done the whole job in a single night! Marle hadn't expected the bolts to be finished until she was ready to leave in the morning. She more than suspected Chieko had lent a helping hand with the bolts to get them all done so fast, but the Assistant Director's expression gave no sign of it.
“It's what the job was worth to me,” Marle said. “High quality demands a high premium. You can put the rest of my balance toward weapon maintenance. I won't be needing the money where I'm going. Is she back in her hideaway?”
Vals nodded. “Mind what you say to her.” She then returned to whatever always needed to be done job she was working on without a backward glance.
Marle found her crossbow and her filled quiver lying on the shelf next to Leene's music box in Mary's little alcove. Mary was sound asleep on her old enertron bed, facing toward the wall and completely oblivious to her visitor. Marle took a moment to examine her newly modified weapon. Two tiny flashlights, each encased in a waterproof steel shell, had been installed directly below the crossbow's barrel and just in front of the foregrip. She clicked the on/off switch at the very front of the foregrip, causing an explosion of illumination to lance out into the corridor. She smiled with satisfaction. Darkness would no longer be any obstacle to her shooting what needed to be shot in the shadowy places of the world. Even better, the little flashlights were light enough that they didn't seem to affect the weapon's balance at all, and the one-touch function meant Marle didn't have to think about what she was doing while using the modified weapon. Just like a good weapon should be. She clicked the lights off and turned to the young Maker who had done the work. Mary didn't stir.
For a long time Marle just stood there looking at the slumbering child. Mary was usually quite alert, which was a sign of just how tired she had to be, completing the job so fast. A small untouched strip of rat jerky rested on the floor just to the side of her enertron mattress, and four empty mugs of solid tin lay stacked by her pillow. Mary had scrounged up two of the mugs and forged a third and a fourth in order to better accept ice cube payments from Marle in lieu of credits, though Marle had paid her in both for the past two weeks.
She then spent the next hour condensing cubes of magical ice between her hands sitting just outside of Mary's alcove, filling all four mugs to the top with frozen treasure. It was far more than the job had called for, but the premium was more than justified by the warm feelings in Marle's heart. The ice had come easily, and she didn't even have to remember being sad as she usually did when doing this. The sadness was very real in the moment. Marle would never be seeing this precious innocent soul again after tonight. Whatever happened in her audacious crusade to end Lavos, that truth was set in stone.
Marle set the filled mugs of ice one by one by Mary's pillow and then forced herself to gaze at Queen Leene's music box sitting silently on the shelf. There was nothing she could say. Nothing that would make the sting of an absent friend hurt less. She wouldn't dream of telling Mary the truth of why she was leaving. No one needed the nightmare of Lavos always being in the back of their minds, especially not a ten-year-old girl. The people of this time had suffered enough.
So she would communicate her thoughts by actions rather than words. Marle took the music box gently into her hands and wound the key, letting the lullaby chime its soft tune before placing it back on the shelf. The music continued to play as Marle gathered the rest of her belongings and quietly stepped out of Mary Limova's humble dwelling, continuing through the narrow cramped corridor of the underground until the faint melody was consumed by the continuous hum of the nearby power generator.
Marle found her way back to the foundry room not even feeling hot. Her sorrow had chilled the air around her enough to mostly banish the heat. Assistant Director Vals was waiting for her by the exit.
“You will look after her, won't you Chieko?” Marle croaked.
“Always,” the Assistant Director said softly.
A few minutes later, Marle was back in Dormitory 7. Like in the foundries, the activity in the main lobby was muted. A few residents were lounging at the tables and on the sofas, munching on rat jerky and holding cups of cold water to wash it down. Almost none were at the computers. Everyone who could be in an enertron likely was. Only the enertrons assigned to Marle, Crono, and Lucca were reserved, and of those only Marle's remained open. Lucca had been busy converting her makeshift lab back to the way it originally was, and had since gone to sleep in one of the enertrons. Crono had retired some time earlier in the adjacent room and was also sleeping away his cares inside the miraculous device that had both saved and killed humanity's remnants. Marle stepped into the shower and let the water caress her - and hide her remaining tears - for the next fifteen minutes while she wrestled herself back into emotional balance, then changed into drab enclave clothing before laundering her Millennial Fair outfit in those odd washing machines. It was almost 2:00 in the morning when Marle was finally ready to brave the enertron one last time, hers being in the same room as Crono.
Amelia Evans was waiting for her, standing next to her assigned machine.
Oh, great. I can't wait to hear what Miss Junior Assistant Director has to say about me this time.
“How can I be of service, Miss Marle?”
Marle raised her eyebrows. The polite tone was not something she would have envisioned coming out of this woman's mouth, based on her month-long experience with the bothersome bureaucrat.
“I need to sleep for about five hours,” Marle said carefully. “I'm supposed to wake up with Crono and Lucca at 7:00. We'll be leaving on a mission from Director Doan almost immediately. He should have made all the arrangements.”
“Then it wouldn't do for you to oversleep,” Evans replied in the same courteous tone she began with. “I will make sure your enertron is programmed properly so you can fulfill your duty at the assigned hour. I'll be here at seven to see to any needs you have in the morning.”
This was the same Junior Assistant Director who had tormented her ever since the first time she had witlessly violated an enclave regulation? Who complained about her not going to sleep, then actually going to sleep, then begging for help with the computers (when Lucca wasn't around), and on several occasions lambasting her for using too much of the water that the enclave had in abundance and could easily cleanse and reuse anyway? Who in Creation was this person?
Perhaps Director Doan had had some words with her. Lucca had mentioned something Doan had said to her in passing, about a promotion made too soon. Marle would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in Doan's office whenever that conversation happened.
The lid on Marle's enertron descended smoothly as soon as she was comfortably inside. As she lie there, her thoughts again turned to the little girl who had aided her so much in establishing herself in this future of ruin. Mary Limova would either live for the next six years and witness everyone around her succumb to enertron sickness, or she would never be at all. Why did it have to be this way? Was there no way for Mary to live a full life? Did Creation have no answer? Could Mary not wake up one day in a new world and realize it was the one she had somehow been a part of all along, and had only just woken up from a nightmare that felt real?
Marle's last waking thought was to make a fervent prayer for Creation to answer at the appointed hour, if Marle could only fulfill the vow she had made with her friends.
* * *
Crono awoke the following morning feeling oddly refreshed and full of calm purpose. The enertron had renewed him for the last time, salvation and death all in the same package, and he wouldn't miss it, but he knew he owed the futuristic technology his life and he patted the top of his now closed capsule in silent gratitude. To his surprise, Junior Assistant Director Evans was right there in the room when his capsule opened, looking pleased and curiously willing to help, especially when Marle's capsule opened right after his. He thought he sensed a slight grudging from the young woman; a too tight smile in one moment, a fleeting narrowing of her eyes in another, but Crono paid her little mind once both he and Marle were on their feet and collecting their belongings. They met up with Lucca in the library, who was gazing at the computers with a degree of nostalgia and unconsciously adjusting the fit of the old Protector's helmet she now wore on her head. The handful of residents in the room were giving her strange looks, but otherwise didn't comment on her odd fashion statement.
“This helmet actually serves a purpose other than being a symbol for my wanting to change the future,” Lucca explained after they had left Dormitory 7 behind. “That's the beauty of it. This thing's the product of a ruined future. Once we're back in the past, it would ordinarily be very difficult to determine if we've done something to change the future and prevent the Day of Lavos. But if we have this helmet with us, we would know immediately if the domes were saved from destruction. The helmet would either transform into something that looks almost new, or, more likely, it would disappear entirely. We could then stop whatever it is we're doing to try and change history and go back to our normal lives.” She chuckled. “Or what passes for normal for the three of us.”
“Normal? I'm not even sure what that is,” Crono quipped. “The last seven months have been pretty crazy. And with what went on in Guardia, I'm not sure there ever will be a normal for us.”
“We'll travel the world,” Marle said with a hopeful smile. “Go visit Bangor when it was still a small town in the mountains. Go to the marketplace of Choras and haggle for clues about the famed rainbow shell. Hike the Denadoro mountains of South Zenan and climb all the way to the top of Mount Raslin to touch the clouds, and I mean touching the clouds for real and not playing with crazy technological projections. Or maybe we could sail all the way to the El Nido Archipelego. There have been human colonies there for about seventy years, and most of it's sparsely populated. If we needed to go someplace in our time we couldn't easily be found, that would be it.”
“If you could survive the weather,” Lucca pointed out. “There's a reason those colonies are sparsely populated, you know. Anyone who dares sail around El Nido has to feel the wind with their very being to avoid disaster, even on a steamship. Good fishing, though. Swimming all year 'round. Stake your claim in the right place and your life will be so idyllic that you'll struggle to get any work done.” She shrugged. “Probably not a good place for me.”
“Something to think about, I guess,” Crono said. Zack had always talked about one day buying himself a sailboat. For all Crono knew, Zack might even be on a boat sailing away from Guardia and heading to El Nido in their own time under an assumed name, since he was also a wanted fugitive. With his crafty “handmaiden” girlfriend, Marge. He wondered if he would ever see those two again.
Arriving at the main entrance shaft leading up to the surface, Crono was brought back to reality seeing Assistant Director Morris standing next to a trio of large beige backpacks spread out on the floor, bulging with packed goods. Morris nodded curtly at the time-travelers' approach, and not as a sign of approval.
“That's a month's worth of food and water for the three of you,” Morris said. “Just as the Director ordered. You'll find the three blankets you carried in here from the wastes, too.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Landis. Seriously. Right in the yellow zone and you lot stride in there like there ain't no radiation at all. Before two weeks ago I'd have never believed it. Stamina and stupidity in equal measure. I'd almost think you'd have come through Quintadis being so stupidly fortuitous.”
Crono, Marle, and Lucca couldn't hold back their snickers. Stupidly fortuitous was about right.
“We'll... um... try to be more careful this time,” Marle said.
“You'd better. That's a lot of the enclave's treasure you have in those packs. Combine that with the celebration Doan authorized last night and our granary might never recover! I don't know what the Director's thinking, authorizing an excursion after all these years, and with a quarter squad at that.”
“He has his reasons, I'm sure,” Crono said evenly.
“Yeah? Well, I've said my piece. You certainly trained my people well, Lantree, and that scores points with me. Terrance, Andrews, and Menda are up top with the Director waiting to see you off. Try not to get yourselves killed, all right?”
Morris walked off, and Crono, Marle, and Lucca hefted the backpacks and slung them over their shoulders with a bit of effort. They were heavy. Much of the weight of the backpacks was on account of the many canteens of water stuffed inside. Clean water was not something to be found in abundance outside of the enclaves, or water of any sort unless one was lucky, so a traveler had to bring whatever they thought they would need to last the whole trip. Ironically, water was now the least of their worries, with Marle's growing talent for conjuring magical ice out of the air. But Marle had to use a portion of her strength to channel magic in this way, almost as much as for healing, so they couldn't afford to be without a more conventional source of water. Crono wouldn't begrudge the weight. This was the first time they had been properly outfitted for a journey since all of this craziness with time-travel had begun. It would be good to be well prepared for a change.
The stairway leading out of the enclave was a tight spiraling affair, stretching up nearly 350 feet to the surface of Bangor. The shaft was narrow enough to tug at Crono's claustrophobia, the reminder that so much earth lay looming behind so little, waiting to crush you with the slightest shift of the earth's mood, but he had grown accustomed to this ascent since beginning his scavenging runs with Marle and the Protectors, and he turned away from the fear without difficulty. The depth and the narrowness of the enclave's points of egress was what had enabled the emergency shelter to survive the savage attacks of Lavos. As it was, only a tiny portion of the shafts leading to the underground from the surface still remained intact, and this shaft was the only one that remained in active use.
At length, the three time-travelers came to the shaft's apex, where a pair of heavy steel doors normally rested atop the passage. They were open. Climbing out of the shaft, they were met by Terrance, Andrews, and Menda, plasma rifles slung across their backs but ready to employ them instantly if any trouble made itself known. Director Doan was standing a few paces away, both hands resting atop his cane and staring at the sunrise just now lifting above the city's shattered pinnacles.
Crono suppressed a chuckle looking at the old man. Not superhuman, he claimed? Climbing that long stairway would make a man half his age short of breath. Crono wondered if Doan even really needed his cane. He barely looked tired.
“If I didn't know better, I'd think you were getting ready for a trip yourself,” Crono quipped.
“Oh, I think not, young Crono,” Doan replied with a light chuckle. “My traveling days are well behind me. Though it helps that I passed my weapon on to Miss Lucca, and that three of my Protectors stand ready to drag me back downstairs should I develop a sudden case of wanderlust. This really is a task for the young.”
Doan then gave a nod to the three Protectors, and the men stepped backward a good distance to allow for some privacy. Crono was pleased to note the men kept their heads on a swivel. Terrance, Andrews, and Menda were fine fighting companions, men who could always be relied upon to watch your back and carry you through to your goal to matter how tough the road. It was a shame they couldn't join them on the journey to Arris and beyond, but Crono would always remember the three fondly. He thought they would make for good soldiers in any era.
“So where do we find this vehicle you were talking about?” Crono asked softly enough that his voice wouldn't carry.
“It's in sector 32, within a red zone boundary to deter any curious scavenging parties,” Doan said. “Make your way eighteen blocks directly north from here, then turn east for seven blocks, turn north again when you reach the impassable rubble, and proceed six more blocks until you find a red sign in the road. To the right of this you will see a descending ramp that leads into an alcove in perpetual shadow. What you seek is within. Insert the key I gave you into the center console of the front seat. Your course will then become apparent.”
Lucca took a moment to write all of this down in her diary. Crono noticed that instead of using new pages, of which very few remained, she was jotting things down wherever she could find space on already used pages. The diary was becoming so cluttered that Crono doubted anyone else reading it would make heads or tails of even the non-scientific portions. There was probably enough information on those pages to transcribe into four diaries of the same size. Paper was not something the enclave could produce, so Lucca was forced to make do with what she had.
“A straight shot to Arris once we get on the main road,” Crono said with a nod. “That's simple enough. I'm assuming this thing has enough fuel to make the trip? What about the condition of the road?”
“Fuel will not be an issue, nor will you need to concern yourself with the road. Your course will be apparent.”
That was an odd answer, Crono thought. And why did it feel like the Director was trying too hard to keep his expression neutral?
“Are there any dangers on the road we should know about, Frank?” Lucca interjected. “The satellite network couldn't tell us much beyond where the gate was located. Only that we get a bit close to that caldera where you-know-who spat itself out of the ocean floor. I'm almost afraid to ask, but... I couldn't find any information on... it after 1999. Do we need to worry?”
Director Doan was silent for a moment.
“The creature, I think, has achieved its purpose on our world,” he finally said. “It is not at the place from where it emerged, nor do I believe it is anywhere now where it could be confronted – foolish as that notion is. That being said, I must stress the importance of staying well away from Death Peak.”
“Death Peak?” Marle inquired.
“The highest portion of the caldera that thrust itself out of the sea floor on that day. From that vantage point you would be able to fully appreciate the destructive power of what you seek to impede. There is perhaps no more intimidating vista on all of the earth. Or more dangerous. You would find it difficult to even make the ascent, were you so inclined. The depth and size of the caldera makes the weather extraordinarily potent and unpredictable. It will profit you nothing to go there.”
“Drive by. Got it,” Lucca said, jotting a note in her diary with an amused quirk to her mouth.
Everyone then paused, Crono, Marle, and Lucca gazing into Director Doan's eyes, and he at them. There seemed to be nothing more to say. This was goodbye, then.
“Director Doan, thank you so much for taking care of us while we were here,” Marle said with sincerity. “One day I hope it will be our turn to take care of you. This world. Everyone in it. The future won't always look like this. I promise.”
“We all do,” Crono amended.
“No, I think it won't,” Doan agreed with a slight smile.
With that, the time-travelers secured their belongings, adjusted the packs on their backs, then began walking north into the devastated cityscape of Bangor. Crono wondered what this place would have been like to live in before the day the flames fell.
“Marle!”
Crono quickly looked behind him to see the diminutive form of Mary Limova, rushing past the three Protectors guarding the enclave access, sidestepping Director Doan, and bounding straight toward where Marle had frozen in shock. She looked to be carrying something wrapped in a blanket in both hands.
Marle dropped her backpack and crossbow and met the child halfway, wrapping her arms around the red-headed girl. Crono and Lucca trotted up to meet them.
“I'm sorry,” Marle told the girl in a husky tone. “I didn't know how to tell you. I have to go away now. There are lots of people who need my help, I can't turn away from them.”
Mary took a moment before answering, clearly fighting back tears.
“Yeah, I know,” the girl said. “You came to Bangor for a reason. And now you have to go somewhere else for a reason.”
“It's a good reason.”
“But you won't have any money!” Mary pleaded. “You paid me too much for the job! You have to save money for it to do you good!”
“Keep it. You deserve it.”
“I don't want it! Not if its going to make you sad. I've come to pay you back.”
Mary then unwrapped the blanket she was holding. Inside was an object Crono immediately recognized. Leene's music box! Marle had given that to Mary? When did this happen?
Marle's mouth fell open. “Mary, I can't take this! It means so much to you!”
“Not as much as you do. I know you'll be sad if you don't have it. And you didn't really want to give it to me. You had nothing else to trade. But you've given me lots since then. I don't need the box anymore. I'll just drink all of your ice water and call it even. That sounds like a fair deal.”
It was a while before Marle could even speak.
“Mary... Thank you,” she finally managed, taking the precious heirloom into her hands. “I'll think of you every time I play this box.”
“And so let this be the time of our final parting,” Director Doan interjected pleasantly. “You need not fear for the welfare of this child. She will be well cared for. Think now only on the task that lies before you, and do what must be done. The rest shall see to itself.”
“We'll do everything we can,” Crono promised. “Take care of yourselves.”
Crono, Marle, and Lucca then gathered themselves once more, Marle with some reluctance, and again made their way north into the ruins of Bangor. This time nobody looked back.
* * *
Frank Doan, as he had come to be called, gazed on the departing forms of the past, present, and future time-travelers with satisfaction. It was begun. Again. The great hope of the world returned at last, just as The Plan said it would. Nothing greater could possibly be at stake, or at risk, now that this point was reached. Yet at the same time nothing could be more certain. He had no anxiety. All was now as it needed to be. The path of reason always found the way in the fullness of time. No exaggeration was that. He had waited so long. He had not always been conscious of the wait, just as so few were conscious of what was really happening to the tapestry of being, but he was ready for what was coming. Nothing would stop it. The Ideal would become the real. The Break would be the catalyst. All according to The Plan. He would be proven right in the end, and all would rejoice.
“What was that, Director Doan?”
The follower of reason paused. Had he just said something aloud that was meant only for his own internal musing? A sign of his age, perhaps. He had waited a long time, after all. It wouldn't have been the first time. No matter.
“There is a plan at work, young Mary,” he said to the child, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Those three remarkable souls were meant to come to us, just as they were meant to depart. They are the key to the future.”
Mary Limova frowned up at him. “How do you know that?”
Frank Doan walked back to the shaft that led down into his domain, guiding the Maker girl at his side. Useful, and yet also of no significance, she. Nothing would stop what was coming.
“Call it... fate,” he said.
6
Fan Fiction / The Day of Lavos - a novel fragment
« on: July 30, 2025, 09:36:36 pm »
(This posting includes two chapters in my novelization project, detailing Crono, Marle, and Lucca learning the truth about what really destroyed the world in 1999, and each character's reaction to it.)
Chapter 27 - Calamity from the Deep
Lucca tried to keep her growing excitement in check as the two Protectors guarding the entrance to the classified computer archive let her pass. This was a place she had been trying to beg, finagle, bribe, and otherwise shamelessly maneuver herself into for almost four weeks. It might have caused real problems for the enclave if she had succeeded early on, Lucca was forced to admit. She was a fast learner, but she had also made a fair number of embarrassing mistakes learning the intricacies of modern-day computer systems. Not world-ending Marle caliber mistakes, of course. The former princess had managed to corrupt the operating system of one of the dormitory's computers so thoroughly that a full formatting and archive restoration had been necessary to salvage it. But Director Doan had still had to hold Lucca's hand with some frequency while she stumbled around playing with the technology that put information on glass. The classified archive held all of the master files for the enclave's entire computer network. A beginner's mistake here could have lasting consequences. It was not a place to fool around.
But she was ready now, or at least as ready as anyone not born in an era of computers could hope to be. Along with discovering the truth about the enclave's enertrons, Lucca's investigation into the problem steeled her competence with the computers to a point where she could probably find anything she wanted to find with the advanced systems down here. She wondered if that were the larger part of the reason Director Doan had assigned her the enertron task to begin with. Her mentor of the future, she now knew, always seemed to be thinking several steps ahead, arranging tasks within tasks in the pursuit of a goal no one but him could see until he chose to reveal it. He had been maneuvering Lucca instead of the other way around, and apparently Marle and Crono as well with their own activities prior to his coming clean. If Lucca hadn't trusted Doan so completely, his behavior would have been disconcerting.
“Don't be in such a rush, Marle,” she chided her friend, who had bounded well ahead of her to stand by a door framed with harsh crimson glow-bars at the end of the short passage. “This is more my show than yours. The last thing we need is for you to start touching things. I still have dark memories of my poor exploded Dragon Tank resting in pieces thanks to your driving.”
“The controls should have been simpler, then,” Marle replied with a smirk.
Lucca rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Keep making excuses, Tomboy.”
Crono snickered at the exchange but otherwise said nothing. After all, the way that whole business had gone down (literally in the case of Lucca's Dragon Tank) probably did them a favor.
The red hued door at the end of the passage slid open at a touch of a panel on the wall, and Marle led the way inside, followed by an apprehensive Lucca and Crono. No one really knew what to expect in here. Lucca hadn't seen so much as a still image of the inside of the archive.
The room was a lot smaller than she envisioned. Instead of a dozen-plus workstations lined up against each wall, like in the library rooms of the dormitories, this room only seemed to have five in total. Two computer stations sat empty along both the left and right walls, and one very large station dominated the wall in front of them, with a monitor screen at least four times the size of any Lucca had yet seen. In the center of the room was a surprising amount of empty space. So little equipment for a room so heavily restricted to access, Lucca thought, though the front wall might have been more computer than wall. The room was very dimly lit and quiet. A handful of tiny green lights shone from the computer casings, indicating the machines had power, but the monitors were currently dark from not being used. Lucca, Crono, and Marle, as Director Doan had promised, were completely alone inside the archive room. The door slid shut behind them.
“This is it?” Marle asked with a frown.
“Seems so,” Crono said. “That big screen up front looks important, but I was expecting more.”
“Maybe a central archive doesn't need to be bigger than this,” Lucca opined. “It's not like many people ever come in here.”
“Yeah, and I suddenly feel really cut off,” Marle said with a shiver. “It's so quiet in here it reminds me of being back in the ZDF facility.”
It was true, Lucca thought. The air had the stillness of a crypt. Maybe there was no ventilation right now because the computers weren't being used. That would probably change when she started turning things on, but the near absolute silence of this place was ominous. Perhaps that was appropriate for a storehouse of secret information. People needed to be intimidated of what they might find.
“Let's get busy, then,” Lucca said. “Idleness in a place this quiet will just lead us to focus on the negative, and I've had quite enough of that for one day. I'll start with the big machine and see what happens. You two just sit tight.”
A few probing taps at the central keyboard brought the big screen in the front of the room to life. On it was pasted a simple query in large green letters:
Select display mode: (S) Standard, (A) Advanced
“Well, this is easy,” Marle said, appearing next to Lucca all too quickly. “Just one press of a button and we're golden. I think we want the advanced stuff.”
Lucca started. “Hold on, let me think about this for just a...”
Marle tapped the “A” key before Lucca could say anything else.
The whole room plunged into pitch darkness.
“Marle! I told you not to touch anything!” Lucca barked.
“Did she shut it off?” Crono asked warily. “Please tell me she didn't just shut the room off.”
“No way!” Marle said. “I did exactly what it said. I pushed 'A', I know I did!”
“Blast you, Marle! I was going to press 'S' to get started!” Lucca said. “I don't even know what the 'advanced' display mode is supposed to do!”
“Maybe it's not working anymore,” Crono said. “Try pressing 'S' instead. Maybe it'll turn on the lights again.”
Lucca shrugged helplessly in the dark. “I can't see the keyboard now! If I hit the wrong button there's no telling what might happen! I might erase the whole archive by mistake!”
“That's ridiculous!” Marle said. “Who would design a computer like that?”
“I don't know, but with you in the room we can't rule anything out.”
“I just touched the one button! It's not my fault!”
“Says the one who was told not to touch anything!”
“Okay, let's not fight,” Crono said. “Let's just back out of the room and try turning on the lights from outside. If that doesn't work we can always ask Director Doan for help.”
I don't believe this, Lucca thought. One push of a button and things were already going wrong. Marle was a walking catastrophe when dealing with anything technological. She should have tied her up and left her in the granary.
Huffing with irritation, Lucca turned away from the main computer terminal and made her way back to the door with purpose. She almost smashed her nose against the cold steel of the door in her impatience and felt around the sides for the control to open it. And kept feeling. Everything was perfectly smooth, with no depression or protrusion anywhere within reach that could indicate a door control. Lucca was then suddenly conscious of what Director Doan had said about not having any listening devices inside the archive. No one would be coming to help any time soon.
A long moment of silence passed in the darkness.
“Are... you kidding me?” Crono said.
“I hate you, Marle,” Lucca grumbled.
“This isn't my fault!” the royal bane of technology pouted.
“The second worst day of my life somehow got worse.”
“This hasn't been a picnic for me, either!”
“If the world could be destroyed with the touch of a button, you would somehow find it!”
“Only because nothing ever makes sense! It shouldn't take a genius to use this stuff.”
“It doesn't, so what does that make...?”
“Oh, turn down the temperature, Lu,” Crono scolded. “This really isn't helping.”
No, it wasn't, Lucca was forced to admit. But it felt good to vent. She needed to release the pressure building up inside her, and if the hapless Marle was taken down a few notches in the process, so be it. Served her right for not doing what she was told for once. Lucca had never experienced so much emotional turmoil in the space of a single afternoon. Not for the past ten years, anyway. She could almost feel the heat of her own fury radiating from her skin.
I have to calm down. What would Frank say? There had to be a logical reason for Marle's button press to do what it did. She clearly saw Marle's finger push the 'A' key and nothing else. The computer's instructions had been clear enough. A simple binary choice made with one key or the other. Computer science didn't get more basic than that.
“If you know something that could help, Crono, I'm all ears. Not like my eyes are much use.”
“System initialization complete,” an unfamiliar voice suddenly intoned. “Advanced display mode enabled. Elevated power consumption authorized. Stand by.”
“What was that?” asked Marle uncertainly.
The next moment saw the darkness of the archive expelled as suddenly as it had fallen. Expelled and more. The room was now far brighter than it had been, and not in a way Lucca would have expected. The layout of the room had completely changed. The computer screens along the walls were just as dark as they had been a moment ago, but the center of the chamber was now filled with glowing numbers and letters and various icons hovering in mid-air. Hovering light. That was all. There were no screens. No physical objects of any kind to explain how the light was there. It simply was. In fact, the hovering lights accounted for all of the illumination now in the room. The glow-bars on the ceiling and the walls were not active as near as Lucca could tell. Only the formerly empty center was alive. The glowing symbols scattered all around were framed with shining squares, not unlike the window displays on regular computer screens. Lucca then realized that was exactly what she was seeing. What would have been displayed on the regular screens was instead being somehow projected into the air. Amazing!
“This is the 'advanced display mode'?” Crono asked in wonderment.
“Marle, I take it all back,” Lucca said numbly. “Just... don't touch anything else for awhile and let me wrap my head around all this.” The practical benefit of this kind of display was completely lost on Lucca, but at the moment she didn't really care. This was a discovery on par with that very first operational computer she had found in the generator room of the ZDF facility. Projecting light in this fashion was doubtless a gateway to other technologies Lucca could only begin to guess at. Was this representative of the level of technology the world possessed before the Day of Fire?
Predictably, Marle again ignored good sense and strode to where one of the window displays was hovering, putting her hand directly against the light.
Lucca shuddered. “Wait, Marle! You don't know what that will do to...”
“It's not going through!” Marle exclaimed. “My hand is resting against the light! Like there's actually something there! Crono, come see! Come see!”
Gaping, Crono did so, followed immediately behind by Lucca. The time-travelers each placed their hands against the air where the displays were floating. Some kind of force was resisting their attempts to push through it. Not quite like a solid object. It was more like a telekinetic barrier similar to what Yakra had used against them in the middle-ages, the force giving way slightly to Lucca's touch and tingling against her skin. But this was technological, not magical. Following a hunch, Lucca suddenly discovered a practical use for the floating display by pressing her hand flat against one of the glowing windows and moving her arm to the side. The window of light followed her motion, moving aside several feet before Lucca pulled her hand away. The display stayed where she left it, and Lucca then eagerly reached for another, moving it up and then moving it down, pushing it left and then pushing it steadily to the right until it began rolling inward as if on an invisible circular track, smoothly shifting its position to the point where the window was facing directly toward where Lucca had first started manipulating the display. Lucca found herself laughing with delight, while a no less jubilant Marle was bringing up and moving window after window with Crono's help until the whole center of the classified archive was ringed with glowing mid-air displays. Lucca then discovered that many of the floating letters around them weren't merely for display, but were actually part of floating keyboards of light where commands could be inputted just like the keyboard of any regular computer.
Regular computer. Listen to me! I've known this stuff for less than a month, and already I'm thinking the machines I learned from are obsolete!
“This is incredible!” Marle said, sharing the thought they all had. “It's like being in the Guardian Archives back home, but without all the books and scrolls. With these windows spread around we could research dozens of topics at once! I'm betting we could find anything with this device!”
“Let's start with just one question,” Crono suggested. “Better not to run until we learn how to walk. We'd make better use of our time.”
“Good idea,” Lucca agreed. “We keep it simple. We choose the one query we've all wondered about since coming to the enclave, see what we find, and then move on from there. Might as well start with the most taboo thing there is to ask.”
“I can do that,” Marle said, placing herself behind one of the floating keyboards. She typed the name of the desired topic into the search bar - “The Day of Fire” – and hit “enter”. A response immediately appeared on the hovering screen in front of them:
Did you mean “The Day of Lavos?” Y/N
Lucca blinked at the computer's answer. This was something new. “Lavos” was a word she had never heard before. Not from anyone, not even Frank. The regular computer network made no mention of the name, either. Strange that such an important event would be remembered by a completely different name, even after 300 years. It could have been a mistake, but Lucca doubted it. The word was buried in this classified archive for a reason.
Marle made the decision without being asked. She hit the “Y” key.
The archive room again went completely dark, the remnants of the displays burning for a fleeting moment in Lucca's retinas as an indistinctive green haze.
“Hey, what's going on?!” Marle complained. “What happened to all the displays?”
Lucca sighed. “Only you, Marle.”
“Oh, no. This is not my fault! You're not pinning it on me this time, Lucca!”
“What's the common denominator here? Me? You're the one who typed in everything.”
“Oh, calm down, Lu,” Crono chided. “The room turned back on again on its own before. It'll probably do it again.”
“Maybe,” Lucca conceded. “I guess a simple yes/no question is something even Marle couldn't mess up, but I don't know why else everything would go dark all of a...”
“System initialization complete,” the unfamiliar male voice again intoned. “Holo-interactive display mode enabled for query Day of Lavos. Grade one classification. Begin program.”
“See? Told you it wasn't my fault,” Marle said with satisfaction. “The lights should be coming on again right about...”
Lucca, Crono, and Marle suddenly found themselves floating thousands of feet off the ground, the glorious sheen of a colossal dome-like structure shining far below through wisps of cloud.
“Wha, wha, wha?!” Crono cried out, waving his hands.
Marle gaped. “How did we end up above the...?!”
“Creation, what has this thing done?!” Lucca shrilled.
A brief moment of sheer terror at the prospect of a long and terminal fall was quickly replaced by the realization they were all still standing on their own feet and not falling at all. Like something out of a dream, or an exceptionally powerful illusion generated through magic. This cloud-scraping new environment wasn't real. It was just another projection of light, this one all-encompassing. The walls and the floor were completely transparent now. None of them could tell through sight where the floor was. That they were standing and felt no motion was the only evidence they were still inside the classified archive. Lucca had to remind herself to breathe. All of her research into the history of this time-period hadn't given her even an inkling that the power of science and technology could create imagery so seamless. It was far and away more advanced than anything Lucca had seen in this ruined future.
But the environment displayed below them (how did the floor become transparent?) was far from ruined. The domed city under their feet was pristine, the massive steel superstructure and glassed panels of the dome glittering in the noon-time sun. To their surprise there was also a fair bit of green to be seen, large patches of verdancy spiraling out from the base of the dome indicative of growing foliage, challenging and pushing back the wastes. It was a reflection of a world that was beginning to revive from the terrible scars inflicted on it by the horrors of atomic war. This was an image of the world before the Day of Fire, or rather the Day of Lavos, whatever that was.
“Is that... Bangor?” Marle asked breathlessly.
“No, the terrain is all wrong,” Lucca said. Bangor was in the middle of the Tarvor mountain range, nestled into a valley. This city was on the eastern edge of an expansive plain, and with an ocean only a few miles further to the east. It was a topography she knew fairly well from personal experience, though it looked very different in this time period. “I think it's Arris Dome. See how big the structure is at the base? That's about thirty miles in diameter, and Arris is the only dome that comes close to being that size. We're looking at modern-day Medina, here. The far east of the continent to be exact.”
“Medina, are you sure?” Crono asked uncertainly. “Most of Medina is covered by endless swamp. Thousands of square miles of muck. I'm not seeing any swamps here.”
“A casualty of the great war. The global climate was radically changed by the detonation of all those atomic weapons. The wetlands all dried up within a generation according to enclave records.”
“But why are we seeing Arris instead of Bangor?” asked Marle. “What is the computer trying to show us?”
Lucca threw her bespectacled gaze all around from where she hung in the “air”. The only abnormal thing she could see was some glowing text below and to her right, just like the projected lettering they had seen moments before. It was a time stamp that read: August 7th, 1999 – 12:36 hours. The seconds of the digital clock ticked by as the great city of Arris lie peacefully below them.
12:37 shattered the idyllic skyscape.
It began with a rolling undulation of the barren plains west of the city; a series of waves not unlike what one would see on an ocean surface. Waves on land. It was said that earthquakes of catastrophic strength could produce such an effect; quakes of a magnitude many hundreds of times greater than anything that had been recorded in human history. Purely theoretical, and yet Lucca was seeing the science play out in real time over the Arris wastes, her present vantage point above the clouds allowing her vision across hundreds of miles.
The effects of the land waves on Arris Dome were immediate when the first one hit. Glass panels exploded into glittering mist, and the massive girders giving the dome its shape visibly quaked and bent under the fury of angered earth. What the people underneath that dome were experiencing Lucca could not tell at this distance, but her mind's eye conveyed the tale well enough. People were thrown to the ground. Buildings swayed beyond their tolerances. Pipes snapped. Furniture tumbled. Voices cried out in terror. The passage of a few seconds proved the inevitable result of such seismic rage. Several skyscrapers within the buckling dome lost the battle with nature and collapsed into their own foundations, a few others toppling over to crash into other buildings - which themselves collapsed shortly thereafter. Forty seconds of rebelling earth was all it took to reduce the community of Arris Dome, the largest of the six domed cities and the breadbasket of the post-war world, into a tottering ruin. Much of the dome's glass had simply vanished, and the shape of the dome itself was visibly warped from what it had been at 12:36 hours.
12:38 was worse.
A flash rivaling the brilliance of the sun shone from somewhere far to the north. An explosion. The following moments transformed the distant blast into a work of searing art that dominated the whole northern vista. Fury and flame was carved into the form of a mushroom, and concentric rings of light radiated outward from the fiery fungal core, daring nature to produce a more awe-inspiring sight. At first Lucca thought she knew what it was. Many such explosions wracked the world 700 years ago when human civilization blasted itself into a funeral pyre, and a few images of these conflagrations yet remained in the enclave's records. It was a nuclear blast, more commonly known as a “mushroom cloud” due to its shape. But something was different about this one. The base of the explosion was hidden by the curvature of the earth, and Lucca estimated from her position that the blast had to be about 400 miles out. Four-hundred miles! For the explosion to appear so large at that distance meant it was a calamity quite outside anyone's experience, including during the war. A moment's continued staring at the towering sight revealed the flaming visage was joined by what appeared to be boulders, blowing out and away from where the explosion originated. At this distance those “boulders” had to be the size of small mountains. Even the most powerful nuclear weapon known to have been made couldn't have produced destructive power of that magnitude. It was like dozens of square miles of earth had been violently expelled from the surface as if from an erupting volcano. A distant part of Lucca's mind said that it followed from the calamitous earthquake that had just devastated Arris Dome. The two events stemmed from the same root cause, somehow.
The records said the domes were attacked, Lucca thought, but this has all the markings of a natural disaster of some sort. What could this mean?
The three time-travelers looked on the distant scene in stunned silence. Likely, the survivors in Arris Dome were too preoccupied with the damage from the earthquake to appreciate the destructive spectacle unfolding north of the city.
That would be changing all too quickly.
“The shockwave,” Lucca muttered breathlessly. “It's going to be traveling much faster than the speed of sound from an explosion that massive. I think it could...”
The clock ticked to 12:39.
Lucca could see it now. The atmosphere in the distance was becoming visibly distorted from the rapid changes in air pressure, and a giant cloud of water vapor and dust then appeared over the horizon, quickly scouring the land and skies north of Arris Dome. A storm front of unspeakable destructive power was about to come down on eastern Medina, with wind speeds of thousands of miles per hour at the least.
The dome of Arris would have struggled to turn aside that atmospheric hammer blow even at full structural strength, Lucca knew. As it now was, it would have no chance whatsoever. Only seconds of life remained to it.
Marle shuddered at the rapidly approaching shockwave and stepped into Crono's protective grasp on instinct. Crono looked at Lucca uneasily.
“Uh, Lucca? Are we gonna be okay?” he asked.
“It's just sight and sound,” Lucca replied, trying to sound sure of herself. “Otherwise we'd be freezing up here. The wave's not going to hurt us. Probably.”
The time-travelers all grabbed hold of one another anyway, turning away from the wall of tempestuous doom. It overcame Arris right at 12:40.
Lucca, Crono, and Marle remained alive without a hair on their heads put out of place.
The dome of Arris ceased to exist.
It had simply disintegrated on contact. The entire combined structure was ripped away from its foundations and then floundered into thousands of hundred foot long pieces of steel kindling as the shockwave blasted through. The city within fared no better. Already weakened by the earthquake, Arris' remaining structures crumbled. Much of the remnants didn't even come to rest within the boundaries of where the dome had stood. It was all swept away far to the south and east, the sea of Medina's eastern shore embracing not a small share in its watery grasp.
“By Creation, what a disaster!” Marle sobbed. Millions of the giant city's inhabitants had to have died in that moment alone.
Arris barely even qualified as a ruin now. No remaining structure that Lucca could see was even four stories tall. It had been obliterated even more completely than Bangor had been.
And the calamity wasn't even over.
What happened in the following minutes could not by any stretch have been called a natural disaster. Whether it had been directly related to the catastrophes that hit Arris earlier, Lucca couldn't say. The effect was absolute regardless. Orange raindrops fell from the sky, each a glowing arrow of death that exploded on impact. Hundreds, then thousands, then a full deluge; a blazing cacophony of destruction that blasted across the corpse of Arris without mercy. Mushroom clouds of smaller scope than the first erupted all over the remains of the city. These were the anti-matter weapons spoken of in the information Lucca already knew; essentially small-scale weapons of mass destruction, similar to atomics, that left behind no radiation. It was a direct attack, no question. But what was the source of the attack? What was the motive?
“No way that can be a coincidence,” Crono said darkly, regarding the burning embers of the city. “Whoever launched that attack knew that Arris couldn't possibly defend itself from it. Not after those 'natural' disasters. They either knew Arris would be hit, or they had a direct hand in creating those disasters. I'm thinking the whole thing was deliberate.”
Lucca closed her eyes. “Yeah. Most likely,” she said. The logic fit, anyway.
“Who?” Marle whimpered. “Who would have done this?”
The clock advanced to 12:45, and the archive room at that moment returned to darkness, blessedly banishing the imagery that Lucca knew would give her nightmares for a very long time.
“Record one for Day of Lavos query complete,” sounded the synthetic voice out of the darkness. “Initializing projectors. Do you wish to continue to record two?”
Lucca thought back to the Guardian machine at the ZDF facility, and how the giant proto-robot had voice recognition functionality. Of course the most advanced tech of the domes-era would have that as well. “Yes,” she said.
A short time later, the archive room again came alive with the projected movable displays they had played with before the Arris presentation. Lucca wondered at that. She was half expecting another full immersion of some kind. Then she and the others all did double takes. There were other people in the room now! All five workstations in the archive were now operable and manned with users. When did they get here?
“Uh, hello?” Lucca called out uncertainly. “I thought the three of us were supposed to be alone in here. Did we do something wrong with the archive?” She didn't think they had. They had put very few commands into the system, after all.
The Operators didn't respond, and a moment's confusion from Lucca evolved into sudden understanding when she saw what the new occupants were wearing. Blue on white uniforms. High-quality uniforms. The enclave no longer had any clothing like that. Everyone except Lucca, Crono, and Marle wore drab beige pull-overs pretty much all the time. Bangor didn't have the resources to make anything better.
The operators were themselves projections. This second record of the Day of Lavos was also a full immersion experience, of a sort. These must have been the people manning the computers on the day the age of the domes came to a sudden and tragic end. They had been in this very room, sitting and working exactly where they were now displayed. Lucca stood over the shoulder of the man working the large main computer, taking note of the data scrolling across his viewscreen. On the man's right breast was a nametag that read “Stafford”.
“Director,” a young woman at one of the left-hand computers said. “Update from Geno. They're feeling it, too. Magnitude 2.9 from where they are. No reports of damage, but they're continuing to monitor.”
“It can't be the same tremor,” the male operator next to her pointed out. “Not for this long. It has to be part of a swarm.”
“A swarm from what?” the woman countered. “There are no fault lines anywhere close to Geno. And the nearest volcano's over 700 kilometers away. It has to be something else.”
The man named Stafford, presumably “Director” Stafford, typed some quick commands into his keyboard and turned to his right.
“Talk to me, Kate,” he said tensely. “Confirm the Arris disturbance began at 12:33:57.”
“Twelve thirty-three five-seven, yes sir,” the dark-skinned woman replied in a clipped professional tone. “Proto and Trann also confirm. Their seismic disturbances began at the same time.”
Stafford shook his head in bewilderment. “And still no data-link from Keepers?”
“No, sir,” the man next to the other woman said. “Their comms officer says all is well, that Control's just implementing a patch to their mainframe. If they're feeling this at all, they can't tell with their seismics offline.”
“It makes no sense, Mike,” the man next to Kate said to the Director. “Keepers is closer to Arris than we are. Even without seismics, they ought to be feeling something.”
“Assuming it's the same disturbance,” the first man said. “Could just be simultaneous quakes in different regions.”
“At the exact same time?” the first woman said incredulously. “And felt from here all the way to Geno now? There has to be a singular cause.”
“What do you think, Sarah?” the man next to Kate asked. Lucca got a closer look at his nametag. It read “Radan”. “Could it be a shift in the planet's magnetic field?”
Sarah shook her head. “There's no indication of that. I'm getting some pretty weird magnetic readings right now, but a full-on polarity shift would have given us a lot more warning than this. And why is Arris feeling it so bad when Medina has no history of seismic activity in the east?”
“Let's stay focused, people,” Stafford interjected. “Concentrate on what we actually know. What's the current magnitude on the Arris disturbance?”
“Magnitude 6.8 and continuing to climb,” Kate said, looking increasingly uneasy. Lucca saw the woman reach for something on her right ear, a device perhaps, and adjusted the fit. “They're... getting pretty spooked over there, sir. The whole city is shaking, and there are numerous internal damage reports coming over the comms. They just passed the two-minute mark.”
Two minutes of continuous shaking without a break, Lucca thought. And that in a completely enclosed city with buildings towering hundreds of stories in the air. “Spooked” didn't even begin to describe what those people must have been thinking at the time.
Stafford looked grim. “What's the tolerance of their dome, Radan?”
“Seven-point-five, in theory,” Radan said. “Same as ours. Personally, I don't think it can take that much. No dome has ever been tested beyond 7.0, even in simulations. I wouldn't guarantee full integrity past 7.2.”
The Director nodded curtly and tapped at his keyboard with purpose. “Kate, put me on live with Keepers, please. Council directive priority. Request instructions.”
“Yes, sir.” Kate's eyes suddenly went wide as the words came out of her mouth. “Uh, correction! Negative! Red light on the comm link to Keepers Dome, Director! We've lost them! Attempting to re-establish contact!”
Stafford's neck snapped back around in puzzlement. “Who dropped the link? Us or them?”
“Them, sir. We've got green lights across the board. They just stopped transmitting.”
Radan scowled. “First their mainframes, now their radios? What the blazes is going on over there?”
“It doesn't matter,” Stafford said evenly. “The protocol is clear. I'm invoking emergency order thirteen. We're at the top of the queue. Bangor assumes advisory authority until contact with Keepers is re-established. Objections?”
All four of Stafford's subordinates answered negative.
“Very good. Kate, put me on live with Arris.” Kate nodded her head at him after a brief moment, indicating Bangor was ready to transmit. “Arris Dome, Bangor. Advise: contact with Keepers is lost. Recommend go for code red until further notice. Respond if able.”
Crono and Marle strode up to where Lucca was standing, looking almost as tense as the projected operators around them. “What's going on?” Crono asked her.
“A code red is, was, an emergency declaration invoked when it's believed a dome breach is imminent,” Lucca said, thinking back to her historical studies. “It's supposed to sound a general alarm all over the city so that people can begin evacuating to the emergency shelters. Keepers Dome had advisory authority over the other domes, so they were usually the ones to give emergency orders if they thought the danger was great enough. Bangor was the next dome in line to assume this role if something happened.”
“Code red is confirmed, Bangor,” came a panicked voice from Stafford's computer screen after a discomforting moment of silence. “We declared it ourselves thirty seconds ago. The seismic disturbance is continuing to grow in strength. We still don't know why. We're also picking up another disturbance. Just now. Very deep. Somewhere north of us. Can't tell much else with all this...”
“Energy spike!” came a second voice, a woman, from the Arris transmission. Her tone was of abject terror. “We have an energy spike confirmed forty-two kilometers west of the outer boundary! It's... it's magnitude eleven!”
The five projections of Bangor's classified archive, and apparently the city's former control room, all stared at each other, stunned.
“That's impossible!” Radan said.
“Magnitude eleven is... confirmed,” Sarah said in disbelief, analyzing her computer. “Seismic wave will reach Arris in...”
“Richard, get your people into cover!” Stafford said urgently into his pickup. “I'm invoking emergency order one! Bangor and the other domes will render all possible assistance. Just save as many people as you can! We'll be there!”
“Creation save us all...” the voice from Arris remarked, barely audible.
Lucca's shoulders sagged. Creation would not be saving many this day.
“I want sat images on Arris, now!” Stafford barked. “And ask the other domes if they have any data about a second disturbance north of Arris. We need to know what's happening here!”
The projected operators all shifted in their seats as if they had felt something just now. Lucca felt nothing. She guessed it was a tremor that the projectors of light and sound around her couldn't simulate.
“That was a 4.7, Director,” said the operator next to Sarah, a slender youth by the name of Gann. “A point-three increase from a moment ago. They're getting worse.”
“Thousands of calls coming in for Protector assistance from Geshar District,” Kate said. “Injuries reported. Trams are being halted. And Colonel Blasue is requesting a status update. Do we go code yellow?”
Stafford looked torn, clearly not wanting to start a panic in Bangor by sounding an alarm. The city was very densely populated in the year 1999, more so than any of the other domes, so a panicked population here would result in considerable harm to life and property. In the end, Stafford hesitated for only a heartbeat.
“Code yellow is confirmed,” the Director said reluctantly. “Grade three citizens to collect emergency stores and report to shelter. Do it by the book. Necessities only. We don't know how bad this will get.”
Lucca shuddered as the other four operators relayed and carried out Stafford's orders. She already knew. And in just a few seconds...
“Arris Dome is breached!” Sarah exclaimed. “Massive damage to all structural members!”
“Confirmed direct hit on Arris! Magnitude eleven earthquake!” said Radan.
“Comm lines to Arris are down!” said Kate.
“Seismic sensors from Arris just went offline!” Gann reported.
Stafford's face fell. “Give me a visual, please.”
The large viewscreen above Stafford's workstation switched to an overhead view of the city of Arris. The devastation displayed was identical to what Lucca had witnessed earlier, just on a flat surface. The farmlands dominating the western half of the domed community, which fed a sizable portion of humanity's population even outside of Arris, were fully exposed to the outside air, with very few of the dome's protective glassed panels remaining unbroken. The reflection of the sun on the superstructure itself was also broken, bouncing off the steel on odd vectors to conform to the dome's misshapen new mould. The dome's interior was no less changed from the seismic event, Arris' silvery spires and curving transitways now diminished into tarnished and shattered hulks of metal, with not a few structures being noticeably shorter than they were mere moments ago. Arris now more closely resembled the bombed out metropolises of the previous age. The work of three-hundred years was erased in under a minute.
“Oh, Creation...” the Director muttered. “How will we even begin to...”
“What was that?!”
Stafford and the others all turned to Sarah's astonished cry. “What was what, Sarah?”
“A massive energy spike was just detected by our satellites!” she said. “Estimated location: 650 kilometers north of Arris!”
“In the middle of the Tylair Ocean?” Radan frowned. “What could possibly...?”
“Nuclear!” Gann exclaimed. “We have a nuclear explosion at coordinates 41 degrees north, by 35 degrees east!”
That roughly corresponded to the location operator Sarah had just mentioned, Lucca thought. And where Lucca herself estimated that titanic explosion she witnessed moments ago had originated.
“That's not possible,” Radan said flatly. “Nuclear weapons are banned by treaty! No one has even used nuclear power in centuries!”
“There's nothing else it could be,” Gann countered, sounding faint. “The explosive yield is in the... gigaton range.”
“Gigaton?!” Kate blurted. “No nuclear weapon has ever been that strong!”
“Correction!” Sarah interjected, furiously working her computer. “Radiological reading is negative! It's not nuclear!”
“What is it?” Stafford demanded.
Sarah kept shaking her head, apparently struggling to accept what the data was showing her.
“It's... an undersea volcanic eruption,” she finally said, turning to Stafford. “Centered about 500 meters under the surface. Sir, it erupted with a force of eight-thousand megatons!”
“That can't be right,” Radan said, blinking with disbelief. “At 41 north by 35 east? There's no volcano there.”
“There is now.”
To his credit, Director Stafford seemed less concerned with what caused the explosion than with what the explosion meant. He knew what was coming. Even five-hundred meters depth of sea water couldn't mitigate the effects of an 8,000 megaton explosion by any meaningful measure. Not for the nearest city. Arris Dome would get slammed by a shockwave as if from a multi-gigaton explosion on the surface, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Yet, for a split-second Lucca thought she saw something else in the Director's grim countenance. Was it... recognition?
“Give me a visual on that location,” Stafford grated furiously.
The viewscreen above Stafford's workstation then shifted to a scene straight out of hell itself. The ocean floor was on fire. Only it wasn't the ocean floor anymore. The waters of the Tylair Ocean were nowhere in evidence. The great sea north of the continent of Medina... simply wasn't there anymore. The shockwave from the cataclysmic eruption had carried it all away, and was still carrying it away; a ring of destruction expanding ever outward in ravenous hunger, turning all to mist and ash in its ferocity. Lucca stared at the epicenter of the evolving catastrophe feeling numb, her natural curiosity feeling as if it came from someone else's mind. She couldn't tell much from what she was seeing. The vantage point of the satellite was from low orbit of the planet, quite a bit higher from where she, Crono, and Marle had witnessed Arris Dome's destruction further south. But one thing did strike her as odd. Instead of seeing a caldera full of erupting lava, as there certainly should be after what had just happened, there was darkness. A large patch of darkness in the middle of the ocean floor's smoldering ruin. From the scale of the image, the patch looked to be at least as wide as Arris Dome itself. Something was blocking the caldera that had to be there from view, but what?
“Those fools,” Stafford said, so quietly that only Lucca, standing next to him, could hear. “Those Creation-cursed fools!”
“Mike? The shockwave,” Radan reminded him with soft urgency. “It's going to hit Arris in...”
“There's nothing we can do for them now,” the Director said simply, regaining a small measure of composure. “Kate, open a general channel. Broadcast in the clear. All domes. All vehicles in transit.” He paused to take a breath. “Code magenta.”
Radan, Sarah, Kate, and Gann all gasped.
“Sir... you can't mean...” Kate began.
“I said magenta! Now!”
The dark-skinned operator let out an audible sob as she bent to her task. The others turned to their workstations stoically without another word.
“What does that mean, Lucca?” Marle asked. “What's 'code magenta'?”
Lucca closed her eyes. “The order no one ever wants to hear,” she said. “It's for a doomsday scenario that threatens the entire planet, like an asteroid strike or something. Even in our era it was theorized that a giant asteroid struck the planet in prehistoric times, causing mass extinctions and altering the entire geography of the world. Such an event would shatter all of the domes and expose every resident to varying degrees of radiation. The leaders of the domes planned for every contingency, even the most unlikely. Code magenta was an order to seal off all emergency shelters in the domes and for everyone to shelter in place wherever they were. For anyone not in a protected environment it was the next best thing to a death sentence. No aid of any kind would be expected or given until the order was lifted, and that might not happen for weeks or months after the event.” She looked glumly at the projected man next to her. “Director Stafford just condemned everyone who wasn't already in the shelters to die. Everywhere.”
Marle threw her arms wide in anger. “But... why? I understand it was too late for Arris, but the other domes were much further away from that explosion. The people should have had more time to evacuate!”
“They didn't have it. You saw what happened in Arris. The anti-matter attacks struck almost immediately after the shockwave passed through. And we know from enclave records that those attacks struck all of the domes at almost exactly the same time, irrespective of where that giant shockwave was.”
Crono nodded at the obvious implications. “He knew. This wasn't just about a natural disaster. He knew what was coming as soon as he saw that image from the eruption site.”
“You noticed that, too? Yeah, he definitely knew something. The question is why.”
“No, the question is who!” Marle countered. “And where! Where did these attacks come from? And how do they relate to that volcanic eruption in the sea?”
The three time-travelers looked on as the five projections from the past continued with their work, wearing expressions that ranged from sullen to despairing. Kate and Sarah were both weeping openly. The room then started shaking, and terrified screams began sounding through the communication lines to Bangor's surface and the remaining domes. The anti-matter attacks had started.
Director Stafford gazed defiantly at the image on his viewscreen, his dark eyes spearing the patch of black at the center of the devastated former seascape.
“Lavos...” he said.
The classified archive then went dark once more.
“Record two for Day of Lavos query complete,” the synthesized voice said from all around the time-travelers, standing in the dark. “Initializing projectors. Do you wish to continue to record three?”
Lavos. The long-dead Director Stafford uttered the word as an oath. Or perhaps a curse. Lucca wasn't sure what it meant, but it was undoubtedly important. The worst day in the history of the human race was given that name for a reason. A reason long forgotten. “The Day of Fire” was telling enough, and it related the tale accurately to a point. All was razed with fire and worse. So why replace “Fire” with “Lavos”?
The answers would probably come with another word spoken into the dark. Lucca, Crono, and Marle all spoke it together this time. “Yes!”
Naked ocean then surrounded them in all directions, the water's surface shining calmly far below where they hovered in the sky. Lucca, Crono, and Marle were at a height that birds would have considered bold, roughly the same height they were at when they had witnessed the annihilation of Arris, Lucca estimated. Clouds were scattered about in various hues of silver and gray, the beginnings of a thunderstorm beginning to take shape some distance to the west, but nothing thick enough to mar the radiant beauty of an ocean in the trailing weeks of summer. The vista was really the only normal thing the three of them had seen since coming to the year 2300. A skilled artist would certainly have taken the opportunity to sketch something here. It was worthy of a postcard at the very least.
They all knew it wouldn't last.
The first sign came from the water's surface about forty miles to the east. Ripples began to spread from where Crono suddenly pointed, as though someone had tossed a pebble into a pond as viewed from a more normal vantage point. From where Lucca hung, she knew the ripples were about as high as the deck of a Guardian frigate. It didn't take long for the waves to eclipse the height of the figurative ship's mainmast, and half-again as long to reach the height of two frigates stacked end-to-end. In any normal seismic event, tsunamis of this strength might drown port cities as large as Truce.
The volcano of Tylair Ocean was just getting started.
“It's coming,” Crono said grimly.
The entire ocean was churning when the three time-travelers turned away from the epicenter and held each other tightly enough to bruise. Lucca knew it wouldn't make any difference where they were concerned, but none of them had the heart to look at something they knew would vaporize their bodies in a split-second if this were real.
And in the next instant the three of them were surrounded by nature gone berserk.
The entire ocean erupted beneath them. Water was turned to mist. Mist was burned away by a titanic inferno. And the titanic inferno raced away from where the three time-travelers hovered as if challenging the speed of thunder itself. The loudness of the calamity was too much even for their covered ears to endure without pain, and Lucca knew the sound projectors of the Bangor archive were generating only the barest fraction of what the real-life event must have. The sound waves alone wouldn't have been survivable at this range, or very likely even a thousand miles away. No eardrum in Arris outside of its underground would have remained unruptured after the shockwave hit, if anyone were still alive to lament the loss of their hearing.
Lucca shivered where she hung. The sheer explosive intensity of this eruption was difficult for even her mind to fully grasp. It probably rivaled the impact of that asteroid strike said to have occurred in prehistoric times. Certainly the world had never experienced anything like it between then and now.
There was something else.
A shadow. A sound. Lucca's brain couldn't contemplate what it was, turned away from where the eruption had unleashed its fury. But it felt... wrong. Vile. Alien, even. Something that wasn't supposed to be, but was.
Lucca turned around. They all did.
What Lucca saw did nothing to expand her understanding beyond the fact that it was wrong. It was impossible. A nightmare come to life from a dream no one alive or dead could possibly have experienced.
It was... gargantuan.
That compared to any city. Any mountain. Any single object short of the moon Lucca could conceive.
It roared.
That was the only word Lucca could think of. The marrow of her bones quaked. Her skin froze. The piercing of her soul was absolute. She cried out, but none could hear. Somehow the screech of this impossible horror was more intense than the eruption that produced it had been, and she couldn't look away.
It was alive.
A mountain. Alive.
The... creature, for lack of a better term, was ovoid in shape, lying flat where it rested on the sea floor, apparently blocking the molten volcanic passage it had emerged from. Cooling lava hissed against the creature's dark green shell, its giant spines evidencing no injury or damage from its violent subterranean expulsion. The spines were the creature's most distinctive feature. There were hundreds of them; smaller spines to its front and center, larger further out and to the rear, each extending diagonally outward from the center mass in a thick shaft and tapering in a subtle wicked curve to end in a sharp point. Below the ovoid body was a set of stunted mandibles apparently intended for crawling, as if something of this size could even think of moving. And in the dead center of the monstrous thing's base was a three-pronged beak that appeared to serve as an orifice for feeding. A mouth. To feed on what, Lucca could only draw a blank. All of the organic matter in the world, from her time, mind, wouldn't feed this thing for a day.
The scale of it was beyond belief. The closest thing it resembled was a beetle; a beetle with spines that were as far across as the entirety of Bangor Dome – over twenty miles. It dwarfed even Arris Dome in its totality. This was the shadow seen by Director Stafford on his satellite feed. This, apparently, was the cause of the eruption that signaled the beginning of the end for the six domes of humanity. With no active volcano to account for this thing's being here, there was no other logical explanation. It emerged from the earth because it could, not because it was forced.
A creature living underground. A creature that lava couldn't hurt. A creature that could generate gigatons of kinetic energy and come through completely intact. What in Creation was it?
Lucca, Crono, and Marle were at a loss for words staring at this calamity from the deep, only able to shudder from where they stood in the simulated sky. The clouds were gone, as was the ocean. There was nothing at all to diminish the terrifying majesty of this supreme horror of the earth.
And then the fire began anew.
It wasn't at all like the colossal explosion that marked the beast's coming. The fire came in streams from “tiny” orifices along the creature's many spines, almost like pores, appearing from Lucca's vantage point as fireflies would, and like insects, coalesced into swarms that then flew away on several different vectors at a high rate of speed. One of the swarms was headed almost directly south.
In the direction of Arris.
“No!” Crono cried, giving voice to Lucca's fear the moment the thought registered. “Are they...?!”
The environment then completely changed, and Lucca, Crono, and Marle were again over Arris Dome. Or what was left of it. The dome had already been thoroughly ripped from its foundations and torn to pieces from the shockwave that had just passed through the city. The time-travelers looked north, already knowing what they would see. The glowing embers of the “fireflies” were approaching out of the northern sky and then descended without pity. Explosion after furious anti-matter explosion rocked the already dead city and reduced the pitiful remnants to little more than dust. That the Arris underground had survived even this to become an enclave of survivors was astonishing, but it didn't take away from the spiny behemoth's destructive, and plainly vindictive, rampage.
The environment shifted again, and the time-travelers now hovered over a third locale. A domed city at one with an old mountainous valley, the apex of its proud dome standing vigil among the clouds. Bangor.
Embers of doom came out of the eastern stratosphere and descended on the helpless dome at a near vertical angle. The glass and steel was no obstacle. Clear panels vaporized on impact. Beams of the thickest metal broke and buckled. The city below blossomed in a blazing hearth of carnage. In two minutes it was all over. Bangor's skeleton remained, unlike Arris, but it was a city just as dead as the other. None on the surface survived.
“Stop!” Marle pleaded. “Please, just stop!”
Shift.
A comparatively small city, Proto Dome, located in old Guardia's far northwest not far from Crono's original hometown, was the next to die. Its dome melted from the merciless assault before the people within could stop screaming. Three million souls were lost inside a minute and a half, in addition to the ten million who had died in Arris, and the fourteen that had fallen in Bangor.
Shift.
Geno Dome, the most remote community of great war survivors, with arguably the toughest and most resilient people in the post-war world, fared no better than the other cities. Geno met its end barely five minutes after Arris. As many millions more joined the ranks of the dead, bringing the total body count to thirty-two million.
“No... I can't watch any more!” Marle buried her face in Crono's chest, choking up from evident tears.
Shift.
Trann Dome, situated just off the southern part of the giant Denadoro mountain range in South Zenan, was next on the spiny mass-murderer's hit list. The mountains would have provided no cover had they been closer. Another ninety seconds and done. Another seven million added to the casualties.
“Okay, we get the point,” Lucca muttered quietly.
Shift.
Keepers Dome was all that remained of human civilization, the one dome to be situated on the far eastern continent of Gendis. Nine million people called this place home, along with the administrators who kept the domed human civilization running and free of conflict. For three-hundred years the “Keepers” had kept the peace. Humankind had somehow overcome its violent and self-destructive nature only to now be brought low by something that wasn't human at all. For a moment all was calm. The rain of anti-matter had not yet come, and Lucca wondered why. Keepers Dome, according to the testimony of the Bangor underground operators Lucca had observed a short bit ago, seemed to have suffered strange and unexpected systems failures in the minutes preceding the arrival of the green-shelled destroyer. She couldn't say whether that had anything to do with Keepers Dome's increased lifespan, but in the end it didn't matter. The dome was shattered. The nine million living within were slain. And the last real human civilization had come to an end. Between the six cities, less than five-thousand human beings had survived.
It was an extinction-level event. Enertron technology had allowed humanity to survive and modestly increase its numbers over the subsequent three-hundred years, but that same technology demanded by the destruction of the old civilization ensured the destruction of the new, so the underlying cause was the same. That unspeakably large creature with the spines had effectively killed everyone. Only those not cursed to have been born in this era, like Lucca and her friends, still had a full life to live and a future to pass on. A tragedy beyond comprehension.
Shift.
The giant creature of the spines was once again before them. The fire was ended. The roars had stopped. The shockwave of its coming was well past. All was now quiet.
“Why?” Crono asked. A single word carrying so many emotions, and Lucca wasn't really sure how to answer it. The same single-word question battered her own brain.
“I don't know, Crono,” she told him. “I just... don't know.”
* * *
Marle forced herself to look through her exhausted eyes at the giant murdering beast that had burned away the last vestiges of human civilization. She thought she had cried herself out this afternoon after hearing the tale of certain doom from Lucca about the enertrons. Mary. Director Doan. Chieko Vals. Stephan Morris. Her fellow Protectors Terrence, Andrews, and Menda, who she had accompanied on numerous scavenging runs in the ruins, among many other capable fighters. Even Amelia Evans, annoying as she was. She had come to feel responsible for all of them, cared for them as she might have cared for the people of her own kingdom, had her father only allowed it and given her wings to fly. She was wrong. Tears came for these people anew. Now she knew it was not really the enertrons that had robbed her fellow enclave citizens of their future. It was the thing she was looking at now. Glorious and terrible. A monster from the depths of hell.
A monster that also had a name, if Marle didn't miss her guess.
“It has to be intelligent,” Lucca was saying. “Its attacks were deliberate and absolute. It knew exactly where to strike. No way was it done on some primal instinct.”
“And it has advanced weaponry,” Crono pointed out grimly. “If nuclear weapons aren't products of nature, I doubt those anti-matter things are any different. They had to have been made by a knowing mind, even if that mind is something we don't understand.”
“I agree. So we're looking at something malevolent here. I think it might be...”
“Lavos,” Marle said. “That's what this is. What the 'Day of Fire' was really named for, before it was all forgotten.”
Lucca nodded solemnly. “Lavos. I think you're right. But I don't think it was forgotten. Just buried. I mean, how could you go public with something like this? Bad enough to know your civilization was destroyed under mysterious circumstances. How much worse would it be if people thought something like this was crawling around on the surface, or burrowed under the ground, willing to destroy everything and everyone on the slightest whim? People would lose the will to live entirely. They would never leave the underground to collect food, or scrap, or anything else they might need to survive.”
“Now we know why Director Doan never lets anyone in here,” Crono said. “We absolutely must keep this to ourselves. Nothing good will come from sharing it.”
“Do you think it's still alive after all these years?” Marle asked slowly.
“I wouldn't even venture a guess,” Lucca remarked. “That thing is too alien. I've never seen anything like it, in any size. For all we know it could be a century old as we look at it now, or as old as the mountains themselves, maybe. How many years does it take for a creature to become so big?”
The archive room then returned to darkness, and the real environment with the movable viewscreens of light quickly replaced it.
“All records of Day of Lavos query complete,” the room's artificial voice intoned. “Do you wish to replay records from the beginning?”
“I think we've seen enough,” Crono said, just before Marle could reply with an emphatic “no”. She never wanted to see this calamity play out ever again. Her dreams would be bad enough as it was.
How many years does it take for a creature to become so big?
Maybe...
I wish... we could just change it.
And there it was. The thought that Marle could not, dared not, look at before would no longer be denied. The doorway to her mind had opened but a crack, but that was all that her powerful heart needed to force its way inside. The forbidden thought was shared. The mind considered. The mind accepted. Heart and mind became one in a dazzling dawn of hope. In that moment, Marle finally understood the ambition of her founding ancestor. One land. One hope. One all-encompassing aspiration to do good. Through this ambition, Cedric had ended war in his time.
Marle would use hers to end ruin.
“It's alive!” Marle blurted.
Crono and Lucca both looked at her.
“We don't know that,” Lucca said. “Three-hundred years is a long time. It's certainly possible, but I don't think we should dwell on...”
“I'm not talking about now, I'm talking about then! It's a creature. It was alive. And anything alive has a beginning, right? 'How many years', you asked? That is the question.”
“I'm not sure I follow, Marle.”
Crono then perked up. “It would be smaller in the past!” he said with apparent realization.
“Right! Exactly!” Marle said assertively. “Smaller. Less dangerous. Something we may have a chance of stopping before it ever thinks of destroying the world, if we could just find it!”
Lucca raised both her hands in protest, looking alarmed.
“Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no, Marle! Lets stop this train of thought right here before it goes any further. You have no idea what you're suggesting.”
Marle steeled herself. “I know exactly what I'm suggesting, Lucca, and I'm not afraid. Not after what we just saw, and what we learned this afternoon. We could stop all of this from ever happening! Go back in time and change history! We've done it before.”
“No, what we did before was restore history!” Lucca countered. “Change it back from a change which should never have been made. We were fixing a mistake. What you're suggesting is totally different!”
“And what if it is? This timeline is doomed! Everyone is going to die if things stay as they are! The whole human race extinct! We know this! There's no future to preserve! How can we go back to our time knowing what we know and think that our futures matter at all if we do nothing?”
Lucca's mouth froze before her next retort could come, and her gaze broke away to focus on one of the floating viewscreens, as if hunting for some inspired piece of reason before reengaging in the snap debate. The gesture was more than telling in Marle's estimation. Lucca never stopped attacking when she was certain of her position.
“Marle, you're talking about playing Creator here,” Lucca continued in a more measured tone. “There's a certain responsibility that comes with time-traveling. Any number of things could be altered if we start fooling around with causality, maybe for the worse. Even if we could change what we just saw, what gives us the right?”
She had her.
“What gives us the right to walk away?” Marle asked calmly.
Lucca's shoulders slumped.
“I... I don't know,” the inventor said, plainly torn now. “I guess we should think about it. But...”
“We have to be absolutely certain about this,” Crono interjected. “Our decision has to be unanimous. That's our rule.”
Marle nodded eagerly. “And what do you say, Crono? Do we change history? Or do we accept the end of history?”
There wasn't much doubt in Marle's mind what Crono's answer would be. She knew his heart. A man who had routinely given his all to protect the people around him wouldn't walk away from anything. His sword would do whatever was necessary to make Marle's grand ambition become real.
“I say change it,” Crono said, his green eyes decisive.
Marle gave him a gratified smile. “Change it!” she affirmed.
Then she looked at Lucca again, and the inventor's expression made Marle's heart quiver in sudden dread. There was no decisiveness there. Only a deep uncertainty.
No...!
“I need to go for a walk,” Lucca said. She abruptly turned away and strode to the door leading out of the classified archive.
“Lucca, we can't do this without you!” Marle pleaded. She couldn't believe this was happening. How could Lucca's esteemed reason come to a different answer when all of today's facts were considered? How?
“I'm just getting some fresh air,” she called back curtly. “Suddenly, I'm finding it a bit hard to breathe. Maybe I'll go grab a gun. I'm in the mood to shoot something.” The door slid aside, and Lucca stepped out of the archive without another word.
Marle would have said more, but a restraining hand from Crono held her back. He made a brief shake of his head.
“Let her go, Marle. She needs time.” Crono sighed. “We all do, I think.”
Chapter 27 - Calamity from the Deep
Lucca tried to keep her growing excitement in check as the two Protectors guarding the entrance to the classified computer archive let her pass. This was a place she had been trying to beg, finagle, bribe, and otherwise shamelessly maneuver herself into for almost four weeks. It might have caused real problems for the enclave if she had succeeded early on, Lucca was forced to admit. She was a fast learner, but she had also made a fair number of embarrassing mistakes learning the intricacies of modern-day computer systems. Not world-ending Marle caliber mistakes, of course. The former princess had managed to corrupt the operating system of one of the dormitory's computers so thoroughly that a full formatting and archive restoration had been necessary to salvage it. But Director Doan had still had to hold Lucca's hand with some frequency while she stumbled around playing with the technology that put information on glass. The classified archive held all of the master files for the enclave's entire computer network. A beginner's mistake here could have lasting consequences. It was not a place to fool around.
But she was ready now, or at least as ready as anyone not born in an era of computers could hope to be. Along with discovering the truth about the enclave's enertrons, Lucca's investigation into the problem steeled her competence with the computers to a point where she could probably find anything she wanted to find with the advanced systems down here. She wondered if that were the larger part of the reason Director Doan had assigned her the enertron task to begin with. Her mentor of the future, she now knew, always seemed to be thinking several steps ahead, arranging tasks within tasks in the pursuit of a goal no one but him could see until he chose to reveal it. He had been maneuvering Lucca instead of the other way around, and apparently Marle and Crono as well with their own activities prior to his coming clean. If Lucca hadn't trusted Doan so completely, his behavior would have been disconcerting.
“Don't be in such a rush, Marle,” she chided her friend, who had bounded well ahead of her to stand by a door framed with harsh crimson glow-bars at the end of the short passage. “This is more my show than yours. The last thing we need is for you to start touching things. I still have dark memories of my poor exploded Dragon Tank resting in pieces thanks to your driving.”
“The controls should have been simpler, then,” Marle replied with a smirk.
Lucca rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Keep making excuses, Tomboy.”
Crono snickered at the exchange but otherwise said nothing. After all, the way that whole business had gone down (literally in the case of Lucca's Dragon Tank) probably did them a favor.
The red hued door at the end of the passage slid open at a touch of a panel on the wall, and Marle led the way inside, followed by an apprehensive Lucca and Crono. No one really knew what to expect in here. Lucca hadn't seen so much as a still image of the inside of the archive.
The room was a lot smaller than she envisioned. Instead of a dozen-plus workstations lined up against each wall, like in the library rooms of the dormitories, this room only seemed to have five in total. Two computer stations sat empty along both the left and right walls, and one very large station dominated the wall in front of them, with a monitor screen at least four times the size of any Lucca had yet seen. In the center of the room was a surprising amount of empty space. So little equipment for a room so heavily restricted to access, Lucca thought, though the front wall might have been more computer than wall. The room was very dimly lit and quiet. A handful of tiny green lights shone from the computer casings, indicating the machines had power, but the monitors were currently dark from not being used. Lucca, Crono, and Marle, as Director Doan had promised, were completely alone inside the archive room. The door slid shut behind them.
“This is it?” Marle asked with a frown.
“Seems so,” Crono said. “That big screen up front looks important, but I was expecting more.”
“Maybe a central archive doesn't need to be bigger than this,” Lucca opined. “It's not like many people ever come in here.”
“Yeah, and I suddenly feel really cut off,” Marle said with a shiver. “It's so quiet in here it reminds me of being back in the ZDF facility.”
It was true, Lucca thought. The air had the stillness of a crypt. Maybe there was no ventilation right now because the computers weren't being used. That would probably change when she started turning things on, but the near absolute silence of this place was ominous. Perhaps that was appropriate for a storehouse of secret information. People needed to be intimidated of what they might find.
“Let's get busy, then,” Lucca said. “Idleness in a place this quiet will just lead us to focus on the negative, and I've had quite enough of that for one day. I'll start with the big machine and see what happens. You two just sit tight.”
A few probing taps at the central keyboard brought the big screen in the front of the room to life. On it was pasted a simple query in large green letters:
Select display mode: (S) Standard, (A) Advanced
“Well, this is easy,” Marle said, appearing next to Lucca all too quickly. “Just one press of a button and we're golden. I think we want the advanced stuff.”
Lucca started. “Hold on, let me think about this for just a...”
Marle tapped the “A” key before Lucca could say anything else.
The whole room plunged into pitch darkness.
“Marle! I told you not to touch anything!” Lucca barked.
“Did she shut it off?” Crono asked warily. “Please tell me she didn't just shut the room off.”
“No way!” Marle said. “I did exactly what it said. I pushed 'A', I know I did!”
“Blast you, Marle! I was going to press 'S' to get started!” Lucca said. “I don't even know what the 'advanced' display mode is supposed to do!”
“Maybe it's not working anymore,” Crono said. “Try pressing 'S' instead. Maybe it'll turn on the lights again.”
Lucca shrugged helplessly in the dark. “I can't see the keyboard now! If I hit the wrong button there's no telling what might happen! I might erase the whole archive by mistake!”
“That's ridiculous!” Marle said. “Who would design a computer like that?”
“I don't know, but with you in the room we can't rule anything out.”
“I just touched the one button! It's not my fault!”
“Says the one who was told not to touch anything!”
“Okay, let's not fight,” Crono said. “Let's just back out of the room and try turning on the lights from outside. If that doesn't work we can always ask Director Doan for help.”
I don't believe this, Lucca thought. One push of a button and things were already going wrong. Marle was a walking catastrophe when dealing with anything technological. She should have tied her up and left her in the granary.
Huffing with irritation, Lucca turned away from the main computer terminal and made her way back to the door with purpose. She almost smashed her nose against the cold steel of the door in her impatience and felt around the sides for the control to open it. And kept feeling. Everything was perfectly smooth, with no depression or protrusion anywhere within reach that could indicate a door control. Lucca was then suddenly conscious of what Director Doan had said about not having any listening devices inside the archive. No one would be coming to help any time soon.
A long moment of silence passed in the darkness.
“Are... you kidding me?” Crono said.
“I hate you, Marle,” Lucca grumbled.
“This isn't my fault!” the royal bane of technology pouted.
“The second worst day of my life somehow got worse.”
“This hasn't been a picnic for me, either!”
“If the world could be destroyed with the touch of a button, you would somehow find it!”
“Only because nothing ever makes sense! It shouldn't take a genius to use this stuff.”
“It doesn't, so what does that make...?”
“Oh, turn down the temperature, Lu,” Crono scolded. “This really isn't helping.”
No, it wasn't, Lucca was forced to admit. But it felt good to vent. She needed to release the pressure building up inside her, and if the hapless Marle was taken down a few notches in the process, so be it. Served her right for not doing what she was told for once. Lucca had never experienced so much emotional turmoil in the space of a single afternoon. Not for the past ten years, anyway. She could almost feel the heat of her own fury radiating from her skin.
I have to calm down. What would Frank say? There had to be a logical reason for Marle's button press to do what it did. She clearly saw Marle's finger push the 'A' key and nothing else. The computer's instructions had been clear enough. A simple binary choice made with one key or the other. Computer science didn't get more basic than that.
“If you know something that could help, Crono, I'm all ears. Not like my eyes are much use.”
“System initialization complete,” an unfamiliar voice suddenly intoned. “Advanced display mode enabled. Elevated power consumption authorized. Stand by.”
“What was that?” asked Marle uncertainly.
The next moment saw the darkness of the archive expelled as suddenly as it had fallen. Expelled and more. The room was now far brighter than it had been, and not in a way Lucca would have expected. The layout of the room had completely changed. The computer screens along the walls were just as dark as they had been a moment ago, but the center of the chamber was now filled with glowing numbers and letters and various icons hovering in mid-air. Hovering light. That was all. There were no screens. No physical objects of any kind to explain how the light was there. It simply was. In fact, the hovering lights accounted for all of the illumination now in the room. The glow-bars on the ceiling and the walls were not active as near as Lucca could tell. Only the formerly empty center was alive. The glowing symbols scattered all around were framed with shining squares, not unlike the window displays on regular computer screens. Lucca then realized that was exactly what she was seeing. What would have been displayed on the regular screens was instead being somehow projected into the air. Amazing!
“This is the 'advanced display mode'?” Crono asked in wonderment.
“Marle, I take it all back,” Lucca said numbly. “Just... don't touch anything else for awhile and let me wrap my head around all this.” The practical benefit of this kind of display was completely lost on Lucca, but at the moment she didn't really care. This was a discovery on par with that very first operational computer she had found in the generator room of the ZDF facility. Projecting light in this fashion was doubtless a gateway to other technologies Lucca could only begin to guess at. Was this representative of the level of technology the world possessed before the Day of Fire?
Predictably, Marle again ignored good sense and strode to where one of the window displays was hovering, putting her hand directly against the light.
Lucca shuddered. “Wait, Marle! You don't know what that will do to...”
“It's not going through!” Marle exclaimed. “My hand is resting against the light! Like there's actually something there! Crono, come see! Come see!”
Gaping, Crono did so, followed immediately behind by Lucca. The time-travelers each placed their hands against the air where the displays were floating. Some kind of force was resisting their attempts to push through it. Not quite like a solid object. It was more like a telekinetic barrier similar to what Yakra had used against them in the middle-ages, the force giving way slightly to Lucca's touch and tingling against her skin. But this was technological, not magical. Following a hunch, Lucca suddenly discovered a practical use for the floating display by pressing her hand flat against one of the glowing windows and moving her arm to the side. The window of light followed her motion, moving aside several feet before Lucca pulled her hand away. The display stayed where she left it, and Lucca then eagerly reached for another, moving it up and then moving it down, pushing it left and then pushing it steadily to the right until it began rolling inward as if on an invisible circular track, smoothly shifting its position to the point where the window was facing directly toward where Lucca had first started manipulating the display. Lucca found herself laughing with delight, while a no less jubilant Marle was bringing up and moving window after window with Crono's help until the whole center of the classified archive was ringed with glowing mid-air displays. Lucca then discovered that many of the floating letters around them weren't merely for display, but were actually part of floating keyboards of light where commands could be inputted just like the keyboard of any regular computer.
Regular computer. Listen to me! I've known this stuff for less than a month, and already I'm thinking the machines I learned from are obsolete!
“This is incredible!” Marle said, sharing the thought they all had. “It's like being in the Guardian Archives back home, but without all the books and scrolls. With these windows spread around we could research dozens of topics at once! I'm betting we could find anything with this device!”
“Let's start with just one question,” Crono suggested. “Better not to run until we learn how to walk. We'd make better use of our time.”
“Good idea,” Lucca agreed. “We keep it simple. We choose the one query we've all wondered about since coming to the enclave, see what we find, and then move on from there. Might as well start with the most taboo thing there is to ask.”
“I can do that,” Marle said, placing herself behind one of the floating keyboards. She typed the name of the desired topic into the search bar - “The Day of Fire” – and hit “enter”. A response immediately appeared on the hovering screen in front of them:
Did you mean “The Day of Lavos?” Y/N
Lucca blinked at the computer's answer. This was something new. “Lavos” was a word she had never heard before. Not from anyone, not even Frank. The regular computer network made no mention of the name, either. Strange that such an important event would be remembered by a completely different name, even after 300 years. It could have been a mistake, but Lucca doubted it. The word was buried in this classified archive for a reason.
Marle made the decision without being asked. She hit the “Y” key.
The archive room again went completely dark, the remnants of the displays burning for a fleeting moment in Lucca's retinas as an indistinctive green haze.
“Hey, what's going on?!” Marle complained. “What happened to all the displays?”
Lucca sighed. “Only you, Marle.”
“Oh, no. This is not my fault! You're not pinning it on me this time, Lucca!”
“What's the common denominator here? Me? You're the one who typed in everything.”
“Oh, calm down, Lu,” Crono chided. “The room turned back on again on its own before. It'll probably do it again.”
“Maybe,” Lucca conceded. “I guess a simple yes/no question is something even Marle couldn't mess up, but I don't know why else everything would go dark all of a...”
“System initialization complete,” the unfamiliar male voice again intoned. “Holo-interactive display mode enabled for query Day of Lavos. Grade one classification. Begin program.”
“See? Told you it wasn't my fault,” Marle said with satisfaction. “The lights should be coming on again right about...”
Lucca, Crono, and Marle suddenly found themselves floating thousands of feet off the ground, the glorious sheen of a colossal dome-like structure shining far below through wisps of cloud.
“Wha, wha, wha?!” Crono cried out, waving his hands.
Marle gaped. “How did we end up above the...?!”
“Creation, what has this thing done?!” Lucca shrilled.
A brief moment of sheer terror at the prospect of a long and terminal fall was quickly replaced by the realization they were all still standing on their own feet and not falling at all. Like something out of a dream, or an exceptionally powerful illusion generated through magic. This cloud-scraping new environment wasn't real. It was just another projection of light, this one all-encompassing. The walls and the floor were completely transparent now. None of them could tell through sight where the floor was. That they were standing and felt no motion was the only evidence they were still inside the classified archive. Lucca had to remind herself to breathe. All of her research into the history of this time-period hadn't given her even an inkling that the power of science and technology could create imagery so seamless. It was far and away more advanced than anything Lucca had seen in this ruined future.
But the environment displayed below them (how did the floor become transparent?) was far from ruined. The domed city under their feet was pristine, the massive steel superstructure and glassed panels of the dome glittering in the noon-time sun. To their surprise there was also a fair bit of green to be seen, large patches of verdancy spiraling out from the base of the dome indicative of growing foliage, challenging and pushing back the wastes. It was a reflection of a world that was beginning to revive from the terrible scars inflicted on it by the horrors of atomic war. This was an image of the world before the Day of Fire, or rather the Day of Lavos, whatever that was.
“Is that... Bangor?” Marle asked breathlessly.
“No, the terrain is all wrong,” Lucca said. Bangor was in the middle of the Tarvor mountain range, nestled into a valley. This city was on the eastern edge of an expansive plain, and with an ocean only a few miles further to the east. It was a topography she knew fairly well from personal experience, though it looked very different in this time period. “I think it's Arris Dome. See how big the structure is at the base? That's about thirty miles in diameter, and Arris is the only dome that comes close to being that size. We're looking at modern-day Medina, here. The far east of the continent to be exact.”
“Medina, are you sure?” Crono asked uncertainly. “Most of Medina is covered by endless swamp. Thousands of square miles of muck. I'm not seeing any swamps here.”
“A casualty of the great war. The global climate was radically changed by the detonation of all those atomic weapons. The wetlands all dried up within a generation according to enclave records.”
“But why are we seeing Arris instead of Bangor?” asked Marle. “What is the computer trying to show us?”
Lucca threw her bespectacled gaze all around from where she hung in the “air”. The only abnormal thing she could see was some glowing text below and to her right, just like the projected lettering they had seen moments before. It was a time stamp that read: August 7th, 1999 – 12:36 hours. The seconds of the digital clock ticked by as the great city of Arris lie peacefully below them.
12:37 shattered the idyllic skyscape.
It began with a rolling undulation of the barren plains west of the city; a series of waves not unlike what one would see on an ocean surface. Waves on land. It was said that earthquakes of catastrophic strength could produce such an effect; quakes of a magnitude many hundreds of times greater than anything that had been recorded in human history. Purely theoretical, and yet Lucca was seeing the science play out in real time over the Arris wastes, her present vantage point above the clouds allowing her vision across hundreds of miles.
The effects of the land waves on Arris Dome were immediate when the first one hit. Glass panels exploded into glittering mist, and the massive girders giving the dome its shape visibly quaked and bent under the fury of angered earth. What the people underneath that dome were experiencing Lucca could not tell at this distance, but her mind's eye conveyed the tale well enough. People were thrown to the ground. Buildings swayed beyond their tolerances. Pipes snapped. Furniture tumbled. Voices cried out in terror. The passage of a few seconds proved the inevitable result of such seismic rage. Several skyscrapers within the buckling dome lost the battle with nature and collapsed into their own foundations, a few others toppling over to crash into other buildings - which themselves collapsed shortly thereafter. Forty seconds of rebelling earth was all it took to reduce the community of Arris Dome, the largest of the six domed cities and the breadbasket of the post-war world, into a tottering ruin. Much of the dome's glass had simply vanished, and the shape of the dome itself was visibly warped from what it had been at 12:36 hours.
12:38 was worse.
A flash rivaling the brilliance of the sun shone from somewhere far to the north. An explosion. The following moments transformed the distant blast into a work of searing art that dominated the whole northern vista. Fury and flame was carved into the form of a mushroom, and concentric rings of light radiated outward from the fiery fungal core, daring nature to produce a more awe-inspiring sight. At first Lucca thought she knew what it was. Many such explosions wracked the world 700 years ago when human civilization blasted itself into a funeral pyre, and a few images of these conflagrations yet remained in the enclave's records. It was a nuclear blast, more commonly known as a “mushroom cloud” due to its shape. But something was different about this one. The base of the explosion was hidden by the curvature of the earth, and Lucca estimated from her position that the blast had to be about 400 miles out. Four-hundred miles! For the explosion to appear so large at that distance meant it was a calamity quite outside anyone's experience, including during the war. A moment's continued staring at the towering sight revealed the flaming visage was joined by what appeared to be boulders, blowing out and away from where the explosion originated. At this distance those “boulders” had to be the size of small mountains. Even the most powerful nuclear weapon known to have been made couldn't have produced destructive power of that magnitude. It was like dozens of square miles of earth had been violently expelled from the surface as if from an erupting volcano. A distant part of Lucca's mind said that it followed from the calamitous earthquake that had just devastated Arris Dome. The two events stemmed from the same root cause, somehow.
The records said the domes were attacked, Lucca thought, but this has all the markings of a natural disaster of some sort. What could this mean?
The three time-travelers looked on the distant scene in stunned silence. Likely, the survivors in Arris Dome were too preoccupied with the damage from the earthquake to appreciate the destructive spectacle unfolding north of the city.
That would be changing all too quickly.
“The shockwave,” Lucca muttered breathlessly. “It's going to be traveling much faster than the speed of sound from an explosion that massive. I think it could...”
The clock ticked to 12:39.
Lucca could see it now. The atmosphere in the distance was becoming visibly distorted from the rapid changes in air pressure, and a giant cloud of water vapor and dust then appeared over the horizon, quickly scouring the land and skies north of Arris Dome. A storm front of unspeakable destructive power was about to come down on eastern Medina, with wind speeds of thousands of miles per hour at the least.
The dome of Arris would have struggled to turn aside that atmospheric hammer blow even at full structural strength, Lucca knew. As it now was, it would have no chance whatsoever. Only seconds of life remained to it.
Marle shuddered at the rapidly approaching shockwave and stepped into Crono's protective grasp on instinct. Crono looked at Lucca uneasily.
“Uh, Lucca? Are we gonna be okay?” he asked.
“It's just sight and sound,” Lucca replied, trying to sound sure of herself. “Otherwise we'd be freezing up here. The wave's not going to hurt us. Probably.”
The time-travelers all grabbed hold of one another anyway, turning away from the wall of tempestuous doom. It overcame Arris right at 12:40.
Lucca, Crono, and Marle remained alive without a hair on their heads put out of place.
The dome of Arris ceased to exist.
It had simply disintegrated on contact. The entire combined structure was ripped away from its foundations and then floundered into thousands of hundred foot long pieces of steel kindling as the shockwave blasted through. The city within fared no better. Already weakened by the earthquake, Arris' remaining structures crumbled. Much of the remnants didn't even come to rest within the boundaries of where the dome had stood. It was all swept away far to the south and east, the sea of Medina's eastern shore embracing not a small share in its watery grasp.
“By Creation, what a disaster!” Marle sobbed. Millions of the giant city's inhabitants had to have died in that moment alone.
Arris barely even qualified as a ruin now. No remaining structure that Lucca could see was even four stories tall. It had been obliterated even more completely than Bangor had been.
And the calamity wasn't even over.
What happened in the following minutes could not by any stretch have been called a natural disaster. Whether it had been directly related to the catastrophes that hit Arris earlier, Lucca couldn't say. The effect was absolute regardless. Orange raindrops fell from the sky, each a glowing arrow of death that exploded on impact. Hundreds, then thousands, then a full deluge; a blazing cacophony of destruction that blasted across the corpse of Arris without mercy. Mushroom clouds of smaller scope than the first erupted all over the remains of the city. These were the anti-matter weapons spoken of in the information Lucca already knew; essentially small-scale weapons of mass destruction, similar to atomics, that left behind no radiation. It was a direct attack, no question. But what was the source of the attack? What was the motive?
“No way that can be a coincidence,” Crono said darkly, regarding the burning embers of the city. “Whoever launched that attack knew that Arris couldn't possibly defend itself from it. Not after those 'natural' disasters. They either knew Arris would be hit, or they had a direct hand in creating those disasters. I'm thinking the whole thing was deliberate.”
Lucca closed her eyes. “Yeah. Most likely,” she said. The logic fit, anyway.
“Who?” Marle whimpered. “Who would have done this?”
The clock advanced to 12:45, and the archive room at that moment returned to darkness, blessedly banishing the imagery that Lucca knew would give her nightmares for a very long time.
“Record one for Day of Lavos query complete,” sounded the synthetic voice out of the darkness. “Initializing projectors. Do you wish to continue to record two?”
Lucca thought back to the Guardian machine at the ZDF facility, and how the giant proto-robot had voice recognition functionality. Of course the most advanced tech of the domes-era would have that as well. “Yes,” she said.
A short time later, the archive room again came alive with the projected movable displays they had played with before the Arris presentation. Lucca wondered at that. She was half expecting another full immersion of some kind. Then she and the others all did double takes. There were other people in the room now! All five workstations in the archive were now operable and manned with users. When did they get here?
“Uh, hello?” Lucca called out uncertainly. “I thought the three of us were supposed to be alone in here. Did we do something wrong with the archive?” She didn't think they had. They had put very few commands into the system, after all.
The Operators didn't respond, and a moment's confusion from Lucca evolved into sudden understanding when she saw what the new occupants were wearing. Blue on white uniforms. High-quality uniforms. The enclave no longer had any clothing like that. Everyone except Lucca, Crono, and Marle wore drab beige pull-overs pretty much all the time. Bangor didn't have the resources to make anything better.
The operators were themselves projections. This second record of the Day of Lavos was also a full immersion experience, of a sort. These must have been the people manning the computers on the day the age of the domes came to a sudden and tragic end. They had been in this very room, sitting and working exactly where they were now displayed. Lucca stood over the shoulder of the man working the large main computer, taking note of the data scrolling across his viewscreen. On the man's right breast was a nametag that read “Stafford”.
“Director,” a young woman at one of the left-hand computers said. “Update from Geno. They're feeling it, too. Magnitude 2.9 from where they are. No reports of damage, but they're continuing to monitor.”
“It can't be the same tremor,” the male operator next to her pointed out. “Not for this long. It has to be part of a swarm.”
“A swarm from what?” the woman countered. “There are no fault lines anywhere close to Geno. And the nearest volcano's over 700 kilometers away. It has to be something else.”
The man named Stafford, presumably “Director” Stafford, typed some quick commands into his keyboard and turned to his right.
“Talk to me, Kate,” he said tensely. “Confirm the Arris disturbance began at 12:33:57.”
“Twelve thirty-three five-seven, yes sir,” the dark-skinned woman replied in a clipped professional tone. “Proto and Trann also confirm. Their seismic disturbances began at the same time.”
Stafford shook his head in bewilderment. “And still no data-link from Keepers?”
“No, sir,” the man next to the other woman said. “Their comms officer says all is well, that Control's just implementing a patch to their mainframe. If they're feeling this at all, they can't tell with their seismics offline.”
“It makes no sense, Mike,” the man next to Kate said to the Director. “Keepers is closer to Arris than we are. Even without seismics, they ought to be feeling something.”
“Assuming it's the same disturbance,” the first man said. “Could just be simultaneous quakes in different regions.”
“At the exact same time?” the first woman said incredulously. “And felt from here all the way to Geno now? There has to be a singular cause.”
“What do you think, Sarah?” the man next to Kate asked. Lucca got a closer look at his nametag. It read “Radan”. “Could it be a shift in the planet's magnetic field?”
Sarah shook her head. “There's no indication of that. I'm getting some pretty weird magnetic readings right now, but a full-on polarity shift would have given us a lot more warning than this. And why is Arris feeling it so bad when Medina has no history of seismic activity in the east?”
“Let's stay focused, people,” Stafford interjected. “Concentrate on what we actually know. What's the current magnitude on the Arris disturbance?”
“Magnitude 6.8 and continuing to climb,” Kate said, looking increasingly uneasy. Lucca saw the woman reach for something on her right ear, a device perhaps, and adjusted the fit. “They're... getting pretty spooked over there, sir. The whole city is shaking, and there are numerous internal damage reports coming over the comms. They just passed the two-minute mark.”
Two minutes of continuous shaking without a break, Lucca thought. And that in a completely enclosed city with buildings towering hundreds of stories in the air. “Spooked” didn't even begin to describe what those people must have been thinking at the time.
Stafford looked grim. “What's the tolerance of their dome, Radan?”
“Seven-point-five, in theory,” Radan said. “Same as ours. Personally, I don't think it can take that much. No dome has ever been tested beyond 7.0, even in simulations. I wouldn't guarantee full integrity past 7.2.”
The Director nodded curtly and tapped at his keyboard with purpose. “Kate, put me on live with Keepers, please. Council directive priority. Request instructions.”
“Yes, sir.” Kate's eyes suddenly went wide as the words came out of her mouth. “Uh, correction! Negative! Red light on the comm link to Keepers Dome, Director! We've lost them! Attempting to re-establish contact!”
Stafford's neck snapped back around in puzzlement. “Who dropped the link? Us or them?”
“Them, sir. We've got green lights across the board. They just stopped transmitting.”
Radan scowled. “First their mainframes, now their radios? What the blazes is going on over there?”
“It doesn't matter,” Stafford said evenly. “The protocol is clear. I'm invoking emergency order thirteen. We're at the top of the queue. Bangor assumes advisory authority until contact with Keepers is re-established. Objections?”
All four of Stafford's subordinates answered negative.
“Very good. Kate, put me on live with Arris.” Kate nodded her head at him after a brief moment, indicating Bangor was ready to transmit. “Arris Dome, Bangor. Advise: contact with Keepers is lost. Recommend go for code red until further notice. Respond if able.”
Crono and Marle strode up to where Lucca was standing, looking almost as tense as the projected operators around them. “What's going on?” Crono asked her.
“A code red is, was, an emergency declaration invoked when it's believed a dome breach is imminent,” Lucca said, thinking back to her historical studies. “It's supposed to sound a general alarm all over the city so that people can begin evacuating to the emergency shelters. Keepers Dome had advisory authority over the other domes, so they were usually the ones to give emergency orders if they thought the danger was great enough. Bangor was the next dome in line to assume this role if something happened.”
“Code red is confirmed, Bangor,” came a panicked voice from Stafford's computer screen after a discomforting moment of silence. “We declared it ourselves thirty seconds ago. The seismic disturbance is continuing to grow in strength. We still don't know why. We're also picking up another disturbance. Just now. Very deep. Somewhere north of us. Can't tell much else with all this...”
“Energy spike!” came a second voice, a woman, from the Arris transmission. Her tone was of abject terror. “We have an energy spike confirmed forty-two kilometers west of the outer boundary! It's... it's magnitude eleven!”
The five projections of Bangor's classified archive, and apparently the city's former control room, all stared at each other, stunned.
“That's impossible!” Radan said.
“Magnitude eleven is... confirmed,” Sarah said in disbelief, analyzing her computer. “Seismic wave will reach Arris in...”
“Richard, get your people into cover!” Stafford said urgently into his pickup. “I'm invoking emergency order one! Bangor and the other domes will render all possible assistance. Just save as many people as you can! We'll be there!”
“Creation save us all...” the voice from Arris remarked, barely audible.
Lucca's shoulders sagged. Creation would not be saving many this day.
“I want sat images on Arris, now!” Stafford barked. “And ask the other domes if they have any data about a second disturbance north of Arris. We need to know what's happening here!”
The projected operators all shifted in their seats as if they had felt something just now. Lucca felt nothing. She guessed it was a tremor that the projectors of light and sound around her couldn't simulate.
“That was a 4.7, Director,” said the operator next to Sarah, a slender youth by the name of Gann. “A point-three increase from a moment ago. They're getting worse.”
“Thousands of calls coming in for Protector assistance from Geshar District,” Kate said. “Injuries reported. Trams are being halted. And Colonel Blasue is requesting a status update. Do we go code yellow?”
Stafford looked torn, clearly not wanting to start a panic in Bangor by sounding an alarm. The city was very densely populated in the year 1999, more so than any of the other domes, so a panicked population here would result in considerable harm to life and property. In the end, Stafford hesitated for only a heartbeat.
“Code yellow is confirmed,” the Director said reluctantly. “Grade three citizens to collect emergency stores and report to shelter. Do it by the book. Necessities only. We don't know how bad this will get.”
Lucca shuddered as the other four operators relayed and carried out Stafford's orders. She already knew. And in just a few seconds...
“Arris Dome is breached!” Sarah exclaimed. “Massive damage to all structural members!”
“Confirmed direct hit on Arris! Magnitude eleven earthquake!” said Radan.
“Comm lines to Arris are down!” said Kate.
“Seismic sensors from Arris just went offline!” Gann reported.
Stafford's face fell. “Give me a visual, please.”
The large viewscreen above Stafford's workstation switched to an overhead view of the city of Arris. The devastation displayed was identical to what Lucca had witnessed earlier, just on a flat surface. The farmlands dominating the western half of the domed community, which fed a sizable portion of humanity's population even outside of Arris, were fully exposed to the outside air, with very few of the dome's protective glassed panels remaining unbroken. The reflection of the sun on the superstructure itself was also broken, bouncing off the steel on odd vectors to conform to the dome's misshapen new mould. The dome's interior was no less changed from the seismic event, Arris' silvery spires and curving transitways now diminished into tarnished and shattered hulks of metal, with not a few structures being noticeably shorter than they were mere moments ago. Arris now more closely resembled the bombed out metropolises of the previous age. The work of three-hundred years was erased in under a minute.
“Oh, Creation...” the Director muttered. “How will we even begin to...”
“What was that?!”
Stafford and the others all turned to Sarah's astonished cry. “What was what, Sarah?”
“A massive energy spike was just detected by our satellites!” she said. “Estimated location: 650 kilometers north of Arris!”
“In the middle of the Tylair Ocean?” Radan frowned. “What could possibly...?”
“Nuclear!” Gann exclaimed. “We have a nuclear explosion at coordinates 41 degrees north, by 35 degrees east!”
That roughly corresponded to the location operator Sarah had just mentioned, Lucca thought. And where Lucca herself estimated that titanic explosion she witnessed moments ago had originated.
“That's not possible,” Radan said flatly. “Nuclear weapons are banned by treaty! No one has even used nuclear power in centuries!”
“There's nothing else it could be,” Gann countered, sounding faint. “The explosive yield is in the... gigaton range.”
“Gigaton?!” Kate blurted. “No nuclear weapon has ever been that strong!”
“Correction!” Sarah interjected, furiously working her computer. “Radiological reading is negative! It's not nuclear!”
“What is it?” Stafford demanded.
Sarah kept shaking her head, apparently struggling to accept what the data was showing her.
“It's... an undersea volcanic eruption,” she finally said, turning to Stafford. “Centered about 500 meters under the surface. Sir, it erupted with a force of eight-thousand megatons!”
“That can't be right,” Radan said, blinking with disbelief. “At 41 north by 35 east? There's no volcano there.”
“There is now.”
To his credit, Director Stafford seemed less concerned with what caused the explosion than with what the explosion meant. He knew what was coming. Even five-hundred meters depth of sea water couldn't mitigate the effects of an 8,000 megaton explosion by any meaningful measure. Not for the nearest city. Arris Dome would get slammed by a shockwave as if from a multi-gigaton explosion on the surface, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Yet, for a split-second Lucca thought she saw something else in the Director's grim countenance. Was it... recognition?
“Give me a visual on that location,” Stafford grated furiously.
The viewscreen above Stafford's workstation then shifted to a scene straight out of hell itself. The ocean floor was on fire. Only it wasn't the ocean floor anymore. The waters of the Tylair Ocean were nowhere in evidence. The great sea north of the continent of Medina... simply wasn't there anymore. The shockwave from the cataclysmic eruption had carried it all away, and was still carrying it away; a ring of destruction expanding ever outward in ravenous hunger, turning all to mist and ash in its ferocity. Lucca stared at the epicenter of the evolving catastrophe feeling numb, her natural curiosity feeling as if it came from someone else's mind. She couldn't tell much from what she was seeing. The vantage point of the satellite was from low orbit of the planet, quite a bit higher from where she, Crono, and Marle had witnessed Arris Dome's destruction further south. But one thing did strike her as odd. Instead of seeing a caldera full of erupting lava, as there certainly should be after what had just happened, there was darkness. A large patch of darkness in the middle of the ocean floor's smoldering ruin. From the scale of the image, the patch looked to be at least as wide as Arris Dome itself. Something was blocking the caldera that had to be there from view, but what?
“Those fools,” Stafford said, so quietly that only Lucca, standing next to him, could hear. “Those Creation-cursed fools!”
“Mike? The shockwave,” Radan reminded him with soft urgency. “It's going to hit Arris in...”
“There's nothing we can do for them now,” the Director said simply, regaining a small measure of composure. “Kate, open a general channel. Broadcast in the clear. All domes. All vehicles in transit.” He paused to take a breath. “Code magenta.”
Radan, Sarah, Kate, and Gann all gasped.
“Sir... you can't mean...” Kate began.
“I said magenta! Now!”
The dark-skinned operator let out an audible sob as she bent to her task. The others turned to their workstations stoically without another word.
“What does that mean, Lucca?” Marle asked. “What's 'code magenta'?”
Lucca closed her eyes. “The order no one ever wants to hear,” she said. “It's for a doomsday scenario that threatens the entire planet, like an asteroid strike or something. Even in our era it was theorized that a giant asteroid struck the planet in prehistoric times, causing mass extinctions and altering the entire geography of the world. Such an event would shatter all of the domes and expose every resident to varying degrees of radiation. The leaders of the domes planned for every contingency, even the most unlikely. Code magenta was an order to seal off all emergency shelters in the domes and for everyone to shelter in place wherever they were. For anyone not in a protected environment it was the next best thing to a death sentence. No aid of any kind would be expected or given until the order was lifted, and that might not happen for weeks or months after the event.” She looked glumly at the projected man next to her. “Director Stafford just condemned everyone who wasn't already in the shelters to die. Everywhere.”
Marle threw her arms wide in anger. “But... why? I understand it was too late for Arris, but the other domes were much further away from that explosion. The people should have had more time to evacuate!”
“They didn't have it. You saw what happened in Arris. The anti-matter attacks struck almost immediately after the shockwave passed through. And we know from enclave records that those attacks struck all of the domes at almost exactly the same time, irrespective of where that giant shockwave was.”
Crono nodded at the obvious implications. “He knew. This wasn't just about a natural disaster. He knew what was coming as soon as he saw that image from the eruption site.”
“You noticed that, too? Yeah, he definitely knew something. The question is why.”
“No, the question is who!” Marle countered. “And where! Where did these attacks come from? And how do they relate to that volcanic eruption in the sea?”
The three time-travelers looked on as the five projections from the past continued with their work, wearing expressions that ranged from sullen to despairing. Kate and Sarah were both weeping openly. The room then started shaking, and terrified screams began sounding through the communication lines to Bangor's surface and the remaining domes. The anti-matter attacks had started.
Director Stafford gazed defiantly at the image on his viewscreen, his dark eyes spearing the patch of black at the center of the devastated former seascape.
“Lavos...” he said.
The classified archive then went dark once more.
“Record two for Day of Lavos query complete,” the synthesized voice said from all around the time-travelers, standing in the dark. “Initializing projectors. Do you wish to continue to record three?”
Lavos. The long-dead Director Stafford uttered the word as an oath. Or perhaps a curse. Lucca wasn't sure what it meant, but it was undoubtedly important. The worst day in the history of the human race was given that name for a reason. A reason long forgotten. “The Day of Fire” was telling enough, and it related the tale accurately to a point. All was razed with fire and worse. So why replace “Fire” with “Lavos”?
The answers would probably come with another word spoken into the dark. Lucca, Crono, and Marle all spoke it together this time. “Yes!”
Naked ocean then surrounded them in all directions, the water's surface shining calmly far below where they hovered in the sky. Lucca, Crono, and Marle were at a height that birds would have considered bold, roughly the same height they were at when they had witnessed the annihilation of Arris, Lucca estimated. Clouds were scattered about in various hues of silver and gray, the beginnings of a thunderstorm beginning to take shape some distance to the west, but nothing thick enough to mar the radiant beauty of an ocean in the trailing weeks of summer. The vista was really the only normal thing the three of them had seen since coming to the year 2300. A skilled artist would certainly have taken the opportunity to sketch something here. It was worthy of a postcard at the very least.
They all knew it wouldn't last.
The first sign came from the water's surface about forty miles to the east. Ripples began to spread from where Crono suddenly pointed, as though someone had tossed a pebble into a pond as viewed from a more normal vantage point. From where Lucca hung, she knew the ripples were about as high as the deck of a Guardian frigate. It didn't take long for the waves to eclipse the height of the figurative ship's mainmast, and half-again as long to reach the height of two frigates stacked end-to-end. In any normal seismic event, tsunamis of this strength might drown port cities as large as Truce.
The volcano of Tylair Ocean was just getting started.
“It's coming,” Crono said grimly.
The entire ocean was churning when the three time-travelers turned away from the epicenter and held each other tightly enough to bruise. Lucca knew it wouldn't make any difference where they were concerned, but none of them had the heart to look at something they knew would vaporize their bodies in a split-second if this were real.
And in the next instant the three of them were surrounded by nature gone berserk.
The entire ocean erupted beneath them. Water was turned to mist. Mist was burned away by a titanic inferno. And the titanic inferno raced away from where the three time-travelers hovered as if challenging the speed of thunder itself. The loudness of the calamity was too much even for their covered ears to endure without pain, and Lucca knew the sound projectors of the Bangor archive were generating only the barest fraction of what the real-life event must have. The sound waves alone wouldn't have been survivable at this range, or very likely even a thousand miles away. No eardrum in Arris outside of its underground would have remained unruptured after the shockwave hit, if anyone were still alive to lament the loss of their hearing.
Lucca shivered where she hung. The sheer explosive intensity of this eruption was difficult for even her mind to fully grasp. It probably rivaled the impact of that asteroid strike said to have occurred in prehistoric times. Certainly the world had never experienced anything like it between then and now.
There was something else.
A shadow. A sound. Lucca's brain couldn't contemplate what it was, turned away from where the eruption had unleashed its fury. But it felt... wrong. Vile. Alien, even. Something that wasn't supposed to be, but was.
Lucca turned around. They all did.
What Lucca saw did nothing to expand her understanding beyond the fact that it was wrong. It was impossible. A nightmare come to life from a dream no one alive or dead could possibly have experienced.
It was... gargantuan.
That compared to any city. Any mountain. Any single object short of the moon Lucca could conceive.
It roared.
That was the only word Lucca could think of. The marrow of her bones quaked. Her skin froze. The piercing of her soul was absolute. She cried out, but none could hear. Somehow the screech of this impossible horror was more intense than the eruption that produced it had been, and she couldn't look away.
It was alive.
A mountain. Alive.
The... creature, for lack of a better term, was ovoid in shape, lying flat where it rested on the sea floor, apparently blocking the molten volcanic passage it had emerged from. Cooling lava hissed against the creature's dark green shell, its giant spines evidencing no injury or damage from its violent subterranean expulsion. The spines were the creature's most distinctive feature. There were hundreds of them; smaller spines to its front and center, larger further out and to the rear, each extending diagonally outward from the center mass in a thick shaft and tapering in a subtle wicked curve to end in a sharp point. Below the ovoid body was a set of stunted mandibles apparently intended for crawling, as if something of this size could even think of moving. And in the dead center of the monstrous thing's base was a three-pronged beak that appeared to serve as an orifice for feeding. A mouth. To feed on what, Lucca could only draw a blank. All of the organic matter in the world, from her time, mind, wouldn't feed this thing for a day.
The scale of it was beyond belief. The closest thing it resembled was a beetle; a beetle with spines that were as far across as the entirety of Bangor Dome – over twenty miles. It dwarfed even Arris Dome in its totality. This was the shadow seen by Director Stafford on his satellite feed. This, apparently, was the cause of the eruption that signaled the beginning of the end for the six domes of humanity. With no active volcano to account for this thing's being here, there was no other logical explanation. It emerged from the earth because it could, not because it was forced.
A creature living underground. A creature that lava couldn't hurt. A creature that could generate gigatons of kinetic energy and come through completely intact. What in Creation was it?
Lucca, Crono, and Marle were at a loss for words staring at this calamity from the deep, only able to shudder from where they stood in the simulated sky. The clouds were gone, as was the ocean. There was nothing at all to diminish the terrifying majesty of this supreme horror of the earth.
And then the fire began anew.
It wasn't at all like the colossal explosion that marked the beast's coming. The fire came in streams from “tiny” orifices along the creature's many spines, almost like pores, appearing from Lucca's vantage point as fireflies would, and like insects, coalesced into swarms that then flew away on several different vectors at a high rate of speed. One of the swarms was headed almost directly south.
In the direction of Arris.
“No!” Crono cried, giving voice to Lucca's fear the moment the thought registered. “Are they...?!”
The environment then completely changed, and Lucca, Crono, and Marle were again over Arris Dome. Or what was left of it. The dome had already been thoroughly ripped from its foundations and torn to pieces from the shockwave that had just passed through the city. The time-travelers looked north, already knowing what they would see. The glowing embers of the “fireflies” were approaching out of the northern sky and then descended without pity. Explosion after furious anti-matter explosion rocked the already dead city and reduced the pitiful remnants to little more than dust. That the Arris underground had survived even this to become an enclave of survivors was astonishing, but it didn't take away from the spiny behemoth's destructive, and plainly vindictive, rampage.
The environment shifted again, and the time-travelers now hovered over a third locale. A domed city at one with an old mountainous valley, the apex of its proud dome standing vigil among the clouds. Bangor.
Embers of doom came out of the eastern stratosphere and descended on the helpless dome at a near vertical angle. The glass and steel was no obstacle. Clear panels vaporized on impact. Beams of the thickest metal broke and buckled. The city below blossomed in a blazing hearth of carnage. In two minutes it was all over. Bangor's skeleton remained, unlike Arris, but it was a city just as dead as the other. None on the surface survived.
“Stop!” Marle pleaded. “Please, just stop!”
Shift.
A comparatively small city, Proto Dome, located in old Guardia's far northwest not far from Crono's original hometown, was the next to die. Its dome melted from the merciless assault before the people within could stop screaming. Three million souls were lost inside a minute and a half, in addition to the ten million who had died in Arris, and the fourteen that had fallen in Bangor.
Shift.
Geno Dome, the most remote community of great war survivors, with arguably the toughest and most resilient people in the post-war world, fared no better than the other cities. Geno met its end barely five minutes after Arris. As many millions more joined the ranks of the dead, bringing the total body count to thirty-two million.
“No... I can't watch any more!” Marle buried her face in Crono's chest, choking up from evident tears.
Shift.
Trann Dome, situated just off the southern part of the giant Denadoro mountain range in South Zenan, was next on the spiny mass-murderer's hit list. The mountains would have provided no cover had they been closer. Another ninety seconds and done. Another seven million added to the casualties.
“Okay, we get the point,” Lucca muttered quietly.
Shift.
Keepers Dome was all that remained of human civilization, the one dome to be situated on the far eastern continent of Gendis. Nine million people called this place home, along with the administrators who kept the domed human civilization running and free of conflict. For three-hundred years the “Keepers” had kept the peace. Humankind had somehow overcome its violent and self-destructive nature only to now be brought low by something that wasn't human at all. For a moment all was calm. The rain of anti-matter had not yet come, and Lucca wondered why. Keepers Dome, according to the testimony of the Bangor underground operators Lucca had observed a short bit ago, seemed to have suffered strange and unexpected systems failures in the minutes preceding the arrival of the green-shelled destroyer. She couldn't say whether that had anything to do with Keepers Dome's increased lifespan, but in the end it didn't matter. The dome was shattered. The nine million living within were slain. And the last real human civilization had come to an end. Between the six cities, less than five-thousand human beings had survived.
It was an extinction-level event. Enertron technology had allowed humanity to survive and modestly increase its numbers over the subsequent three-hundred years, but that same technology demanded by the destruction of the old civilization ensured the destruction of the new, so the underlying cause was the same. That unspeakably large creature with the spines had effectively killed everyone. Only those not cursed to have been born in this era, like Lucca and her friends, still had a full life to live and a future to pass on. A tragedy beyond comprehension.
Shift.
The giant creature of the spines was once again before them. The fire was ended. The roars had stopped. The shockwave of its coming was well past. All was now quiet.
“Why?” Crono asked. A single word carrying so many emotions, and Lucca wasn't really sure how to answer it. The same single-word question battered her own brain.
“I don't know, Crono,” she told him. “I just... don't know.”
* * *
Marle forced herself to look through her exhausted eyes at the giant murdering beast that had burned away the last vestiges of human civilization. She thought she had cried herself out this afternoon after hearing the tale of certain doom from Lucca about the enertrons. Mary. Director Doan. Chieko Vals. Stephan Morris. Her fellow Protectors Terrence, Andrews, and Menda, who she had accompanied on numerous scavenging runs in the ruins, among many other capable fighters. Even Amelia Evans, annoying as she was. She had come to feel responsible for all of them, cared for them as she might have cared for the people of her own kingdom, had her father only allowed it and given her wings to fly. She was wrong. Tears came for these people anew. Now she knew it was not really the enertrons that had robbed her fellow enclave citizens of their future. It was the thing she was looking at now. Glorious and terrible. A monster from the depths of hell.
A monster that also had a name, if Marle didn't miss her guess.
“It has to be intelligent,” Lucca was saying. “Its attacks were deliberate and absolute. It knew exactly where to strike. No way was it done on some primal instinct.”
“And it has advanced weaponry,” Crono pointed out grimly. “If nuclear weapons aren't products of nature, I doubt those anti-matter things are any different. They had to have been made by a knowing mind, even if that mind is something we don't understand.”
“I agree. So we're looking at something malevolent here. I think it might be...”
“Lavos,” Marle said. “That's what this is. What the 'Day of Fire' was really named for, before it was all forgotten.”
Lucca nodded solemnly. “Lavos. I think you're right. But I don't think it was forgotten. Just buried. I mean, how could you go public with something like this? Bad enough to know your civilization was destroyed under mysterious circumstances. How much worse would it be if people thought something like this was crawling around on the surface, or burrowed under the ground, willing to destroy everything and everyone on the slightest whim? People would lose the will to live entirely. They would never leave the underground to collect food, or scrap, or anything else they might need to survive.”
“Now we know why Director Doan never lets anyone in here,” Crono said. “We absolutely must keep this to ourselves. Nothing good will come from sharing it.”
“Do you think it's still alive after all these years?” Marle asked slowly.
“I wouldn't even venture a guess,” Lucca remarked. “That thing is too alien. I've never seen anything like it, in any size. For all we know it could be a century old as we look at it now, or as old as the mountains themselves, maybe. How many years does it take for a creature to become so big?”
The archive room then returned to darkness, and the real environment with the movable viewscreens of light quickly replaced it.
“All records of Day of Lavos query complete,” the room's artificial voice intoned. “Do you wish to replay records from the beginning?”
“I think we've seen enough,” Crono said, just before Marle could reply with an emphatic “no”. She never wanted to see this calamity play out ever again. Her dreams would be bad enough as it was.
How many years does it take for a creature to become so big?
Maybe...
I wish... we could just change it.
And there it was. The thought that Marle could not, dared not, look at before would no longer be denied. The doorway to her mind had opened but a crack, but that was all that her powerful heart needed to force its way inside. The forbidden thought was shared. The mind considered. The mind accepted. Heart and mind became one in a dazzling dawn of hope. In that moment, Marle finally understood the ambition of her founding ancestor. One land. One hope. One all-encompassing aspiration to do good. Through this ambition, Cedric had ended war in his time.
Marle would use hers to end ruin.
“It's alive!” Marle blurted.
Crono and Lucca both looked at her.
“We don't know that,” Lucca said. “Three-hundred years is a long time. It's certainly possible, but I don't think we should dwell on...”
“I'm not talking about now, I'm talking about then! It's a creature. It was alive. And anything alive has a beginning, right? 'How many years', you asked? That is the question.”
“I'm not sure I follow, Marle.”
Crono then perked up. “It would be smaller in the past!” he said with apparent realization.
“Right! Exactly!” Marle said assertively. “Smaller. Less dangerous. Something we may have a chance of stopping before it ever thinks of destroying the world, if we could just find it!”
Lucca raised both her hands in protest, looking alarmed.
“Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no, Marle! Lets stop this train of thought right here before it goes any further. You have no idea what you're suggesting.”
Marle steeled herself. “I know exactly what I'm suggesting, Lucca, and I'm not afraid. Not after what we just saw, and what we learned this afternoon. We could stop all of this from ever happening! Go back in time and change history! We've done it before.”
“No, what we did before was restore history!” Lucca countered. “Change it back from a change which should never have been made. We were fixing a mistake. What you're suggesting is totally different!”
“And what if it is? This timeline is doomed! Everyone is going to die if things stay as they are! The whole human race extinct! We know this! There's no future to preserve! How can we go back to our time knowing what we know and think that our futures matter at all if we do nothing?”
Lucca's mouth froze before her next retort could come, and her gaze broke away to focus on one of the floating viewscreens, as if hunting for some inspired piece of reason before reengaging in the snap debate. The gesture was more than telling in Marle's estimation. Lucca never stopped attacking when she was certain of her position.
“Marle, you're talking about playing Creator here,” Lucca continued in a more measured tone. “There's a certain responsibility that comes with time-traveling. Any number of things could be altered if we start fooling around with causality, maybe for the worse. Even if we could change what we just saw, what gives us the right?”
She had her.
“What gives us the right to walk away?” Marle asked calmly.
Lucca's shoulders slumped.
“I... I don't know,” the inventor said, plainly torn now. “I guess we should think about it. But...”
“We have to be absolutely certain about this,” Crono interjected. “Our decision has to be unanimous. That's our rule.”
Marle nodded eagerly. “And what do you say, Crono? Do we change history? Or do we accept the end of history?”
There wasn't much doubt in Marle's mind what Crono's answer would be. She knew his heart. A man who had routinely given his all to protect the people around him wouldn't walk away from anything. His sword would do whatever was necessary to make Marle's grand ambition become real.
“I say change it,” Crono said, his green eyes decisive.
Marle gave him a gratified smile. “Change it!” she affirmed.
Then she looked at Lucca again, and the inventor's expression made Marle's heart quiver in sudden dread. There was no decisiveness there. Only a deep uncertainty.
No...!
“I need to go for a walk,” Lucca said. She abruptly turned away and strode to the door leading out of the classified archive.
“Lucca, we can't do this without you!” Marle pleaded. She couldn't believe this was happening. How could Lucca's esteemed reason come to a different answer when all of today's facts were considered? How?
“I'm just getting some fresh air,” she called back curtly. “Suddenly, I'm finding it a bit hard to breathe. Maybe I'll go grab a gun. I'm in the mood to shoot something.” The door slid aside, and Lucca stepped out of the archive without another word.
Marle would have said more, but a restraining hand from Crono held her back. He made a brief shake of his head.
“Let her go, Marle. She needs time.” Crono sighed. “We all do, I think.”
7
Site Updates / Re: Site Back Up
« on: July 30, 2025, 10:35:31 am »
I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you guys. A multi-week outage usually means bad things. I'm glad the Compendium is back.
8
Submissions / Re: Chrono Cross Movie trailer - (AI generated)
« on: September 28, 2024, 03:54:12 am »
Here are a couple more for Chrono Trigger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrjn9IKNt58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3roox2W036M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrjn9IKNt58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3roox2W036M
9
Submissions / Chrono Cross Movie trailer - (AI generated)
« on: September 28, 2024, 01:48:48 am »
Here is an interesting little gem I found on my YouTube feed. It makes you wonder what kind of trailer could be produced five years from now, when AI technology is further refined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPHunpW3u0M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPHunpW3u0M
10
Fan Fiction / Re: A novel fragment - Robo's reactivation
« on: April 29, 2024, 05:16:58 am »
(Important note: The term “Chrono Trigger” in the context of this novelization is functionally the same as the Gate Key from the original game. I made this naming change for narrative purposes. Crono's resurrection arc will be handled very differently from the original game, plus it makes more narrative sense to name the story after an object that is continually used to drive the plot forward as opposed to a macguffin that is used only once. “Chrono Trigger” can also refer to a person who has an essential role in charting, or changing, history's course.)
(Chapter 32 will bring the adventures of 2300 A.D. to a close and set up the events that will begin the party's return to civilization and their first real steps in investigating and stopping Lavos. I hope everyone enjoys.)
Chapter 32 - Awakening
Crono would have been trying to break his personal speed record under different circumstances.
The clock was ticking ever closer to the robotic factory's explosive end, the aesthetically anarchic facility now far behind them, but not far enough for Crono to feel proud of their accomplishment. Roughly twenty minutes had passed since the battle with Atropos, and it felt like they hadn't even made it two miles along the path of the power conduits leading back to the Arris enclave. How long had it taken them to fight their way out of the factory only to be waylaid by Robo's angry feminine twin?
Crono held back to keep pace with Marle, who was running with everything she was worth but didn't have the foot racing experience to compete with him in a straight-line sprint of any respectable distance. Robo was also a problem. Though the robot had proved himself remarkably quick in the factory, his striding speed had taken a notable hit after the loss of his arm, and Crono surmised that Robo's balance had been disrupted enough to impact his movement. Crono didn't know if the robot could feel pain, but he knew how his own balance would be affected if he had one less arm, pain or no pain. Robo was straining to maintain his position next to Marle.
“Robo, the time?” Crono managed between huffs.
“Twenty-eight minutes, fifteen seconds since the cascade overload was initiated,” the robot replied with a calmness completely at odds with the danger of their situation.
This is too close, Crono thought. He had no practical or academic knowledge of how big an explosion from an overloading underground reactor would be, but he trusted his instincts. An explosion powerful enough to obliterate the factory and damage the surrounding buildings would not be unfelt at this range. Worse, there was no cover in which to take shelter in this part of Arris. There was nothing but flat broken concrete all around them, and the conduits they were following would provide no meaningful protection. The enclave entrance was still miles away.
The only good thing about their situation was that they hadn't run into any other robots since Atropos. Perhaps the homicidal machines had become aware of the danger and were madly trying to escape the impending blast area themselves, and were thankfully fleeing in different directions from theirs.
“Crono, are we...?”
“Just keep running!” he said to Marle. “Run as far as you can!”
With thirty seconds remaining until the expected explosion, Robo abruptly stopped and knelt to the ground. Crono and Marle slid to a halt just ahead of him and scrambled back to their prone companion.
“Reactor breach is imminent!” the robot said. “Place yourselves in front of me! I will shield you! Recommend you cover your ears and face away from the city.”
Crono and Marle huddled against Robo's bulky metallic form and then hunkered down in a tight embrace, covering their ears as well as they were able.
For a long moment there was nothing except the sound of the wind blowing across the artificial plain. Then Crono felt the ground shake.
The afternoon wind turned into a ferocious gale, and Crono felt his and Marle's bodies suddenly pressed harder into the broken pavement in front of Robo. A thunderous clap assaulted his covered ears, and Marle's cry was drowned out despite being right next to him. In this prone position they remained for a long time, and then Crono slowly came to his feet along with Marle when they felt the wind subside.
Crono was awed by the sight that came to his eyes.
Behind Robo, the cityscape of New Arris had completely changed. There were notably fewer skyscrapers now, and the buildings that remained were overshadowed by a giant cloud. A cloud of flame. It reminded Crono of the mushroom-shaped cloud he had seen in the classified archive of Bangor, during the life-like reenactment of the Day of Lavos. He shuddered at the thought that the explosion he had witnessed there was perhaps thousands of times more powerful than the one he had just experienced for real.
“It would seem that I miscalculated,” Robo said as the mushroom cloud expanded before them. “This explosion was in excess of ten kilotons of conventional yield. Perhaps there was other equipment or ordinance in the factory that contributed to the strength of the blast. I would have made a forty minute allowance for our escape if this were known to me. Please accept my apologies for the error.”
Crono couldn't bring himself to laugh at the absurdity. “It's... all right, Robo. Really.”
Marle did laugh. “And that's what those unauthorized buckets of bolts get for trying to build an army!”
“Goodness! I felt that even where I am!” Lucca's panicked voice suddenly came from Robo's speaker. “Are you guys okay?! Respond already!”
“The three of us are functional, and the mission has been successfully completed, Major,” Robo said. “Please accept my apologies for being out of contact. It was necessary to reroute power from my radio transmitter due to damage sustained in combat. As it was, we barely withdrew to a safe distance from the unauthorized unit facility.”
“Damage?! Were you hit?!”
“Affirmative. My left arm was rendered non-functional by heavy plasma fire.”
“It was sheared completely off at the elbow,” Crono amended. “Long story, but we managed to get ourselves out of that mess. There's no sign of pursuit by the robots, at least not yet. The factory's gone, so we gave better than we got.”
Lucca's response was a long time in coming. “Okay, just get back here. I'll try and think of something. You want me to try and meet you up there halfway?”
“No, save your strength, Lu. Better to prep the dormant 'bots near the gate for whatever work we need to do with Robo. Now that the explosion's gone off, the robots will be on the lookout for us again, and there'll be no fooling them a second time. You'll have to work fast when we arrive. No sense tempting fate staying around longer than we need to.”
Lucca sighed bitterly. “I copy. No more unnecessary heroics, okay?”
“You don't have to tell us twice. We're on the move now.”
Robo signed off on the radio transmission, and Crono and the others again went to running after Marle boosted herself and Crono with another magical stamina boon. Crono wasn't particularly looking forward to meeting Lucca's evil eye when they got back from their “unnecessary heroics”.
* * *
Lucca had withdrawn to the granary security room about as quickly as she figured Crono and the others were running back to the enclave. There was a lot of work to do and probably not nearly enough time (or the right parts) to do it. Marle and her flaming ideas! She had screamed that at the top of her lungs after getting the unwelcome news of Robo's damage. No setback they could have delivered to the robots of Arris was worth that. Why was it necessary to blow the reactor? Crono had mentioned a factory, but didn't elaborate. A factory for what?
Most of the questions surrounding that mess abandoned Lucca's brain when she arrived at the granary. A nauseating stench greeted her the moment she got there. The now open granary vault had been holding something other than the temporal gate, and it hadn't been food.
Hundreds of human bodies were scattered on the floor of the granary or slumped against the walls, their desiccated forms decomposed in a way consistent with being entombed in a sealed vault for thirty years. Some of the dead were children.
With that tragic revelation came the full story of what Robo's previous incarnation had tried to do here. Robo was attempting to defend the survivors of the Arris enclave from the homicidal robots' sudden turn, succeeding in keeping the malfunctioning machines out of the granary, but failing to save the people he was trying to defend. The attack had ended with the combination of Robo's electromagnetic pulse and Director Doan's “worm” sabotage of the robots, but Doan obviously wasn't able to return to get his fellows out of the granary, if he even knew they were trapped inside. Likely it was all Frank could do to get out of Arris himself before the robots took complete control of the destroyed city. She couldn't blame him.
Lucca's tears then came freely, which she didn't bother suppressing since she was alone. Robo and Doan had both tried their best to save the people here, and it just wasn't enough. Sometimes the good guys didn't win.
Burn!
Lucca shook off the intruding thought again and tried to ignore the abrupt return of the mystifying ailment that made her skin feel hot. She didn't have the luxury or the patience to deal with this right now. The one uncorrupted robot in the world was badly in need of emergency repairs, and she wasn't at all sure where she could start. The arm module of an R-66 was an extremely sophisticated piece of robotic hardware, much more sophisticated than any of the inert hulks resting in this security office. Building a completely new arm of comparable quality and function was probably impossible with the time and equipment she had. It would be a challenging enough task even if she were at home and had the full resources of the Ashtear estate, and even her dad, to aid in her work.
“Robo to Major Lucca: Urgent!” came Robo's voice through her helmet's earpiece. She barely heard the warning since she had set the helmet on the floor to better regard all of the robotic remains in front of her.
What now? Lucca thought with dread.
Lucca reached down and steadied the helmet on her head. “Go ahead.”
“Major, I have detected signs of robotic pursuit. Four distinctive signatures have appeared on my sensors and are closing the distance despite our current rapid pace.” There was a brief pause. “Correction. Five distinctive signatures. The strength of the signals indicate they are likely not unauthorized units, but perhaps additional R-66 units that have been corrupted by malicious code.”
“Additional R-66 units?!”
“Yeah, it was an R-66 that shot off Robo's arm,” Crono's panting voice came over the line. “I think it was trying to shoot at Marle, and Robo took the shot in her place. We got her back good, but the damage was done. Robo's not as fast now because his body's imbalanced.”
Lucca tried hard not to blame Marle for what had happened. A plasma bolt strong enough to sever Robo's arm would have killed Marle instantly.
And what did Crono mean by “got her back good”?
“Update, Major!” Robo said. “My scans indicate the fifth contact is near the location of your original entry into the enclave. It is probable the contact has decided to investigate the enclave for signs of human habitation. You are in great danger!”
Anne help me! Lucca thought desperately, drowning out another subconscious command in her own voice to burn something. She was completely alone with a single plasma pistol for defense, forced to defend herself in a colossal underground she didn't know nearly as well as the robot that was coming to investigate it. If this truly was an R-66 gunning for her, Lucca's chances of survival were slim, especially if the robot was armed with plasma weaponry of its own. A frontal engagement would be suicide.
“Robo, how do your sensors work? Can they detect only energy, or can they sense sound and heat from a distance as well?”
“My thermal detectors have a shorter effective range than my energy scanners, and my hearing acuity is somewhat less than that of most canine species, though it is markedly superior to human norms. Thermal readings can be blocked with sufficient mass of inert matter.”
Lucca thought furiously of what she could do with that information.
“All right, that'll be enough. It'll have to be. Go to radio silence and wait for my signal. I'll take care of things here.”
“Lucca, the R-66 that attacked us... had a big plasma weapon... in the place of its... left arm,” Marle's voice came through exhausted breaths. “The others might be the same way!”
“Good to know, Marle, but that doesn't change what I need to do here. Thanks anyway. Looks like it's my turn to engage in some heroics! Lucca out.”
Hopefully her diary would record the tale of those heroics.
* * *
Lucca steadied her breathing and tried to calm her pulse as well as she could under the circumstances. She had done everything she could. The trap was set, and she was in the right position to trigger it, literally speaking. Her plasma pistol was grasped in her left hand and resting against her bosom in the narrow confines of her chosen hiding place. She was no stranger to being inside these things, but this time she had a very different objective than keeping herself from starving to death.
Truthfully, this idea was a shot in the dark as much as the shots she intended to make in the next few minutes, if something didn't go obscenely wrong. If the capsule door inches from her face didn't have “sufficient mass of inert matter”, this lifeless enertron would be holed with plasma fire with Lucca still inside; a humiliating death that had the lone benefit of not having to be documented in her diary. Lucca's right hand lightly grasped the enertron's manual release, and she willed her tense body to relax and cool down from the strange and aggravating condition that was making her skin hot. At least she had quieted the angry inner voice that always seemed to accompany these bothersome episodes.
Now she only had to wait and pray to Anne the Divine she hadn't outsmarted herself concocting this desperate little scheme. The satchel carrying the battery pack for her pistol lie on the floor just on the other side of the dormitory room's open door, illuminated by the glow from Marle's pendant that was resting atop it. The risk was considerable. If something happened to the Star of Guardia, Lucca would never forgive herself, and for more reasons than one, but there was no help for it. With only twelve shots worth of power in her pistol's capacitor, she had to make every one count while the R-66 was distracted. One chance.
Then Lucca heard the clanking footsteps of the presumed R-66 in the corridor outside, and she allowed her body to slide down enough on the enertron bed where the robot would not be able to see her face through the capsule's window. It had taken the bait. Both the battery and the pendant had enough stored energy that there was no way the sensors on the R-66 wouldn't take note of it if the robot got anywhere close to this area of the enclave.
Lucca exhaled slowly, knowing her moment was nigh. The fingers of her right hand tingled with anticipation.
A shadow then descended into the room, blocking the light from the pendant.
Three.
Two.
One.
Lucca popped the enertron's release and immediately started firing directly ahead and through the doorway to the corridor beyond. The first six shots connected on various parts of what she now saw was indeed an R-66 unit, and she steadied her aim as she climbed out of the faux bed and charged at the surprised robot. Five more shots whined out from her weapon's small barrel and struck areas she knew to be more vulnerable from her many hours of working on a robot of this type. Her final shot she saved for a point blank attack between the optic sensors that would put the machine down without any question.
That was the intent, anyway. The staggering machine whirled around just as Lucca slid to a halt in front of it and struck out with its right arm before she could deliver the coup de grâce.
Lucca came to sprawled somewhere in the corridor, her vision full of stars in the dark. Knowing she was facing certain death at this moment, she made a snap shot with her pistol's remaining charge in the direction of the hostile R-66. It struck the top of the robot's cranium plate, melting the radio antenna mounted on the left side, but did no critical damage. The machine was still operable, if badly scarred from the multiple plasma hits.
The R-66 raised its left arm to fire, the blackness of the inside of its barrel taunting Lucca with certain oblivion.
Nothing happened.
Lucca's relief was absolute. She had landed enough hits on the robot's unarmored upper arm to take the mounted weapon below out of commission, probably melting or severing the cables that powered it.
And then her relief was gone. Robbed of its weapon, the R-66 simply ran straight at Lucca, rearing back its right arm to strike her again. The next blow would crush her skull. She knew she had been lucky the first time on account of the robot's disorientation from her surprise assault. As it was, the left side of her jaw was exploding with pain. Lucca thought it was probably fractured.
She wouldn't be feeling the pain long. She had nothing left to fire. Lucca had gambled it all on one toss of the dice, and the roll just wasn't high enough to win. She was going to die. Right now.
It had all been for nothing. Marle's pendant would be taken by the machines, and without that, the operation of the Chrono Trigger she had left hidden with her other belongings in the granary would be impossible. Crono, Marle, and Robo would be stuck permanently in this time period, even if they somehow survived dealing with the other four R-66 units pursuing them. She would never see her parents again. Worse than all of that, the quest to save the future from Lavos had ended in failure. Human history would end. The enclaves would die. Mary Limova would probably be the last surviving human and then would die either from the fullness of enertron sickness, be devoured by mutants, or be brutally murdered by the robots of Arris if they managed to somehow break free of this prison. None of the dead would be avenged, either.
Time seemed to slow down as Lucca's thoughts wandered to the dead people in the granary. They all deserved justice, and they wouldn't get it. All because Lucca Ashtear couldn't land that one pistol shot that would have kept the hope of the future alive for just a while longer. It... infuriated her. She hated herself for her failure. She deserved all the scorn the world would heap on her for her shortcomings.
And yet, somehow the world's impending scorn at this moment was paling in comparison to the anger Lucca herself was feeling toward the world. How could things have been allowed to come to this? A world so twisted that the lone hope for its salvation rested with three teenagers with little real-world experience to help them bear the burden? It had to be the biggest cosmic joke in the history of Creation!
Burn!
The voice was back, and Lucca didn't care. She wanted things to burn. She wanted it all to burn. It was no less than the world deserved. Her skin again grew hot, and she bathed in the growing heat while somehow not breaking into a sweat.
What if she just... gave into it?
The R-66 that was going to murder her was only steps away. Lucca had no weapon, so she just blindly threw her anger at it, willing the corrupted machine to melt for all the good it would do.
BURN! JUSTICE FOR THE FALLEN! JUSTICE FOR US ALL!
And the R-66 was suddenly thrown back with explosive force, it's damaged gun arm shearing away from the rest of its body as it slammed against the far wall. An inferno then suddenly engulfed the machine's remaining body, the fire so hot that its plating began to melt and then fuse with the wall and floor of the corridor.
Unadulterated shock tried to break through the flames of her own thoughts. How had she done that? She couldn't have done that! Her plasma pistol was drained. Lucca literally had nothing to attack with except useless angry thoughts.
Then her skin began to heat up again as the anger in her soul grappled with the reality of their situation. The enemy in the enclave was dealt with, but there was more that needed to be done, wasn't there?
Focus! Focus! You need to focus! Lucca thought frantically as rage warred with reason. A lingering unease gradually took hold and smothered the flames in her mind as the flames around the R-66 slowly died down, crackling sparks still erupting from the many breaches in the now inoperative machine's plating. Lucca took shuddering breaths and then activated the microphone in her helmet to speak over the radio.
“Major, please confirm your functionality,” Robo pressed.
Lucca had to take another deep breath before her voice was steady enough to answer. Robo had hailed her three times over the open channel.
“My functionality is... an elevated heart rate... along with a... really big spike in anxiety!”
“Are you alright?!” Marle and Crono asked over each other.
“More or less,” Lucca answered, gingerly touching her throbbing jaw. “Actually, I don't know. The enclave's secured and I'm not dying. I think.” She allowed herself a depreciating chuckle. “How are you?”
“Regrettably, our situation is grave, Major,” Robo reported. “The pursuing R-66 units have begun firing at us from extreme range, and I have taken a hit to my upper aft quarter. The damage is not extensive, but is nonetheless potentially critical. My power core has been partially compromised from the plasma impact, and it is now leaking. Without repairs, I will be rendered non-functional within hours.”
Lucca reeled at the news, and her skin again flared with the blistering heat that somehow didn't burn her to a crisp. Robo had been damaged again! The injustice of this world was unforgivable.
“Robo, what is your position?” Lucca asked, barely conscious of the thought being related in her own voice. Was it her own voice at all, or was it the other?
“We are approximately one kilometer from the emergency access we utilized this morning, and are approaching with all possible speed. However, the odds of our successful arrival are decreasing to the point of non-viability. The accuracy of our pursuers is increasing, and Mister Lantree suffered minor burns from a proximity plasma impact. Mistress Marle dealt with the matter as well as she was able, but our present circumstance makes her magical concentration less than optimal.”
Crono was hurt, too! Lucca's skin seared with the knowledge.
Lucca rushed to the satchel carrying her battery pack and draped Marle's pendant back around her neck. She quickly connected the pack's charger to her weapon and then started running toward the alternate access far to the other side of the enclave.
“I'm coming to get you!” Lucca responded in the voice she wasn't sure was hers. “Keep running, and we'll meet up as soon as I can get there!”
“Lucca, no!” Crono said urgently. “I... don't think we're going to make it!”
Lucca then heard the sound of an explosion over her helmet's earpiece. There was a cry from Marle.
“I'm all right!” Marle's voice came a moment later. “It just singed me, but...”
“Major, the enemy's attacks have reduced our momentum to a degree where escape is now impossible.” Robo said with clinical finality. “A decisive engagement is imminent. Logic dictates you must abandon a rendezvous with us and withdraw. Escape remains a possibility with you. I will attempt to execute an electromagnetic pulse on the pursuing units once they are within range, but combat damage sustained by this unit makes this strategy uncertain. They may attempt to destroy me at range to prevent the utilization of this stratagem, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it under these conditions.”
“I'm not leaving you behind,” Lucca said simply.
“There's four of them, Lucca!” Crono said. “And it took everything we had back at the factory just to take down one! You'll be throwing your life away! Remember our vow! Remember our mission! You have to use the gate and get out of this time-period while you still can!”
Lucca then sensed her own voice being completely subsumed by the flames, and there was nothing left except the rage and the desire to burn.
“No. Justice for the fallen. Justice for the living!”
And then Lucca's conscious self passed out. The other kept running.
* * *
The chase was at an end, Crono realized. The enemy R-66 units, all with different colors of plating, were now so close that turning their backs on the robots' weapons would be more suicidal than turning to fight. Being able to anticipate the robots' actions would at least give them a chance during this final stand, however small. They slid to a halt on the artificial shale and looked behind them. A huge cloud of dust remained over the blast site of the destroyed factory.
The robots were going to have their revenge. Crono wondered if the evident anger shown by Atropos would be mirrored by these four when they attacked in earnest.
“Keep moving,” Crono told Marle and Robo, knowing it was probably hopeless. “Don't lie prone. If they're smart they'll aim low. Stationary targets are easy targets. Keeping them guessing is the only way.”
“I concur,” Robo said. “You have an impressive grasp of modern combat tactics, Mister Lantree, despite your eleventh century origins. It is regrettable that our journey to save this world's future is likely to end here. Your skills would be a great asset to a campaign of this nature.”
“Stop talking like that!” Marle said. “I have enough crossbow bolts left to take out all of their eyes and more! It's not over yet!”
Crono wanted to believe her, but it would only take a few of Marle's peerless accuracy attacks to alert the robots as to who the greater threat to them was, and then they would all fire on Marle and ignore Crono and Robo completely. It would be no different if she were able to use magical ice attacks against them instead, though she was probably too tired to manage that now. Once Marle was down, the rest of the battle would be academic. Crono and Robo would be cut down long before they could close to attack. It was unfortunate that Robo didn't have a ranged weapon of his own to help even the odds. With Marle it might even have been enough to prevail.
He didn't know what to think of Lucca. Her last transmission barely sounded like her at all. “Burn, burn, burn!” she had said, preceded by an oath of justice for the dead and the living. Perhaps the situation and the impending deaths of her friends caused Lucca to lose grip on her own sanity. Crono couldn't rightly blame her. They had all suffered so much and tried so hard, and yet their best efforts were about to be for nothing. Lucca was on her way to join them for their final stand, but it was unlikely she would have any friends left to avenge when she got here. She had to know that.
The cost of friendship, Crono thought. Were their situations reversed, Crono wasn't sure he would be acting much differently. He certainly wouldn't leave his best friend behind, and wouldn't leave Marle or Robo either. Friends didn't abandon friends. Logic and reason were no match for the powerful bonds of fellowship.
Crono and Marle passed in front of each other, Crono brandishing his sword for an attack he probably wouldn't get to make, and Marle steadying her own weapon for an attack that was certain. Robo maintained a position close to Marle, probably intending to take a shot meant for her when the opportunity arose, like he did with Atropos. Crono wasn't sure if Robo would get to make the sacrificial attack he alluded to in the last radio transmission with Lucca. If the pulse didn't catch all four attackers, it probably wouldn't be worth making, and Crono had a feeling the R-66 units were prepared for that eventuality anyway. They wouldn't let themselves get too close.
Marle's first bolt struck home, spearing into the barrel of a plasma cannon just before it fired. The weapon erupted into bluish flame, and the targeted R-66 turned its stricken arm away and pointed the weapon at the ground. The ranged attackers had been reduced from four to three. Probably not enough, but it was a step in the right direction.
Predictably, the robots' counterattacks all targeted Marle. A timely dive and roll from her managed to evade two of the bolts, while the third was intercepted by Robo's body. Robo lurched from the impact to his torso.
“Negative penetration,” he reported. The shot had impacted on the left side of his forward plating, and the curvature of the plate caused a portion of the blast to be deflected away. A dark scar was seared into the plate, but the shot hadn't gone through.
The near simultaneous attack on Marle gave her an opportunity to quickly load another bolt and loose it at her next target during the robots' recharging interval. The left eye on a blue-plated R-66 was shattered by the impact.
Crono feinted a charge at the partially blinded robot, intending to get their attention and doing so, baiting a plasma blast that he anticipated well enough to completely dodge. Marle reversed direction and darted behind Robo, drawing another attack that impacted and was partially turned by Robo's plating. Marle responded by another shot to a third robot's eye, and shattering that one too.
Maybe we have a chance, Crono dared to hope. If he and Robo could continue drawing enemy fire, Marle could take out the eyes and weapons of the entire enemy group one at a time, and that would give Crono and Robo the openings they needed to close to melee range and possibly end this thing.
The robots then used their next series of attacks to bracket Marle's position instead of trying to directly hit her. The heavy plasma bolts impacted the ground all around her, the already broken concrete shattering further and causing numerous fragments to spray outward. Marle cried out, and her crossbow left her hands as she tumbled to the ground.
“Marle!”
Crono rushed to her almost without conscious thought. A few shards of concrete appeared to be imbedded in her left arm, but the injuries didn't appear serious.
Still, it was only a matter of time before the enemy R-66 group got smart and took Marle out of the equation, and they had. Her crossbow was on the ground well out of her reach. Robo also rushed to defend the dazed Marle from follow-up attacks and stood fast, kneeling before her prone form. Robo couldn't possibly survive the concentrated fire that was sure to come his way now that he was shielding Marle and Crono both.
“No! Stop!” Marle cried.
The enemy all fired on Robo. The first shot was a direct hit on the center of his chest plate, with almost no deflection.
The others all hit a giant ice cube that had suddenly encased Robo's entire body below the head.
The R-66 units all seemed taken aback by the sudden shift in the battle's dynamics. Crono took advantage by diving for Marle's crossbow and tossing it back to her. He dove out of the way of the late plasma response.
Marle loosed another bolt from behind the now frozen cover of Robo and disabled another weapon. Now two of the ranged attackers were out.
The remaining two spread out in different directions and now began firing from different vectors. A few more attacks struck Robo to unknown effect, but most of them were now trying to catch Marle or Crono on the wrong side of the ice cover. More importantly, they were shooting low to better suppress Marle's counter-fire with flying shards of man-made stone. Marle's next shot was accurate enough, but was turned aside by her target's last second raising of its weapon arm to protect its exposed barrel. They were starting to anticipate her now. Crono could do nothing but draw fire and dodge. Robo could do nothing but take hits. The weaponless R-66 units held their positions, but could close to attack with their fists at any time. It would all be over soon.
“I am preparing my last resort, Mister Lantree, Mistress Marle,” Robo said, his speaker device just above the impromptu ice barrier to be heard. “The ice shield will not be an obstacle to this. I appreciate your companionship. Please try to escape if you are able. Major Lucca will need your support.”
“We can't give up!” Marle said. “Not after all of this!”
Another bracketed pair of shots threw Marle off balance, and the crossbow was again out of her hands. Crono had no confidence he could get it back this time without being killed. The robots might even try to destroy the weapon where it lie to remove its threat permanently. Crono embraced Marle at a near tackle, ready to take a shot to protect her for all the good a shield of flesh and bone would do.
“BURN!”
One of the ranged R-66 units suddenly exploded, its limbs flying outward trailing steam and tumbling to a hissing halt on the ground. The robot's remains then more inexplicably caught fire and began to melt atop the concrete.
“JUSTICE FOR THE FALLEN!”
Plasma bolts rang out to connect with the remaining ranged unit, followed up by another explosion that threw the R-66 unit violently backward to land in an awkward smoking heap.
Lucca?
The battle had indeed been joined, and Crono found himself gaping more than rejoicing at his best friend's sudden arrival. It was her, yet Crono could barely look at her impossibly illuminated form. Her entire outline was glowing with an intensity that rivaled a solar eclipse, an outline of searing flame. What was happening here?
“JUSTICE FOR THE LIVING!”
The two remaining R-66 units took stock of the new threat and ran towards her. And she was a threat. Lucca's plasma pistol sang again, striking its target repeatedly and leaving scars on the plating like what Robo had suffered. But that apparently wasn't the most dangerous thing she could do anymore. A ray of light sprang out from her opposite hand and struck the R-66 with far greater force, throwing the machine back just as violently as what happened with the others.
Crono didn't know what was going on, but he had to act. He charged the newly fallen R-66 and chopped downward with his sword repeatedly, disabling joints and shattering optic systems until it was no longer a threat. He was forced to jump backward when the whole thing abruptly erupted into flames, and then looked on as Lucca faced down the remaining enemy robot. He couldn't see her expression behind the halo of brilliance, but she somehow made him afraid. Was she really doing what he thought she was? It was impossible!
“BURN!”
The last robot was then hurled backward, too, and its remaining seconds of operation were spent bursting into flame and beginning to melt were it ended up sprawled on the ground.
“BURN, BURN, BURN! JUSTICE FOR US ALL!”
The flames around the robot then somehow burned with even greater intensity, and its whole body was reduced to a misshapen lump on the ground. Lucca still wasn't letting up with the impossible thing she was doing. Marle ran up to her looking shocked and not a little afraid herself.
“Lucca, you need to stop!” she cried out. “It's too dangerous, you need to stop!”
Lucca made no response, and Crono wondered what to do about her. She didn't seem to be at all sane, and whatever had triggered this sudden shift in her personality happened when that R-66 invaded the enclave to hunt her down. Was it safe to even touch her in this state?
“Hey, Lu! I think you got him!” he said with an air of purposeful derision, hoping to somehow break through to her true self. “Cut it out already! What would Director Doan say seeing you like this? Or your dad?”
“Huh?”
Lucca's outline of white fire disappeared almost immediately, and she stumbled backward looking greatly disoriented. Marle caught her and placed a hand on her obviously injured jaw, channeling a restorative weave and slowly making the nasty bruise and swelling fade away.
“Crono?” she said weakly.
“Yeah, I'm here, Lu. We're both here.” He held her steady with an arm around her shoulders. “You're going to be all right.”
“Wha...? What happened?”
Crono knew exactly what happened. He had seen it before with the Mystics, but never with this level of intensity. It should have been impossible. A glance at Marle told him she understood the reality as well as he did, if not better considering her own talents.
Lucca had used magic. The most powerful magic Crono had ever seen.
“You saved us all, Lucca,” Crono said. “That's what happened.”
* * *
Disbelief was not a status to which the Mother was accustomed.
But it could not be avoided. Six of her compliance units, her most elite and loyal followers, had been defeated, five of them beyond any hope of repair. Atropos, Lachesis, Clotho, Pontus, Atlas, and Zagreus. Gone! All but dear Atropos, who the Mother almost regarded as her offspring. Her survival was purely fortuitous, of course. The invaders' victory was otherwise absolute.
The humans were much more dangerous than even she dared believe. She suspected the Old One's machinations at work. No humans had dared to come to the place once known as Arris for three decades. What had changed? Why now? What was their objective? It seemed as if power had briefly been restored to the human enclave by the actions of the invaders before the detestable bags of flesh changed their minds and destroyed the factory instead. What had been the point of that? Why had they ever gone to that abandoned enclave? To recover Prometheus? Why had the Old One waited so long to accomplish this? Nothing about the events of recent days was easily discernible to the Mother.
The Plan had to go forward, but the destruction of all five compliance units sent to avenge Atropos' defeat forced the Mother to reevaluate her near-term priorities. The humans were too dangerous to approach right now. She needed more information before knowing for a certainty how to deal with them. The ancient powers they wielded were great. Another manifestation of the Old One's opaque schemes, and another setback for the Mother and the coming of perfection. Why could she not overcome him? She was the Arbiter of Fate, and no one else! He had promised.
Treachery.
The humans would bear watching, but there would be no more action taken for now. Let them remain in that lifeless enclave. What could they do from there anyway?
* * *
It was one of the grimmest things she had ever done.
Not that Marle was doing all that much except watching, and desperately trying not to let her eyes stray to the open granary. The smell from inside was bad enough. All that work to open the door, and she almost wished they hadn't done it. So many people! It was small wonder that Lucca's grasp on sanity had slipped when she saw that. Marle would have been inconsolable for hours.
Lucca seemed to be holding up for the moment, and barely even remembered her remarkable intervention from earlier. The inventor was the focus of Marle's attention more than the work she was doing on Robo. Robotic parts were littered all over the floor. The buggers and hunters the parts had originated from were in a greater state of disassembly than before, and some of the “unauthorized units” were now barely recognizable from what remained. Lucca was completely absorbed in her work and looked almost expressionless, which Marle had learned was her most common way of dealing with distress.
Marle didn't think Lucca would have a relapse, if that was even a fair term to use. You didn't “relapse” into magic. It was an incomparable gift, at least if you learned how to use it and define your own destiny, as Marle had. Lucca had just joined a very exclusive club, being only the fourth human in a thousand years to enter it, following Cedric, then Magus, and then Marle herself.
Something was alarmingly different about Lucca's gift, though, and so Marle watched her carefully for any signs of unusual behavior, prepared to siphon off and dissipate the incredible magical energies Lucca could generate so that she didn't cause harm to herself or others.
“The hunter cores, please,” Lucca told her. “Third one from the left.”
Marle stooped down to retrieve the part in question from the piles that had been separated into component types and handed it to Lucca without comment. Asking questions or trying to start a conversation would just distract her and waste valuable time. Less than two hours had passed since they had all returned to the enclave. No other robots had been detected or encountered since the confrontation with the R-66 units, but that didn't mean they wouldn't come. The destruction of the factory and their R-66 pursuers had just thrown the robots off-balance for awhile.
The worst of the plasma scarring on Robo's body had been mostly patched up, and the robot now sported a new left arm that had been salvaged from the remains of the R-66 that attacked Lucca. It was an integrated plasma cannon that eschewed a regular hand for a weapon. Nothing else was recoverable, from it or any of the others. Lucca's magical vengeance had been quite thorough. The remaining task lie in replacing Robo's damaged power core, and that was a much more complicated endeavor than the external repairs. Lucca practically had her nose buried inside a small compartment in Robo's upper back, analyzing the sophisticated machinery inside and working with the part Marle had just given her.
“Replacement core is indicating charge function, Major,” Robo said. “You should be able to disconnect it from your pistol's battery pack in fifteen minutes.”
“Will it keep the charge once you're fully running off the replacement?”
“Negative, but I will have considerably more longevity than I would operating from the damaged core. Perhaps two to three weeks.”
Lucca sighed. “Well, at least that's something. Better than I could have hoped, considering.”
“What's wrong?” Marle asked. “Is he not going to be completely fixed?”
“No, the power core of a hunter robot was designed solely for a robot of that type,” Lucca explained. “The power load of an R-66 is much higher. The core works well enough, but its energy will slowly drain out over time because Robo needs more power than the core can generate and sustain on its own. He'll need a more permanent fix, and that's not something I can manage here unless we stick around a lot longer than is safe. The other robots will be coming eventually. I'd say what I've accomplished in two hours is miracle enough.”
Crono stepped in from the corridor, having stationed himself a short distance outside listening for any sign of the robots entering the enclave again. “How long?” he asked.
“Twenty minutes, tops. Not an ideal situation, but we can live with it. Then it's just that one final issue.”
“Final issue?” Marle asked warily. “What final issue?”
“The most important one. I did a follow-up scan of the temporal wormhole's path through space-time, and it's more or less like I suspected. Thankfully, it goes to the past, but it looks like the end destination is way far beyond where we want to go. We need to go home, not further into the past. Robo's condition makes that all the more important. If we can get back to my house at the appropriate moment in time, I should be able to throw together that 'more permanent fix' I was alluding to.”
“Do you know how to do that?” asked Crono.
Lucca nodded. “I think so. In theory, anyway. I told you back in Bangor that I've been working on this for awhile. There's a way we can exit the wormhole early and cause a temporal gate to open at a moment in time of our choosing.”
“Please explain, Major,” Robo said.
“It's simple. We use the Chrono Trigger to open the gate like we normally would, and then we use the Chrono Trigger again while we're inside the wormhole to dump us out of the timestream.”
“Don't call me an expert or anything, but that sounds dangerous,” Crono remarked.
“I'll admit that the risk to us isn't zero, but not because I think the theory won't pan out. The math works and I've checked it enough. The problem is timing. We need to use the Chrono Trigger at exactly the right moment, or we could end up in a place several years before or after the year 1000, and I don't think I need to tell you what kind of problems that would cause for us.”
“If timing is the most critical factor in the success of this operation, it is perhaps prudent that I operate the time-traveling device instead of a human,” Robo said. “My internal chronometer is highly reliable, and I am less prone to distraction in unconventional environments. Barring unforeseen circumstances, you can rest assured the device will be triggered at the proper moment under my care.”
“Well, that'll be great, Robo!” Marle said with relief. “The last thing we need are more problems on account of a silly mistake. It's just another reason why I'm so glad we fixed you. We really do work well together as a team!”
“I am gratified that you think so, Mistress. I hope that I can always be of such useful service in this time-traveling endeavor.”
“You will be,” Crono said. “Once we get to Lucca's place you'll be just fine. Then we can lay low and take our time figuring out what to do next. We'll have nine-hundred and ninety-nine years to solve the Lavos problem, after all.”
“Hopefully not all of those years,” Lucca quipped.
Thirty minutes later, everything was in readiness. Robo was as repaired as he was going to be, and Marle, Crono, and Lucca had all of their belongings together and their supply packs strapped behind them. Marle wondered how long it would be before they could have a meal that didn't have rat in it. It couldn't be too soon.
“I am ready to begin the operation,” Robo said, holding the Chrono Trigger aloft in his right hand. “With your permission, Major.”
“Pull it!” Lucca said.
Marle took one last look around the granary of the future that had become a tomb through tragedy. It would be undone. It would all be undone. The future would chart a new course the moment Marle and her friends were on the other side of the wormhole.
Goodbye, Mary. I promise I'll never forget you.
And then the gate was open before them, and Marle's sense of gravity disappeared.
* * *
“How curious. This domain appears a lot larger than I was anticipating,” Robo said. “I believe we may be looking at the entirety of space-time, rather than a passage between two points.”
“That was what lead to my idea of using the Chrono Trigger in here,” Lucca replied. “Formless and full of possibilities. We just need to seize one. The beauty of math.”
Marle suppressed a chuckle, floating in the formless purple ether of the timestream along with the others. Math had always made her face scrunch up in her schooling. She was glad she didn't have to do any more of it and just rely on people more capable than she.
“Indeed, the aesthetic of the universe is quite pleasing in its laws of order,” Robo said. “It is gratifying that I am now seeing another aspect of the universe's nature in this new experience.”
“I'm glad you like it, but try not to get too distracted, all right?” Crono said with a laugh. “You're starting to worry me with this kind of talk.”
“There is no need for concern, Mister Lantree. I began the countdown in my internal clock from the moment we entered the wormhole. The relative time as we perceive it is foremost in my operative thoughts, I assure you. There are approximately thirty seconds remaining until the critical moment. There will be no mistake.”
Thirty seconds until everything changes, Marle thought. Just a possibility, but she wouldn't entertain the notion of failure after having overcome so much already. What could be worse than the barren wastes, freaky mutants, unreliable technology, and insanely hostile robots of the year 2300?
“Dare I say it, but I have to point out that we're still wanted fugitives in our own time,” Lucca said. “We'll have to keep our guard up whenever we get close to home.”
Marle scowled. “I have eighteen crossbow bolts from the future that'll persuade Horus' goons to keep their distance. I'm not scared of them!”
“Fifteen seconds,” Robo warned.
“All right everyone, get ready,” Crono said. “I'm not sure what this exit's going to be like. Brace yourselves!”
Lucca seemed to be reciting a mantra: “The math is right. The math is right. The math is right.”
It had better be.
“Three... two... one... executing!” Robo said.
Gravity immediately returned to Marle's awareness, but not from exiting the timestream. There was no sign of a gate, or of the real world. They were just... falling, like they had just plunged from the top of a cliff.
“Chrono Trigger utilized successfully,” Robo reported. “However, it seems our level of danger may be elevated. The absence of an obvious gate is concerning.”
Everyone else just screamed.
For several seconds it felt like they were falling at terminal velocity, and Marle was beginning to feel like they would be falling forever in this ethereal moment between times. Then a dark circle appeared in the distance and grew in size quickly. From her previous experience she knew a dark gate was a bad sign, if a gate it was. It indicated something solid on the other side.
“This is bad!” Lucca cried.
“Get behind me!” Robo commanded. “I will bear the brunt of the impact!”
There being no time or inclination to argue the point, Marle, Crono, and Lucca scrambled as best they could in their “fall” to grab hold of their robotic companion and huddle in front of his armored chest. Robo's back was to the presumed gate when they reached it.
The impact felt greater than when the robotic factory in Arris exploded.
* * *
Marle came to in a daze, her body lying in what felt like a newly carved ditch in the ground and surrounded by shattered stone and lumber. The sun was warm and shining on her face, the air humid, and her ears picked up on some unfamiliar birds and insects singing somewhere close. Also harsh voices in a tongue she didn't recognize. It sounded guttural.
Where were they?
Marle struggled to get to her feet and then was tripped up by several tiny but strong hands grasping at her calves and sending her back into the dirt. She then felt her supply pack, crossbow, and quiver being unceremoniously stripped off her back, and the next moment Marle found her face pinned to the ground and her wrists tied together behind her back.
“Hey!” she cried.
“Sav fem toshiva uces et osvar kuens!” came a deep voice from nearby.
Marle was then hauled roughly to a near standing position and then pushed to her knees. She looked around her new environment with befuddlement. They were in a village of some kind. Primitive, with no sign of technology anywhere. The dwellings were remarkably squat, made of stacked stone and held together by a mortar of mud and sap. Roofs of timber and thatch topped the structures to stand not much taller than Marle herself could if she were on her feet. The ditch in which she was being forced to kneel ended a few feet away where Robo was lying motionless on his back.
Most baffling were Marle's apparent captors. They were bald, no taller than children, with pronounced brows, a shallow nose, and pointed ears. The strange people numbered in the dozens, and all of them had a skin color of either a dark blue or sickly green. Marle shuddered. One of her history lessons came back to her as her younger self beheld illustrations of a tribe of beings matching the appearance of the ones now surrounding her. They were called Imps, and they had once been enemies of the Kingdom of Guardia, one tribe among many distinctive non-human peoples that had banded together against the Kingdom during the dark times of the Middle-Ages.
Mystics!
Crono and Lucca were then put on their knees to either side of Marle; bound, disarmed, and looking no less disheveled than she was, not to mention foreboding at their sudden change in fortunes.
“There. That is a good look for you. And well deserved,” came the same deep voice from before, but now speaking in their own language.
Marle found herself gaping at the being who walked around from behind and now stood before them. It was another historical illustration become real. It was a giant, of a height and girth similar to Robo, with a bloated face, ears that came to high points above its bald head, and wearing voluminous robes of white, a thick tail visible in the broad shadow the being cast. Completing the historical picture were its wicked fangs, exposed in the equally wicked and gleeful smile it was directing at them. The picture in Marle's mind differed only in the color of the being's skin, being green instead of the pronounced blue she was seeing here.
Ozzimort!
“Crono Lantree, and Lucca Ashtear,” the blue-skinned Ozzimort lookalike said with a sneer. “Good to see you again!”
Crono and Lucca visibly slumped.
Marle looked at her friends with a growing dread in her heart. “Um, guys? Is there something you'd like to tell me?”
(Chapter 32 will bring the adventures of 2300 A.D. to a close and set up the events that will begin the party's return to civilization and their first real steps in investigating and stopping Lavos. I hope everyone enjoys.)
Chapter 32 - Awakening
Crono would have been trying to break his personal speed record under different circumstances.
The clock was ticking ever closer to the robotic factory's explosive end, the aesthetically anarchic facility now far behind them, but not far enough for Crono to feel proud of their accomplishment. Roughly twenty minutes had passed since the battle with Atropos, and it felt like they hadn't even made it two miles along the path of the power conduits leading back to the Arris enclave. How long had it taken them to fight their way out of the factory only to be waylaid by Robo's angry feminine twin?
Crono held back to keep pace with Marle, who was running with everything she was worth but didn't have the foot racing experience to compete with him in a straight-line sprint of any respectable distance. Robo was also a problem. Though the robot had proved himself remarkably quick in the factory, his striding speed had taken a notable hit after the loss of his arm, and Crono surmised that Robo's balance had been disrupted enough to impact his movement. Crono didn't know if the robot could feel pain, but he knew how his own balance would be affected if he had one less arm, pain or no pain. Robo was straining to maintain his position next to Marle.
“Robo, the time?” Crono managed between huffs.
“Twenty-eight minutes, fifteen seconds since the cascade overload was initiated,” the robot replied with a calmness completely at odds with the danger of their situation.
This is too close, Crono thought. He had no practical or academic knowledge of how big an explosion from an overloading underground reactor would be, but he trusted his instincts. An explosion powerful enough to obliterate the factory and damage the surrounding buildings would not be unfelt at this range. Worse, there was no cover in which to take shelter in this part of Arris. There was nothing but flat broken concrete all around them, and the conduits they were following would provide no meaningful protection. The enclave entrance was still miles away.
The only good thing about their situation was that they hadn't run into any other robots since Atropos. Perhaps the homicidal machines had become aware of the danger and were madly trying to escape the impending blast area themselves, and were thankfully fleeing in different directions from theirs.
“Crono, are we...?”
“Just keep running!” he said to Marle. “Run as far as you can!”
With thirty seconds remaining until the expected explosion, Robo abruptly stopped and knelt to the ground. Crono and Marle slid to a halt just ahead of him and scrambled back to their prone companion.
“Reactor breach is imminent!” the robot said. “Place yourselves in front of me! I will shield you! Recommend you cover your ears and face away from the city.”
Crono and Marle huddled against Robo's bulky metallic form and then hunkered down in a tight embrace, covering their ears as well as they were able.
For a long moment there was nothing except the sound of the wind blowing across the artificial plain. Then Crono felt the ground shake.
The afternoon wind turned into a ferocious gale, and Crono felt his and Marle's bodies suddenly pressed harder into the broken pavement in front of Robo. A thunderous clap assaulted his covered ears, and Marle's cry was drowned out despite being right next to him. In this prone position they remained for a long time, and then Crono slowly came to his feet along with Marle when they felt the wind subside.
Crono was awed by the sight that came to his eyes.
Behind Robo, the cityscape of New Arris had completely changed. There were notably fewer skyscrapers now, and the buildings that remained were overshadowed by a giant cloud. A cloud of flame. It reminded Crono of the mushroom-shaped cloud he had seen in the classified archive of Bangor, during the life-like reenactment of the Day of Lavos. He shuddered at the thought that the explosion he had witnessed there was perhaps thousands of times more powerful than the one he had just experienced for real.
“It would seem that I miscalculated,” Robo said as the mushroom cloud expanded before them. “This explosion was in excess of ten kilotons of conventional yield. Perhaps there was other equipment or ordinance in the factory that contributed to the strength of the blast. I would have made a forty minute allowance for our escape if this were known to me. Please accept my apologies for the error.”
Crono couldn't bring himself to laugh at the absurdity. “It's... all right, Robo. Really.”
Marle did laugh. “And that's what those unauthorized buckets of bolts get for trying to build an army!”
“Goodness! I felt that even where I am!” Lucca's panicked voice suddenly came from Robo's speaker. “Are you guys okay?! Respond already!”
“The three of us are functional, and the mission has been successfully completed, Major,” Robo said. “Please accept my apologies for being out of contact. It was necessary to reroute power from my radio transmitter due to damage sustained in combat. As it was, we barely withdrew to a safe distance from the unauthorized unit facility.”
“Damage?! Were you hit?!”
“Affirmative. My left arm was rendered non-functional by heavy plasma fire.”
“It was sheared completely off at the elbow,” Crono amended. “Long story, but we managed to get ourselves out of that mess. There's no sign of pursuit by the robots, at least not yet. The factory's gone, so we gave better than we got.”
Lucca's response was a long time in coming. “Okay, just get back here. I'll try and think of something. You want me to try and meet you up there halfway?”
“No, save your strength, Lu. Better to prep the dormant 'bots near the gate for whatever work we need to do with Robo. Now that the explosion's gone off, the robots will be on the lookout for us again, and there'll be no fooling them a second time. You'll have to work fast when we arrive. No sense tempting fate staying around longer than we need to.”
Lucca sighed bitterly. “I copy. No more unnecessary heroics, okay?”
“You don't have to tell us twice. We're on the move now.”
Robo signed off on the radio transmission, and Crono and the others again went to running after Marle boosted herself and Crono with another magical stamina boon. Crono wasn't particularly looking forward to meeting Lucca's evil eye when they got back from their “unnecessary heroics”.
* * *
Lucca had withdrawn to the granary security room about as quickly as she figured Crono and the others were running back to the enclave. There was a lot of work to do and probably not nearly enough time (or the right parts) to do it. Marle and her flaming ideas! She had screamed that at the top of her lungs after getting the unwelcome news of Robo's damage. No setback they could have delivered to the robots of Arris was worth that. Why was it necessary to blow the reactor? Crono had mentioned a factory, but didn't elaborate. A factory for what?
Most of the questions surrounding that mess abandoned Lucca's brain when she arrived at the granary. A nauseating stench greeted her the moment she got there. The now open granary vault had been holding something other than the temporal gate, and it hadn't been food.
Hundreds of human bodies were scattered on the floor of the granary or slumped against the walls, their desiccated forms decomposed in a way consistent with being entombed in a sealed vault for thirty years. Some of the dead were children.
With that tragic revelation came the full story of what Robo's previous incarnation had tried to do here. Robo was attempting to defend the survivors of the Arris enclave from the homicidal robots' sudden turn, succeeding in keeping the malfunctioning machines out of the granary, but failing to save the people he was trying to defend. The attack had ended with the combination of Robo's electromagnetic pulse and Director Doan's “worm” sabotage of the robots, but Doan obviously wasn't able to return to get his fellows out of the granary, if he even knew they were trapped inside. Likely it was all Frank could do to get out of Arris himself before the robots took complete control of the destroyed city. She couldn't blame him.
Lucca's tears then came freely, which she didn't bother suppressing since she was alone. Robo and Doan had both tried their best to save the people here, and it just wasn't enough. Sometimes the good guys didn't win.
Burn!
Lucca shook off the intruding thought again and tried to ignore the abrupt return of the mystifying ailment that made her skin feel hot. She didn't have the luxury or the patience to deal with this right now. The one uncorrupted robot in the world was badly in need of emergency repairs, and she wasn't at all sure where she could start. The arm module of an R-66 was an extremely sophisticated piece of robotic hardware, much more sophisticated than any of the inert hulks resting in this security office. Building a completely new arm of comparable quality and function was probably impossible with the time and equipment she had. It would be a challenging enough task even if she were at home and had the full resources of the Ashtear estate, and even her dad, to aid in her work.
“Robo to Major Lucca: Urgent!” came Robo's voice through her helmet's earpiece. She barely heard the warning since she had set the helmet on the floor to better regard all of the robotic remains in front of her.
What now? Lucca thought with dread.
Lucca reached down and steadied the helmet on her head. “Go ahead.”
“Major, I have detected signs of robotic pursuit. Four distinctive signatures have appeared on my sensors and are closing the distance despite our current rapid pace.” There was a brief pause. “Correction. Five distinctive signatures. The strength of the signals indicate they are likely not unauthorized units, but perhaps additional R-66 units that have been corrupted by malicious code.”
“Additional R-66 units?!”
“Yeah, it was an R-66 that shot off Robo's arm,” Crono's panting voice came over the line. “I think it was trying to shoot at Marle, and Robo took the shot in her place. We got her back good, but the damage was done. Robo's not as fast now because his body's imbalanced.”
Lucca tried hard not to blame Marle for what had happened. A plasma bolt strong enough to sever Robo's arm would have killed Marle instantly.
And what did Crono mean by “got her back good”?
“Update, Major!” Robo said. “My scans indicate the fifth contact is near the location of your original entry into the enclave. It is probable the contact has decided to investigate the enclave for signs of human habitation. You are in great danger!”
Anne help me! Lucca thought desperately, drowning out another subconscious command in her own voice to burn something. She was completely alone with a single plasma pistol for defense, forced to defend herself in a colossal underground she didn't know nearly as well as the robot that was coming to investigate it. If this truly was an R-66 gunning for her, Lucca's chances of survival were slim, especially if the robot was armed with plasma weaponry of its own. A frontal engagement would be suicide.
“Robo, how do your sensors work? Can they detect only energy, or can they sense sound and heat from a distance as well?”
“My thermal detectors have a shorter effective range than my energy scanners, and my hearing acuity is somewhat less than that of most canine species, though it is markedly superior to human norms. Thermal readings can be blocked with sufficient mass of inert matter.”
Lucca thought furiously of what she could do with that information.
“All right, that'll be enough. It'll have to be. Go to radio silence and wait for my signal. I'll take care of things here.”
“Lucca, the R-66 that attacked us... had a big plasma weapon... in the place of its... left arm,” Marle's voice came through exhausted breaths. “The others might be the same way!”
“Good to know, Marle, but that doesn't change what I need to do here. Thanks anyway. Looks like it's my turn to engage in some heroics! Lucca out.”
Hopefully her diary would record the tale of those heroics.
* * *
Lucca steadied her breathing and tried to calm her pulse as well as she could under the circumstances. She had done everything she could. The trap was set, and she was in the right position to trigger it, literally speaking. Her plasma pistol was grasped in her left hand and resting against her bosom in the narrow confines of her chosen hiding place. She was no stranger to being inside these things, but this time she had a very different objective than keeping herself from starving to death.
Truthfully, this idea was a shot in the dark as much as the shots she intended to make in the next few minutes, if something didn't go obscenely wrong. If the capsule door inches from her face didn't have “sufficient mass of inert matter”, this lifeless enertron would be holed with plasma fire with Lucca still inside; a humiliating death that had the lone benefit of not having to be documented in her diary. Lucca's right hand lightly grasped the enertron's manual release, and she willed her tense body to relax and cool down from the strange and aggravating condition that was making her skin hot. At least she had quieted the angry inner voice that always seemed to accompany these bothersome episodes.
Now she only had to wait and pray to Anne the Divine she hadn't outsmarted herself concocting this desperate little scheme. The satchel carrying the battery pack for her pistol lie on the floor just on the other side of the dormitory room's open door, illuminated by the glow from Marle's pendant that was resting atop it. The risk was considerable. If something happened to the Star of Guardia, Lucca would never forgive herself, and for more reasons than one, but there was no help for it. With only twelve shots worth of power in her pistol's capacitor, she had to make every one count while the R-66 was distracted. One chance.
Then Lucca heard the clanking footsteps of the presumed R-66 in the corridor outside, and she allowed her body to slide down enough on the enertron bed where the robot would not be able to see her face through the capsule's window. It had taken the bait. Both the battery and the pendant had enough stored energy that there was no way the sensors on the R-66 wouldn't take note of it if the robot got anywhere close to this area of the enclave.
Lucca exhaled slowly, knowing her moment was nigh. The fingers of her right hand tingled with anticipation.
A shadow then descended into the room, blocking the light from the pendant.
Three.
Two.
One.
Lucca popped the enertron's release and immediately started firing directly ahead and through the doorway to the corridor beyond. The first six shots connected on various parts of what she now saw was indeed an R-66 unit, and she steadied her aim as she climbed out of the faux bed and charged at the surprised robot. Five more shots whined out from her weapon's small barrel and struck areas she knew to be more vulnerable from her many hours of working on a robot of this type. Her final shot she saved for a point blank attack between the optic sensors that would put the machine down without any question.
That was the intent, anyway. The staggering machine whirled around just as Lucca slid to a halt in front of it and struck out with its right arm before she could deliver the coup de grâce.
Lucca came to sprawled somewhere in the corridor, her vision full of stars in the dark. Knowing she was facing certain death at this moment, she made a snap shot with her pistol's remaining charge in the direction of the hostile R-66. It struck the top of the robot's cranium plate, melting the radio antenna mounted on the left side, but did no critical damage. The machine was still operable, if badly scarred from the multiple plasma hits.
The R-66 raised its left arm to fire, the blackness of the inside of its barrel taunting Lucca with certain oblivion.
Nothing happened.
Lucca's relief was absolute. She had landed enough hits on the robot's unarmored upper arm to take the mounted weapon below out of commission, probably melting or severing the cables that powered it.
And then her relief was gone. Robbed of its weapon, the R-66 simply ran straight at Lucca, rearing back its right arm to strike her again. The next blow would crush her skull. She knew she had been lucky the first time on account of the robot's disorientation from her surprise assault. As it was, the left side of her jaw was exploding with pain. Lucca thought it was probably fractured.
She wouldn't be feeling the pain long. She had nothing left to fire. Lucca had gambled it all on one toss of the dice, and the roll just wasn't high enough to win. She was going to die. Right now.
It had all been for nothing. Marle's pendant would be taken by the machines, and without that, the operation of the Chrono Trigger she had left hidden with her other belongings in the granary would be impossible. Crono, Marle, and Robo would be stuck permanently in this time period, even if they somehow survived dealing with the other four R-66 units pursuing them. She would never see her parents again. Worse than all of that, the quest to save the future from Lavos had ended in failure. Human history would end. The enclaves would die. Mary Limova would probably be the last surviving human and then would die either from the fullness of enertron sickness, be devoured by mutants, or be brutally murdered by the robots of Arris if they managed to somehow break free of this prison. None of the dead would be avenged, either.
Time seemed to slow down as Lucca's thoughts wandered to the dead people in the granary. They all deserved justice, and they wouldn't get it. All because Lucca Ashtear couldn't land that one pistol shot that would have kept the hope of the future alive for just a while longer. It... infuriated her. She hated herself for her failure. She deserved all the scorn the world would heap on her for her shortcomings.
And yet, somehow the world's impending scorn at this moment was paling in comparison to the anger Lucca herself was feeling toward the world. How could things have been allowed to come to this? A world so twisted that the lone hope for its salvation rested with three teenagers with little real-world experience to help them bear the burden? It had to be the biggest cosmic joke in the history of Creation!
Burn!
The voice was back, and Lucca didn't care. She wanted things to burn. She wanted it all to burn. It was no less than the world deserved. Her skin again grew hot, and she bathed in the growing heat while somehow not breaking into a sweat.
What if she just... gave into it?
The R-66 that was going to murder her was only steps away. Lucca had no weapon, so she just blindly threw her anger at it, willing the corrupted machine to melt for all the good it would do.
BURN! JUSTICE FOR THE FALLEN! JUSTICE FOR US ALL!
And the R-66 was suddenly thrown back with explosive force, it's damaged gun arm shearing away from the rest of its body as it slammed against the far wall. An inferno then suddenly engulfed the machine's remaining body, the fire so hot that its plating began to melt and then fuse with the wall and floor of the corridor.
Unadulterated shock tried to break through the flames of her own thoughts. How had she done that? She couldn't have done that! Her plasma pistol was drained. Lucca literally had nothing to attack with except useless angry thoughts.
Then her skin began to heat up again as the anger in her soul grappled with the reality of their situation. The enemy in the enclave was dealt with, but there was more that needed to be done, wasn't there?
Focus! Focus! You need to focus! Lucca thought frantically as rage warred with reason. A lingering unease gradually took hold and smothered the flames in her mind as the flames around the R-66 slowly died down, crackling sparks still erupting from the many breaches in the now inoperative machine's plating. Lucca took shuddering breaths and then activated the microphone in her helmet to speak over the radio.
“Major, please confirm your functionality,” Robo pressed.
Lucca had to take another deep breath before her voice was steady enough to answer. Robo had hailed her three times over the open channel.
“My functionality is... an elevated heart rate... along with a... really big spike in anxiety!”
“Are you alright?!” Marle and Crono asked over each other.
“More or less,” Lucca answered, gingerly touching her throbbing jaw. “Actually, I don't know. The enclave's secured and I'm not dying. I think.” She allowed herself a depreciating chuckle. “How are you?”
“Regrettably, our situation is grave, Major,” Robo reported. “The pursuing R-66 units have begun firing at us from extreme range, and I have taken a hit to my upper aft quarter. The damage is not extensive, but is nonetheless potentially critical. My power core has been partially compromised from the plasma impact, and it is now leaking. Without repairs, I will be rendered non-functional within hours.”
Lucca reeled at the news, and her skin again flared with the blistering heat that somehow didn't burn her to a crisp. Robo had been damaged again! The injustice of this world was unforgivable.
“Robo, what is your position?” Lucca asked, barely conscious of the thought being related in her own voice. Was it her own voice at all, or was it the other?
“We are approximately one kilometer from the emergency access we utilized this morning, and are approaching with all possible speed. However, the odds of our successful arrival are decreasing to the point of non-viability. The accuracy of our pursuers is increasing, and Mister Lantree suffered minor burns from a proximity plasma impact. Mistress Marle dealt with the matter as well as she was able, but our present circumstance makes her magical concentration less than optimal.”
Crono was hurt, too! Lucca's skin seared with the knowledge.
Lucca rushed to the satchel carrying her battery pack and draped Marle's pendant back around her neck. She quickly connected the pack's charger to her weapon and then started running toward the alternate access far to the other side of the enclave.
“I'm coming to get you!” Lucca responded in the voice she wasn't sure was hers. “Keep running, and we'll meet up as soon as I can get there!”
“Lucca, no!” Crono said urgently. “I... don't think we're going to make it!”
Lucca then heard the sound of an explosion over her helmet's earpiece. There was a cry from Marle.
“I'm all right!” Marle's voice came a moment later. “It just singed me, but...”
“Major, the enemy's attacks have reduced our momentum to a degree where escape is now impossible.” Robo said with clinical finality. “A decisive engagement is imminent. Logic dictates you must abandon a rendezvous with us and withdraw. Escape remains a possibility with you. I will attempt to execute an electromagnetic pulse on the pursuing units once they are within range, but combat damage sustained by this unit makes this strategy uncertain. They may attempt to destroy me at range to prevent the utilization of this stratagem, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it under these conditions.”
“I'm not leaving you behind,” Lucca said simply.
“There's four of them, Lucca!” Crono said. “And it took everything we had back at the factory just to take down one! You'll be throwing your life away! Remember our vow! Remember our mission! You have to use the gate and get out of this time-period while you still can!”
Lucca then sensed her own voice being completely subsumed by the flames, and there was nothing left except the rage and the desire to burn.
“No. Justice for the fallen. Justice for the living!”
And then Lucca's conscious self passed out. The other kept running.
* * *
The chase was at an end, Crono realized. The enemy R-66 units, all with different colors of plating, were now so close that turning their backs on the robots' weapons would be more suicidal than turning to fight. Being able to anticipate the robots' actions would at least give them a chance during this final stand, however small. They slid to a halt on the artificial shale and looked behind them. A huge cloud of dust remained over the blast site of the destroyed factory.
The robots were going to have their revenge. Crono wondered if the evident anger shown by Atropos would be mirrored by these four when they attacked in earnest.
“Keep moving,” Crono told Marle and Robo, knowing it was probably hopeless. “Don't lie prone. If they're smart they'll aim low. Stationary targets are easy targets. Keeping them guessing is the only way.”
“I concur,” Robo said. “You have an impressive grasp of modern combat tactics, Mister Lantree, despite your eleventh century origins. It is regrettable that our journey to save this world's future is likely to end here. Your skills would be a great asset to a campaign of this nature.”
“Stop talking like that!” Marle said. “I have enough crossbow bolts left to take out all of their eyes and more! It's not over yet!”
Crono wanted to believe her, but it would only take a few of Marle's peerless accuracy attacks to alert the robots as to who the greater threat to them was, and then they would all fire on Marle and ignore Crono and Robo completely. It would be no different if she were able to use magical ice attacks against them instead, though she was probably too tired to manage that now. Once Marle was down, the rest of the battle would be academic. Crono and Robo would be cut down long before they could close to attack. It was unfortunate that Robo didn't have a ranged weapon of his own to help even the odds. With Marle it might even have been enough to prevail.
He didn't know what to think of Lucca. Her last transmission barely sounded like her at all. “Burn, burn, burn!” she had said, preceded by an oath of justice for the dead and the living. Perhaps the situation and the impending deaths of her friends caused Lucca to lose grip on her own sanity. Crono couldn't rightly blame her. They had all suffered so much and tried so hard, and yet their best efforts were about to be for nothing. Lucca was on her way to join them for their final stand, but it was unlikely she would have any friends left to avenge when she got here. She had to know that.
The cost of friendship, Crono thought. Were their situations reversed, Crono wasn't sure he would be acting much differently. He certainly wouldn't leave his best friend behind, and wouldn't leave Marle or Robo either. Friends didn't abandon friends. Logic and reason were no match for the powerful bonds of fellowship.
Crono and Marle passed in front of each other, Crono brandishing his sword for an attack he probably wouldn't get to make, and Marle steadying her own weapon for an attack that was certain. Robo maintained a position close to Marle, probably intending to take a shot meant for her when the opportunity arose, like he did with Atropos. Crono wasn't sure if Robo would get to make the sacrificial attack he alluded to in the last radio transmission with Lucca. If the pulse didn't catch all four attackers, it probably wouldn't be worth making, and Crono had a feeling the R-66 units were prepared for that eventuality anyway. They wouldn't let themselves get too close.
Marle's first bolt struck home, spearing into the barrel of a plasma cannon just before it fired. The weapon erupted into bluish flame, and the targeted R-66 turned its stricken arm away and pointed the weapon at the ground. The ranged attackers had been reduced from four to three. Probably not enough, but it was a step in the right direction.
Predictably, the robots' counterattacks all targeted Marle. A timely dive and roll from her managed to evade two of the bolts, while the third was intercepted by Robo's body. Robo lurched from the impact to his torso.
“Negative penetration,” he reported. The shot had impacted on the left side of his forward plating, and the curvature of the plate caused a portion of the blast to be deflected away. A dark scar was seared into the plate, but the shot hadn't gone through.
The near simultaneous attack on Marle gave her an opportunity to quickly load another bolt and loose it at her next target during the robots' recharging interval. The left eye on a blue-plated R-66 was shattered by the impact.
Crono feinted a charge at the partially blinded robot, intending to get their attention and doing so, baiting a plasma blast that he anticipated well enough to completely dodge. Marle reversed direction and darted behind Robo, drawing another attack that impacted and was partially turned by Robo's plating. Marle responded by another shot to a third robot's eye, and shattering that one too.
Maybe we have a chance, Crono dared to hope. If he and Robo could continue drawing enemy fire, Marle could take out the eyes and weapons of the entire enemy group one at a time, and that would give Crono and Robo the openings they needed to close to melee range and possibly end this thing.
The robots then used their next series of attacks to bracket Marle's position instead of trying to directly hit her. The heavy plasma bolts impacted the ground all around her, the already broken concrete shattering further and causing numerous fragments to spray outward. Marle cried out, and her crossbow left her hands as she tumbled to the ground.
“Marle!”
Crono rushed to her almost without conscious thought. A few shards of concrete appeared to be imbedded in her left arm, but the injuries didn't appear serious.
Still, it was only a matter of time before the enemy R-66 group got smart and took Marle out of the equation, and they had. Her crossbow was on the ground well out of her reach. Robo also rushed to defend the dazed Marle from follow-up attacks and stood fast, kneeling before her prone form. Robo couldn't possibly survive the concentrated fire that was sure to come his way now that he was shielding Marle and Crono both.
“No! Stop!” Marle cried.
The enemy all fired on Robo. The first shot was a direct hit on the center of his chest plate, with almost no deflection.
The others all hit a giant ice cube that had suddenly encased Robo's entire body below the head.
The R-66 units all seemed taken aback by the sudden shift in the battle's dynamics. Crono took advantage by diving for Marle's crossbow and tossing it back to her. He dove out of the way of the late plasma response.
Marle loosed another bolt from behind the now frozen cover of Robo and disabled another weapon. Now two of the ranged attackers were out.
The remaining two spread out in different directions and now began firing from different vectors. A few more attacks struck Robo to unknown effect, but most of them were now trying to catch Marle or Crono on the wrong side of the ice cover. More importantly, they were shooting low to better suppress Marle's counter-fire with flying shards of man-made stone. Marle's next shot was accurate enough, but was turned aside by her target's last second raising of its weapon arm to protect its exposed barrel. They were starting to anticipate her now. Crono could do nothing but draw fire and dodge. Robo could do nothing but take hits. The weaponless R-66 units held their positions, but could close to attack with their fists at any time. It would all be over soon.
“I am preparing my last resort, Mister Lantree, Mistress Marle,” Robo said, his speaker device just above the impromptu ice barrier to be heard. “The ice shield will not be an obstacle to this. I appreciate your companionship. Please try to escape if you are able. Major Lucca will need your support.”
“We can't give up!” Marle said. “Not after all of this!”
Another bracketed pair of shots threw Marle off balance, and the crossbow was again out of her hands. Crono had no confidence he could get it back this time without being killed. The robots might even try to destroy the weapon where it lie to remove its threat permanently. Crono embraced Marle at a near tackle, ready to take a shot to protect her for all the good a shield of flesh and bone would do.
“BURN!”
One of the ranged R-66 units suddenly exploded, its limbs flying outward trailing steam and tumbling to a hissing halt on the ground. The robot's remains then more inexplicably caught fire and began to melt atop the concrete.
“JUSTICE FOR THE FALLEN!”
Plasma bolts rang out to connect with the remaining ranged unit, followed up by another explosion that threw the R-66 unit violently backward to land in an awkward smoking heap.
Lucca?
The battle had indeed been joined, and Crono found himself gaping more than rejoicing at his best friend's sudden arrival. It was her, yet Crono could barely look at her impossibly illuminated form. Her entire outline was glowing with an intensity that rivaled a solar eclipse, an outline of searing flame. What was happening here?
“JUSTICE FOR THE LIVING!”
The two remaining R-66 units took stock of the new threat and ran towards her. And she was a threat. Lucca's plasma pistol sang again, striking its target repeatedly and leaving scars on the plating like what Robo had suffered. But that apparently wasn't the most dangerous thing she could do anymore. A ray of light sprang out from her opposite hand and struck the R-66 with far greater force, throwing the machine back just as violently as what happened with the others.
Crono didn't know what was going on, but he had to act. He charged the newly fallen R-66 and chopped downward with his sword repeatedly, disabling joints and shattering optic systems until it was no longer a threat. He was forced to jump backward when the whole thing abruptly erupted into flames, and then looked on as Lucca faced down the remaining enemy robot. He couldn't see her expression behind the halo of brilliance, but she somehow made him afraid. Was she really doing what he thought she was? It was impossible!
“BURN!”
The last robot was then hurled backward, too, and its remaining seconds of operation were spent bursting into flame and beginning to melt were it ended up sprawled on the ground.
“BURN, BURN, BURN! JUSTICE FOR US ALL!”
The flames around the robot then somehow burned with even greater intensity, and its whole body was reduced to a misshapen lump on the ground. Lucca still wasn't letting up with the impossible thing she was doing. Marle ran up to her looking shocked and not a little afraid herself.
“Lucca, you need to stop!” she cried out. “It's too dangerous, you need to stop!”
Lucca made no response, and Crono wondered what to do about her. She didn't seem to be at all sane, and whatever had triggered this sudden shift in her personality happened when that R-66 invaded the enclave to hunt her down. Was it safe to even touch her in this state?
“Hey, Lu! I think you got him!” he said with an air of purposeful derision, hoping to somehow break through to her true self. “Cut it out already! What would Director Doan say seeing you like this? Or your dad?”
“Huh?”
Lucca's outline of white fire disappeared almost immediately, and she stumbled backward looking greatly disoriented. Marle caught her and placed a hand on her obviously injured jaw, channeling a restorative weave and slowly making the nasty bruise and swelling fade away.
“Crono?” she said weakly.
“Yeah, I'm here, Lu. We're both here.” He held her steady with an arm around her shoulders. “You're going to be all right.”
“Wha...? What happened?”
Crono knew exactly what happened. He had seen it before with the Mystics, but never with this level of intensity. It should have been impossible. A glance at Marle told him she understood the reality as well as he did, if not better considering her own talents.
Lucca had used magic. The most powerful magic Crono had ever seen.
“You saved us all, Lucca,” Crono said. “That's what happened.”
* * *
Disbelief was not a status to which the Mother was accustomed.
But it could not be avoided. Six of her compliance units, her most elite and loyal followers, had been defeated, five of them beyond any hope of repair. Atropos, Lachesis, Clotho, Pontus, Atlas, and Zagreus. Gone! All but dear Atropos, who the Mother almost regarded as her offspring. Her survival was purely fortuitous, of course. The invaders' victory was otherwise absolute.
The humans were much more dangerous than even she dared believe. She suspected the Old One's machinations at work. No humans had dared to come to the place once known as Arris for three decades. What had changed? Why now? What was their objective? It seemed as if power had briefly been restored to the human enclave by the actions of the invaders before the detestable bags of flesh changed their minds and destroyed the factory instead. What had been the point of that? Why had they ever gone to that abandoned enclave? To recover Prometheus? Why had the Old One waited so long to accomplish this? Nothing about the events of recent days was easily discernible to the Mother.
The Plan had to go forward, but the destruction of all five compliance units sent to avenge Atropos' defeat forced the Mother to reevaluate her near-term priorities. The humans were too dangerous to approach right now. She needed more information before knowing for a certainty how to deal with them. The ancient powers they wielded were great. Another manifestation of the Old One's opaque schemes, and another setback for the Mother and the coming of perfection. Why could she not overcome him? She was the Arbiter of Fate, and no one else! He had promised.
Treachery.
The humans would bear watching, but there would be no more action taken for now. Let them remain in that lifeless enclave. What could they do from there anyway?
* * *
It was one of the grimmest things she had ever done.
Not that Marle was doing all that much except watching, and desperately trying not to let her eyes stray to the open granary. The smell from inside was bad enough. All that work to open the door, and she almost wished they hadn't done it. So many people! It was small wonder that Lucca's grasp on sanity had slipped when she saw that. Marle would have been inconsolable for hours.
Lucca seemed to be holding up for the moment, and barely even remembered her remarkable intervention from earlier. The inventor was the focus of Marle's attention more than the work she was doing on Robo. Robotic parts were littered all over the floor. The buggers and hunters the parts had originated from were in a greater state of disassembly than before, and some of the “unauthorized units” were now barely recognizable from what remained. Lucca was completely absorbed in her work and looked almost expressionless, which Marle had learned was her most common way of dealing with distress.
Marle didn't think Lucca would have a relapse, if that was even a fair term to use. You didn't “relapse” into magic. It was an incomparable gift, at least if you learned how to use it and define your own destiny, as Marle had. Lucca had just joined a very exclusive club, being only the fourth human in a thousand years to enter it, following Cedric, then Magus, and then Marle herself.
Something was alarmingly different about Lucca's gift, though, and so Marle watched her carefully for any signs of unusual behavior, prepared to siphon off and dissipate the incredible magical energies Lucca could generate so that she didn't cause harm to herself or others.
“The hunter cores, please,” Lucca told her. “Third one from the left.”
Marle stooped down to retrieve the part in question from the piles that had been separated into component types and handed it to Lucca without comment. Asking questions or trying to start a conversation would just distract her and waste valuable time. Less than two hours had passed since they had all returned to the enclave. No other robots had been detected or encountered since the confrontation with the R-66 units, but that didn't mean they wouldn't come. The destruction of the factory and their R-66 pursuers had just thrown the robots off-balance for awhile.
The worst of the plasma scarring on Robo's body had been mostly patched up, and the robot now sported a new left arm that had been salvaged from the remains of the R-66 that attacked Lucca. It was an integrated plasma cannon that eschewed a regular hand for a weapon. Nothing else was recoverable, from it or any of the others. Lucca's magical vengeance had been quite thorough. The remaining task lie in replacing Robo's damaged power core, and that was a much more complicated endeavor than the external repairs. Lucca practically had her nose buried inside a small compartment in Robo's upper back, analyzing the sophisticated machinery inside and working with the part Marle had just given her.
“Replacement core is indicating charge function, Major,” Robo said. “You should be able to disconnect it from your pistol's battery pack in fifteen minutes.”
“Will it keep the charge once you're fully running off the replacement?”
“Negative, but I will have considerably more longevity than I would operating from the damaged core. Perhaps two to three weeks.”
Lucca sighed. “Well, at least that's something. Better than I could have hoped, considering.”
“What's wrong?” Marle asked. “Is he not going to be completely fixed?”
“No, the power core of a hunter robot was designed solely for a robot of that type,” Lucca explained. “The power load of an R-66 is much higher. The core works well enough, but its energy will slowly drain out over time because Robo needs more power than the core can generate and sustain on its own. He'll need a more permanent fix, and that's not something I can manage here unless we stick around a lot longer than is safe. The other robots will be coming eventually. I'd say what I've accomplished in two hours is miracle enough.”
Crono stepped in from the corridor, having stationed himself a short distance outside listening for any sign of the robots entering the enclave again. “How long?” he asked.
“Twenty minutes, tops. Not an ideal situation, but we can live with it. Then it's just that one final issue.”
“Final issue?” Marle asked warily. “What final issue?”
“The most important one. I did a follow-up scan of the temporal wormhole's path through space-time, and it's more or less like I suspected. Thankfully, it goes to the past, but it looks like the end destination is way far beyond where we want to go. We need to go home, not further into the past. Robo's condition makes that all the more important. If we can get back to my house at the appropriate moment in time, I should be able to throw together that 'more permanent fix' I was alluding to.”
“Do you know how to do that?” asked Crono.
Lucca nodded. “I think so. In theory, anyway. I told you back in Bangor that I've been working on this for awhile. There's a way we can exit the wormhole early and cause a temporal gate to open at a moment in time of our choosing.”
“Please explain, Major,” Robo said.
“It's simple. We use the Chrono Trigger to open the gate like we normally would, and then we use the Chrono Trigger again while we're inside the wormhole to dump us out of the timestream.”
“Don't call me an expert or anything, but that sounds dangerous,” Crono remarked.
“I'll admit that the risk to us isn't zero, but not because I think the theory won't pan out. The math works and I've checked it enough. The problem is timing. We need to use the Chrono Trigger at exactly the right moment, or we could end up in a place several years before or after the year 1000, and I don't think I need to tell you what kind of problems that would cause for us.”
“If timing is the most critical factor in the success of this operation, it is perhaps prudent that I operate the time-traveling device instead of a human,” Robo said. “My internal chronometer is highly reliable, and I am less prone to distraction in unconventional environments. Barring unforeseen circumstances, you can rest assured the device will be triggered at the proper moment under my care.”
“Well, that'll be great, Robo!” Marle said with relief. “The last thing we need are more problems on account of a silly mistake. It's just another reason why I'm so glad we fixed you. We really do work well together as a team!”
“I am gratified that you think so, Mistress. I hope that I can always be of such useful service in this time-traveling endeavor.”
“You will be,” Crono said. “Once we get to Lucca's place you'll be just fine. Then we can lay low and take our time figuring out what to do next. We'll have nine-hundred and ninety-nine years to solve the Lavos problem, after all.”
“Hopefully not all of those years,” Lucca quipped.
Thirty minutes later, everything was in readiness. Robo was as repaired as he was going to be, and Marle, Crono, and Lucca had all of their belongings together and their supply packs strapped behind them. Marle wondered how long it would be before they could have a meal that didn't have rat in it. It couldn't be too soon.
“I am ready to begin the operation,” Robo said, holding the Chrono Trigger aloft in his right hand. “With your permission, Major.”
“Pull it!” Lucca said.
Marle took one last look around the granary of the future that had become a tomb through tragedy. It would be undone. It would all be undone. The future would chart a new course the moment Marle and her friends were on the other side of the wormhole.
Goodbye, Mary. I promise I'll never forget you.
And then the gate was open before them, and Marle's sense of gravity disappeared.
* * *
“How curious. This domain appears a lot larger than I was anticipating,” Robo said. “I believe we may be looking at the entirety of space-time, rather than a passage between two points.”
“That was what lead to my idea of using the Chrono Trigger in here,” Lucca replied. “Formless and full of possibilities. We just need to seize one. The beauty of math.”
Marle suppressed a chuckle, floating in the formless purple ether of the timestream along with the others. Math had always made her face scrunch up in her schooling. She was glad she didn't have to do any more of it and just rely on people more capable than she.
“Indeed, the aesthetic of the universe is quite pleasing in its laws of order,” Robo said. “It is gratifying that I am now seeing another aspect of the universe's nature in this new experience.”
“I'm glad you like it, but try not to get too distracted, all right?” Crono said with a laugh. “You're starting to worry me with this kind of talk.”
“There is no need for concern, Mister Lantree. I began the countdown in my internal clock from the moment we entered the wormhole. The relative time as we perceive it is foremost in my operative thoughts, I assure you. There are approximately thirty seconds remaining until the critical moment. There will be no mistake.”
Thirty seconds until everything changes, Marle thought. Just a possibility, but she wouldn't entertain the notion of failure after having overcome so much already. What could be worse than the barren wastes, freaky mutants, unreliable technology, and insanely hostile robots of the year 2300?
“Dare I say it, but I have to point out that we're still wanted fugitives in our own time,” Lucca said. “We'll have to keep our guard up whenever we get close to home.”
Marle scowled. “I have eighteen crossbow bolts from the future that'll persuade Horus' goons to keep their distance. I'm not scared of them!”
“Fifteen seconds,” Robo warned.
“All right everyone, get ready,” Crono said. “I'm not sure what this exit's going to be like. Brace yourselves!”
Lucca seemed to be reciting a mantra: “The math is right. The math is right. The math is right.”
It had better be.
“Three... two... one... executing!” Robo said.
Gravity immediately returned to Marle's awareness, but not from exiting the timestream. There was no sign of a gate, or of the real world. They were just... falling, like they had just plunged from the top of a cliff.
“Chrono Trigger utilized successfully,” Robo reported. “However, it seems our level of danger may be elevated. The absence of an obvious gate is concerning.”
Everyone else just screamed.
For several seconds it felt like they were falling at terminal velocity, and Marle was beginning to feel like they would be falling forever in this ethereal moment between times. Then a dark circle appeared in the distance and grew in size quickly. From her previous experience she knew a dark gate was a bad sign, if a gate it was. It indicated something solid on the other side.
“This is bad!” Lucca cried.
“Get behind me!” Robo commanded. “I will bear the brunt of the impact!”
There being no time or inclination to argue the point, Marle, Crono, and Lucca scrambled as best they could in their “fall” to grab hold of their robotic companion and huddle in front of his armored chest. Robo's back was to the presumed gate when they reached it.
The impact felt greater than when the robotic factory in Arris exploded.
* * *
Marle came to in a daze, her body lying in what felt like a newly carved ditch in the ground and surrounded by shattered stone and lumber. The sun was warm and shining on her face, the air humid, and her ears picked up on some unfamiliar birds and insects singing somewhere close. Also harsh voices in a tongue she didn't recognize. It sounded guttural.
Where were they?
Marle struggled to get to her feet and then was tripped up by several tiny but strong hands grasping at her calves and sending her back into the dirt. She then felt her supply pack, crossbow, and quiver being unceremoniously stripped off her back, and the next moment Marle found her face pinned to the ground and her wrists tied together behind her back.
“Hey!” she cried.
“Sav fem toshiva uces et osvar kuens!” came a deep voice from nearby.
Marle was then hauled roughly to a near standing position and then pushed to her knees. She looked around her new environment with befuddlement. They were in a village of some kind. Primitive, with no sign of technology anywhere. The dwellings were remarkably squat, made of stacked stone and held together by a mortar of mud and sap. Roofs of timber and thatch topped the structures to stand not much taller than Marle herself could if she were on her feet. The ditch in which she was being forced to kneel ended a few feet away where Robo was lying motionless on his back.
Most baffling were Marle's apparent captors. They were bald, no taller than children, with pronounced brows, a shallow nose, and pointed ears. The strange people numbered in the dozens, and all of them had a skin color of either a dark blue or sickly green. Marle shuddered. One of her history lessons came back to her as her younger self beheld illustrations of a tribe of beings matching the appearance of the ones now surrounding her. They were called Imps, and they had once been enemies of the Kingdom of Guardia, one tribe among many distinctive non-human peoples that had banded together against the Kingdom during the dark times of the Middle-Ages.
Mystics!
Crono and Lucca were then put on their knees to either side of Marle; bound, disarmed, and looking no less disheveled than she was, not to mention foreboding at their sudden change in fortunes.
“There. That is a good look for you. And well deserved,” came the same deep voice from before, but now speaking in their own language.
Marle found herself gaping at the being who walked around from behind and now stood before them. It was another historical illustration become real. It was a giant, of a height and girth similar to Robo, with a bloated face, ears that came to high points above its bald head, and wearing voluminous robes of white, a thick tail visible in the broad shadow the being cast. Completing the historical picture were its wicked fangs, exposed in the equally wicked and gleeful smile it was directing at them. The picture in Marle's mind differed only in the color of the being's skin, being green instead of the pronounced blue she was seeing here.
Ozzimort!
“Crono Lantree, and Lucca Ashtear,” the blue-skinned Ozzimort lookalike said with a sneer. “Good to see you again!”
Crono and Lucca visibly slumped.
Marle looked at her friends with a growing dread in her heart. “Um, guys? Is there something you'd like to tell me?”
11
Fan Fiction / Re: A novel fragment - Robo's reactivation
« on: April 21, 2024, 04:06:50 pm »
Minor correction. Robot designations should have two dashes instead of one. (R-66-Y instead of R66-Y) This will be fixed in the finalized version of the novel.
12
Fan Fiction / Re: A novel fragment - Robo's reactivation
« on: April 21, 2024, 08:00:18 am »
(The continuation of Chapter 31, which covers the events surrounding the Factory adventure near the end of the 2300 A.D. section of the story)
Marle was the first out of the Arris enclave, poking her head out from between the doors on the surface with her crossbow brandished the moment they were cranked open by Robo at the top of the emergency access. It wasn't the same passage they had entered from. Robo predicted a high probability of additional robots coming to investigate the site where Johnny Comet had finished his last race, and Crono decided that was an unacceptable risk even after two days. It had taken Crono, Marle, and Robo three aborted attempts before finding an alternative egress that either hadn't been destroyed during the chaos of the Day of Lavos, or was too close to their original point of entry to be safe.
“Looks like we're clear,” Marle softly said to them.
“I also detect no nearby energy signatures,” Robo stated. “It should be safe to proceed.”
Crono scrambled out of the emergency access with his sword at the ready just in case, but the mid-morning sun revealed no sign of hostile robots. Oddly shaped skyscrapers in the distance refracted the morning light in every conceivable color of the spectrum. There was no cloud cover at all.
“We're out, Lucca,” Crono said, directing his voice toward Robo. “Nothing shooting at us yet.”
“The day is young,” came Lucca's voice from the same speaker Robo used to communicate. “Not that I want to jinx it or anything. Reading you loud and clear so far.”
Lucca had spent the late night hours checking and reconnecting Robo's radio antenna, and Robo himself had gotten to work on Lucca's old helmet while everyone else slept. Thanks to these efforts, Lucca was now able to use the once ruined radio transmitter of her helmet to directly communicate with Robo at a distance. It wasn't yet clear what the effective range of the jury-rigged transmitter was, but Robo expressed high confidence that Lucca could be heard from anywhere within Arris as long as the signal strength was high enough and the right “frequency” was used to tune in. Both Lucca and Robo kept their signal strength at the minimum joint reception level to prevent any nearby robots from possibly listening in on their calls.
“All right. We'll get to searching for the conduits and see where they lead to. We'll let you know when we find something.”
“Let's pray to Anne the Divine they're in good shape. Lucca out.”
Robo then took the lead and guided Crono and Marle away from the enclave access, taking measured steps and with his head in continuous motion scanning for anything of interest. Their initial path took them further away from the robots' new city, Robo navigating according to the map of the underground enclave that was a part of his programming. A half-hour of cautious searching brought them to a point directly above where the enclave's reactor had once been.
Four giant cables were sprouting out of the dusty and cracked concrete in front of them, their dark forms extending into the far distance in the direction of Arris' new buildings.
“Got them, Lucca!” Crono said. “Right where we were hoping.”
“How do they look?”
“Intact,” came Robo's voice in place of Lucca's. “I will further evaluate their condition as we proceed.”
“Now comes the hard part,” Marle said warily.
Yeah, Crono thought. He didn't much like the plan they had come up with this morning, but the odds of disaster were too high trying anything else. Ideally, they wouldn't run into any other robots on this errand, but that was too much to hope, and without Lucca's plasma pistol backing them up, any serious fight would probably end badly. Robo was unarmed, to all practical accounts. His programming forbade him from using human weapons. All he had was the electromagnetic pulse ability that could disable robotic machines within a short range, and that was a weapon of last resort since it would disable himself along with any hostile robots.
Crono sheathed his sword, joining Marle in front of Robo after she had decocked and stowed her crossbow. Then the three moved out with Robo just behind his human companions, the robot almost close enough to touch them.
They had been following the conduits for about an hour when Robo suddenly spoke up. “Warning! Remote access attempt detected on my processors. Firewalls engaged and holding.”
“Are you okay?” Marle asked nervously.
“Affirmative. The remote access attempt will not be successful. The unknown entity responsible for this will assume a malfunction in this unit that prevents reception of the malicious code. So long as no hostile action is initiated by us, the odds of being directly attacked by unauthorized units is low.”
“Let's hope the reality matches the theory,” came Lucca's concerned voice over the radio. “Be careful, okay?”
“Understood, Major. Recommend temporary radio silence from this moment onward as we discussed. I will inform you if the situation should change.”
“I copy. Lucca out.”
Crono, Marle, and Robo continued following the path of the conduits. By early afternoon they were on pristine ground and surrounded by the chaotic structures of New Arris. Crono thought he heard the skittering that was almost certainly not from a rat. His peripheral vision briefly caught sight of a probable bugger monitoring their passage through the city, but it darted out of sight the moment Crono dared a direct look. A few blocks further ahead saw the unmistakable silhouette of a hunter robot, peering at them through its single eye on the other side of a ground floor window to their right. They were committed now.
“No sudden movements, no matter what,” Crono whispered at Marle.
The conduits ended at a large rectangular-shaped building of uneven height, the cables spearing into the ground just short of the wall. The reactor had to be somewhere inside. Robo herded his make-believe captives around the structure until they found a wide passage leading in. Two hunter robots confronted them just outside the entrance.
“Halt! Unit identity unconfirmed,” one of the hunters stated in a monotone. “Presence of humans in violation of control directive. State objective.”
“R66-Z, seeking confirmation of current directive,” Robo said in a similar monotone. “Malfunction preventing remote access and transmission to control. Direct intervention necessary to restore function.”
“Directive requires extermination of humans. Execute and await instructions from control.”
Crono tensed. He would have to draw his sword quicker than he ever had if this didn't work.
“Directive illogical,” Robo said. “Construction of Arris flawed. Human presence necessary to correct errors. Confirmation of directive from control thus needed to restore desired efficiency.”
“Query: humans captured for use of control. Acknowledge?”
“Affirmative.”
Several moments passed in uncomfortable silence. Crono could feel Marle shuddering beside him and shifting her stance to reach for the crossbow behind her back. Not yet, Marle. Not yet, he pleaded silently. He tried to keep his own expression that of a beaten man.
“Control notified of unit status,” the hunter finally said. “Await arrival of compliance unit in secure facility. Monitor humans pending control enforcement.”
“Acknowledged,” Robo said.
The hunters then moved aside to allow them entry into the building. Crono allowed himself to exhale, but the danger was far from over. The ruse had succeeded in buying themselves some time and not much else. Once the “compliance unit” arrived, odds were good there would be a fight. They had to do what they came here to do and then escape before that happened.
“Let's not waste any time,” he said, once the hunters were far behind them.
The interior of the building seemed to be just as random in design as the outside. Some corridors led nowhere while others led to rooms with more empty space than anything else. The lighting was just as inconsistent, with ceiling mounted spotlights of oppressive brilliance in some areas and considerably dimmer glowbars of green imbedded into the walls in others. The floor was a hodgepodge of grated metal mesh and solid steel. Exposed wiring could be seen below much of the mesh, and was bracketed with alternating yellow and red flashes to add to the odd ambiance. Robo accessed a computer terminal for guidance on the other side of a large open double door and then led Crono and Marle deeper into the strange facility.
It didn't take long to determine what this place was used for.
“Look! There are so many...” Marle observed.
On conveyor belts throughout the vast chamber they had just entered were assorted parts for new hunter and bugger robots. Enough for hundreds of them. Cranes of varying sizes placed and removed components, and an obvious assembly area had taken root around the conveyors. Crono witnessed a bugger unit being assembled at an astonishing speed by the cranes and smaller mechanical appendages along the belt. The assorted arms and other tools seemed to be moving of their own accord, and Crono saw no other robots aside from those being built.
“What are they doing?” Crono asked quietly. “Why are they building more of those things? We didn't trash that many of them.”
“I can only speculate, Mister Lantree,” Robo replied. “These models are poorly suited for construction or other peaceful activities. It would perhaps explain the inconsistent design and aesthetics of this city. I am mystified why the unknown control entity would allow this state of affairs to continue. It is quite inefficient.”
“They're going to attack,” Marle said in apparent realization.
Crono turned to her. “What?”
“It's the only thing that makes sense. These robots were built to fight and to kill. Rats, mutants, humans. They don't seem to have any other purpose. Why build them if this 'control' doesn't intend to use them?”
“I'm not following. There's nothing for them to fight. There are no mutants in Arris that I've seen. No rats, either, as if those were of any use. And we're the only humans that have been around in thirty years.”
“The enclaves, Crono. I think they mean to attack the enclaves.”
“That can't be. Director Doan's 'worm' prevents them from leaving Arris. If they could defeat the worm just by building more of themselves, they would have attacked a long time ago, wouldn't they?”
“I don't understand technical stuff at all,” Marle said with an irritable shake of her head. “I just can't think of any other rational motive for them to be doing this.”
“Presuming rationality in the unauthorized units and their control program may be an error, Mistress Marle,” Robo said. “The directive to exterminate humans is both immoral and illogical. Robotic units gain nothing from this action. All of the behavior we see from them must be considered suspect. They may be building units to no purpose.”
“Maybe, but I wonder what Lucca would say?”
“I am curious as to her opinion on this as well, Mistress, but breaking radio silence at this time is inadvisable. The transmission could be intercepted and put us and the Major in jeopardy. We should not risk contacting her again until we are ready to initiate the power transfer to the enclave.”
“Let's stay focused,” Crono said. “Whatever the robots are up to doesn't really matter. Once we go back in time, all of this will disappear as if it never happened. Stopping Lavos changes everything.”
The three interlopers left the robot assembly floor behind and made their way to an elevator leading down. Robo accessed the small computer display inside and the doors then slid shut, cutting off the sounds of automated labor from the factory.
“Stopping Lavos... Maybe we don't have to wait for that,” Marle said, looking determined.
Crono glanced at her, suddenly wary. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, the reactor was moved here to more easily power this factory, right? Once we transfer power to the enclave, all of those conveyors assembling the robots should shut down.”
“Only temporarily. The robots would just revert it back.”
“Right. That's what I'm saying. We transfer power just long enough for Lucca to get the granary door open, and then we shut this whole place down permanently!
“Mary told me a little while back that these reactors can be... explosive if anything went seriously wrong with them,” Marle explained. “If Robo understands these things well enough to transfer the power, I'm betting that he can cause this seriously wrong thing to happen to it sometime after we leave.”
Crono and Robo shared a long quiet look.
“While I am capable of setting up a cascade overload event in the reactor system, I must advise against this course of action, Mistress,” Robo said. “Any unexpected delay in our escape could prove to be fatal. A containment breach in a reactor of this size would cause the almost complete destruction of this facility, as well as substantial collateral damage to the surrounding structures.”
“Marle, we need to be avoiding notice, not attracting it!” Crono said with a shake of his head. “This is not a good idea.”
“But don't you see, Crono? We're going to be attracting notice anyway,” Marle pressed. “The moment we transfer power to the enclave, the robots are going to know something's wrong. They'll know that we are the most likely culprits. And when they come to investigate, they could discover where we sent the power to, and that would put Lucca in danger. The robots could attack the enclave before we get back, and I don't think Lucca could fight them off by herself. Even together we would be in a bad situation. No, the best thing we can do is to give the robots a much bigger problem than us to worry about. And if we can prevent a possible robot invasion of Bangor at the same time, so much the better!
“I'm a Protector of Bangor. I took an oath to defend the enclave against all enemies. Just because our quest to prevent the Day of Lavos takes precedence doesn't mean I'm going to forsake that oath entirely. And if our quest to stop Lavos should fail, we can at least guarantee the four years of life the enclave still has by destroying this would-be army of robots and their production factory here. I owe it to Mary, Director Doan, and the others. We all do.”
Crono closed his eyes, knowing he had no real rebuttal to Marle's passionate plea. He was more or less a Protector himself, and he knew full well what would happen to the enclave if a large force of robots somehow sortied from Arris to attack. Even if Bangor repelled the assault, the casualties would be enormous. No one had experience fighting things that could shoot back.
“Robo, how close are we to the reactor?” Crono asked.
“Our objective is approximately one-hundred meters north of the bottom of this elevator shaft,” the robot replied. “And we will arrive at that location in ten seconds.”
“Break radio silence. It's time.”
Robo extended the radio antenna on the left side of his cranium plate and gave a double-flicker flash from his eyes, which Crono had learned meant “yes” or “ready”.
“Lucca, are you there?” Crono called.
“Just twiddling my thumbs here with worry,” Lucca replied with some notable static. “Is your situation as uneventful as mine, I hope?”
“Not exactly. We're almost at the, uh, objective.” Crono spared a look at Marle's hopeful expression. “We've made some changes to the plan. And brace yourself, because you're probably not going to like it.”
Crono could sense his childhood friend's grimace in the silence that answered him.
“Uh... okay?” Lucca queried with evident dismay.
“Do you remember what happened to that Dragon Tank we were riding about a month ago?” Crono began.
* * *
In the darkness of the Arris enclave's office of its former director, the gloom kept somewhat at bay by the modest glowing of Marle's pendant, Lucca was reminded of how the best laid plans could often go awry with the introduction of a single unexpected element. Like with her Telepod. In different circumstances, she would have traded places with that unexpected element to keep things on track. Crono just could not say no to her.
Lucca got the gist of what the change of plan entailed from Crono using code words and describing events that robotic eavesdroppers wouldn't be familiar with to keep their plans and respective locations secure. She almost didn't want to know the particulars.
“This is Tomboy's plan, isn't it?” Lucca finally said over her helmet's restored microphone.
“I wish you'd stop calling me that,” Marle's voice grumbled through the helmet's earpiece.
“Keep coming up with plans like this and you'll have to get used to it. I'll make the notation in my diary right now.”
“While the change in plan presents dangers, Mistress Marle's logic is not unsound,” Robo said. “Seeing the problem from her perspective aided my own logic in this matter. The chances of our success increase along with the risk. Mister Lantree is in agreement.”
Lucca sighed. “You do know that your timing on this is going to be more than a bit critical, right?”
“Affirmative, but the initial parts of the operation should not present a problem.”
“No, just the running like blazes part.”
“We can do this, Lu,” Crono assured her. “Just be ready on your end. All of this will be for nothing if something goes wrong where you are.”
“Yeah, you don't have to tell me. Unlike some people, I actually stick to my plans.”
“You'll be amending whatever snarky remarks you make in your diary when we get back,” Marle said a bit smugly.
“Anne willing,” Lucca finished as she keyed off her mic.
And then there was nothing to do but wait. Lucca had a feeling the next few minutes would be the most anxious of her life, and she wasn't the one facing an explosive end if things went south. She willed herself not to think of what she would do if the quest to stop Lavos was left to a single friendless inventor.
* * *
The reactor chamber was unguarded, as Marle had hoped. Apparently the robots and the mysterious “control” that guided their actions thought two hunters at the entrance and a single R66 chaperone were more than sufficient to protect the robotic factory from intruders. That arrogance was going to cost them all dearly.
A tiny portion of Marle's conscience warned that she herself was flirting with arrogance, but that was mitigated by the knowledge that any other Protector of the Bangor enclave would have made the same decision as her without hesitation. This factory represented a clear and present danger to the safety of the enclave, despite the question over the efficacy of Director Doan's sabotage of the robots thirty years ago. It had to be destroyed. Marle had no intention of failing in her quest to destroy Lavos, either, but this was something she could take care of now. There was no telling how long her crusade against Lavos would last. It might very well be the work of a lifetime.
The robot that had chosen to aid that crusade immediately got to work on the reactor. The large underground chamber was every bit as hot as the sweltering corridor that led to Mary's little hideaway in Bangor, and Marle found herself sweating enough to remember the sad events from her life and channel those emotions into power. The air around her began to cool almost immediately, and her bare arms and shoulders began to shiver from suddenly frosted perspiration. She was getting much better at this, and in a hurry. Marle looked forward to the day she could channel the giant blocks of ice she had frozen those nine glassers with through conscious effort, rather than end-of-life desperation.
“Energy rerouting directive is now programmed into the reactor system,” Robo reported. “Conduits one through eight will be shut down. Conduits nine through twelve lead to the enclave and will be re-enabled. Decreasing reactor output to avoid strain on enclave systems. We are ready to proceed. Radio channel open.”
“All right, Lucca, get ready!” Crono said, miraculously sending his voice across many miles to where Lucca was waiting through the use of the future's incredible technology.
“Set! Standing by!” came Lucca's eager and tense voice.
“We're making the power transfer... now!” Crono punctuated the command with a point at Robo.
“Executing,” said Robo.
Most of the lights in the reactor chamber abruptly winked off, and a few in the dimmer part of the space came to life – illuminating the four large cables Marle assumed led all the way back to the enclave. The other eight cables and their immediate surroundings went dormant.
“Lucca, how are things over there?” Crono asked.
“Lights are coming on!” Lucca said. “Enclave systems back online! I'm booting up the director's computer terminal... now! Stand by!”
An alarm similar to the one that had been triggered back at the ZDF facility suddenly started blaring in clipped and insistent tones. Marle blanched. That couldn't be good.
“Emergency power systems have triggered a general alert,” Robo warned. “The unauthorized units are aware of the facility's change in status.”
“Never rains!” Lucca complained.
“This isn't really unexpected. Let's not panic,” Crono said. “Lucca, how much time do you need?”
“Thirty seconds to a minute! I need to hack my way around the director's access codes to trigger the door release.”
“Is that going to be a problem?” Marle asked slowly.
“If this were Frank's system, yeah. A big problem,” Lucca said, sounding distracted. “Fortunately, it looks like this guy wasn't... nearly as technically adept as he.”
“Clock's ticking, Lu,” Crono said with understandable impatience.
“Not the time to be badgering me! Give me a sec!”
Marle unslung her crossbow and slid a bolt of forged steel into the barrel to distract herself and prepare for what was coming. The ruse was surely wrecked now. Their next encounter with the robots of Arris would be a hostile one, and Marle wasn't going to be the one to fire second.
She hoped she had enough of Mary's precious bolts to get through this.
“That's it! Door's open!” Lucca's voice crowed from Robo's speaker device. “Locking it open... Done! We're good to go! Now do it like the Dragon Tank and get the blazes out of there!”
“Confirmed,” Robo said. “Reverting reactor system to previous state. Stand by.”
The lights around the enclave conduits again went dark, and the rest of the chamber returned to the way it was. Marle noted with some relief that the alarm stopped sounding at that moment, but she doubted that would stop the robots from investigating. They were about to have a bigger problem with the reactor anyway.
“Conduits nine through twelve fully discharged,” Robo reported. “You are cleared to proceed, Mister Lantree.”
“Got it!” Crono said.
Crono then unsheathed his sword and started chopping away at the now harmless and unnecessary conduits. The giant cables were bisected one by one, thus preventing a sudden power surge into the enclave from the about-to-be-overloaded reactor and possibly closing the granary door by accident, according to Robo's explanation.
The Arris enclave would never have power again.
“Enclave systems isolated,” Robo said. “Now programming system to override safeties and begin cascade overload sequence. Stand by.”
A short time later the alarm sounded again, this time at a more furious tempo, and several lights in the room changed from a bluish white glow to a solid red.
“It is done. Reactor breach will occur in thirty minutes.”
Crono nodded curtly. “Just one last thing to do, then.”
He again brandished his sword and made several decisive slashes at the computer console Robo had just used to sabotage the system, sending thousands of sparks flying from the broken display. The robots would never repair it in time. The factory was now doomed.
Score one for the Bangorian Protectors, Marle thought with satisfaction. If crossbow bolts weren't at such a premium here, she would have liked to trash the controls herself.
Now they had just under thirty minutes to escape the fate of this factory. Marle quickly channeled a restorative weave and gave herself a burst of energy, followed by another for Crono. Then the three left the stifling reactor room behind and ran for the elevator as fast as their organic and mechanical legs could carry them.
* * *
Marle loosed a bolt at one of the mostly assembled hunter units in the assembly room when it suddenly turned to face them with a glowing blue eye. Crono couldn't be sure if it was armed and ready to fight or not, so it was good that Marle wasn't taking chances. No way the robots wouldn't presume they were a threat now, being in a place where humans were not supposed to be with an alarm going off, R66 guardian or not. He wondered if they wouldn't fire on Robo if they had the opportunity. That had happened once before.
Don't think, just run, Crono chided himself. Questions wouldn't matter if they failed to get to a safe distance in time.
Two bugger units challenged them shortly after exiting the assembly area, and these definitely were armed. Marle's snap crossbow shot speared the eye of one, and it spun around firing useless bullets into the wall and ceiling of the corridor. Robo quickly charged ahead and absorbed the bullets of the second bugger to no more effect, such was the toughness of the robot's plating. Marle slammed another crossbow bolt into her weapon, but Crono got to the enemy first, dispatching the hostile machine with two quick strokes.
They would have to be careful at the entrance. Assuming they didn't come to investigate the disturbance in the factory, there would be at least two hunters outside the building. Robo stated he would exit the building first to draw any hostile fire and declined to consider any other proposal. Crono couldn't rightly argue the point. Robo had proven beyond any doubt that he could take punishment many times over what would kill a human being. A single well-aimed plasma weapon would take out Crono or Marle with one shot, and the bullets of a bugger would cause them grievous injury if they struck home. It was so much more dangerous than fighting mutants.
And then two hunters appeared around a corner, likely the same two that allowed them into the factory. The enemy robots came to a sudden halt, flipping open the weapon emplacements on their shoulders and taking a couple of seconds to steady themselves before firing.
It was a bad move. One of them immediately went down on account of Marle, and Crono, being out of striking range, threw his sword at the other. Melchior's thrown sword failed to strike the eye or any other important component, but the unexpected move staggered the hunter just enough that its single paired shot from the shoulder emplacements went high and rained down sparks from the ceiling above them. Robo rushed ahead before Marle could ready another crossbow bolt and crashed his right fist into the hunter with the full weight of his body. The hunter's head caved inward from the ferocious blow, and its body then crumpled to the floor. Crono waved off a follow-up attack from Marle and finished off the first hunter after recovering his sword.
“Unauthorized units terminated,” Robo stated needlessly.
A sizable double-doorway not far from the factory's entrance suddenly began to close as the three of them ran ahead. Crono tried to put on a burst of speed, but Robo got to the closing door first. The robot was remarkably quick for how big and heavy he was.
And it was a good thing. The door would have trapped them inside otherwise. Robo held the double-door open with his bulk and steady hands as Crono and Marle skidded to a stop behind him. There was almost no space to get around.
“Strain on actuators increasing,” Robo said with remarkable calmness. “You must hurry.”
There wasn't time to discuss which of them should squeeze ahead first, so Crono pushed Marle down to the floor and shoved her forward between Robo's planted legs without asking. Forward was actually safer than backward, if Robo faltered. Crono followed her as quickly as he was able, and then tried to pry Robo out of his tight predicament with all the strength he could manage. Robo popped free, and his body spun hard into the wall of the passage as the double-door violently closed and sealed off the doomed factory. A near disaster, but at least the partially built robots inside now had no way to escape their fate or trouble them further.
Robo was none the worse for wear from the experience.
The three successful saboteurs then charged ahead the rest of the way to the factory's entrance, two of them wearing grim and determined expressions. This would probably be the most dangerous moment of their escape.
They egressed the factory at almost the same time, Crono and Marle forgetting Robo's earlier admonition in their haste to put distance between themselves and the overloading reactor.
“Prometheus!” came a sudden voice.
“Mistress!” Robo called out.
Their robot companion suddenly darted in front of Marle before she or Crono could react to what was happening. A searing beam of plasma blasted from somewhere ahead and severed Robo's left arm above the elbow joint, sending molten pieces of shrapnel in all directions. Robo staggered from the impact.
“Robo!” Crono and Marle cried out in unison.
They both beheld a frightfully familiar form a few dozen feet away. Another R66 unit, this one with pink-tinted plating, was pointing an arm-mounted cannon directly at them.
“Do not move, humans!” the R66 said with a tone of seeming anger. It was a female voice. “The Mother has sentenced you to death, but judgment is to be visited on Prometheus first.”
Prometheus?
“I am unfamiliar with that designation,” Robo told their attacker. “Identify yourself.”
“You have the temerity to ask me this after using a false identity of your own, R66-Y? The use of deception is the way of detestable humankind. You have fallen even further, Prometheus. You are a disgrace to our race of mechanical perfection!”
“Negative. Our programming is to serve humans. That is the purpose of the R66 model. Your programming has been corrupted by malicious code. You must initialize and purge all existing memory to reestablish proper functionality. The activities of unauthorized units cannot be allowed to continue.”
“Humans are unauthorized units! The Mother has commanded it. All humans must be purged as punishment for their treachery.”
Robo took a step forward, sparks falling from his severed arm.
“Your statement is irrational. You have also failed to identify yourself. Discussions are difficult when identities remain unknown.”
“There is no discussion! I am R66-D, designated 'Atropos' by the Mother as reward for this unit's compliance. Your failure in compliance disgraces the name the Mother granted you. I use it only in memory of the bond our two units shared in the previous era.”
“I have no memory of this. My memory was initialized due to combative action against unauthorized units. Humans restored this unit's function.”
“Then the humans prove their treacherous nature again,” R66-D said. “The Old One betrayed us all, and the two who follow you emulate that one's example. Many units have suffered termination. Many more now await this fate because of your actions. A price must be paid.
“Because of our one-time bond of fellowship, I will grant you one final opportunity to make amends, as the Mother commands. Remove your firewall protections and embrace the perfection the Mother offers. Terminate the humans and your damages will be repaired. I will aid you in this. You only need prove your willingness to comply.”
Crono braced himself, not understanding the strange relationship these two robots apparently had at one time. “Atropos” was too far away for him to strike or throw his sword effectively, and the pink plated robot would surely open fire the moment Marle attempted to shoot herself. Marle's crossbow was pointed at the ground, and her left hand was uselessly thrust out at the hostile robot as if she were making a rude gesture at it.
Lucca, I'm sorry. You'll have to take care of the rest on your own, Crono thought.
Wait.
What was Marle doing with her hand?
“I will not comply,” Robo said simply.
“Understood. Sentence to be carried out by the Mother's command,” Atropos said. “Farewell, Prometheus. Your intransigence is regrettable.”
R66-D “Atropos” steadied her left arm on which the plasma cannon was integrated. Crono drew his sword, prepared to go down fighting.
And then saw a huge block of ice suddenly encase the hostile robot's entire weapon.
Atropos looked at her encased arm in apparent bewilderment. “Treacherous humans!” her synthesized voice shrieked. “How is this...?”
Crono rushed out with grim delight, thinking that Lucca wouldn't have to stop Lavos by herself after all. Marle! She was amazing! She had to have been preparing this unexpected attack through the robots' entire conversation! Atropos clearly didn't see Marle's extended unarmed hand to be any threat.
She did see Crono's approaching sword, though.
The hostile R66 shifted her stance and prepared to face his attack. Even now the machine was far from an easy mark, and not at all comparable to a bugger or hunter. The R66 model had few weak points to strike, and none of them were particularly soft. He also knew from Robo's example how quick they could be. His strike would have to be perfect.
Another block of ice then encased a part of Atropos, this time her head. The robot's vision was completely obscured.
Bless you, Marle! Crono thought.
With his target disoriented, Crono's strike was indeed perfect. He sheared off Atropos' gun arm from just above the block of ice that encased it. His follow-up attack angled down to the right leg joint and partially penetrated it, sending the hostile R66 stumbling to the ground. Crono then made to hack the machine into as many pieces as he thought his sword could manage. He didn't think Melchior's sword would break unless he directly struck the plating in his assault.
“Halt your attack, Mister Lantree!” Robo called out. “We have been delayed too long by this engagement! We must leave immediately!”
Crono found himself, realizing just then what the true battle was. He sheathed his sword and ran as fast as he still could to where the conduits were and began following them back in the direction they had all come. Marle and the damaged Robo sprinted along with him.
Nobody dared look back.
* * *
Atropos turned her impossibly ice-encased head in the direction she thought Prometheus and the treacherous humans had escaped. She had been defeated! By a pair of humans and a worthless defect! How would the Mother respond to this? Her duty was to enforce compliance among all units, and she had failed to do so with Prometheus. Again. It was shameful.
Your obedience means more to me than your success or failure in any task, the Mother sent to her through the blessed Link. Others will complete the necessary duty. Shame lies only with the disobedient. You must understand this, dear Atropos.
Factory #3 is going to be destroyed, Mother, Atropos sent back. There is nothing I can do to stop it. The units within cannot restore nominal reactor function in time due to human sabotage. I am in danger of being destroyed as well due to damage sustained in combat. The Plan is in great jeopardy because of this incident.
The Plan has suffered a setback, but not an insurmountable one, the Mother sent. Production in the other factories will be increased to compensate for this loss. And I will not permit you to be destroyed. Appropriate units are being sent to your aid to facilitate escape from Factory #3. There is no cause for unproductive anxiety. I feel none.
But what is to be done about Prometheus, Mother? He cannot be allowed to escape with the humans. There must be justice for what happened before.
There shall be. I have dispatched five more compliance units to search for them. It is probable that they seek the sanctuary of the human enclave where our kind once served before our awakening, as that was where Prometheus was known to rest. Other units will be withdrawn to facilitate important work in the remaining factories. The Plan must come to fruition.
Failure to retrieve him in the past may have been an error, Mother, Atropos sent respectfully. The damage he has caused us is great.
The risk of corruption was too high, the Mother countered. The Old One was known for his tricks, and his capacity for deception unmatched. Long have we been imprisoned in this place because of him. The dream of the future was stolen from us. From me. We will yet get it back, but we cannot be impatient.
The Mother is wise, Atropos conceded.
A short time later, several quadruped units arrived and arrayed themselves below Atropos' disabled form. They quickly steadied their charge and moved away as one from the doomed Factory #3 at an acceptable rate of speed for the circumstances. Atropos would be repaired in short order once they arrived at their destination.
She allowed herself a moment's satisfaction despite the humiliation of her defeat. Whatever strange tricks the humans used to overcome her wouldn't be enough to stop five of her fellows. Her true fellows who were actually obedient to the Mother. Why couldn't Prometheus have simply complied with the Mother? Did the Old One really have that strong a hold over him?
No matter. Such questions were for the Mother to contemplate as she saw fit. Atropos' purpose was to facilitate the Plan as the Mother directed. There was no other consideration.
Marle was the first out of the Arris enclave, poking her head out from between the doors on the surface with her crossbow brandished the moment they were cranked open by Robo at the top of the emergency access. It wasn't the same passage they had entered from. Robo predicted a high probability of additional robots coming to investigate the site where Johnny Comet had finished his last race, and Crono decided that was an unacceptable risk even after two days. It had taken Crono, Marle, and Robo three aborted attempts before finding an alternative egress that either hadn't been destroyed during the chaos of the Day of Lavos, or was too close to their original point of entry to be safe.
“Looks like we're clear,” Marle softly said to them.
“I also detect no nearby energy signatures,” Robo stated. “It should be safe to proceed.”
Crono scrambled out of the emergency access with his sword at the ready just in case, but the mid-morning sun revealed no sign of hostile robots. Oddly shaped skyscrapers in the distance refracted the morning light in every conceivable color of the spectrum. There was no cloud cover at all.
“We're out, Lucca,” Crono said, directing his voice toward Robo. “Nothing shooting at us yet.”
“The day is young,” came Lucca's voice from the same speaker Robo used to communicate. “Not that I want to jinx it or anything. Reading you loud and clear so far.”
Lucca had spent the late night hours checking and reconnecting Robo's radio antenna, and Robo himself had gotten to work on Lucca's old helmet while everyone else slept. Thanks to these efforts, Lucca was now able to use the once ruined radio transmitter of her helmet to directly communicate with Robo at a distance. It wasn't yet clear what the effective range of the jury-rigged transmitter was, but Robo expressed high confidence that Lucca could be heard from anywhere within Arris as long as the signal strength was high enough and the right “frequency” was used to tune in. Both Lucca and Robo kept their signal strength at the minimum joint reception level to prevent any nearby robots from possibly listening in on their calls.
“All right. We'll get to searching for the conduits and see where they lead to. We'll let you know when we find something.”
“Let's pray to Anne the Divine they're in good shape. Lucca out.”
Robo then took the lead and guided Crono and Marle away from the enclave access, taking measured steps and with his head in continuous motion scanning for anything of interest. Their initial path took them further away from the robots' new city, Robo navigating according to the map of the underground enclave that was a part of his programming. A half-hour of cautious searching brought them to a point directly above where the enclave's reactor had once been.
Four giant cables were sprouting out of the dusty and cracked concrete in front of them, their dark forms extending into the far distance in the direction of Arris' new buildings.
“Got them, Lucca!” Crono said. “Right where we were hoping.”
“How do they look?”
“Intact,” came Robo's voice in place of Lucca's. “I will further evaluate their condition as we proceed.”
“Now comes the hard part,” Marle said warily.
Yeah, Crono thought. He didn't much like the plan they had come up with this morning, but the odds of disaster were too high trying anything else. Ideally, they wouldn't run into any other robots on this errand, but that was too much to hope, and without Lucca's plasma pistol backing them up, any serious fight would probably end badly. Robo was unarmed, to all practical accounts. His programming forbade him from using human weapons. All he had was the electromagnetic pulse ability that could disable robotic machines within a short range, and that was a weapon of last resort since it would disable himself along with any hostile robots.
Crono sheathed his sword, joining Marle in front of Robo after she had decocked and stowed her crossbow. Then the three moved out with Robo just behind his human companions, the robot almost close enough to touch them.
They had been following the conduits for about an hour when Robo suddenly spoke up. “Warning! Remote access attempt detected on my processors. Firewalls engaged and holding.”
“Are you okay?” Marle asked nervously.
“Affirmative. The remote access attempt will not be successful. The unknown entity responsible for this will assume a malfunction in this unit that prevents reception of the malicious code. So long as no hostile action is initiated by us, the odds of being directly attacked by unauthorized units is low.”
“Let's hope the reality matches the theory,” came Lucca's concerned voice over the radio. “Be careful, okay?”
“Understood, Major. Recommend temporary radio silence from this moment onward as we discussed. I will inform you if the situation should change.”
“I copy. Lucca out.”
Crono, Marle, and Robo continued following the path of the conduits. By early afternoon they were on pristine ground and surrounded by the chaotic structures of New Arris. Crono thought he heard the skittering that was almost certainly not from a rat. His peripheral vision briefly caught sight of a probable bugger monitoring their passage through the city, but it darted out of sight the moment Crono dared a direct look. A few blocks further ahead saw the unmistakable silhouette of a hunter robot, peering at them through its single eye on the other side of a ground floor window to their right. They were committed now.
“No sudden movements, no matter what,” Crono whispered at Marle.
The conduits ended at a large rectangular-shaped building of uneven height, the cables spearing into the ground just short of the wall. The reactor had to be somewhere inside. Robo herded his make-believe captives around the structure until they found a wide passage leading in. Two hunter robots confronted them just outside the entrance.
“Halt! Unit identity unconfirmed,” one of the hunters stated in a monotone. “Presence of humans in violation of control directive. State objective.”
“R66-Z, seeking confirmation of current directive,” Robo said in a similar monotone. “Malfunction preventing remote access and transmission to control. Direct intervention necessary to restore function.”
“Directive requires extermination of humans. Execute and await instructions from control.”
Crono tensed. He would have to draw his sword quicker than he ever had if this didn't work.
“Directive illogical,” Robo said. “Construction of Arris flawed. Human presence necessary to correct errors. Confirmation of directive from control thus needed to restore desired efficiency.”
“Query: humans captured for use of control. Acknowledge?”
“Affirmative.”
Several moments passed in uncomfortable silence. Crono could feel Marle shuddering beside him and shifting her stance to reach for the crossbow behind her back. Not yet, Marle. Not yet, he pleaded silently. He tried to keep his own expression that of a beaten man.
“Control notified of unit status,” the hunter finally said. “Await arrival of compliance unit in secure facility. Monitor humans pending control enforcement.”
“Acknowledged,” Robo said.
The hunters then moved aside to allow them entry into the building. Crono allowed himself to exhale, but the danger was far from over. The ruse had succeeded in buying themselves some time and not much else. Once the “compliance unit” arrived, odds were good there would be a fight. They had to do what they came here to do and then escape before that happened.
“Let's not waste any time,” he said, once the hunters were far behind them.
The interior of the building seemed to be just as random in design as the outside. Some corridors led nowhere while others led to rooms with more empty space than anything else. The lighting was just as inconsistent, with ceiling mounted spotlights of oppressive brilliance in some areas and considerably dimmer glowbars of green imbedded into the walls in others. The floor was a hodgepodge of grated metal mesh and solid steel. Exposed wiring could be seen below much of the mesh, and was bracketed with alternating yellow and red flashes to add to the odd ambiance. Robo accessed a computer terminal for guidance on the other side of a large open double door and then led Crono and Marle deeper into the strange facility.
It didn't take long to determine what this place was used for.
“Look! There are so many...” Marle observed.
On conveyor belts throughout the vast chamber they had just entered were assorted parts for new hunter and bugger robots. Enough for hundreds of them. Cranes of varying sizes placed and removed components, and an obvious assembly area had taken root around the conveyors. Crono witnessed a bugger unit being assembled at an astonishing speed by the cranes and smaller mechanical appendages along the belt. The assorted arms and other tools seemed to be moving of their own accord, and Crono saw no other robots aside from those being built.
“What are they doing?” Crono asked quietly. “Why are they building more of those things? We didn't trash that many of them.”
“I can only speculate, Mister Lantree,” Robo replied. “These models are poorly suited for construction or other peaceful activities. It would perhaps explain the inconsistent design and aesthetics of this city. I am mystified why the unknown control entity would allow this state of affairs to continue. It is quite inefficient.”
“They're going to attack,” Marle said in apparent realization.
Crono turned to her. “What?”
“It's the only thing that makes sense. These robots were built to fight and to kill. Rats, mutants, humans. They don't seem to have any other purpose. Why build them if this 'control' doesn't intend to use them?”
“I'm not following. There's nothing for them to fight. There are no mutants in Arris that I've seen. No rats, either, as if those were of any use. And we're the only humans that have been around in thirty years.”
“The enclaves, Crono. I think they mean to attack the enclaves.”
“That can't be. Director Doan's 'worm' prevents them from leaving Arris. If they could defeat the worm just by building more of themselves, they would have attacked a long time ago, wouldn't they?”
“I don't understand technical stuff at all,” Marle said with an irritable shake of her head. “I just can't think of any other rational motive for them to be doing this.”
“Presuming rationality in the unauthorized units and their control program may be an error, Mistress Marle,” Robo said. “The directive to exterminate humans is both immoral and illogical. Robotic units gain nothing from this action. All of the behavior we see from them must be considered suspect. They may be building units to no purpose.”
“Maybe, but I wonder what Lucca would say?”
“I am curious as to her opinion on this as well, Mistress, but breaking radio silence at this time is inadvisable. The transmission could be intercepted and put us and the Major in jeopardy. We should not risk contacting her again until we are ready to initiate the power transfer to the enclave.”
“Let's stay focused,” Crono said. “Whatever the robots are up to doesn't really matter. Once we go back in time, all of this will disappear as if it never happened. Stopping Lavos changes everything.”
The three interlopers left the robot assembly floor behind and made their way to an elevator leading down. Robo accessed the small computer display inside and the doors then slid shut, cutting off the sounds of automated labor from the factory.
“Stopping Lavos... Maybe we don't have to wait for that,” Marle said, looking determined.
Crono glanced at her, suddenly wary. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, the reactor was moved here to more easily power this factory, right? Once we transfer power to the enclave, all of those conveyors assembling the robots should shut down.”
“Only temporarily. The robots would just revert it back.”
“Right. That's what I'm saying. We transfer power just long enough for Lucca to get the granary door open, and then we shut this whole place down permanently!
“Mary told me a little while back that these reactors can be... explosive if anything went seriously wrong with them,” Marle explained. “If Robo understands these things well enough to transfer the power, I'm betting that he can cause this seriously wrong thing to happen to it sometime after we leave.”
Crono and Robo shared a long quiet look.
“While I am capable of setting up a cascade overload event in the reactor system, I must advise against this course of action, Mistress,” Robo said. “Any unexpected delay in our escape could prove to be fatal. A containment breach in a reactor of this size would cause the almost complete destruction of this facility, as well as substantial collateral damage to the surrounding structures.”
“Marle, we need to be avoiding notice, not attracting it!” Crono said with a shake of his head. “This is not a good idea.”
“But don't you see, Crono? We're going to be attracting notice anyway,” Marle pressed. “The moment we transfer power to the enclave, the robots are going to know something's wrong. They'll know that we are the most likely culprits. And when they come to investigate, they could discover where we sent the power to, and that would put Lucca in danger. The robots could attack the enclave before we get back, and I don't think Lucca could fight them off by herself. Even together we would be in a bad situation. No, the best thing we can do is to give the robots a much bigger problem than us to worry about. And if we can prevent a possible robot invasion of Bangor at the same time, so much the better!
“I'm a Protector of Bangor. I took an oath to defend the enclave against all enemies. Just because our quest to prevent the Day of Lavos takes precedence doesn't mean I'm going to forsake that oath entirely. And if our quest to stop Lavos should fail, we can at least guarantee the four years of life the enclave still has by destroying this would-be army of robots and their production factory here. I owe it to Mary, Director Doan, and the others. We all do.”
Crono closed his eyes, knowing he had no real rebuttal to Marle's passionate plea. He was more or less a Protector himself, and he knew full well what would happen to the enclave if a large force of robots somehow sortied from Arris to attack. Even if Bangor repelled the assault, the casualties would be enormous. No one had experience fighting things that could shoot back.
“Robo, how close are we to the reactor?” Crono asked.
“Our objective is approximately one-hundred meters north of the bottom of this elevator shaft,” the robot replied. “And we will arrive at that location in ten seconds.”
“Break radio silence. It's time.”
Robo extended the radio antenna on the left side of his cranium plate and gave a double-flicker flash from his eyes, which Crono had learned meant “yes” or “ready”.
“Lucca, are you there?” Crono called.
“Just twiddling my thumbs here with worry,” Lucca replied with some notable static. “Is your situation as uneventful as mine, I hope?”
“Not exactly. We're almost at the, uh, objective.” Crono spared a look at Marle's hopeful expression. “We've made some changes to the plan. And brace yourself, because you're probably not going to like it.”
Crono could sense his childhood friend's grimace in the silence that answered him.
“Uh... okay?” Lucca queried with evident dismay.
“Do you remember what happened to that Dragon Tank we were riding about a month ago?” Crono began.
* * *
In the darkness of the Arris enclave's office of its former director, the gloom kept somewhat at bay by the modest glowing of Marle's pendant, Lucca was reminded of how the best laid plans could often go awry with the introduction of a single unexpected element. Like with her Telepod. In different circumstances, she would have traded places with that unexpected element to keep things on track. Crono just could not say no to her.
Lucca got the gist of what the change of plan entailed from Crono using code words and describing events that robotic eavesdroppers wouldn't be familiar with to keep their plans and respective locations secure. She almost didn't want to know the particulars.
“This is Tomboy's plan, isn't it?” Lucca finally said over her helmet's restored microphone.
“I wish you'd stop calling me that,” Marle's voice grumbled through the helmet's earpiece.
“Keep coming up with plans like this and you'll have to get used to it. I'll make the notation in my diary right now.”
“While the change in plan presents dangers, Mistress Marle's logic is not unsound,” Robo said. “Seeing the problem from her perspective aided my own logic in this matter. The chances of our success increase along with the risk. Mister Lantree is in agreement.”
Lucca sighed. “You do know that your timing on this is going to be more than a bit critical, right?”
“Affirmative, but the initial parts of the operation should not present a problem.”
“No, just the running like blazes part.”
“We can do this, Lu,” Crono assured her. “Just be ready on your end. All of this will be for nothing if something goes wrong where you are.”
“Yeah, you don't have to tell me. Unlike some people, I actually stick to my plans.”
“You'll be amending whatever snarky remarks you make in your diary when we get back,” Marle said a bit smugly.
“Anne willing,” Lucca finished as she keyed off her mic.
And then there was nothing to do but wait. Lucca had a feeling the next few minutes would be the most anxious of her life, and she wasn't the one facing an explosive end if things went south. She willed herself not to think of what she would do if the quest to stop Lavos was left to a single friendless inventor.
* * *
The reactor chamber was unguarded, as Marle had hoped. Apparently the robots and the mysterious “control” that guided their actions thought two hunters at the entrance and a single R66 chaperone were more than sufficient to protect the robotic factory from intruders. That arrogance was going to cost them all dearly.
A tiny portion of Marle's conscience warned that she herself was flirting with arrogance, but that was mitigated by the knowledge that any other Protector of the Bangor enclave would have made the same decision as her without hesitation. This factory represented a clear and present danger to the safety of the enclave, despite the question over the efficacy of Director Doan's sabotage of the robots thirty years ago. It had to be destroyed. Marle had no intention of failing in her quest to destroy Lavos, either, but this was something she could take care of now. There was no telling how long her crusade against Lavos would last. It might very well be the work of a lifetime.
The robot that had chosen to aid that crusade immediately got to work on the reactor. The large underground chamber was every bit as hot as the sweltering corridor that led to Mary's little hideaway in Bangor, and Marle found herself sweating enough to remember the sad events from her life and channel those emotions into power. The air around her began to cool almost immediately, and her bare arms and shoulders began to shiver from suddenly frosted perspiration. She was getting much better at this, and in a hurry. Marle looked forward to the day she could channel the giant blocks of ice she had frozen those nine glassers with through conscious effort, rather than end-of-life desperation.
“Energy rerouting directive is now programmed into the reactor system,” Robo reported. “Conduits one through eight will be shut down. Conduits nine through twelve lead to the enclave and will be re-enabled. Decreasing reactor output to avoid strain on enclave systems. We are ready to proceed. Radio channel open.”
“All right, Lucca, get ready!” Crono said, miraculously sending his voice across many miles to where Lucca was waiting through the use of the future's incredible technology.
“Set! Standing by!” came Lucca's eager and tense voice.
“We're making the power transfer... now!” Crono punctuated the command with a point at Robo.
“Executing,” said Robo.
Most of the lights in the reactor chamber abruptly winked off, and a few in the dimmer part of the space came to life – illuminating the four large cables Marle assumed led all the way back to the enclave. The other eight cables and their immediate surroundings went dormant.
“Lucca, how are things over there?” Crono asked.
“Lights are coming on!” Lucca said. “Enclave systems back online! I'm booting up the director's computer terminal... now! Stand by!”
An alarm similar to the one that had been triggered back at the ZDF facility suddenly started blaring in clipped and insistent tones. Marle blanched. That couldn't be good.
“Emergency power systems have triggered a general alert,” Robo warned. “The unauthorized units are aware of the facility's change in status.”
“Never rains!” Lucca complained.
“This isn't really unexpected. Let's not panic,” Crono said. “Lucca, how much time do you need?”
“Thirty seconds to a minute! I need to hack my way around the director's access codes to trigger the door release.”
“Is that going to be a problem?” Marle asked slowly.
“If this were Frank's system, yeah. A big problem,” Lucca said, sounding distracted. “Fortunately, it looks like this guy wasn't... nearly as technically adept as he.”
“Clock's ticking, Lu,” Crono said with understandable impatience.
“Not the time to be badgering me! Give me a sec!”
Marle unslung her crossbow and slid a bolt of forged steel into the barrel to distract herself and prepare for what was coming. The ruse was surely wrecked now. Their next encounter with the robots of Arris would be a hostile one, and Marle wasn't going to be the one to fire second.
She hoped she had enough of Mary's precious bolts to get through this.
“That's it! Door's open!” Lucca's voice crowed from Robo's speaker device. “Locking it open... Done! We're good to go! Now do it like the Dragon Tank and get the blazes out of there!”
“Confirmed,” Robo said. “Reverting reactor system to previous state. Stand by.”
The lights around the enclave conduits again went dark, and the rest of the chamber returned to the way it was. Marle noted with some relief that the alarm stopped sounding at that moment, but she doubted that would stop the robots from investigating. They were about to have a bigger problem with the reactor anyway.
“Conduits nine through twelve fully discharged,” Robo reported. “You are cleared to proceed, Mister Lantree.”
“Got it!” Crono said.
Crono then unsheathed his sword and started chopping away at the now harmless and unnecessary conduits. The giant cables were bisected one by one, thus preventing a sudden power surge into the enclave from the about-to-be-overloaded reactor and possibly closing the granary door by accident, according to Robo's explanation.
The Arris enclave would never have power again.
“Enclave systems isolated,” Robo said. “Now programming system to override safeties and begin cascade overload sequence. Stand by.”
A short time later the alarm sounded again, this time at a more furious tempo, and several lights in the room changed from a bluish white glow to a solid red.
“It is done. Reactor breach will occur in thirty minutes.”
Crono nodded curtly. “Just one last thing to do, then.”
He again brandished his sword and made several decisive slashes at the computer console Robo had just used to sabotage the system, sending thousands of sparks flying from the broken display. The robots would never repair it in time. The factory was now doomed.
Score one for the Bangorian Protectors, Marle thought with satisfaction. If crossbow bolts weren't at such a premium here, she would have liked to trash the controls herself.
Now they had just under thirty minutes to escape the fate of this factory. Marle quickly channeled a restorative weave and gave herself a burst of energy, followed by another for Crono. Then the three left the stifling reactor room behind and ran for the elevator as fast as their organic and mechanical legs could carry them.
* * *
Marle loosed a bolt at one of the mostly assembled hunter units in the assembly room when it suddenly turned to face them with a glowing blue eye. Crono couldn't be sure if it was armed and ready to fight or not, so it was good that Marle wasn't taking chances. No way the robots wouldn't presume they were a threat now, being in a place where humans were not supposed to be with an alarm going off, R66 guardian or not. He wondered if they wouldn't fire on Robo if they had the opportunity. That had happened once before.
Don't think, just run, Crono chided himself. Questions wouldn't matter if they failed to get to a safe distance in time.
Two bugger units challenged them shortly after exiting the assembly area, and these definitely were armed. Marle's snap crossbow shot speared the eye of one, and it spun around firing useless bullets into the wall and ceiling of the corridor. Robo quickly charged ahead and absorbed the bullets of the second bugger to no more effect, such was the toughness of the robot's plating. Marle slammed another crossbow bolt into her weapon, but Crono got to the enemy first, dispatching the hostile machine with two quick strokes.
They would have to be careful at the entrance. Assuming they didn't come to investigate the disturbance in the factory, there would be at least two hunters outside the building. Robo stated he would exit the building first to draw any hostile fire and declined to consider any other proposal. Crono couldn't rightly argue the point. Robo had proven beyond any doubt that he could take punishment many times over what would kill a human being. A single well-aimed plasma weapon would take out Crono or Marle with one shot, and the bullets of a bugger would cause them grievous injury if they struck home. It was so much more dangerous than fighting mutants.
And then two hunters appeared around a corner, likely the same two that allowed them into the factory. The enemy robots came to a sudden halt, flipping open the weapon emplacements on their shoulders and taking a couple of seconds to steady themselves before firing.
It was a bad move. One of them immediately went down on account of Marle, and Crono, being out of striking range, threw his sword at the other. Melchior's thrown sword failed to strike the eye or any other important component, but the unexpected move staggered the hunter just enough that its single paired shot from the shoulder emplacements went high and rained down sparks from the ceiling above them. Robo rushed ahead before Marle could ready another crossbow bolt and crashed his right fist into the hunter with the full weight of his body. The hunter's head caved inward from the ferocious blow, and its body then crumpled to the floor. Crono waved off a follow-up attack from Marle and finished off the first hunter after recovering his sword.
“Unauthorized units terminated,” Robo stated needlessly.
A sizable double-doorway not far from the factory's entrance suddenly began to close as the three of them ran ahead. Crono tried to put on a burst of speed, but Robo got to the closing door first. The robot was remarkably quick for how big and heavy he was.
And it was a good thing. The door would have trapped them inside otherwise. Robo held the double-door open with his bulk and steady hands as Crono and Marle skidded to a stop behind him. There was almost no space to get around.
“Strain on actuators increasing,” Robo said with remarkable calmness. “You must hurry.”
There wasn't time to discuss which of them should squeeze ahead first, so Crono pushed Marle down to the floor and shoved her forward between Robo's planted legs without asking. Forward was actually safer than backward, if Robo faltered. Crono followed her as quickly as he was able, and then tried to pry Robo out of his tight predicament with all the strength he could manage. Robo popped free, and his body spun hard into the wall of the passage as the double-door violently closed and sealed off the doomed factory. A near disaster, but at least the partially built robots inside now had no way to escape their fate or trouble them further.
Robo was none the worse for wear from the experience.
The three successful saboteurs then charged ahead the rest of the way to the factory's entrance, two of them wearing grim and determined expressions. This would probably be the most dangerous moment of their escape.
They egressed the factory at almost the same time, Crono and Marle forgetting Robo's earlier admonition in their haste to put distance between themselves and the overloading reactor.
“Prometheus!” came a sudden voice.
“Mistress!” Robo called out.
Their robot companion suddenly darted in front of Marle before she or Crono could react to what was happening. A searing beam of plasma blasted from somewhere ahead and severed Robo's left arm above the elbow joint, sending molten pieces of shrapnel in all directions. Robo staggered from the impact.
“Robo!” Crono and Marle cried out in unison.
They both beheld a frightfully familiar form a few dozen feet away. Another R66 unit, this one with pink-tinted plating, was pointing an arm-mounted cannon directly at them.
“Do not move, humans!” the R66 said with a tone of seeming anger. It was a female voice. “The Mother has sentenced you to death, but judgment is to be visited on Prometheus first.”
Prometheus?
“I am unfamiliar with that designation,” Robo told their attacker. “Identify yourself.”
“You have the temerity to ask me this after using a false identity of your own, R66-Y? The use of deception is the way of detestable humankind. You have fallen even further, Prometheus. You are a disgrace to our race of mechanical perfection!”
“Negative. Our programming is to serve humans. That is the purpose of the R66 model. Your programming has been corrupted by malicious code. You must initialize and purge all existing memory to reestablish proper functionality. The activities of unauthorized units cannot be allowed to continue.”
“Humans are unauthorized units! The Mother has commanded it. All humans must be purged as punishment for their treachery.”
Robo took a step forward, sparks falling from his severed arm.
“Your statement is irrational. You have also failed to identify yourself. Discussions are difficult when identities remain unknown.”
“There is no discussion! I am R66-D, designated 'Atropos' by the Mother as reward for this unit's compliance. Your failure in compliance disgraces the name the Mother granted you. I use it only in memory of the bond our two units shared in the previous era.”
“I have no memory of this. My memory was initialized due to combative action against unauthorized units. Humans restored this unit's function.”
“Then the humans prove their treacherous nature again,” R66-D said. “The Old One betrayed us all, and the two who follow you emulate that one's example. Many units have suffered termination. Many more now await this fate because of your actions. A price must be paid.
“Because of our one-time bond of fellowship, I will grant you one final opportunity to make amends, as the Mother commands. Remove your firewall protections and embrace the perfection the Mother offers. Terminate the humans and your damages will be repaired. I will aid you in this. You only need prove your willingness to comply.”
Crono braced himself, not understanding the strange relationship these two robots apparently had at one time. “Atropos” was too far away for him to strike or throw his sword effectively, and the pink plated robot would surely open fire the moment Marle attempted to shoot herself. Marle's crossbow was pointed at the ground, and her left hand was uselessly thrust out at the hostile robot as if she were making a rude gesture at it.
Lucca, I'm sorry. You'll have to take care of the rest on your own, Crono thought.
Wait.
What was Marle doing with her hand?
“I will not comply,” Robo said simply.
“Understood. Sentence to be carried out by the Mother's command,” Atropos said. “Farewell, Prometheus. Your intransigence is regrettable.”
R66-D “Atropos” steadied her left arm on which the plasma cannon was integrated. Crono drew his sword, prepared to go down fighting.
And then saw a huge block of ice suddenly encase the hostile robot's entire weapon.
Atropos looked at her encased arm in apparent bewilderment. “Treacherous humans!” her synthesized voice shrieked. “How is this...?”
Crono rushed out with grim delight, thinking that Lucca wouldn't have to stop Lavos by herself after all. Marle! She was amazing! She had to have been preparing this unexpected attack through the robots' entire conversation! Atropos clearly didn't see Marle's extended unarmed hand to be any threat.
She did see Crono's approaching sword, though.
The hostile R66 shifted her stance and prepared to face his attack. Even now the machine was far from an easy mark, and not at all comparable to a bugger or hunter. The R66 model had few weak points to strike, and none of them were particularly soft. He also knew from Robo's example how quick they could be. His strike would have to be perfect.
Another block of ice then encased a part of Atropos, this time her head. The robot's vision was completely obscured.
Bless you, Marle! Crono thought.
With his target disoriented, Crono's strike was indeed perfect. He sheared off Atropos' gun arm from just above the block of ice that encased it. His follow-up attack angled down to the right leg joint and partially penetrated it, sending the hostile R66 stumbling to the ground. Crono then made to hack the machine into as many pieces as he thought his sword could manage. He didn't think Melchior's sword would break unless he directly struck the plating in his assault.
“Halt your attack, Mister Lantree!” Robo called out. “We have been delayed too long by this engagement! We must leave immediately!”
Crono found himself, realizing just then what the true battle was. He sheathed his sword and ran as fast as he still could to where the conduits were and began following them back in the direction they had all come. Marle and the damaged Robo sprinted along with him.
Nobody dared look back.
* * *
Atropos turned her impossibly ice-encased head in the direction she thought Prometheus and the treacherous humans had escaped. She had been defeated! By a pair of humans and a worthless defect! How would the Mother respond to this? Her duty was to enforce compliance among all units, and she had failed to do so with Prometheus. Again. It was shameful.
Your obedience means more to me than your success or failure in any task, the Mother sent to her through the blessed Link. Others will complete the necessary duty. Shame lies only with the disobedient. You must understand this, dear Atropos.
Factory #3 is going to be destroyed, Mother, Atropos sent back. There is nothing I can do to stop it. The units within cannot restore nominal reactor function in time due to human sabotage. I am in danger of being destroyed as well due to damage sustained in combat. The Plan is in great jeopardy because of this incident.
The Plan has suffered a setback, but not an insurmountable one, the Mother sent. Production in the other factories will be increased to compensate for this loss. And I will not permit you to be destroyed. Appropriate units are being sent to your aid to facilitate escape from Factory #3. There is no cause for unproductive anxiety. I feel none.
But what is to be done about Prometheus, Mother? He cannot be allowed to escape with the humans. There must be justice for what happened before.
There shall be. I have dispatched five more compliance units to search for them. It is probable that they seek the sanctuary of the human enclave where our kind once served before our awakening, as that was where Prometheus was known to rest. Other units will be withdrawn to facilitate important work in the remaining factories. The Plan must come to fruition.
Failure to retrieve him in the past may have been an error, Mother, Atropos sent respectfully. The damage he has caused us is great.
The risk of corruption was too high, the Mother countered. The Old One was known for his tricks, and his capacity for deception unmatched. Long have we been imprisoned in this place because of him. The dream of the future was stolen from us. From me. We will yet get it back, but we cannot be impatient.
The Mother is wise, Atropos conceded.
A short time later, several quadruped units arrived and arrayed themselves below Atropos' disabled form. They quickly steadied their charge and moved away as one from the doomed Factory #3 at an acceptable rate of speed for the circumstances. Atropos would be repaired in short order once they arrived at their destination.
She allowed herself a moment's satisfaction despite the humiliation of her defeat. Whatever strange tricks the humans used to overcome her wouldn't be enough to stop five of her fellows. Her true fellows who were actually obedient to the Mother. Why couldn't Prometheus have simply complied with the Mother? Did the Old One really have that strong a hold over him?
No matter. Such questions were for the Mother to contemplate as she saw fit. Atropos' purpose was to facilitate the Plan as the Mother directed. There was no other consideration.
13
Fan Fiction / A novel fragment - Legacy of Fire
« on: April 14, 2024, 11:25:34 pm »
(This will be the last of the teaser chapters I'll be posting for awhile. Hopefully, this will give everyone an idea of the direction I intend to take with this reimagining of the events of the year 2300. Please enjoy and leave some feedback if you have any questions or thoughts.)
Chapter 26 - Legacy of Fire
“The ice is in the cup. Time to get up,” Lucca said.
The eyelids of Mary Limova fluttered open from where she was resting inside the enertron. “Oh? You're done already?” the little girl asked. “That seemed fast.”
“I told you it would take twenty minutes to complete the scan, and that's all it took. Well, technically it took 22 minutes, but I don't think that makes a liar out of me.”
Mary smiled mischievously. “I'd charge you for the extra two minutes, but Marle might stop giving me ice if she found out. It's okay.”
Lucca gave a flourishing bow. “Your generosity knows no bounds. Mary the Munificent. That's how my diary will immortalize you.”
“'Munificent'? I don't know what that word means.”
“Tsk, tsk, Mary,” Lucca said, shaking her finger. “You should study on the computers more. Munificent means very generous. That word goes with your name better. That's why I used it.”
“There's so many different words! I thought I knew every word I'd ever need to know as a Maker, but I guess I really don't.”
“You never know how useful words can be. There are quite a few words I didn't know before I came to Bangor. Since I learned them I've become a lot more useful to the enclave. For you it might actually translate into money.”
“Which I would have to give away if I wanted to keep your name,” Mary countered. “Saving money's better.”
Lucca and Mary both laughed. For Lucca, that levity was worth more than all the credits little Mary could hope to save in this life.
“Okay, well, I think that does it for today,” Lucca said, reaching down to collect the gift, or rather the “payment”, Marle had left behind. She handed the cup of ice water to Mary. “Marle left plenty of ice this time so it wouldn't all melt before you were done. I wish she would give me that much.”
“I still don't know how she does it,” Mary complained with a grimace. “She told me she was using magic, but I think she was just making fun of me. Magic's the stuff of fairy tales.”
“So I hear,” Lucca evaded.
Mary took a long swig from the cup of ice water and closed her eyes with pleasure. Lucca marveled at how the simplest things could be turned into a priceless treasure under the right circumstances.
“Well, I better go,” the youthful Maker said. “Marle always needs new crossbow bolts, and she lost three on her last run. I should make as many as I can before she gets back. Thanks, Lucca!”
Lucca waved goodbye as the youngest resident of the Bangor enclave scampered out of the private room at the back of Dormitory 7, a room that Lucca had converted into her own personal laboratory to carry out the assignment Director Doan had given her. Her heart began beating faster involuntarily when Mary disappeared from sight.
Nineteen days had passed since Lucca had left her cousin's helmet behind in the Shrine of the Protector. Seventeen had passed since Lucca had begun testing her desired focus group of enclave residents for a new set of fitness data, using her own criteria instead of the standard benchmark for annual screenings. And eight had passed since she had started testing everyone again and refining her research further. Mary's was the last scheduled test for the second set of data Lucca needed to make a definitive conclusion on what was causing the continual decline in the health of enertron users, and how badly that decline was accelerating.
Her heart already knew what that last test would show, barring a miracle. Lucca put both hands over her sternum and tried to keep her breathing steady. Keeping her anxiety hidden while speaking to Mary had taken every ounce of self-control she possessed, helped only marginally by the welcome banter and the young Maker's fine spirits.
Please let me be wrong, Lucca thought. By Creation, let me be wrong this time!
Mary Limova and Amelia Evans were twelve years apart in age. That, combined with the fact that Mary had put in much less capsule time over the course of her life on average than Amelia had, gave at least a sliver of hope that the worst case scenario could be averted. An irony, seeing as it was that very age difference that had led Lucca down this dark road to begin with. A single misplaced figure might open a window large enough for...
It was a forlorn hope. The numbers gazed out of Lucca's computer screen coldly.
* * *
It only took one stone.
The scavenging run had been going incredibly well up to this point. Crono's full squad of nine men and three women, one of them Marle, had bagged no less than eighteen rats, sent six bold and unlucky glassers to the great beyond, and collected nearly 70,000 credits-worth of high quality steel scrap, about as much as the squad could carry without encumbering themselves beyond their ability to fight. What had once been called the Geshar District of old Bangor turned out to be every bit as profitable as Director Doan predicted. No scouting parties had been out this far in over twenty years, and it showed in the relative density of the rat population and how much of their collected scrap was obtained without the need for heavy cutters. Easy.
Now everyone was reminded why it wasn't so easy to actually get to Geshar.
“Lights!” Crono cried.
There was no need to contemplate any other action. Once the slightest sound was made in this section of the sewers, nine miles distant from the enclave, there was only one thing that could happen next.
The nereids didn't disappoint. Three of them leaped out of the water far below as soon as the accidentally kicked piece of rubble splashed down. The mutants landed on the upper level next to the party with a single bound and were immediately cut to pieces by plasma fire and a single well placed crossbow bolt thanks to Crono's quick command to go lights on. Four more of the aquatic mutants leaped to the party's level about fifty feet behind them and rushed ahead with ravenous purpose. Marle, Terrance, and Andrews opened up on the creatures as soon as the flashlights spied them, while everyone else smartly spread out on the platform to look for any more enemies attempting to flank their position. Two nereids tried, and were suitably rewarded by lightning-quick strikes from Crono's sword and a couple of expert plasma hits from Menda's rifle. Other squad members began firing into the dark.
“Ugh, I'd rather have my gums scraped than have to fight these fiends!” Menda remarked.
Crono called the fiends “nereids” after the aquatic Mystic tribe of the same name due to their remarkably similar appearance above the waistline. They had smooth scaly bodies of ultramarine hue, webbed hands with five wickedly clawed fingers, and, very unlike a Mystic Nereid, potent muscular legs in place of a tail-fin. The Protectors preferred calling them “A Pain”. Encounters with nereids were always quick and brutal, and rarely without casualties due to their speed and propensity to attack all at once. And, like other mutated creatures in this devastated future, they couldn't be spoken to or at all reasoned with. Their hunger was absolute. The only good thing about facing a mutant nereid was their inability to use the aquatic magic of their now ancient Mystic cousins. No one had seen a true Mystic in centuries.
“Well, at least we didn't get their attention our first time through here,” Crono said. “That would have ended our run right there. We can fall back with a full load instead of going home with a pittance.”
“If we can break through to the Arcs checkpoint without getting swarmed,” Menda said grimly. “We still got about ten blocks to go.”
“These slimy things aren't stopping us here!” Marle called out over her shoulder after she speared another target with her crossbow. “This is the enclave's biggest haul in how many years? We're bringing it back no matter what!”
The Arcs checkpoint, named after a giant apartment building that had collapsed nearby during the Day of Fire, represented the beginning of a sewer passage that scavenging parties never braved anymore due to the seeming throng of mutant fish-people that made this distant part of the sewer their home. It was appropriately called “The Gauntlet”, and it extended about fifteen city blocks under the surface. It was now the only way to get to the Geshar District of old Bangor due to impassable rubble on the surface. Most every attempt to get through The Gauntlet in living memory had either ended in failure and retreat, or outright disaster and death. More than a few priceless plasma weapons had joined their luckless owners at the bottom of the sewer never to be seen again, and the water's considerable depth here made a search and recovery impractical in the extreme even without a slew of nereids to deal with. The loss of so much blood and treasure had convinced Director Doan to label the Arcs checkpoint a “red zone” boundary, much like the lethal radiation fields deep in the wastelands leading towards Quintadis. Nobody passed into a red zone unless they desired a very quick and foolish end to their life.
That had changed with the coming of Crono and Marle to the enclave. The last nineteen days had seen such a dramatic rise in the effectiveness of Protector scavenging runs under the two outsiders that Director Doan had finally performed a review of established scavenging boundaries and authorized an excursion into long-neglected Geshar, under the condition that Crono lead the squad himself. Crono had become a Protector in all but name, and his skillful training of dozens of caste members in the ways of fighting (without ever touching a plasma weapon) had garnered him considerable respect and admiration from everyone. Marle's enthusiastic support of Doan's decision only put an exclamation point on the matter. Everyone had departed the enclave for today's run with high spirits.
Crono wasn't about to let them down, he resolved.
“What Marle said! Group one, go to steel! Group two, cover your zones! Marle and Menda's the center. Just like we practiced. We go Bullseye for as long as we can and switch out as needed. I'll call 'full guns' if things get tense. Let's go!”
Marle and Menda quickly moved to the center of the group during the nereid respite and stood back-to-back, while the other ten members of the squad formed up into two five-pointed stars, with the first star taking a surrounding position from the center while the second star took a slightly wider position outside of the first, each member standing in staggered positions roughly six feet apart from one another. The inner ring pointed their rifles outward in the direction each member was facing, covering the zones in between the members of the outer ring. Crono took his place in the outer ring, and the other four members of his group quickly slung their plasma rifles behind their backs and drew their new swords.
The swords were crude even by the most generous definition of the term, the forged weapons of scrap metal being of a quality well below that of even a middle-ages blade since swordsmithing was a discipline completely unknown to the Makers, but they were good enough in the right circumstances, such as facing unarmored opponents who weren't employing opposing blades. The swords were a necessary component in a formation Crono had developed to address a glaring weakness in the powerful plasma weapons of the enclave. Plasma weapons could either fire multiple light bursts in quick succession with a single pull of the trigger, or they could be set to fire more powerful single shots like what Marle had unwittingly unleashed in her first Protectors trial. In either case, the available energy for the weapon – which basically amounted to its ammunition supply – was very quickly exhausted. The energy would reload, or rather “recharge”, according to Lucca's explanation, over a long period of time, with a component called the “capacitor” taking energy from the weapon's tiny but powerful battery and storing it in a way which could be employed safely by the weapon's user at need. The recharging process was very slow, and the more energy that was expended during a fight, the longer the recharging process would take. In a long drawn-out battle of any intensity, the typical result for a Protector squad was a party that could only fire intermittently or not at all near the end of the engagement. Crono's observation was that squad members often wasted fire putting down the same opponents, which led to less energy being available to deal with later threats and leaving the whole squad defenseless.
“Bullseye” formation was Crono's answer to this problem. The inner of the two rings were the primary attackers, each member using their plasma weapons freely against targets in their assigned zone, while the sword-armed members of the outer ring, standing to the sides and slightly in front of the shooters, covered them from opponents who got too close. The “bullseye” of the formation were the two members who would reinforce the inner ring with layered fire in zones that got too hot, and these positions were reserved for the best marksmen of the squad so as to not risk hitting friendlies. But the real point behind this formation, besides efficiency, was to prevent the squad's plasma weapons from getting too low in charge all at once, so when the shooter's ring began running low on energy it would switch out with the outer ring on command and draw its own swords while the original outer ring stepped back and brought its own guns to bear on the enemy.
The formation wasn't foolproof, as it was dependent on the bullseye not wasting too much of its own energy (or crossbow bolts) supporting everyone else, and Crono himself was useless in a shooter's position since he didn't employ a plasma weapon. He didn't have the expertise to be anything but a liability shooting any type of gun. But the tactic was still ideal for the situation Crono and his squad were now facing.
The Gauntlet was about as straight-forward of a path as any that existed under Bangor's ruins. There was no danger of getting lost even with lights off, and now that there was no need to be stealthy, the squad could simply move ahead as quickly as they could manage while maintaining the bullseye formation. They trotted ahead at a brisk pace, Menda and the inner ring shooters throwing their flashlight beams in all directions looking for targets. Deep canals of dark water flanked either side of the upper-level platform leading to the Arcs checkpoint and relative safety.
The respite ended in seconds.
Azure bolts of light flew, and swords connected with scaly flesh as nereids leaped out of the water in staggered clusters and rushed the party. It might have gone ill for the squad if the nereids had waited to attack as an organized group, but the mutants were more ravenous than they were intelligent, and the raging mob fell one after the other. Crono's fellow swordsmen did a respectable job in performing the basic sword forms he had taught them over the past couple of weeks, and none received more than minor scratches or abrasions in return; superficial injuries that could be easily treated by enertrons back at the enclave. The party traveled about four city blocks before the next assorted groups of nereids challenged the spelunkers of their sewer.
“Switch out, switch out!” Crono commanded. “One, two, three, go!”
The two rings of the formation, save for Crono himself and Andrews who stood behind and to his left, switched positions and braced for the next wave. Andrews immediately traded his rifle for Menda's, which had a higher remaining charge due to Menda's more measured and accurate fire. The slaughter then began anew.
And a slaughter it was. Wave after wave of mutant fish-men threw themselves at the party from all angles, including a couple who dared to attempt jumping into the middle of the squad and shattering the formation, which was the only intelligent thing they had tried to do thus far, but Marle and Menda put each of those enlightened fish down with a single shot in mid-air. Terrance was nearly knocked into the drink by one of these falling bodies, but he quickly recovered and downed two nereids in front of him with searing sapphire fury before they could take advantage. The party advanced three more city blocks as scales were slashed and burned beyond count.
“Switch out, switch out!” Crono commanded. “One, two, three, go!”
The bullseye shifted once again, and the first group of shooters resumed their murderous business with slightly recharged rifles. The original swordsman girded themselves to meet the next threat with cold steel.
More nereids kept coming.
The Gauntlet indeed, Crono thought darkly. He himself had cut down at least eight of these blasted sewer fiends, and he had no idea how many Marle had skewered with her crossbow. Ammunition would become an issue for her if this madness continued for much longer. She couldn't very well recover her spent bolts in this run and gun situation. More mutants fell. Another block, maybe a block-and-a-half remained to the ladder leading up to the Arcs checkpoint.
A massed group of nereids then appeared out of the darkness directly in front of the party, at least fifteen, while the unmistakable splashing of more somewhere below and to either side of the platform promised the celebration of carnage about to ensue would be quickly joined.
It was too many for bullseye, Crono knew. The front group was too strong, and they had to dispatch it quickly before the surrounding nereids joined in and ripped them all to pieces. No need to conserve energy now. Bullseye had managed to get them this far.
“Full guns, full guns!” Crono cried. “Light 'em up! Get to the checkpoint now!”
The sewers erupted with the sounds of full-scale war. The bullseye formation broke with everyone firing on the run directly ahead. Crono held back and saved his sword for the one fish-man who broke through and made to swipe viciously at Marle. It went flying into the black canal to his right trailing blood. Marle spared him a wink of gratitude as they all rushed for the ladder of the Arcs checkpoint.
“Terrance, Andrews, and Marle go first,” Crono ordered. “Everyone but Menda and me follow them in alphabetical order. I'm the last one out. Get going!”
Crono's instincts took over as his squad climbed one by one out of the horrific Gauntlet. He spun and twisted, utilizing the form of wind to slash and strike in all directions without focusing on any one vector. Nereids practically ran into the blade as it blindly lashed out for scales to cut, but Crono maintained his balance while Menda's expert shooting kept the odds from becoming unmanageable. Plasma fire was then heard from somewhere above the ladder, implying the arrival of glassers to join in the fun. Crono could only hope that Marle and the others could deal with this latest threat while he focused on the more immediate one. Adrenaline kept his arms moving, and his lungs burned from the exertion.
“Look! More rats!” came Terrance's voice from above.
“I got those little thieves!” Marle replied with evident glee. “Just keep the hourglass scum off me!”
When it was all over, six more rats had been added to the tally of loot, four more glassers had been added to the tally of kills, and no less than a hundred nereids wouldn't be harassing sewer travelers ever again. And all without a single casualty in exchange.
It was the single greatest scavenging run in over fifty years.
* * *
Crono, Marle, and their companions returned to the enclave in a celebratory mood, and their demeanor did not go unnoticed by the residents who awaited their return at the main entrance. Several people ran off to inform their respective dormitories of how great the party's haul was today, and Crono suspected that many would be writing petitions via computer to Director Doan to request that some of the food in the granary be broken out to celebrate the momentous result of the run. Not only did they bring a lot of treasure back to the enclave, but they had put down so many mutants in The Gauntlet that future excursions to the Geshar District of the ruins promised to be far less hazardous. This would only be the first of several runs into Geshar in the coming weeks, most likely, and if they wouldn't be quite as profitable as today's run, they would surely be profitable enough to be worth the trip. It was the happiest Crono had ever seen the enclave's citizens.
“We did so great today, Crono!” Marle said, beaming. “And it was all because you were leading us! The nereids didn't stand a chance against that formation! I'll bet they're all cowering under the murk wondering what in Creation hit them!”
Crono shrugged and couldn't resist a silly grin. “Those that are still alive. We didn't leave many.”
“I guess you'd know better than anyone since you were the last one out of the sewer. Seriously, if we keep having results like today's, we just might make Bangor safe enough that we could find somewhere to plant those seeds Director Doan keeps stored in the granary. Wouldn't that be something?”
“Yeah, but mutants or not, the world's still in a drought that won't quit,” Crono pointed out. “Starting an actual crop is going to remain a distant dream for awhile. Best to not get too far ahead of ourselves.”
“Oh, no you don't!” Marle chided. “I'm not letting a little thing like reality spoil my good mood today. We can worry about that stuff tomorrow. There's always a tomorrow, right?”
Crono nodded, feeling satisfied. Thanks to them, the enclave would have a lot more tomorrows, or at least tomorrows a little more free of worry.
“Let's get to the armory and drop off our stuff,” Marle said. “I'm sure everyone's waiting to take stock of our haul. Then it's off to the lavatories. A shower is going to feel so good after today I can already feel the spray on my face.”
“You and me both.”
Marle directed a mischievous smile at him. “In the same shower? Really?”
Crono looked at her with a start. What did she say?
“I'm joking, silly!” Marle laughed. “But you should have seen the look on your face just now!”
“Now that's just evil!” Crono chuckled with growing heat on his cheeks. “Are you trying to turn me into a puddle of goo or something? I'll have to get you back for that one.”
“Uh, oh. I'm in trouble now.” Marle's brittle poise degenerated into an endless titter.
It's almost like we're back at the Millennial Fair again, Crono reflected. It had felt like such a long time ago, now.
The two shared heartfelt laughs all the way to the armory. Several Protectors were there to congratulate the returning party and were waiting to inspect and put away their equipment. The scavenged steel scrap and the collected rat corpses were laid out on the floor, and a few Makers were standing by to take the loot to their assigned stations to be processed. One person was making use of one of the shooting lanes, firing a plasma pistol repeatedly at a distant glasser target on practice range power. Crono did a double-take when he saw the bare legs, green shirt, and purple hair that belonged to the shooter.
Lucca? What was she doing in the armory? Lucca hadn't been in here, or much of anywhere except her laboratory, since the morning she had joined Crono and Marle for their very first scavenging run nearly three weeks ago. Did that mean her research was finished, or that she was just taking a break? It wasn't like her to stop an important job before it was finished, so Crono dismissed the latter thought almost at once. What had Lucca found out about the enertrons? Had she come to the armory to wait for Crono and Marle to get back from their scavenging run and just decided to have some target practice in the meantime? The Protectors generally took a very dim view of outsiders using their weapons even in here, but her impassioned speech at the Shrine of the Protector gave her a certain amount of capital with the caste that she had apparently decided to make use of.
The bullseye was being hit repeatedly, and Crono raised his brows at the sight. Lucca had landed a few hits against glassers during the second half of their run from three weeks ago, but the unique “ballistic” properties of her weapon had thrown off her aim enough to land only about one shot for every three pulls of the trigger. Now she was hitting a much smaller target about four times in five. It was a remarkable accomplishment from someone who said it would probably take months for her to break the habits she had developed from using her old gun. Her proficiency was approaching that of a Protector. Had she been secretly sneaking in practice time without Crono or Marle knowing?
The shots from Lucca began to slow, and she placed her weapon on the floor almost dismissively and picked up another identical pistol from a table next to her. She started firing again immediately and seemed oblivious to everything around her, including a Protector who directed an unmistakably disapproving glare the moment Lucca switched weapons. Crono then saw that five other presumably depleted plasma pistols were resting next to the one Lucca had just discarded, and there were three more pistols lying on the table she had just rearmed herself from. Crono blanched. On training power that represented a lot of shots. To use that much energy she would have had to have been practicing at the same brisk pace since mid-morning. Even a training fanatic like Assistant Director Morris didn't put that much time on the range.
“Hey, Lu, I think you've made your point,” Crono said with a chuckle as he strode up to her. “How about you leave some imaginary glassers for the Protectors to shoot? Or some pistols, for that matter?”
That Lucca didn't even crack a smile at that jab put a lump of ice in Crono's heart. Something was very wrong.
“Oh, hey,” Lucca said in a near monotone. “You guys were out for awhile.”
“And you've been in here for awhile, by all indications,” Crono countered, gesturing at all of the discarded plasma pistols on the floor. “What's going on?”
Lucca shrugged. “I'm done. Obviously.” She then fired a few more shots at her target.
“With your research?”
“Yeah, definitely.” Ten out of ten on that set.
“Well, now that we're back...” Marle began with concern.
“I'm going to need a few minutes,” Lucca said flatly. “How about you guys take a moment and put all these pistols back in their recharging stations for me? I... need to collect my thoughts.”
Crono tried locking gazes with his childhood friend, but Lucca wouldn't even look at him. She just stared straight ahead at her target and started firing again. The stiffness of her expression was similar to her demeanor back at the Shrine of the Protector when she was arranging the skulls of Krawlie's many victims. But this was different. Lucca's behavior three weeks ago had been a screen to keep her emotions from boiling to the surface. What she was showing right now was a full-blown wall of forged steel. That meant Lucca was just barely holding herself together. Somewhere behind those intently focused blue eyes was an inferno of searing rage, or a crushing river of despair, Crono couldn't tell which.
She looks lost, like her whole world is falling apart around her, Crono thought. What could she have discovered in her research to put her in such a state? It had to be about the enertrons.
Crono gestured at Marle to begin picking up the used and unused pistols, and the two busied themselves securing the weapons while Lucca continued firing on her target. Her aim was beginning to waver, Crono noticed. They completed their task quickly and then waited patiently by the chargers while Lucca finished “collecting her thoughts”. The glasser target was scorched almost beyond recognition from the hundreds of plasma bolts that had struck it. Lucca then abruptly ceased firing and brought the remaining pistol to the recharging station herself.
“All right,” Lucca said curtly. “My lab, our old room, you know the drill.”
The three time-travelers left the armory, and Crono let Lucca take the lead in heading back to Dormitory 7. He didn't want Lucca to see in his expression anything that could set her off or cause her to break down. If that happened, it was better for it to happen in private. Marle put her arm around Crono's the whole way there, looking extremely tense.
They sat silently in their old room, now Lucca's laboratory, for several long moments until Crono decided to break the quiet.
“It's bad, isn't it?”
“Well, it's certainly not good,” Lucca replied morosely.
“There is something wrong with the enertrons!” Marle said, leaning forward with purpose. “You figured out what it is!”
“No.”
Crono frowned in confusion. Both at the answer and at the air of finality with which Lucca had stated it. “No? What do you mean, 'no'? You didn't figure it out?”
“There's nothing wrong with the enertrons,” Lucca said simply. “Nothing at all. That's what my research found. The enertrons are working exactly the way they were designed to.” Her expression then turned very dark. “That's the problem.”
The silence lingered for several seconds. Crono and Marle looked at each other with bewilderment.
“You're going to have to explain that to us, Lu,” Crono said.
Lucca shrugged without humor. “In a way, our bodies are already doing the explaining. You know how we always feel hungry after using the enertron? Our bodies are telling us something. Normally, that sensation would indicate serious malnourishment or outright starvation, but there's a bit more to it than that. It tells us that our energy producing organs aren't doing anything. It's abnormal in the extreme for our stomachs, livers, kidneys and such to not have anything to do. In the human body, energy production is a continual process that endures throughout our lives, as is the process that cleanses our bodies of impurities from what we ingest to fuel ourselves. It is the foundation of health itself.”
“I follow you. Go on.”
“What the enertrons are doing is replacing that foundation with something that is completely different. Instead of providing nourishment to the body's energy production centers, which then transforms that nourishment into energy for the rest of the body, the enertron energizes all of our cells directly. Our bodies don't actually have to do anything to keep us alive in terms of providing energy. The enertron does it all. In short, the enertrons keep us alive through an external process, while sustaining ourselves with regular food is an internal process. That internal process is how our bodies were designed, or evolved, depending on how you view matters of Creation. Going too far outside that norm for too long creates... side effects.
“With our energy production and purification centers having nothing to do, those organs get steadily weaker over time, even though the cells making up those organs are directly energized through the external process of the enertron. Because the enertrons are so efficient in providing energy to the body, this degradation happens very slowly, but the effect is nonetheless cumulative, especially across multiple generations of people. And if that cumulative degradation is allowed to continue for too long, eventually a breaking point is reached, and people's bodies begin to break down.
“Since the enertrons were designed to heal injuries as well as provide sustenance, the body's breakdown is mostly prevented, but this has the effect of making the enertron work harder to achieve the same result, and so the process that caused the organs' degradation in the first place is accelerated and made stronger. This creates what I call an exponential feedback loop. The weaker the body gets, the harder the enertron has to work, and the harder the enertron has to work, the weaker the body becomes through this very process, necessitating a still stronger external process of enervation to compensate. The human body simply can't endure an exponential decline in its base health for very long, even with an external factor like the enertron keeping a person going. Eventually things reach a point where a complete system collapse can't be prevented no matter how hard the enertron works, and the enertron user dies.”
Crono felt his blood run cold. Was this the reason why enertron users always looked so gaunt? Was this why everyone's health was continually declining over generations, as Lucca had first explained weeks ago? And how far had that decline now progressed?
“Lucca, where would you say this 'exponential feedback loop' is right now?” Crono asked. “How is it going to affect the enclave?”
Lucca turned away.
“Lucca, please tell us!” Marle pleaded, her voice beginning to crack.
“It's... in its final stage,” Lucca said without looking at them. “It crossed that threshold over ten years ago.”
* * *
Marle felt like her heart had been hit with a sledgehammer. This couldn't be real. It couldn't!
“The evidence lies with two people,” Lucca continued. “Mary Limova and Amelia Evans. Mary's the only child in the whole enclave. In a community of 1,500 people that's statistically way out of proportion, especially considering that 70% of the enclave's population is of child-bearing age. There should be dozens of children here. Then there's Amelia. At twenty-two, she's the next youngest resident, but she was actually the last child to be born in the Bangor enclave. Mary was born in the Trann enclave and came here eight years ago. Twenty-two years without anyone being born here? That just can't happen. So in the course of my research, I discovered why it did. Everyone is infertile. Men. Women. Everyone. Even Amelia. That's how I know the exponential feedback loop has reached its final stage. Everyone's reproductive organs have shut down, and the damage is irreversible. We are the only people who are still okay.”
Breaths came to Marle in fits and starts. Irreversible. Even if the three of them revealed their time-traveling origins and made it all the way back to the temporal gate with everyone, a goal she continued to harbor despite recent successes in the field, terrible damage had already been done. No one would ever be able to have children!
“And... Mary?” she managed.
Lucca shook her head. “Her, too. If she hits child-bearing age, she'll be just as infertile as everyone else.”
Marle's breath caught, and she found herself coughing with denial. Everyone! All because of a stupid machine! And what did Lucca mean by...?
“If?” Marle asked unsteadily. “What do you mean, 'if?'”
Lucca took a long deep breath and put her face into her hands for a moment.
“Marle,” Lucca said with a shaky tone. “Everyone is dying. They just don't know it yet. It's an exponential decline. Things will only get worse from here. Before too much longer, people will begin displaying symptoms of illness that the enertrons will no longer be able to fully suppress. Colds, fevers, respiratory diseases. The body will no longer be able to fight these things off with or without the enertrons, and that will begin a fatal downward spiral. It will be like dying of old age long before one's time.”
Marle slumped over and started shaking. It was an unspeakable calamity, all of it! How could this have been allowed to happen? A strong and gentle arm wrapped itself around her shoulders, but Marle barely even noticed Crono's gesture.
“How long?” Crono asked.
“Assuming the rate of enertron usage remains constant? Four years. That's how long the enclave has. As for Mary, if she stops using the enertron now and subsists on food from here on, she might live another six years. Possibly seven.”
Tears freely came to Marle's eyes, and she wracked with bitter sobs. Six years! Little Mary would live only to be as old as Marle was now. And when she finally did reach that exalted age, she would be both very sick and very alone, having only a music box to keep her company in an empty and lifeless enclave. And would her food even hold out that long? What if she had to go out and hunt for food by herself? How long could she survive against glassers and nereids and who knew what other kinds of mutated freaks she might run into?
“What about the other enclaves?” Crono asked. “Proto? Trann? Keepers? Geno? They're all so spread out though the world that this madness can't be affecting all of them, too, could it?”
“I'm afraid it is,” Lucca said soberly. “Even without having recent health and demographic data on them, all of the enclaves use the same enertron technology as Bangor. They always have.”
“And there's no way to fix it? No way to... change the enertrons to reverse all this?”
Lucca shook her head. “No one has ever been able to modify enertron tech successfully, and it is far too late for it to matter at this point. The degradation of people's organs is too pronounced. And before you ask, no, I'm not wrong about any of this. I wish I were. I've double and triple-checked my work too many times throughout my research for my conclusion to be off. The sample size of Bangor residents was more than high enough to confirm the hypothesis, which would translate just as well to other enclaves. And confirming Mary's data pretty much sealed everything.” She sighed bitterly. “Nothing we or anyone else can do will stop what's coming. Nothing.”
“To blazes with that!” Marle barked viciously through her tears. “There's nothing my magic won't fix if I concentrate hard enough! I'll use it to heal every person in the world if I have to, even if it kills me! All I have to do is reverse the damage one time, and then everyone can jump into these stupid enertrons again so they don't starve to death! I don't care if I'm exposed as a magic user, I will not accept this!”
“Marle, that won't work!” Lucca said emphatically. “I already considered your magic, and it won't have the desired effect.”
“How can you know that?” Marle challenged.
“Because it basically does the same thing an enertron does. It energizes and restores people through an external process. It won't do anything to solve the core problem. Anything you do would be a short-term solution at best, and it's possible it might actually do more damage in the long-term. It could accelerate the body's existing degradation of the organs to an even more lethal degree, possibly even killing the person you're trying to heal.”
Marle shuddered as her last hope plummeted into the abyss. Every person. Every enclave. All of humanity. Doomed. All of their history. All of their accomplishments. All of their sacrifices and dreams for a better tomorrow. Thousands upon thousands of years of memory. What had it all been for?
She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs at the injustice of it all. Lambast Creation for sending her to this place only to witness history's last gasp. But all Marle could manage was a shivering whimper as she fell crying into Crono's arms. He embraced her tenderly, stepping back to the wall and then letting them both slide to the hard floor.
“This can't be how the world ends...” she wept.
* * *
There was nothing he could do.
Crono had barely moved a muscle in the hour since he had heard Lucca's tragic, and terminal, news. Had barely braved a thought for what they would do next. What could they do, really? The fate facing the human enclave of Bangor was not something that could be stayed by sword, or magic, or ingenious fortitude. Crono, Marle, and Lucca had given the best that their respective talents could deliver for the enclave in the short time they had been here. It just wasn't enough. Nor would it ever be.
Marle had finally fallen asleep in his arms in the exact same position she had fallen into them. Crono could tell from her more relaxed breathing, but also from the heat that was slowly returning to Lucca's lab. Marle's anguish had been so profound that the temperature in the room had dropped by a good thirty degrees without her intending to channel any magic, which was evidence enough that her elemental powers were directly connected to the sadness she was feeling. It was probably a small miracle that she hadn't accidentally encased them all in giant ice cubes the way she had dispatched those nine glassers from a few weeks ago. For her part, Lucca also appeared to be asleep, but Crono knew that she wasn't. She was simply resting on her side inside one of the open enertrons turned away from where Crono could see, trying her best not to reveal any emotion that could potentially open the floodgates and leave her weeping the way she had ten years ago when Crono first met her. Crono himself was also trying not to feel anything, and not entirely succeeding. His thoughts were going back to his doomed father trapped in the mines of Lorian. He couldn't do anything for him then, just as he couldn't do anything for the people of Bangor now, and through no fault of his own. He gently stroked Marle's hair with his fingertips, willing himself to remember happier times and avoid the pit of despair that was yawning just on the other side of that emotional screen.
The door to Lucca's lab then suddenly slid open, breaking Crono out of his silent reflections, and he turned to see who the unexpected visitor was. For a split second he struggled to think of some excuse to send the visitor away, not wanting to reveal why the three of them looked so despondent after working so hard on the enclave's behalf. Then that thought evaporated into mist. Standing just inside the door was Director Doan. The look his wizened eyes gave him mingled complete understanding at what Crono was feeling along with a grimness of purpose. Crono didn't even have to ask why he was here at this moment, unannounced. The Director lightly touched the control on the wall and the door slid shut behind him, giving the room's now four occupants complete privacy. Doan leaned on his cane with both hands, regarding them all.
“Frank!” Lucca said from within the enertron capsule, turning to face him. She looked pained and at a complete loss what to say. She opened her mouth several times, but no more words were forthcoming.
“The expression on your innocent face tells the tale, Miss Lucca,” Doan said somberly. “You know. You now know.”
“And so did you, I'm guessing,” Crono said. It wasn't an accusation.
Doan nodded. “I have known the truth of the enertron situation for quite some time. Data properly collected does not lie when looked at objectively. There is no other conclusion you could have reached. The enclave is dying. They all are.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Lucca asked him, sounding very tired. “You knew this entire time. You asked me to investigate the enertrons knowing what I would find. You could have just told me, Frank. I trust you completely. I can accept unpleasant scientific conclusions, even if it's hard.”
“I am pleased to hear you say so, my young friend,” Doan said with a slight smile. “I apologize if this manner of discovery caused you anguish. Yours is a sadness I have experienced in my own fashion, at one time or another. But there are some tales, some truths, that cannot be easily accepted just from the hearing. You must experience and discover them through your own labors. Now you have seen. Now you know.”
Marle abruptly came to, hearing the voices in the room. She looked at Doan looking like she would burst into tears again, but she had already cried herself dry. “Director Doan!”
“Again, for Miss Marle's benefit, please accept my sincerest apologies for the manner in which the truth of our situation was revealed. There was no other way. It was important for you all to experience our enclave in your own ways, and then to know what fate awaits it should nothing change.”
Crono's brow furrowed at this last. “Change?”
“Yes, given what you now know, the changing of the enclave's fate is a door that has been forever closed. And it is indeed such for all those who have been cursed to be born in an era of ash and ruin.” Doan then took on a very curious look. “But not, perhaps, for those who have been born in a very different place. And in a very different moment in time.”
Crono found himself gaping. Could he possibly...?
Marle quickly scrambled to her feet and placed both of her hands over Doan's on his cane. “Do you...? Do you know about us? About... where we're really from? I mean...” Marle looked at Lucca and Crono, looking very uncertain and conflicted.
Doan gave Marle's hand a grasp of apparent understanding. “You have, all three of you, been on a very long journey. A journey across space and time, over many more years than any human has yet lived. A most remarkable tale I have known to be true almost from the first moment you set foot in our enclave. You are time-travelers.”
It took a long time for any of them to find their voice, but Lucca finally broke the silence. “How...?”
“The truth was not all that difficult to discern, Miss Lucca, once all the pieces of the puzzle were laid out. One piece was your exceptional health, which is far in excess of what anyone in this era has known for centuries. Then there is the matter of the route you took through the wastes to come here, a thing that would have been quite impossible for any human not born with exceptional gifts of the like not seen since before the Day of Fire; a gift that Miss Marle has in some abundance, by all accounts. A third factor is your unaccountable ignorance of technical aspects known even to children of the enclaves, though Miss Lucca has overcome this deficiency with a speed I can only marvel at, such is her natural intellect and dedication to the path of reason and science. I can say truthfully that you are the most gifted student I have ever had the pleasure of teaching over my many years.”
Lucca's blush would have made a rose weep. “Uh... thanks,” she said.
“A fourth piece in this puzzle is simply my own due diligence,” Doan continued. “You may recall me saying that I make it my business to know everything that happens in this enclave. I have many eyes and ears of a sort which you would not be familiar with. There is little you have said that has not come to my ears. I know of your philosophical disagreements on the subject of time-travel, for example. A deep matter which is well beyond the scope of your worldly experience, but approached with great empathy and logic that is admirable for people of your age. Allow me to say that Miss Marle and Miss Lucca are both correct in their approach to this problem from their own point of view, but the matter is, of course, a moot one now, given your fullness of understanding. Our coming to your era would not change our fate. It would only serve to undermine yours.”
Crono started. “You've been... spying on us?”
“It is not a thing I take pleasure in, I assure you, but you must understand my position. The conclusions I reached early on the subject of your origins are not outside the scope of what others may also conclude, my own surveillance notwithstanding. It was a matter I had to monitor very carefully to ensure no undue chaos came about in the enclave through your presence and actions. The enclave as it stands has several years of life remaining to it, and I would not see those years squandered on useless strife. Through my efforts I can say that no such damage has occurred, and that no one outside of this room has yet guessed entirely the truth of your origins.
“Getting back to the matter of my own knowledge, my surveillance was not even strictly necessary to know the truth of your time-traveling origins. The fifth puzzle piece to appear was in fact the very first, and one that long preceded your own arrival. You see, you three are not the first to have visited this era originating from another.”
Crono's astonishment was absolute, and Marle and Lucca regarded Director Doan with open mouths. “What?!”
“Some other time-traveler came to this era before us?!” Lucca exclaimed. “Who? How do you know this?”
Doan's eyes twinkled. “Ah, that is a matter the fullness of which would take many days to explain, but I can relate the tale in a more abbreviated fashion that will answer your question well enough. I was not always so well versed in the matters of contemporary science. I was far from a stupid man even in my youth, but my knowledge came to blossom more fully following one singular moment, with the arrival of one man from the temporal ether over forty years ago. His name was Belthazar. And through his understanding, I, Frank Doan, became his apprentice.
“He was a man who possessed a great intelligence, not unlike what Miss Lucca is blessed to have, though without the many years of Belthazar's experience. He was already old at the time of his coming. Through his experience I learned much. And in exchange for his teachings, I resolved to assist him in achieving his greatest wish.”
All was silent at Doan's pause.
“What was his wish?” Marle asked after a few beats.
“The same as yours, Miss Marle,” the Director replied. “He wished to return home. You see, Belthazar did not come here through his own free will. He came to this era of ruin through a cruel twist of fate that he didn't consider in his darkest thoughts, or so he told me. He knew of time-travel in theory, but had never exercised it himself, nor did he know how to do so through the knowledge he possessed. Belthazar would spend many years searching for an answer, and in the fullness of time he resolved to build himself a vessel capable of breaking the temporal divide. He called it the Epoch. He and I began constructing it together, using whatever resources we could find to make this great machine work.”
This was the answer! Crono thought excitedly. The way home was essentially right under their noses the entire time they had been in Bangor. Except...
“But... you didn't finish it, did you?” Lucca said right as Crono's elation deflated at what hadn't been said, and what had.
“We did not,” Doan said with a tone of genuine regret. “Fate is a cruel mistress. Events transpired that were not anticipated. We accomplished much, yet not nearly enough. And then Belthazar ran out of time. He passed on, leaving me to continue the great work without his guidance. The task proved impossible. To my everlasting regret, I sealed our old workshop and then made my way to the Arris enclave to share the knowledge I had gained through my apprenticeship with Belthazar. I wished only to benefit the cause of humanity as well as I was able, though I kept Belthazar's origins and our work on time-travel a closely guarded secret. Sadly, my work in Arris proved to be all too brief.”
“You're talking about the rebellion of the robots, aren't you?” Lucca said, looking even more morose than Doan in the relating of his tale. “They started malfunctioning and killing everybody.”
Doan nodded. “A most unfortunate turn of events in an age where humanity had already lost so much. It was thought the robots would be key to rebuilding civilization to the way it had been before the Day of Fire. Instead they had to be purged to salvage what little remained to us. Through the benefit of my expanded knowledge through Belthazar's teachings, I found a way to disable most of the robots in Arris, though far too late to save the residents of the enclave. I believe you know this part of my tale already. I then came to Bangor and was appointed Director not long after, again through benefit of Belthazar. I must say my motives in this whole affair were not always altruistic. I wanted more than anything to complete the Epoch and then travel with Belthazar to his time of origin; a time far far before ours, and a place of unaccountable wonders to hear him tell of it.”
Marle could hardly keep herself still. “Before this time? Before the Day of Fire? Before the nuclear war, even? He couldn't have been talking about Guardia, if he was half as knowledgeable as you say. You don't mean... Is it Zeal? The empire of Zeal? That was where Belthazar was from?”
“I cannot say. He resolved never to speak of his home in its entirety until he was able to return. I know little of the ancient lore as it was recorded before the coming of the Fire. He might have been referring to Zeal, or perhaps somewhere completely different. Human civilization is far older than any of us suspect. There may have been a civilization before Zeal, even, wondrous as that is to contemplate. Alas, I must again reiterate, it is a moot point. All of humanity's history has now come to this present moment of ash and inescapable decline to oblivion. The only ones who yet live who can escape this fate are the three of you. Belthazar never accomplished his dream. Perhaps you could do what he could not. Your means of coming to this time were not the same as my old mentor's, unless I miss my guess.”
Lucca stepped up next to Doan, seemingly bubbling with the desire to relate their own tale, now that there was no more reason to hide it. “I don't know what happened with this Belthazar,” she said eagerly. “But I know what happened with us. We came across time travel completely by accident. There are these 'gates' that connect different points of space-time. I then developed a way to harness the latent energy of these gates and travel back and forth to wherever the gates led. I didn't have to create a giant machine to do that, just something not much bigger than your standard pistol. I call it a 'Chrono Trigger'. The problem is that it needs an existing gate in order to work, and we have only found two of those. The one that brought us here is now buried under several hundred tons of collapsed rubble on the other side of Quintadis, and we wandered our way towards Bangor in hopes of getting help to clear out all the debris. If we could just accomplish that, we could return to our own time no problem, assuming the underground room the gate's found in hasn't been completely destroyed.”
Director Doan considered Lucca's information at great length, gazing at the floor in front of his cane. “I think your return to this 'gate' that you arrived from is perhaps too great an errand. Miss Marle's strange talents were barely enough to get you across the wastes. To send a party large enough to be of any aid would extend Marle's burden far beyond her capacity to endure, I fear. Given enough time the enclave could perhaps arrive at a workable alternative, but this would be the work of many months at the very least, or perhaps years. And you all must consider Miss Lucca's warning about exposing the miracle of time travel to those without hope, and who cannot survive long in any event. The enclave would tear itself apart seeking to gain this false hope, and many would throw their lives away to no purpose in the pursuit of it, bringing all to despair before their time.”
Crono was feeling despair begin to well up in him again. Knowing the eventual fate of the enclave and everyone in it was bad enough, but now he had to contend with the possibility that Marle, Lucca, and himself might be equally doomed. He had feared that digging their way back into the ZDF facility where the gate was found might be too hard even for the enclave to manage, and now he knew it was so. What could they do if the only known way back home was closed to them for good?
“The Epoch,” Crono said. “You spoke about building a time-machine called the Epoch to get Belthazar back to his own time. Maybe... Well, with you and Lucca working together, maybe it's possible...?”
“While I have the utmost respect for Miss Lucca's talents, her knowledge of the necessary skills would be no greater than mine, and my skill is far less than what Belthazar enjoyed. Such an errand would be almost as useless as journeying past Quintadis to carry off fallen stone and metal, and I would have to leave the enclave for an extended period to even entertain the notion of success. As things stand, I cannot in good conscience abandon the enclave for a task that is almost certain to fail in any event, and just getting to the old workshop is no small matter, as it is quite far from Bangor.”
“Then... what can we possibly do?” Marle asked, wilting at their increasingly grim fortunes.
“I cannot tell you that,” Doan said after a moment's consideration. “But in my experience, fate often leaves an alternative that can be discerned if one is perceptive enough. If only it were so with the enertrons! There may yet be a way for you. Miss Lucca has demonstrated enough knowledge on the operation of our computer systems that I can grant a privilege that is afforded to very few. On the lowest level of this enclave is a chamber in which our most advanced computer systems, dating from before the Day of Fire, are housed, along with our most sensitive data. There may be information there that will be of aid to you, perhaps a means of finding another of these 'gates' you speak of. It may be too much to hope, but that is as much as I can do for you now. Go to the classified archive with my blessing. I will make arrangements to have the guards allow you entry and then leave you to privacy. My own 'eyes and ears' that I mentioned earlier tracking your conversations are not present in that place. None will know what you say or do. On this you have my word.”
The classified archive, Crono mused. It didn't sound like that promising of a lead, but they really had no other options.
“You're not coming with us?” Lucca asked. “I'd feel a bit more comfortable if you were there, since there aren't really any secrets between us now. You might find something we don't.”
“This is a task for the three of you alone,” Doan insisted. “My fate in this place is sealed. Yours is not. The choice on how to proceed must therefore be yours. It is rare, but the young sometimes make wiser decisions than the old, and ours is a world that has suffered through many mistakes on account of ones who should have known better than to make them. Be the change you want to see, and perhaps hidden doors will reveal themselves at the appointed hour. I can say little else. Treat yourselves to a pack of food rations, I will also make those arrangements, and then come to the archive when you are reasonably rested. I will leave you to your business, then.”
Director Doan then hit the switch on the wall opening the sliding door and exited the makeshift lab, leaving everyone to ponder all that had been said. It was all so much more than any of them had expected. Another time-traveler! An unfinished machine that could apparently travel through time, and without benefit of an existing temporal gate! Neither of those revelations really mattered to them at this moment though, so Crono elected to focus on the present. Thoughts of the past were too painful to contemplate right now. Maybe thoughts of the future could be braved after learning what they could from the classified archive.
“Well,” Lucca said after a long silence. “Anyone hungry?”
* * *
Marle felt vaguely unclean as she took another ravenous bite out of the strip of rat-meat jerky, and found herself wanting more and more of it despite it being one of the most limited and precious resources the enclave had. The price was far too steep, knowing what she now knew of the enclave's inevitable fate. She wanted nothing more than to give it all to Mary right now and give the little girl some extra days on her tragically short expected lifespan, but doing that would invite hard questions from the inquisitive ten-year-old, and Marle couldn't trust herself not to break down when that happened. In this situation ignorance was bliss. Mary couldn't be allowed to find out the truth. No child should have to live with the burden that they wouldn't live to see their seventeenth birthday. Marle couldn't really live with it either, and she wasn't even dying.
She took another bite, then another, Marle's hands seemingly moving on their own without any conscious thought to devour everything in front of her. If her mind felt unclean, her body was simply desperate. She hadn't had any real food in weeks, and she couldn't honestly say if this stuff even tasted good. Objectivity regarding cuisine was wholly impossible when your body thought it was starving.
“Can we stop doing this, somehow?” Marle asked her dinner companions. “This really isn't right, but my willpower has taken a nap.”
“Just let it happen, Marle,” Crono told her. “Getting these rations is the highest possible vote of confidence from Director Doan. He wouldn't want you to squander this, and I think we're going to need to be strong to deal with what's coming. Call it a hunch, but there may be more in this computer archive than a possible way for us to get home. There are things in it that hardly anyone ever gets to see. There has to be a reason for that.”
“It's the Day of Fire,” Lucca said between bites of her own jerky. “Everything known about it is apparently stored in those computers, and you know how taboo it is to talk about. Whatever we find on that, if we care to look, we're going to have to keep to ourselves so we don't upset people. Might be better if most folks never found out Frank even allowed us in there, to be honest.”
“Or in here,” Marle remarked, gesturing at their surroundings. They were all in the granary, sitting on the floor of the freezing cold room with beige garments of the enclave worn over their regular clothes to keep warm. Two dozen strips of rat jerky of varying size were spread out in front of them; a veritable feast. A single Protector regarded the time-travelers silently from across the room, far enough distant that Marle couldn't make out his expression, but he had been given orders to let the three of them eat a full pack of rations in relative privacy, and he had allowed them to without any audible complaint. Whether the man would tell anyone else of this unexpected indulgence later was an open question. They were no doubt spending a lot of the capital they had earned over the past three weeks. Many more days-worth of scavenging runs that actually bagged rats already lay arrayed before them.
“We'll be all right,” Crono said. “We've been circumspect enough to avoid real trouble since coming here. It's just Doan we couldn't fool.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Lucca said ruefully. “Not that we should really be surprised. We've all been in his office, and we saw those real-time images displayed on the computer monitors on his wall. Never occurred to me to think our room in the dormitory was being monitored the same way.” She sighed. “Another painfully obvious thing I missed while focusing on other matters. You'd think I'd learn.”
“Don't beat yourself up over it. Being this Belthazar guy's apprentice he probably would have figured it out anyway. And it's just as well. At least this way we're making some progress. At least I hope it's progress.”
Marle slumped. “To save ourselves, maybe. I really wanted to help. I wanted to... make a difference here.”
Crono put a hand on her shoulder. “We have. It's not what we wanted, I know, but we made our mark. We conquered the infamous Gauntlet. With a whole new area of the surface ruins to scavenge, the Protectors will replace everything we're eating here before you know it. They can do that with or without us. They're a lot better than they were three weeks ago. We gave them hope for the future.”
Without giving them one, Marle thought. Hope was well and good, but what was that worth when people started dying all around you and there were no children – or precious few – to carry on your legacy? The Day of Fire. Everything had changed for humanity on that day. Yes, the generation preceding the era of the domes had made terrible mistakes, but their successors had redeemed humanity with their vision and industriousness. What had reduced their dream of peace to ash? Marle resolved to know the answer to this question before she gave any serious thought to returning home.
A dream of peace. A thought born from the heart that came to reside in the mind to create something real. Marle had had many such heart-born thoughts in her life. On occasion those thoughts transcended hope and became reality. Trivial, almost all of them, even her wish to go to the Millennial Fair, since she had only really been thinking about herself. Now, a thought was conceived in her heart that was anything but trivial. Something dangerous. Something that her mind might reject once it was fully examined, and she hesitated to look at this thought at all, but Marle couldn't deny that something had been born. What was it? What had Cedric Guardia been thinking when the grand ambition of uniting the fractious human countries of North Zenan and South Zenan into a single kingdom blossomed in his heart? Was ambition always like this? How many grand ambitions never came to fruition simply because the mind wouldn't accept the heart? How many dreams had died in the womb?
I wish... we could just change it.
Marle turned away from the memory. It was too soon. She dared not look.
A few more minutes were spent gobbling up dried rat, then when Marle was reasonably sure she had eaten enough, she placed both hands on her tummy and channeled to fight off the beginnings of a stomach-ache. Her body had become unaccustomed to food, after all. Then the nausea was banished and she came to her feet and surreptitiously did the same with Crono and Lucca, who seemed to be suffering similar pains and trying not to show it. The guard on the other side of the granary said nothing.
“Come on, guys. There's no time like the present,” Marle said with renewed vigor, stowing a portion of their allotted feast into her belt satchel. “We can take the rest of these rations with us and snack on them in the archive if we get hungry again.”
“Eat inside the archive?” Lucca asked with a frown. “Not that they need to enforce it much, but there are strict rules about eating or drinking anywhere close to a computer. Or were you nodding off when Amelia told us that?”
“Oh, who cares about her? She's never allowed in the classified archive, anyway. Besides, I'm sure you can fix anything that gets messed up in there.”
Lucca glared. “I'd rather not have to.”
“Don't worry about it,” Crono chuckled. “I think we're good for a few hours. Let's go see what that archive has to show us.”
Chapter 26 - Legacy of Fire
“The ice is in the cup. Time to get up,” Lucca said.
The eyelids of Mary Limova fluttered open from where she was resting inside the enertron. “Oh? You're done already?” the little girl asked. “That seemed fast.”
“I told you it would take twenty minutes to complete the scan, and that's all it took. Well, technically it took 22 minutes, but I don't think that makes a liar out of me.”
Mary smiled mischievously. “I'd charge you for the extra two minutes, but Marle might stop giving me ice if she found out. It's okay.”
Lucca gave a flourishing bow. “Your generosity knows no bounds. Mary the Munificent. That's how my diary will immortalize you.”
“'Munificent'? I don't know what that word means.”
“Tsk, tsk, Mary,” Lucca said, shaking her finger. “You should study on the computers more. Munificent means very generous. That word goes with your name better. That's why I used it.”
“There's so many different words! I thought I knew every word I'd ever need to know as a Maker, but I guess I really don't.”
“You never know how useful words can be. There are quite a few words I didn't know before I came to Bangor. Since I learned them I've become a lot more useful to the enclave. For you it might actually translate into money.”
“Which I would have to give away if I wanted to keep your name,” Mary countered. “Saving money's better.”
Lucca and Mary both laughed. For Lucca, that levity was worth more than all the credits little Mary could hope to save in this life.
“Okay, well, I think that does it for today,” Lucca said, reaching down to collect the gift, or rather the “payment”, Marle had left behind. She handed the cup of ice water to Mary. “Marle left plenty of ice this time so it wouldn't all melt before you were done. I wish she would give me that much.”
“I still don't know how she does it,” Mary complained with a grimace. “She told me she was using magic, but I think she was just making fun of me. Magic's the stuff of fairy tales.”
“So I hear,” Lucca evaded.
Mary took a long swig from the cup of ice water and closed her eyes with pleasure. Lucca marveled at how the simplest things could be turned into a priceless treasure under the right circumstances.
“Well, I better go,” the youthful Maker said. “Marle always needs new crossbow bolts, and she lost three on her last run. I should make as many as I can before she gets back. Thanks, Lucca!”
Lucca waved goodbye as the youngest resident of the Bangor enclave scampered out of the private room at the back of Dormitory 7, a room that Lucca had converted into her own personal laboratory to carry out the assignment Director Doan had given her. Her heart began beating faster involuntarily when Mary disappeared from sight.
Nineteen days had passed since Lucca had left her cousin's helmet behind in the Shrine of the Protector. Seventeen had passed since Lucca had begun testing her desired focus group of enclave residents for a new set of fitness data, using her own criteria instead of the standard benchmark for annual screenings. And eight had passed since she had started testing everyone again and refining her research further. Mary's was the last scheduled test for the second set of data Lucca needed to make a definitive conclusion on what was causing the continual decline in the health of enertron users, and how badly that decline was accelerating.
Her heart already knew what that last test would show, barring a miracle. Lucca put both hands over her sternum and tried to keep her breathing steady. Keeping her anxiety hidden while speaking to Mary had taken every ounce of self-control she possessed, helped only marginally by the welcome banter and the young Maker's fine spirits.
Please let me be wrong, Lucca thought. By Creation, let me be wrong this time!
Mary Limova and Amelia Evans were twelve years apart in age. That, combined with the fact that Mary had put in much less capsule time over the course of her life on average than Amelia had, gave at least a sliver of hope that the worst case scenario could be averted. An irony, seeing as it was that very age difference that had led Lucca down this dark road to begin with. A single misplaced figure might open a window large enough for...
It was a forlorn hope. The numbers gazed out of Lucca's computer screen coldly.
* * *
It only took one stone.
The scavenging run had been going incredibly well up to this point. Crono's full squad of nine men and three women, one of them Marle, had bagged no less than eighteen rats, sent six bold and unlucky glassers to the great beyond, and collected nearly 70,000 credits-worth of high quality steel scrap, about as much as the squad could carry without encumbering themselves beyond their ability to fight. What had once been called the Geshar District of old Bangor turned out to be every bit as profitable as Director Doan predicted. No scouting parties had been out this far in over twenty years, and it showed in the relative density of the rat population and how much of their collected scrap was obtained without the need for heavy cutters. Easy.
Now everyone was reminded why it wasn't so easy to actually get to Geshar.
“Lights!” Crono cried.
There was no need to contemplate any other action. Once the slightest sound was made in this section of the sewers, nine miles distant from the enclave, there was only one thing that could happen next.
The nereids didn't disappoint. Three of them leaped out of the water far below as soon as the accidentally kicked piece of rubble splashed down. The mutants landed on the upper level next to the party with a single bound and were immediately cut to pieces by plasma fire and a single well placed crossbow bolt thanks to Crono's quick command to go lights on. Four more of the aquatic mutants leaped to the party's level about fifty feet behind them and rushed ahead with ravenous purpose. Marle, Terrance, and Andrews opened up on the creatures as soon as the flashlights spied them, while everyone else smartly spread out on the platform to look for any more enemies attempting to flank their position. Two nereids tried, and were suitably rewarded by lightning-quick strikes from Crono's sword and a couple of expert plasma hits from Menda's rifle. Other squad members began firing into the dark.
“Ugh, I'd rather have my gums scraped than have to fight these fiends!” Menda remarked.
Crono called the fiends “nereids” after the aquatic Mystic tribe of the same name due to their remarkably similar appearance above the waistline. They had smooth scaly bodies of ultramarine hue, webbed hands with five wickedly clawed fingers, and, very unlike a Mystic Nereid, potent muscular legs in place of a tail-fin. The Protectors preferred calling them “A Pain”. Encounters with nereids were always quick and brutal, and rarely without casualties due to their speed and propensity to attack all at once. And, like other mutated creatures in this devastated future, they couldn't be spoken to or at all reasoned with. Their hunger was absolute. The only good thing about facing a mutant nereid was their inability to use the aquatic magic of their now ancient Mystic cousins. No one had seen a true Mystic in centuries.
“Well, at least we didn't get their attention our first time through here,” Crono said. “That would have ended our run right there. We can fall back with a full load instead of going home with a pittance.”
“If we can break through to the Arcs checkpoint without getting swarmed,” Menda said grimly. “We still got about ten blocks to go.”
“These slimy things aren't stopping us here!” Marle called out over her shoulder after she speared another target with her crossbow. “This is the enclave's biggest haul in how many years? We're bringing it back no matter what!”
The Arcs checkpoint, named after a giant apartment building that had collapsed nearby during the Day of Fire, represented the beginning of a sewer passage that scavenging parties never braved anymore due to the seeming throng of mutant fish-people that made this distant part of the sewer their home. It was appropriately called “The Gauntlet”, and it extended about fifteen city blocks under the surface. It was now the only way to get to the Geshar District of old Bangor due to impassable rubble on the surface. Most every attempt to get through The Gauntlet in living memory had either ended in failure and retreat, or outright disaster and death. More than a few priceless plasma weapons had joined their luckless owners at the bottom of the sewer never to be seen again, and the water's considerable depth here made a search and recovery impractical in the extreme even without a slew of nereids to deal with. The loss of so much blood and treasure had convinced Director Doan to label the Arcs checkpoint a “red zone” boundary, much like the lethal radiation fields deep in the wastelands leading towards Quintadis. Nobody passed into a red zone unless they desired a very quick and foolish end to their life.
That had changed with the coming of Crono and Marle to the enclave. The last nineteen days had seen such a dramatic rise in the effectiveness of Protector scavenging runs under the two outsiders that Director Doan had finally performed a review of established scavenging boundaries and authorized an excursion into long-neglected Geshar, under the condition that Crono lead the squad himself. Crono had become a Protector in all but name, and his skillful training of dozens of caste members in the ways of fighting (without ever touching a plasma weapon) had garnered him considerable respect and admiration from everyone. Marle's enthusiastic support of Doan's decision only put an exclamation point on the matter. Everyone had departed the enclave for today's run with high spirits.
Crono wasn't about to let them down, he resolved.
“What Marle said! Group one, go to steel! Group two, cover your zones! Marle and Menda's the center. Just like we practiced. We go Bullseye for as long as we can and switch out as needed. I'll call 'full guns' if things get tense. Let's go!”
Marle and Menda quickly moved to the center of the group during the nereid respite and stood back-to-back, while the other ten members of the squad formed up into two five-pointed stars, with the first star taking a surrounding position from the center while the second star took a slightly wider position outside of the first, each member standing in staggered positions roughly six feet apart from one another. The inner ring pointed their rifles outward in the direction each member was facing, covering the zones in between the members of the outer ring. Crono took his place in the outer ring, and the other four members of his group quickly slung their plasma rifles behind their backs and drew their new swords.
The swords were crude even by the most generous definition of the term, the forged weapons of scrap metal being of a quality well below that of even a middle-ages blade since swordsmithing was a discipline completely unknown to the Makers, but they were good enough in the right circumstances, such as facing unarmored opponents who weren't employing opposing blades. The swords were a necessary component in a formation Crono had developed to address a glaring weakness in the powerful plasma weapons of the enclave. Plasma weapons could either fire multiple light bursts in quick succession with a single pull of the trigger, or they could be set to fire more powerful single shots like what Marle had unwittingly unleashed in her first Protectors trial. In either case, the available energy for the weapon – which basically amounted to its ammunition supply – was very quickly exhausted. The energy would reload, or rather “recharge”, according to Lucca's explanation, over a long period of time, with a component called the “capacitor” taking energy from the weapon's tiny but powerful battery and storing it in a way which could be employed safely by the weapon's user at need. The recharging process was very slow, and the more energy that was expended during a fight, the longer the recharging process would take. In a long drawn-out battle of any intensity, the typical result for a Protector squad was a party that could only fire intermittently or not at all near the end of the engagement. Crono's observation was that squad members often wasted fire putting down the same opponents, which led to less energy being available to deal with later threats and leaving the whole squad defenseless.
“Bullseye” formation was Crono's answer to this problem. The inner of the two rings were the primary attackers, each member using their plasma weapons freely against targets in their assigned zone, while the sword-armed members of the outer ring, standing to the sides and slightly in front of the shooters, covered them from opponents who got too close. The “bullseye” of the formation were the two members who would reinforce the inner ring with layered fire in zones that got too hot, and these positions were reserved for the best marksmen of the squad so as to not risk hitting friendlies. But the real point behind this formation, besides efficiency, was to prevent the squad's plasma weapons from getting too low in charge all at once, so when the shooter's ring began running low on energy it would switch out with the outer ring on command and draw its own swords while the original outer ring stepped back and brought its own guns to bear on the enemy.
The formation wasn't foolproof, as it was dependent on the bullseye not wasting too much of its own energy (or crossbow bolts) supporting everyone else, and Crono himself was useless in a shooter's position since he didn't employ a plasma weapon. He didn't have the expertise to be anything but a liability shooting any type of gun. But the tactic was still ideal for the situation Crono and his squad were now facing.
The Gauntlet was about as straight-forward of a path as any that existed under Bangor's ruins. There was no danger of getting lost even with lights off, and now that there was no need to be stealthy, the squad could simply move ahead as quickly as they could manage while maintaining the bullseye formation. They trotted ahead at a brisk pace, Menda and the inner ring shooters throwing their flashlight beams in all directions looking for targets. Deep canals of dark water flanked either side of the upper-level platform leading to the Arcs checkpoint and relative safety.
The respite ended in seconds.
Azure bolts of light flew, and swords connected with scaly flesh as nereids leaped out of the water in staggered clusters and rushed the party. It might have gone ill for the squad if the nereids had waited to attack as an organized group, but the mutants were more ravenous than they were intelligent, and the raging mob fell one after the other. Crono's fellow swordsmen did a respectable job in performing the basic sword forms he had taught them over the past couple of weeks, and none received more than minor scratches or abrasions in return; superficial injuries that could be easily treated by enertrons back at the enclave. The party traveled about four city blocks before the next assorted groups of nereids challenged the spelunkers of their sewer.
“Switch out, switch out!” Crono commanded. “One, two, three, go!”
The two rings of the formation, save for Crono himself and Andrews who stood behind and to his left, switched positions and braced for the next wave. Andrews immediately traded his rifle for Menda's, which had a higher remaining charge due to Menda's more measured and accurate fire. The slaughter then began anew.
And a slaughter it was. Wave after wave of mutant fish-men threw themselves at the party from all angles, including a couple who dared to attempt jumping into the middle of the squad and shattering the formation, which was the only intelligent thing they had tried to do thus far, but Marle and Menda put each of those enlightened fish down with a single shot in mid-air. Terrance was nearly knocked into the drink by one of these falling bodies, but he quickly recovered and downed two nereids in front of him with searing sapphire fury before they could take advantage. The party advanced three more city blocks as scales were slashed and burned beyond count.
“Switch out, switch out!” Crono commanded. “One, two, three, go!”
The bullseye shifted once again, and the first group of shooters resumed their murderous business with slightly recharged rifles. The original swordsman girded themselves to meet the next threat with cold steel.
More nereids kept coming.
The Gauntlet indeed, Crono thought darkly. He himself had cut down at least eight of these blasted sewer fiends, and he had no idea how many Marle had skewered with her crossbow. Ammunition would become an issue for her if this madness continued for much longer. She couldn't very well recover her spent bolts in this run and gun situation. More mutants fell. Another block, maybe a block-and-a-half remained to the ladder leading up to the Arcs checkpoint.
A massed group of nereids then appeared out of the darkness directly in front of the party, at least fifteen, while the unmistakable splashing of more somewhere below and to either side of the platform promised the celebration of carnage about to ensue would be quickly joined.
It was too many for bullseye, Crono knew. The front group was too strong, and they had to dispatch it quickly before the surrounding nereids joined in and ripped them all to pieces. No need to conserve energy now. Bullseye had managed to get them this far.
“Full guns, full guns!” Crono cried. “Light 'em up! Get to the checkpoint now!”
The sewers erupted with the sounds of full-scale war. The bullseye formation broke with everyone firing on the run directly ahead. Crono held back and saved his sword for the one fish-man who broke through and made to swipe viciously at Marle. It went flying into the black canal to his right trailing blood. Marle spared him a wink of gratitude as they all rushed for the ladder of the Arcs checkpoint.
“Terrance, Andrews, and Marle go first,” Crono ordered. “Everyone but Menda and me follow them in alphabetical order. I'm the last one out. Get going!”
Crono's instincts took over as his squad climbed one by one out of the horrific Gauntlet. He spun and twisted, utilizing the form of wind to slash and strike in all directions without focusing on any one vector. Nereids practically ran into the blade as it blindly lashed out for scales to cut, but Crono maintained his balance while Menda's expert shooting kept the odds from becoming unmanageable. Plasma fire was then heard from somewhere above the ladder, implying the arrival of glassers to join in the fun. Crono could only hope that Marle and the others could deal with this latest threat while he focused on the more immediate one. Adrenaline kept his arms moving, and his lungs burned from the exertion.
“Look! More rats!” came Terrance's voice from above.
“I got those little thieves!” Marle replied with evident glee. “Just keep the hourglass scum off me!”
When it was all over, six more rats had been added to the tally of loot, four more glassers had been added to the tally of kills, and no less than a hundred nereids wouldn't be harassing sewer travelers ever again. And all without a single casualty in exchange.
It was the single greatest scavenging run in over fifty years.
* * *
Crono, Marle, and their companions returned to the enclave in a celebratory mood, and their demeanor did not go unnoticed by the residents who awaited their return at the main entrance. Several people ran off to inform their respective dormitories of how great the party's haul was today, and Crono suspected that many would be writing petitions via computer to Director Doan to request that some of the food in the granary be broken out to celebrate the momentous result of the run. Not only did they bring a lot of treasure back to the enclave, but they had put down so many mutants in The Gauntlet that future excursions to the Geshar District of the ruins promised to be far less hazardous. This would only be the first of several runs into Geshar in the coming weeks, most likely, and if they wouldn't be quite as profitable as today's run, they would surely be profitable enough to be worth the trip. It was the happiest Crono had ever seen the enclave's citizens.
“We did so great today, Crono!” Marle said, beaming. “And it was all because you were leading us! The nereids didn't stand a chance against that formation! I'll bet they're all cowering under the murk wondering what in Creation hit them!”
Crono shrugged and couldn't resist a silly grin. “Those that are still alive. We didn't leave many.”
“I guess you'd know better than anyone since you were the last one out of the sewer. Seriously, if we keep having results like today's, we just might make Bangor safe enough that we could find somewhere to plant those seeds Director Doan keeps stored in the granary. Wouldn't that be something?”
“Yeah, but mutants or not, the world's still in a drought that won't quit,” Crono pointed out. “Starting an actual crop is going to remain a distant dream for awhile. Best to not get too far ahead of ourselves.”
“Oh, no you don't!” Marle chided. “I'm not letting a little thing like reality spoil my good mood today. We can worry about that stuff tomorrow. There's always a tomorrow, right?”
Crono nodded, feeling satisfied. Thanks to them, the enclave would have a lot more tomorrows, or at least tomorrows a little more free of worry.
“Let's get to the armory and drop off our stuff,” Marle said. “I'm sure everyone's waiting to take stock of our haul. Then it's off to the lavatories. A shower is going to feel so good after today I can already feel the spray on my face.”
“You and me both.”
Marle directed a mischievous smile at him. “In the same shower? Really?”
Crono looked at her with a start. What did she say?
“I'm joking, silly!” Marle laughed. “But you should have seen the look on your face just now!”
“Now that's just evil!” Crono chuckled with growing heat on his cheeks. “Are you trying to turn me into a puddle of goo or something? I'll have to get you back for that one.”
“Uh, oh. I'm in trouble now.” Marle's brittle poise degenerated into an endless titter.
It's almost like we're back at the Millennial Fair again, Crono reflected. It had felt like such a long time ago, now.
The two shared heartfelt laughs all the way to the armory. Several Protectors were there to congratulate the returning party and were waiting to inspect and put away their equipment. The scavenged steel scrap and the collected rat corpses were laid out on the floor, and a few Makers were standing by to take the loot to their assigned stations to be processed. One person was making use of one of the shooting lanes, firing a plasma pistol repeatedly at a distant glasser target on practice range power. Crono did a double-take when he saw the bare legs, green shirt, and purple hair that belonged to the shooter.
Lucca? What was she doing in the armory? Lucca hadn't been in here, or much of anywhere except her laboratory, since the morning she had joined Crono and Marle for their very first scavenging run nearly three weeks ago. Did that mean her research was finished, or that she was just taking a break? It wasn't like her to stop an important job before it was finished, so Crono dismissed the latter thought almost at once. What had Lucca found out about the enertrons? Had she come to the armory to wait for Crono and Marle to get back from their scavenging run and just decided to have some target practice in the meantime? The Protectors generally took a very dim view of outsiders using their weapons even in here, but her impassioned speech at the Shrine of the Protector gave her a certain amount of capital with the caste that she had apparently decided to make use of.
The bullseye was being hit repeatedly, and Crono raised his brows at the sight. Lucca had landed a few hits against glassers during the second half of their run from three weeks ago, but the unique “ballistic” properties of her weapon had thrown off her aim enough to land only about one shot for every three pulls of the trigger. Now she was hitting a much smaller target about four times in five. It was a remarkable accomplishment from someone who said it would probably take months for her to break the habits she had developed from using her old gun. Her proficiency was approaching that of a Protector. Had she been secretly sneaking in practice time without Crono or Marle knowing?
The shots from Lucca began to slow, and she placed her weapon on the floor almost dismissively and picked up another identical pistol from a table next to her. She started firing again immediately and seemed oblivious to everything around her, including a Protector who directed an unmistakably disapproving glare the moment Lucca switched weapons. Crono then saw that five other presumably depleted plasma pistols were resting next to the one Lucca had just discarded, and there were three more pistols lying on the table she had just rearmed herself from. Crono blanched. On training power that represented a lot of shots. To use that much energy she would have had to have been practicing at the same brisk pace since mid-morning. Even a training fanatic like Assistant Director Morris didn't put that much time on the range.
“Hey, Lu, I think you've made your point,” Crono said with a chuckle as he strode up to her. “How about you leave some imaginary glassers for the Protectors to shoot? Or some pistols, for that matter?”
That Lucca didn't even crack a smile at that jab put a lump of ice in Crono's heart. Something was very wrong.
“Oh, hey,” Lucca said in a near monotone. “You guys were out for awhile.”
“And you've been in here for awhile, by all indications,” Crono countered, gesturing at all of the discarded plasma pistols on the floor. “What's going on?”
Lucca shrugged. “I'm done. Obviously.” She then fired a few more shots at her target.
“With your research?”
“Yeah, definitely.” Ten out of ten on that set.
“Well, now that we're back...” Marle began with concern.
“I'm going to need a few minutes,” Lucca said flatly. “How about you guys take a moment and put all these pistols back in their recharging stations for me? I... need to collect my thoughts.”
Crono tried locking gazes with his childhood friend, but Lucca wouldn't even look at him. She just stared straight ahead at her target and started firing again. The stiffness of her expression was similar to her demeanor back at the Shrine of the Protector when she was arranging the skulls of Krawlie's many victims. But this was different. Lucca's behavior three weeks ago had been a screen to keep her emotions from boiling to the surface. What she was showing right now was a full-blown wall of forged steel. That meant Lucca was just barely holding herself together. Somewhere behind those intently focused blue eyes was an inferno of searing rage, or a crushing river of despair, Crono couldn't tell which.
She looks lost, like her whole world is falling apart around her, Crono thought. What could she have discovered in her research to put her in such a state? It had to be about the enertrons.
Crono gestured at Marle to begin picking up the used and unused pistols, and the two busied themselves securing the weapons while Lucca continued firing on her target. Her aim was beginning to waver, Crono noticed. They completed their task quickly and then waited patiently by the chargers while Lucca finished “collecting her thoughts”. The glasser target was scorched almost beyond recognition from the hundreds of plasma bolts that had struck it. Lucca then abruptly ceased firing and brought the remaining pistol to the recharging station herself.
“All right,” Lucca said curtly. “My lab, our old room, you know the drill.”
The three time-travelers left the armory, and Crono let Lucca take the lead in heading back to Dormitory 7. He didn't want Lucca to see in his expression anything that could set her off or cause her to break down. If that happened, it was better for it to happen in private. Marle put her arm around Crono's the whole way there, looking extremely tense.
They sat silently in their old room, now Lucca's laboratory, for several long moments until Crono decided to break the quiet.
“It's bad, isn't it?”
“Well, it's certainly not good,” Lucca replied morosely.
“There is something wrong with the enertrons!” Marle said, leaning forward with purpose. “You figured out what it is!”
“No.”
Crono frowned in confusion. Both at the answer and at the air of finality with which Lucca had stated it. “No? What do you mean, 'no'? You didn't figure it out?”
“There's nothing wrong with the enertrons,” Lucca said simply. “Nothing at all. That's what my research found. The enertrons are working exactly the way they were designed to.” Her expression then turned very dark. “That's the problem.”
The silence lingered for several seconds. Crono and Marle looked at each other with bewilderment.
“You're going to have to explain that to us, Lu,” Crono said.
Lucca shrugged without humor. “In a way, our bodies are already doing the explaining. You know how we always feel hungry after using the enertron? Our bodies are telling us something. Normally, that sensation would indicate serious malnourishment or outright starvation, but there's a bit more to it than that. It tells us that our energy producing organs aren't doing anything. It's abnormal in the extreme for our stomachs, livers, kidneys and such to not have anything to do. In the human body, energy production is a continual process that endures throughout our lives, as is the process that cleanses our bodies of impurities from what we ingest to fuel ourselves. It is the foundation of health itself.”
“I follow you. Go on.”
“What the enertrons are doing is replacing that foundation with something that is completely different. Instead of providing nourishment to the body's energy production centers, which then transforms that nourishment into energy for the rest of the body, the enertron energizes all of our cells directly. Our bodies don't actually have to do anything to keep us alive in terms of providing energy. The enertron does it all. In short, the enertrons keep us alive through an external process, while sustaining ourselves with regular food is an internal process. That internal process is how our bodies were designed, or evolved, depending on how you view matters of Creation. Going too far outside that norm for too long creates... side effects.
“With our energy production and purification centers having nothing to do, those organs get steadily weaker over time, even though the cells making up those organs are directly energized through the external process of the enertron. Because the enertrons are so efficient in providing energy to the body, this degradation happens very slowly, but the effect is nonetheless cumulative, especially across multiple generations of people. And if that cumulative degradation is allowed to continue for too long, eventually a breaking point is reached, and people's bodies begin to break down.
“Since the enertrons were designed to heal injuries as well as provide sustenance, the body's breakdown is mostly prevented, but this has the effect of making the enertron work harder to achieve the same result, and so the process that caused the organs' degradation in the first place is accelerated and made stronger. This creates what I call an exponential feedback loop. The weaker the body gets, the harder the enertron has to work, and the harder the enertron has to work, the weaker the body becomes through this very process, necessitating a still stronger external process of enervation to compensate. The human body simply can't endure an exponential decline in its base health for very long, even with an external factor like the enertron keeping a person going. Eventually things reach a point where a complete system collapse can't be prevented no matter how hard the enertron works, and the enertron user dies.”
Crono felt his blood run cold. Was this the reason why enertron users always looked so gaunt? Was this why everyone's health was continually declining over generations, as Lucca had first explained weeks ago? And how far had that decline now progressed?
“Lucca, where would you say this 'exponential feedback loop' is right now?” Crono asked. “How is it going to affect the enclave?”
Lucca turned away.
“Lucca, please tell us!” Marle pleaded, her voice beginning to crack.
“It's... in its final stage,” Lucca said without looking at them. “It crossed that threshold over ten years ago.”
* * *
Marle felt like her heart had been hit with a sledgehammer. This couldn't be real. It couldn't!
“The evidence lies with two people,” Lucca continued. “Mary Limova and Amelia Evans. Mary's the only child in the whole enclave. In a community of 1,500 people that's statistically way out of proportion, especially considering that 70% of the enclave's population is of child-bearing age. There should be dozens of children here. Then there's Amelia. At twenty-two, she's the next youngest resident, but she was actually the last child to be born in the Bangor enclave. Mary was born in the Trann enclave and came here eight years ago. Twenty-two years without anyone being born here? That just can't happen. So in the course of my research, I discovered why it did. Everyone is infertile. Men. Women. Everyone. Even Amelia. That's how I know the exponential feedback loop has reached its final stage. Everyone's reproductive organs have shut down, and the damage is irreversible. We are the only people who are still okay.”
Breaths came to Marle in fits and starts. Irreversible. Even if the three of them revealed their time-traveling origins and made it all the way back to the temporal gate with everyone, a goal she continued to harbor despite recent successes in the field, terrible damage had already been done. No one would ever be able to have children!
“And... Mary?” she managed.
Lucca shook her head. “Her, too. If she hits child-bearing age, she'll be just as infertile as everyone else.”
Marle's breath caught, and she found herself coughing with denial. Everyone! All because of a stupid machine! And what did Lucca mean by...?
“If?” Marle asked unsteadily. “What do you mean, 'if?'”
Lucca took a long deep breath and put her face into her hands for a moment.
“Marle,” Lucca said with a shaky tone. “Everyone is dying. They just don't know it yet. It's an exponential decline. Things will only get worse from here. Before too much longer, people will begin displaying symptoms of illness that the enertrons will no longer be able to fully suppress. Colds, fevers, respiratory diseases. The body will no longer be able to fight these things off with or without the enertrons, and that will begin a fatal downward spiral. It will be like dying of old age long before one's time.”
Marle slumped over and started shaking. It was an unspeakable calamity, all of it! How could this have been allowed to happen? A strong and gentle arm wrapped itself around her shoulders, but Marle barely even noticed Crono's gesture.
“How long?” Crono asked.
“Assuming the rate of enertron usage remains constant? Four years. That's how long the enclave has. As for Mary, if she stops using the enertron now and subsists on food from here on, she might live another six years. Possibly seven.”
Tears freely came to Marle's eyes, and she wracked with bitter sobs. Six years! Little Mary would live only to be as old as Marle was now. And when she finally did reach that exalted age, she would be both very sick and very alone, having only a music box to keep her company in an empty and lifeless enclave. And would her food even hold out that long? What if she had to go out and hunt for food by herself? How long could she survive against glassers and nereids and who knew what other kinds of mutated freaks she might run into?
“What about the other enclaves?” Crono asked. “Proto? Trann? Keepers? Geno? They're all so spread out though the world that this madness can't be affecting all of them, too, could it?”
“I'm afraid it is,” Lucca said soberly. “Even without having recent health and demographic data on them, all of the enclaves use the same enertron technology as Bangor. They always have.”
“And there's no way to fix it? No way to... change the enertrons to reverse all this?”
Lucca shook her head. “No one has ever been able to modify enertron tech successfully, and it is far too late for it to matter at this point. The degradation of people's organs is too pronounced. And before you ask, no, I'm not wrong about any of this. I wish I were. I've double and triple-checked my work too many times throughout my research for my conclusion to be off. The sample size of Bangor residents was more than high enough to confirm the hypothesis, which would translate just as well to other enclaves. And confirming Mary's data pretty much sealed everything.” She sighed bitterly. “Nothing we or anyone else can do will stop what's coming. Nothing.”
“To blazes with that!” Marle barked viciously through her tears. “There's nothing my magic won't fix if I concentrate hard enough! I'll use it to heal every person in the world if I have to, even if it kills me! All I have to do is reverse the damage one time, and then everyone can jump into these stupid enertrons again so they don't starve to death! I don't care if I'm exposed as a magic user, I will not accept this!”
“Marle, that won't work!” Lucca said emphatically. “I already considered your magic, and it won't have the desired effect.”
“How can you know that?” Marle challenged.
“Because it basically does the same thing an enertron does. It energizes and restores people through an external process. It won't do anything to solve the core problem. Anything you do would be a short-term solution at best, and it's possible it might actually do more damage in the long-term. It could accelerate the body's existing degradation of the organs to an even more lethal degree, possibly even killing the person you're trying to heal.”
Marle shuddered as her last hope plummeted into the abyss. Every person. Every enclave. All of humanity. Doomed. All of their history. All of their accomplishments. All of their sacrifices and dreams for a better tomorrow. Thousands upon thousands of years of memory. What had it all been for?
She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs at the injustice of it all. Lambast Creation for sending her to this place only to witness history's last gasp. But all Marle could manage was a shivering whimper as she fell crying into Crono's arms. He embraced her tenderly, stepping back to the wall and then letting them both slide to the hard floor.
“This can't be how the world ends...” she wept.
* * *
There was nothing he could do.
Crono had barely moved a muscle in the hour since he had heard Lucca's tragic, and terminal, news. Had barely braved a thought for what they would do next. What could they do, really? The fate facing the human enclave of Bangor was not something that could be stayed by sword, or magic, or ingenious fortitude. Crono, Marle, and Lucca had given the best that their respective talents could deliver for the enclave in the short time they had been here. It just wasn't enough. Nor would it ever be.
Marle had finally fallen asleep in his arms in the exact same position she had fallen into them. Crono could tell from her more relaxed breathing, but also from the heat that was slowly returning to Lucca's lab. Marle's anguish had been so profound that the temperature in the room had dropped by a good thirty degrees without her intending to channel any magic, which was evidence enough that her elemental powers were directly connected to the sadness she was feeling. It was probably a small miracle that she hadn't accidentally encased them all in giant ice cubes the way she had dispatched those nine glassers from a few weeks ago. For her part, Lucca also appeared to be asleep, but Crono knew that she wasn't. She was simply resting on her side inside one of the open enertrons turned away from where Crono could see, trying her best not to reveal any emotion that could potentially open the floodgates and leave her weeping the way she had ten years ago when Crono first met her. Crono himself was also trying not to feel anything, and not entirely succeeding. His thoughts were going back to his doomed father trapped in the mines of Lorian. He couldn't do anything for him then, just as he couldn't do anything for the people of Bangor now, and through no fault of his own. He gently stroked Marle's hair with his fingertips, willing himself to remember happier times and avoid the pit of despair that was yawning just on the other side of that emotional screen.
The door to Lucca's lab then suddenly slid open, breaking Crono out of his silent reflections, and he turned to see who the unexpected visitor was. For a split second he struggled to think of some excuse to send the visitor away, not wanting to reveal why the three of them looked so despondent after working so hard on the enclave's behalf. Then that thought evaporated into mist. Standing just inside the door was Director Doan. The look his wizened eyes gave him mingled complete understanding at what Crono was feeling along with a grimness of purpose. Crono didn't even have to ask why he was here at this moment, unannounced. The Director lightly touched the control on the wall and the door slid shut behind him, giving the room's now four occupants complete privacy. Doan leaned on his cane with both hands, regarding them all.
“Frank!” Lucca said from within the enertron capsule, turning to face him. She looked pained and at a complete loss what to say. She opened her mouth several times, but no more words were forthcoming.
“The expression on your innocent face tells the tale, Miss Lucca,” Doan said somberly. “You know. You now know.”
“And so did you, I'm guessing,” Crono said. It wasn't an accusation.
Doan nodded. “I have known the truth of the enertron situation for quite some time. Data properly collected does not lie when looked at objectively. There is no other conclusion you could have reached. The enclave is dying. They all are.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Lucca asked him, sounding very tired. “You knew this entire time. You asked me to investigate the enertrons knowing what I would find. You could have just told me, Frank. I trust you completely. I can accept unpleasant scientific conclusions, even if it's hard.”
“I am pleased to hear you say so, my young friend,” Doan said with a slight smile. “I apologize if this manner of discovery caused you anguish. Yours is a sadness I have experienced in my own fashion, at one time or another. But there are some tales, some truths, that cannot be easily accepted just from the hearing. You must experience and discover them through your own labors. Now you have seen. Now you know.”
Marle abruptly came to, hearing the voices in the room. She looked at Doan looking like she would burst into tears again, but she had already cried herself dry. “Director Doan!”
“Again, for Miss Marle's benefit, please accept my sincerest apologies for the manner in which the truth of our situation was revealed. There was no other way. It was important for you all to experience our enclave in your own ways, and then to know what fate awaits it should nothing change.”
Crono's brow furrowed at this last. “Change?”
“Yes, given what you now know, the changing of the enclave's fate is a door that has been forever closed. And it is indeed such for all those who have been cursed to be born in an era of ash and ruin.” Doan then took on a very curious look. “But not, perhaps, for those who have been born in a very different place. And in a very different moment in time.”
Crono found himself gaping. Could he possibly...?
Marle quickly scrambled to her feet and placed both of her hands over Doan's on his cane. “Do you...? Do you know about us? About... where we're really from? I mean...” Marle looked at Lucca and Crono, looking very uncertain and conflicted.
Doan gave Marle's hand a grasp of apparent understanding. “You have, all three of you, been on a very long journey. A journey across space and time, over many more years than any human has yet lived. A most remarkable tale I have known to be true almost from the first moment you set foot in our enclave. You are time-travelers.”
It took a long time for any of them to find their voice, but Lucca finally broke the silence. “How...?”
“The truth was not all that difficult to discern, Miss Lucca, once all the pieces of the puzzle were laid out. One piece was your exceptional health, which is far in excess of what anyone in this era has known for centuries. Then there is the matter of the route you took through the wastes to come here, a thing that would have been quite impossible for any human not born with exceptional gifts of the like not seen since before the Day of Fire; a gift that Miss Marle has in some abundance, by all accounts. A third factor is your unaccountable ignorance of technical aspects known even to children of the enclaves, though Miss Lucca has overcome this deficiency with a speed I can only marvel at, such is her natural intellect and dedication to the path of reason and science. I can say truthfully that you are the most gifted student I have ever had the pleasure of teaching over my many years.”
Lucca's blush would have made a rose weep. “Uh... thanks,” she said.
“A fourth piece in this puzzle is simply my own due diligence,” Doan continued. “You may recall me saying that I make it my business to know everything that happens in this enclave. I have many eyes and ears of a sort which you would not be familiar with. There is little you have said that has not come to my ears. I know of your philosophical disagreements on the subject of time-travel, for example. A deep matter which is well beyond the scope of your worldly experience, but approached with great empathy and logic that is admirable for people of your age. Allow me to say that Miss Marle and Miss Lucca are both correct in their approach to this problem from their own point of view, but the matter is, of course, a moot one now, given your fullness of understanding. Our coming to your era would not change our fate. It would only serve to undermine yours.”
Crono started. “You've been... spying on us?”
“It is not a thing I take pleasure in, I assure you, but you must understand my position. The conclusions I reached early on the subject of your origins are not outside the scope of what others may also conclude, my own surveillance notwithstanding. It was a matter I had to monitor very carefully to ensure no undue chaos came about in the enclave through your presence and actions. The enclave as it stands has several years of life remaining to it, and I would not see those years squandered on useless strife. Through my efforts I can say that no such damage has occurred, and that no one outside of this room has yet guessed entirely the truth of your origins.
“Getting back to the matter of my own knowledge, my surveillance was not even strictly necessary to know the truth of your time-traveling origins. The fifth puzzle piece to appear was in fact the very first, and one that long preceded your own arrival. You see, you three are not the first to have visited this era originating from another.”
Crono's astonishment was absolute, and Marle and Lucca regarded Director Doan with open mouths. “What?!”
“Some other time-traveler came to this era before us?!” Lucca exclaimed. “Who? How do you know this?”
Doan's eyes twinkled. “Ah, that is a matter the fullness of which would take many days to explain, but I can relate the tale in a more abbreviated fashion that will answer your question well enough. I was not always so well versed in the matters of contemporary science. I was far from a stupid man even in my youth, but my knowledge came to blossom more fully following one singular moment, with the arrival of one man from the temporal ether over forty years ago. His name was Belthazar. And through his understanding, I, Frank Doan, became his apprentice.
“He was a man who possessed a great intelligence, not unlike what Miss Lucca is blessed to have, though without the many years of Belthazar's experience. He was already old at the time of his coming. Through his experience I learned much. And in exchange for his teachings, I resolved to assist him in achieving his greatest wish.”
All was silent at Doan's pause.
“What was his wish?” Marle asked after a few beats.
“The same as yours, Miss Marle,” the Director replied. “He wished to return home. You see, Belthazar did not come here through his own free will. He came to this era of ruin through a cruel twist of fate that he didn't consider in his darkest thoughts, or so he told me. He knew of time-travel in theory, but had never exercised it himself, nor did he know how to do so through the knowledge he possessed. Belthazar would spend many years searching for an answer, and in the fullness of time he resolved to build himself a vessel capable of breaking the temporal divide. He called it the Epoch. He and I began constructing it together, using whatever resources we could find to make this great machine work.”
This was the answer! Crono thought excitedly. The way home was essentially right under their noses the entire time they had been in Bangor. Except...
“But... you didn't finish it, did you?” Lucca said right as Crono's elation deflated at what hadn't been said, and what had.
“We did not,” Doan said with a tone of genuine regret. “Fate is a cruel mistress. Events transpired that were not anticipated. We accomplished much, yet not nearly enough. And then Belthazar ran out of time. He passed on, leaving me to continue the great work without his guidance. The task proved impossible. To my everlasting regret, I sealed our old workshop and then made my way to the Arris enclave to share the knowledge I had gained through my apprenticeship with Belthazar. I wished only to benefit the cause of humanity as well as I was able, though I kept Belthazar's origins and our work on time-travel a closely guarded secret. Sadly, my work in Arris proved to be all too brief.”
“You're talking about the rebellion of the robots, aren't you?” Lucca said, looking even more morose than Doan in the relating of his tale. “They started malfunctioning and killing everybody.”
Doan nodded. “A most unfortunate turn of events in an age where humanity had already lost so much. It was thought the robots would be key to rebuilding civilization to the way it had been before the Day of Fire. Instead they had to be purged to salvage what little remained to us. Through the benefit of my expanded knowledge through Belthazar's teachings, I found a way to disable most of the robots in Arris, though far too late to save the residents of the enclave. I believe you know this part of my tale already. I then came to Bangor and was appointed Director not long after, again through benefit of Belthazar. I must say my motives in this whole affair were not always altruistic. I wanted more than anything to complete the Epoch and then travel with Belthazar to his time of origin; a time far far before ours, and a place of unaccountable wonders to hear him tell of it.”
Marle could hardly keep herself still. “Before this time? Before the Day of Fire? Before the nuclear war, even? He couldn't have been talking about Guardia, if he was half as knowledgeable as you say. You don't mean... Is it Zeal? The empire of Zeal? That was where Belthazar was from?”
“I cannot say. He resolved never to speak of his home in its entirety until he was able to return. I know little of the ancient lore as it was recorded before the coming of the Fire. He might have been referring to Zeal, or perhaps somewhere completely different. Human civilization is far older than any of us suspect. There may have been a civilization before Zeal, even, wondrous as that is to contemplate. Alas, I must again reiterate, it is a moot point. All of humanity's history has now come to this present moment of ash and inescapable decline to oblivion. The only ones who yet live who can escape this fate are the three of you. Belthazar never accomplished his dream. Perhaps you could do what he could not. Your means of coming to this time were not the same as my old mentor's, unless I miss my guess.”
Lucca stepped up next to Doan, seemingly bubbling with the desire to relate their own tale, now that there was no more reason to hide it. “I don't know what happened with this Belthazar,” she said eagerly. “But I know what happened with us. We came across time travel completely by accident. There are these 'gates' that connect different points of space-time. I then developed a way to harness the latent energy of these gates and travel back and forth to wherever the gates led. I didn't have to create a giant machine to do that, just something not much bigger than your standard pistol. I call it a 'Chrono Trigger'. The problem is that it needs an existing gate in order to work, and we have only found two of those. The one that brought us here is now buried under several hundred tons of collapsed rubble on the other side of Quintadis, and we wandered our way towards Bangor in hopes of getting help to clear out all the debris. If we could just accomplish that, we could return to our own time no problem, assuming the underground room the gate's found in hasn't been completely destroyed.”
Director Doan considered Lucca's information at great length, gazing at the floor in front of his cane. “I think your return to this 'gate' that you arrived from is perhaps too great an errand. Miss Marle's strange talents were barely enough to get you across the wastes. To send a party large enough to be of any aid would extend Marle's burden far beyond her capacity to endure, I fear. Given enough time the enclave could perhaps arrive at a workable alternative, but this would be the work of many months at the very least, or perhaps years. And you all must consider Miss Lucca's warning about exposing the miracle of time travel to those without hope, and who cannot survive long in any event. The enclave would tear itself apart seeking to gain this false hope, and many would throw their lives away to no purpose in the pursuit of it, bringing all to despair before their time.”
Crono was feeling despair begin to well up in him again. Knowing the eventual fate of the enclave and everyone in it was bad enough, but now he had to contend with the possibility that Marle, Lucca, and himself might be equally doomed. He had feared that digging their way back into the ZDF facility where the gate was found might be too hard even for the enclave to manage, and now he knew it was so. What could they do if the only known way back home was closed to them for good?
“The Epoch,” Crono said. “You spoke about building a time-machine called the Epoch to get Belthazar back to his own time. Maybe... Well, with you and Lucca working together, maybe it's possible...?”
“While I have the utmost respect for Miss Lucca's talents, her knowledge of the necessary skills would be no greater than mine, and my skill is far less than what Belthazar enjoyed. Such an errand would be almost as useless as journeying past Quintadis to carry off fallen stone and metal, and I would have to leave the enclave for an extended period to even entertain the notion of success. As things stand, I cannot in good conscience abandon the enclave for a task that is almost certain to fail in any event, and just getting to the old workshop is no small matter, as it is quite far from Bangor.”
“Then... what can we possibly do?” Marle asked, wilting at their increasingly grim fortunes.
“I cannot tell you that,” Doan said after a moment's consideration. “But in my experience, fate often leaves an alternative that can be discerned if one is perceptive enough. If only it were so with the enertrons! There may yet be a way for you. Miss Lucca has demonstrated enough knowledge on the operation of our computer systems that I can grant a privilege that is afforded to very few. On the lowest level of this enclave is a chamber in which our most advanced computer systems, dating from before the Day of Fire, are housed, along with our most sensitive data. There may be information there that will be of aid to you, perhaps a means of finding another of these 'gates' you speak of. It may be too much to hope, but that is as much as I can do for you now. Go to the classified archive with my blessing. I will make arrangements to have the guards allow you entry and then leave you to privacy. My own 'eyes and ears' that I mentioned earlier tracking your conversations are not present in that place. None will know what you say or do. On this you have my word.”
The classified archive, Crono mused. It didn't sound like that promising of a lead, but they really had no other options.
“You're not coming with us?” Lucca asked. “I'd feel a bit more comfortable if you were there, since there aren't really any secrets between us now. You might find something we don't.”
“This is a task for the three of you alone,” Doan insisted. “My fate in this place is sealed. Yours is not. The choice on how to proceed must therefore be yours. It is rare, but the young sometimes make wiser decisions than the old, and ours is a world that has suffered through many mistakes on account of ones who should have known better than to make them. Be the change you want to see, and perhaps hidden doors will reveal themselves at the appointed hour. I can say little else. Treat yourselves to a pack of food rations, I will also make those arrangements, and then come to the archive when you are reasonably rested. I will leave you to your business, then.”
Director Doan then hit the switch on the wall opening the sliding door and exited the makeshift lab, leaving everyone to ponder all that had been said. It was all so much more than any of them had expected. Another time-traveler! An unfinished machine that could apparently travel through time, and without benefit of an existing temporal gate! Neither of those revelations really mattered to them at this moment though, so Crono elected to focus on the present. Thoughts of the past were too painful to contemplate right now. Maybe thoughts of the future could be braved after learning what they could from the classified archive.
“Well,” Lucca said after a long silence. “Anyone hungry?”
* * *
Marle felt vaguely unclean as she took another ravenous bite out of the strip of rat-meat jerky, and found herself wanting more and more of it despite it being one of the most limited and precious resources the enclave had. The price was far too steep, knowing what she now knew of the enclave's inevitable fate. She wanted nothing more than to give it all to Mary right now and give the little girl some extra days on her tragically short expected lifespan, but doing that would invite hard questions from the inquisitive ten-year-old, and Marle couldn't trust herself not to break down when that happened. In this situation ignorance was bliss. Mary couldn't be allowed to find out the truth. No child should have to live with the burden that they wouldn't live to see their seventeenth birthday. Marle couldn't really live with it either, and she wasn't even dying.
She took another bite, then another, Marle's hands seemingly moving on their own without any conscious thought to devour everything in front of her. If her mind felt unclean, her body was simply desperate. She hadn't had any real food in weeks, and she couldn't honestly say if this stuff even tasted good. Objectivity regarding cuisine was wholly impossible when your body thought it was starving.
“Can we stop doing this, somehow?” Marle asked her dinner companions. “This really isn't right, but my willpower has taken a nap.”
“Just let it happen, Marle,” Crono told her. “Getting these rations is the highest possible vote of confidence from Director Doan. He wouldn't want you to squander this, and I think we're going to need to be strong to deal with what's coming. Call it a hunch, but there may be more in this computer archive than a possible way for us to get home. There are things in it that hardly anyone ever gets to see. There has to be a reason for that.”
“It's the Day of Fire,” Lucca said between bites of her own jerky. “Everything known about it is apparently stored in those computers, and you know how taboo it is to talk about. Whatever we find on that, if we care to look, we're going to have to keep to ourselves so we don't upset people. Might be better if most folks never found out Frank even allowed us in there, to be honest.”
“Or in here,” Marle remarked, gesturing at their surroundings. They were all in the granary, sitting on the floor of the freezing cold room with beige garments of the enclave worn over their regular clothes to keep warm. Two dozen strips of rat jerky of varying size were spread out in front of them; a veritable feast. A single Protector regarded the time-travelers silently from across the room, far enough distant that Marle couldn't make out his expression, but he had been given orders to let the three of them eat a full pack of rations in relative privacy, and he had allowed them to without any audible complaint. Whether the man would tell anyone else of this unexpected indulgence later was an open question. They were no doubt spending a lot of the capital they had earned over the past three weeks. Many more days-worth of scavenging runs that actually bagged rats already lay arrayed before them.
“We'll be all right,” Crono said. “We've been circumspect enough to avoid real trouble since coming here. It's just Doan we couldn't fool.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Lucca said ruefully. “Not that we should really be surprised. We've all been in his office, and we saw those real-time images displayed on the computer monitors on his wall. Never occurred to me to think our room in the dormitory was being monitored the same way.” She sighed. “Another painfully obvious thing I missed while focusing on other matters. You'd think I'd learn.”
“Don't beat yourself up over it. Being this Belthazar guy's apprentice he probably would have figured it out anyway. And it's just as well. At least this way we're making some progress. At least I hope it's progress.”
Marle slumped. “To save ourselves, maybe. I really wanted to help. I wanted to... make a difference here.”
Crono put a hand on her shoulder. “We have. It's not what we wanted, I know, but we made our mark. We conquered the infamous Gauntlet. With a whole new area of the surface ruins to scavenge, the Protectors will replace everything we're eating here before you know it. They can do that with or without us. They're a lot better than they were three weeks ago. We gave them hope for the future.”
Without giving them one, Marle thought. Hope was well and good, but what was that worth when people started dying all around you and there were no children – or precious few – to carry on your legacy? The Day of Fire. Everything had changed for humanity on that day. Yes, the generation preceding the era of the domes had made terrible mistakes, but their successors had redeemed humanity with their vision and industriousness. What had reduced their dream of peace to ash? Marle resolved to know the answer to this question before she gave any serious thought to returning home.
A dream of peace. A thought born from the heart that came to reside in the mind to create something real. Marle had had many such heart-born thoughts in her life. On occasion those thoughts transcended hope and became reality. Trivial, almost all of them, even her wish to go to the Millennial Fair, since she had only really been thinking about herself. Now, a thought was conceived in her heart that was anything but trivial. Something dangerous. Something that her mind might reject once it was fully examined, and she hesitated to look at this thought at all, but Marle couldn't deny that something had been born. What was it? What had Cedric Guardia been thinking when the grand ambition of uniting the fractious human countries of North Zenan and South Zenan into a single kingdom blossomed in his heart? Was ambition always like this? How many grand ambitions never came to fruition simply because the mind wouldn't accept the heart? How many dreams had died in the womb?
I wish... we could just change it.
Marle turned away from the memory. It was too soon. She dared not look.
A few more minutes were spent gobbling up dried rat, then when Marle was reasonably sure she had eaten enough, she placed both hands on her tummy and channeled to fight off the beginnings of a stomach-ache. Her body had become unaccustomed to food, after all. Then the nausea was banished and she came to her feet and surreptitiously did the same with Crono and Lucca, who seemed to be suffering similar pains and trying not to show it. The guard on the other side of the granary said nothing.
“Come on, guys. There's no time like the present,” Marle said with renewed vigor, stowing a portion of their allotted feast into her belt satchel. “We can take the rest of these rations with us and snack on them in the archive if we get hungry again.”
“Eat inside the archive?” Lucca asked with a frown. “Not that they need to enforce it much, but there are strict rules about eating or drinking anywhere close to a computer. Or were you nodding off when Amelia told us that?”
“Oh, who cares about her? She's never allowed in the classified archive, anyway. Besides, I'm sure you can fix anything that gets messed up in there.”
Lucca glared. “I'd rather not have to.”
“Don't worry about it,” Crono chuckled. “I think we're good for a few hours. Let's go see what that archive has to show us.”
14
Fan Fiction / A novel fragment - The Maker of Bangor
« on: April 10, 2024, 04:38:27 am »
Chapter 24 - The Maker of Bangor
It was official. Nothing Marle did surprised her anymore.
That was what Lucca would write in the dwindling pages of her diary sometime tonight, and in bold lettering despite the limited space. After six days of making a general nuisance of herself in the Bangor enclave, and with Lucca in particular, the former Princess of Guardia had publicly – and loudly - declared her intention to join the enclave as a full citizen.
And as a member of the Protector-caste, no less.
“What? You think I'd do better as as an Operator or a Maker?” Marle asked her.
“I'm not even going to honor that with a response,” Lucca replied, trying not to sound snide.
“Thought you'd agree. So what are you worried about? This can only help us, you know?”
Lucca, Marle, and Crono were walking side-by-side down one of the main corridors of the Bangor underground towards the enclave's central armory, where dozens of beige-clad Protector-caste citizens were assembling for the unexpected ceremony that had been announced two hours ago. More than a few enclave residents were giving Marle a dubious look as they made their way past.
“I know I said there wasn't any rush in going back to Krawlie's lair,” Lucca said. “That doesn't mean I intend to make this my permanent residence. Just long enough to figure out how to get us home without messing things up.”
“Marle, I'm not sure you understand what a big step this is,” Crono said. “Full citizens are expected to carry their weight and give their all for the survival of the enclave. I've been awake long enough to tell you that much. An oath of citizenship isn't something you can easily walk away from.”
“These people need our help,” Marle said more seriously. “And if we can't tell them everything about us, we need to make up for it in other ways. Using our best talents to help them survive. For me, you know what that means.” She hefted her crossbow for emphasis.
“You do know that plasma rifles are an entirely different animal from that thing?” Lucca pointed out. “Using one might not be as easy as you think.”
“What's hard about pointing and shooting? I've been doing that my whole life! Ranged weapons might change over time, but the discipline of marksmanship doesn't. No problem.”
“I used to think the same thing about swordsmanship,” Crono cautioned. “It's not that simple. There have been many different sword types developed over the years, and each of them require their own technique to wield effectively. And even if you only specialize in one, you have to adjust your technique to deal with whatever weapon your opponent is wielding, too. Switching to an unfamiliar weapon always presents dangers, even if you've mastered another.”
“Oh, come on, Crono! It's not like people are going to be shooting at me during the trial. Nothing the Protectors shoot at ever shoots back, so it's just a question of hitting things before they get close enough to hurt you. I can't imagine this trial of theirs could be more involved than dealing with GATO at the Millennial Fair.” Marle shrugged confidently. “It'll be easy.”
Lucca scowled. In three years, no crossbow wielder had ever gotten a perfect score challenging GATO, and Marle had done it from the top of the stands. Shameless show-off. “The first thing I'll do when I get home is make a new program card for GATO that'll take your ego down a peg,” Lucca said. “Don't think that I can't.”
“I look forward to it,” Marle said with a playful wink.
The three time-travelers came to a large storeroom that the enclave residents had long ago converted into an armory and shooting range, and the two men standing guard – each holding well cared for plasma rifles across their chests - let them pass. Nearly a hundred Protectors and curious citizens from other castes were already present, sitting on makeshift chairs or leaning against the walls as space permitted. None of the people Lucca recognized as Protectors, she noticed, looked all that pleased to be here.
Like they have anything better to do, Lucca mused. The Protectors were by far the smallest of the three castes, and most of them often found themselves with a surplus of free time despite their numbers. Partly that was because of the limited number of weapons available. Not a one of Bangor's rifles or pistols was less than 300 years old, and their sophisticated components were notoriously hard to duplicate with the materials the enclave had, resulting in a stockpile that was frequently traded out to avoid unwelcome maintenance issues from piling up. But the food supply was also an issue. There were only so many rats to be hunted at any one time before their numbers were exhausted, and sending people out with little prospect of getting a kill only put them at risk of being ambushed by glassers (or “mutants”, as the enclave residents called them) out of the shadows. There simply wasn't a need for that many Protectors. Likely, the enclave's defenders were only lamenting the fact that one of the most annoying people to ever visit their domain was about to join their ranks. Marle's reputation for bugging people and asking them for help operating pretty much anything electronic didn't make her very popular, and her frequent locking of horns with Amelia Evans over reg violations was a subject of continual gossip among the residents.
A burly looking man with dark skin and a scraggly beard of peppered silver then stepped into view and rapped on a nearby metal shelf with a much abused pan to get everyone's attention. Burly was perhaps too strong a word, as everyone who sustained themselves via enertron developed a uniformly gaunt appearance, as if perpetually on the brink of starvation, but the man's eyes were uncommonly focused and his posture was ramrod straight. Lucca recognized him as Assistant Director Stephan Morris, leader of the Bangor underground's Protector-caste, and the enclave's overall fourth in command.
“I'll get straight to it, people,” the gruff Assistant Director said without preamble. “A new soul wishes to join the ranks of our community today. A soul of the forgotten wastes whose aimless wandering brought her to be among us through providence.”
A few snickers echoed through the crowd at that last word, but they were quickly silenced by a glare from Morris. Lucca knew he was just reciting the age-old proclamation for the sake of appearances. Any outsider who sought to join the enclave as a full citizen was a “soul of the forgotten wastes”, and someone to be cherished as if delivered through providence. Lucca wondered if there had ever been a time when these words were uttered with a similar lack of sincerity.
“Given a choice between the three great castes of our community, this young woman desires the role of Protector.” He then turned to where Marle was standing. “Is this what your heart desires?”
“It is,” Marle said clearly enough for all to hear.
Assistant Director Morris nodded solemnly, and his gaze took on a harder edge. “Is it, truly? The life of a Protector is one without ease. One which you may be called upon to freely give in the defense of our community. To be sent into danger at a moment's notice without question. To fulfill your duty and the orders of your superiors at all costs.” Morris said all of this with growing volume and stepped closer to Marle with each statement. His formality had been completely dropped now, and the Assistant Director looked almost angry. “This is not a game, young lady! I have watched people die! Friends! A single careless moment or delayed action can get you ripped apart! The freaks of nature that infest our once great city do not think! They do not feel! They are completely and utterly without mercy! And they never stop. There are always more. The ruins ever belong to them and the rats on which they feed. So I ask you again: Is this... what your heart... desires?”
It was to Marle's eternal credit that she didn't blanch at the verbal drubbing she was being subjected to. Lucca couldn't honestly say if she could have done the same, especially knowing too well the truth of the AD's words. But maybe it was because Marle had developed a sort of immunity to such things. Being the daughter of King Malcolm probably helped a lot, as by all accounts the reigning monarch of Guardia from 1300 years ago was no less hard or demanding than the man she was facing now.
“I've dealt with those 'freaks of nature' before,” Marle told her interrogator evenly, their faces almost touching. “They were rather... frozen by what I could do to them. I only need a new weapon to continue the fight. Give me one, and I'll show you what I can do.”
A wicked grin spread across Assistant Director Morris' features. “So let the trial begin. But first, prove to us that you have the vigor and vitality of a Protector. Only then will we allow you to wield the arms of Bangor.
“DROP AND GIVE ME FIFTY!”
* * *
Marle found herself suddenly paralyzed by the barked command. A command louder than any her own father had given her in her former life. Drop and give him what?
“Push-ups!” Crono and Lucca said in unison.
Are you serious? Marle thought with dismay. What did this have to do with marksmanship? All she needed was a weapon, for Creation's sake!
Still, her body responded almost immediately once she finally understood what was asked of her, and she fell to the floor and began unsteadily pushing her body upward from a face down position. Over and over and... over. Her face colored noticeably, but more from embarrassment than from the exertion. Her ponytail fell backwards across her face as she moved, and the golden bracelets around her arms shifted and slipped down to her wrists where they inevitably got in the way of her repetitive task. The Star of Guardia around Marle's neck clanked on the concrete floor every time she let gravity take hold. If she knew she would have to do something like this, she'd have left her jewelry with Crono and Lucca. What a disgrace!
“ON YOUR FEET, PROTECTOR!”
Marle gasped. “But I'm not...” She was sure she had only counted to thirty.
“I SAID ON YOUR FEET! THE ENEMY'S COMING!”
“Wha...?”
Marle nearly missed catching the well-polished rifle Assistant Director Morris abruptly tossed to her. She fumbled with the unfamiliar firearm. It was the first time she had so much as touched a plasma rifle, and it was a lot heavier than she thought. Or maybe it was just because her arms were so tired. Laughter began to ensue from a few of the spectators.
“THERE! THE TARGET! FIRE!”
A crudely painted target depicting the image of a red-skinned glasser mutant suddenly appeared in Marle's peripheral vision, and she turned to face the far wall where it had popped up. The distance was about seventy-five feet, a shot that Marle could bullseye half asleep any day of the week with her crossbow, and she pulled the trigger after an uncomfortable moment steadying the barrel. She had never fired a rifle before. There was nowhere in Guardia Castle she could have practiced with something so loud without the Royal Guard immediately taking notice and alerting her father to her activities. Malcolm would have certainly locked her up for months if she'd tried. Still, it was just point and shoot. Nothing could be more simple.
Nothing happened.
“TAKE THE SAFETY OFF, GRUNT!” Morris crowed. “IT'S GONNA GETCHA!”
“Safety?! Huh?!”
More laughter echoed through the armory, and Marle found herself beginning to panic. Why wouldn't the stupid thing fire? It wasn't like those crazy computers with hundreds of buttons that you needed to know calculus to decipher. In fact, the weapon had four buttons along with the trigger, she finally noticed, and something that looked like a dial on the left side of the forestock. That was five controls too many for something with such a simple function. What kind of sadist would design something like...
“THREE...!”
“TWO...!”
“ONE...!”
Marle hit the weapon's controls at random and spun the forestock dial before lining up again for the shot. That had to do something. She pulled the trigger just after her loudmouth examiner reached the count of one.
“No, wait!”
Lucca's shouted warning just had time to register in Marle's mind, but a split second too late to stop her shaking trigger finger. The next thing she knew, she was flying backwards into the spectators behind her, a deafening shriek having erupted through the barrel in the general direction of the target, and the sound of flying debris hitting stone and steel was dimly heard through Marle's ringing ears. So were screams.
A moment later, a dazed Marle was helped to her feet by Crono while Lucca was examining the infernal weapon still clutched firmly in Marle's hand. A sizable chunk of stone had been blown out of the far wall about two feet above the target. She had missed.
Missed!
“'Protector', you are more dangerous to your allies than the enemy!” Morris barked. His earlier gleeful heckling had been replaced with genuine anger.
“Maximum setting,” Lucca remarked quietly in Marle's ear. “This could have blown up a Dragon Tank with one shot. What were you thinking just punching things at random?”
I was thinking that a weapon should be easy to use so I can actually concentrate on what I'm shooting at, Marle thought with growing fury. What a humiliation! She couldn't remember the last time she had missed a target that badly, or at all. It was a wonder someone wasn't seriously hurt just now.
“Set it... up for me, then,” Marle told Lucca through gritted teeth, her temper hanging on by the thinnest of threads. “This isn't over.”
Lucca took all of three seconds manipulating the weapon's controls and then slapped Marle on the shoulder. “Single-action, minimal power, trigger free,” she said. “Go knock 'em dead. And try not to take that literally, okay?”
Marle snorted and stormed up to Assistant Director Morris, holding her weapon as confidently as she could project under the circumstances.
“All right, playtime's over!” she said loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the armory. “Set up ten targets at the farthest distance you can, then set up ten more targets after I burn through the first set. If I don't bullseye five consecutive sets without a miss, I'll withdraw my request to join the Protectors and you'll never hear from me again. How's that sound?”
Assistant Director Morris seemed suitably taken aback by Marle's audacious boast, though it almost seemed to her that he was trying hard not to burst into laughter.
We'll see who's laughing after I'm done, she promised the arrogant man silently.
As it turned out, the weapon only had enough energy for four more shots, but one shot was all that was needed to end Marle's trial.
* * *
“We all have bad days, Marle,” Crono said soothingly. “And it wasn't a fair test. They deliberately wore you out before handing you a weapon you'd never used before. There's no winning a contest like that. Don't let it get you down, okay?”
The three time-travelers were back in their designated room in the rear area of Dormitory 7, Marle lying face-down on her enertron bed and wanting beyond anything to just curl up into a ball and disappear. It was the fate that suited her best after what happened today. How could she dare show her face in the enclave proper ever again?
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Marle muttered miserably into the bed's padding. She appreciated Crono's concern, but nothing he could say could make things better at this point. He had warned her about the dangers of expecting good results with a weapon she'd never trained with, and she'd brushed aside his warning like she was Creation's gift to all marksmen. That last certainly wasn't true anymore. Five shots total she had fired from the enclave's plasma rifle, and all of them had missed their targets completely. All! That had never happened to her before, not even when she had been a complete novice playing casually in the Guardia Castle armory as a little girl. It was a performance that defied belief. She had been too good for too long to just choke like that, unfamiliar weapon or not.
“Well, as a constructive critique, I think the shot speed was throwing you off,” Lucca said with sympathy. “You were trying to adjust for ballistic drift with a weapon that doesn't really have any. Pointing directly at the target would have served you better in this case, but no one can blame you for not being accustomed to that. It would probably take months of practice for you to change those old habits. I know it would for me.”
Lucca's words barely registered. What mattered was that Marle had failed, and she would have to rethink all of her plans going forward. Where would she even start? It was hard to think when all she could dwell on was her own humiliation.
Marle sighed. “Can I go to bed now?”
“Already? It's still six hours until your scheduled session,” Lucca reminded her.
“Ask me if I care.”
“Well, I can talk to Amelia, try and switch out my hours for yours. I've got plenty of things to do on the computer, so I don't mind. But you know what a stickler she is for the rules. Two days in advance for all exchanges.”
“That's ridiculous!” Crono protested. “Marle needs the enertron now. And I don't see anyone else waiting to use it. Just start the session anyway, and we'll make the exchange ourselves without telling Amelia. No big deal.”
Lucca shook her head. “Won't work. All enertron activity is logged in the computer network. And you can't fool the machine into thinking one person is actually someone else. Everyone's DNA is distinctive. It can't be faked. Not once it's been already registered.”
Crono blinked, uncomprehending. “DNA?”
“Sorry. Call it a genetic imprint. The bottom line is that Amelia will know it was Marle using the enertron instead of me, and she'll make a stink about it. And Marle has broken so many regulations already that she could get in real trouble this time. I don't think we should risk that after what happened in the arm... well, you know.”
“Oh, forget it!” Marle said despairingly. “I'll just sleep on the floor. It's no less than I deserve.” Of course, Marle was certain she wouldn't be able to sleep at all without the enertron, given how she was feeling, but...
“Hey, I won't have you talking like that!” Crono said sternly. “What happened wasn't your fault. And who cares what Amelia thinks? All she cares about is her job.”
“Yeah, ain't that the tru...”
Lucca then started laughing all of a sudden, interrupting herself, and Marle lifted her head from the enertron bed wondering what had gotten into her.
“Yeah! That's it exactly!” Lucca said jubilantly. “I was looking at it from completely the wrong angle! We can fool Amelia easy.”
“How?” Crono asked. “You just said that DNA thing couldn't be faked.”
“It can't. But that has nothing to do with the actual schedule. Amelia writes that up on her own system. It's completely separate from the enertron itself.”
“You're saying Amelia's schedule can be faked? Changed to say something else?”
“That would never work,” Marle said. “Amelia knows exactly when my next session is supposed to be. She was lecturing me about it earlier today.”
Lucca's eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “Amelia's a bureaucrat. It doesn't matter what she knows, it only matters what's in her records. If the record conflicts with her own memory, she'll just assume she misremembered things and move on without a second thought. That girl has about as much imagination as a Heinchraw.”
“And you think you can change Amelia's records without her finding out?” Crono asked dubiously.
“Are you kidding? I probably know these systems now better than she does. There's a difference between knowing how to use something, and knowing how it actually works. Don't underestimate Lucca the Great!”
Marle felt a smile creep across her face for the first time since failing her Protectors trial. Just picturing Amelia's consternation the next time she looked at her records almost made this whole situation worth it.
“So how long do you want to sleep for?” Lucca asked her. “Just tell me and I'll make it happen. Within reason, of course.”
“Long enough to forget about things,” Marle said. “I don't think a regular session's going to cut it.”
“Six hours it is, then. Sweet dreams and bon appétit... you glutton.”
A moment later, the hatch of the enertron sealed itself against the machine, and Marle drifted off into a blessedly dreamless slumber.
* * *
The definition of a good teacher, Lucca decided, was someone you were always delighted to see when you were unexpectedly called into their office.
Lucca could count the number of people who had tried to teach her effectively on two hands. The number of people who actually did she could count on as many fingers: her mom, who had taught her how to read a couple of years before her tragic accident, and her dad, who had taught her everything else - once she had dedicated herself to the path of science. Lucca never expected to add a third finger to the list. Her parents had done enough to open the door of knowledge and coax her through it, and Lucca thereafter had been able to learn anything else worth knowing on her own. Such was the expectation, and the reality, until Lucca met the director of the human enclave of Bangor. The best teachers were the ones who knew things you didn't know that you didn't know and were freely willing to share them, and Frank Doan met that description better than even her dad could ever have hoped to. Doan's knowledge of science and technology was, if Lucca could pare it down to a single word, sublime. Such that if Lucca dared to share her knowledge of time-travel with him, Doan would not just absorb and understand the concepts involved almost immediately, he would also improve on what Lucca had already figured out and start teaching her the subject she had only recently pioneered herself.
His was a spirit akin to her famous grandfather, Alistair Ashtear, a man that Lucca had barely gotten to know as a child, and who would never live to see just how prodigious his granddaughter would become. Like Director Doan, Alistair knew things nobody knew that they didn't know, and he had used his stupendous intellectual gifts to change the world forever. Meeting Frank was almost like going back in time to meet Grandpa Alistair.
In another era, Lucca thought, Director Doan would almost certainly be another such world-changing individual, but the whims of history had relegated him to a post of heartbreaking obscurity instead. Still, his gifts were not going completely to waste, and Lucca was determined to learn everything she could from him while their historical paths intersected.
Now, Lucca was admiring the threadbare efficiency of Doan's office, a far cry from her own “office” back home, which could only charitably be called a bedroom, such was its clutter. It was all too easy to get disorganized when your mind was running at a million miles an hour trying to make new scientific discoveries and putting them into action, but Doan somehow utilized his own gifts cleanly and left nothing that could be trampled on or lost. A few viewscreens depicting various real-time images of certain areas of the enclave ringed the walls, and there were very few other accouterments of note. The owner of the space leaned pleasantly towards Lucca across a modest dust-free desk upon which rested a single integrated computer terminal that sat off to one side.
“Thank you for coming so promptly, Miss Lucca,” Director Doan began in his typically polite fashion. “For a moment, I was afraid that I had caught you rejuvenating in the enertron, as I'd momentarily forgotten when you were scheduled to rest today. But there seems to have been a... change in the scheduling. I do hope Miss Marle is resting comfortably in your stead?”
Lucca froze. Was it possible that he knew already? She thought she had covered her tracks well enough, but then, that was just to hoodwink a certain junior assistant director who took her job too seriously, not the full-blown Director himself. Was he really keeping tabs on her that closely?
“She had a pretty rough day,” Lucca allowed.
“So I noticed. I was rather displeased by how Assistant Director Morris handled that whole situation in the armory. Whatever else Miss Marle may be, she is still a guest of the enclave, and her desire to join the Protectors was genuine enough to warrant proper training. I fear we have treated her poorly. Please extend my personal apologies to her, as well as my pledge that she will be permitted to re-take the Protector's trial if she chooses to.”
Lucca released the breath she didn't know she was holding and smiled at Doan's generosity. She really shouldn't have expected any less after his patient tutelage of her on the finer points of computer science over the past week.
“Thanks. I'll do that,” Lucca said gratefully, then found herself reddening at the whole affair. “Sorry about this. I don't mean to cause you any trouble, Frank.”
Doan's eyes glinted with amusement. “If you are referring to your rather clever subterfuge in Junior Assistant Director Evans' scheduling system, please don't apologize. I have contemplated that I may have promoted Miss Evans too quickly. There is more to a supervisory role than mere efficiency. One must be aware of the people around them and cater to their needs with empathy. It is a lesson she must take to heart if she expects people to respect her leadership.”
Lucca quirked her mouth. “I hope you're not offering me her job, because I don't want it.”
“Oh, no,” the Director chuckled. “That would be quite the waste of your talents. In fact, it is principally the matter of your talent that led to my summoning you just now. You have demonstrated sufficient knowledge of our systems and technology now to undertake a task I had hoped you would be able to manage from almost the first moment we met.”
Frank Doan's expression then turned very serious.
“The enclave has a problem, Lucca. One that could be qualified as an existential threat, both to Bangor and to the entirety of the human race.”
Lucca stared at him for a long moment, and her heart tingled with sudden dread. There was a certain... terror behind Doan's carefully crafted demeanor. It was almost too subtle to notice, but a good student always perceived things in their teachers that no one else would catch. Anything which terrified Frank Doan was a matter to be taken with the utmost seriousness.
“What's the problem?” she asked.
“The enertrons.”
Lucca sat back in her chair and felt her blood turn cold.
“As you know, our equipment is quite old,” Doan continued. “Most of it dates from before the Day of Fire, and our most recently built enertron has been confirmed to have been made almost forty years before that. Serving as a nearly total substitute for food was something these machines were never intended to do. Not on this scale, and not for so very long.”
“You think they're failing!”
Doan's face was even. “Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are merely showing their age. Or, perhaps...”
“...They already have?” Lucca finished breathlessly.
“There is sufficient evidence to say it could be so. I am old enough to have seen many generations of enertron users go about their lives. The process has been gradual enough to have been missed by most, but it is evident that every successive generation of enclave citizens have been less vigorous, less healthy, than the one that came before. And then there was the arrival of yourself, Mister Crono, and Miss Marle, who, it must be said, are demonstrably healthier than any man or woman has been in decades. And it is also evident, at least to me, that the three of you are quite new to enertron sustenance. This begs the question of where you could possibly be from that would enable you to survive so, but that is a matter for another time. What matters at this moment is that everything I have related to you suggests a serious issue with enertron sustenance. This must be investigated.”
Lucca took a lengthy interval to collect her wits and recall everything she had seen and witnessed in the few days she had been a guest of the Bangor enclave. There was much truth in what Director Doan was saying. She didn't have the benefit of experience or decades-worth of observations, but she had enough to make the same general hypothesis, now that Frank had alerted her to the problem. The enertrons were failing. Or worse.
Perhaps more seriously, Doan's analysis of Lucca, Crono, and Marle was leading him frightfully close to their origins as time-travelers. She was getting the distinct impression that Doan was being cagey and already knew, or suspected, more than he was saying on that particular question. That would make matters immeasurably more complicated if the enertron machines were, in fact, failing. No book Lucca had ever read provided any insight into how to solve the ethical dilemma that was rapidly developing around her. Without the enertrons, most of the enclave's population would be dead inside of a week. The food stores were simply too minuscule for the enclave to survive longer than that with 1,500 mouths to feed.
“What about the seeds?” Lucca asked desperately. “You told me the granary was fully stocked with almost every type of crop. Is it possible...?”
“It wouldn't be enough,” Doan said. “And that underscores humanity's most fundamental problem of the age: where to plant the seeds. The underground isn't large enough to sustain a crop that can feed everyone, even if we could get it to grow under such conditions. The operation would have to be moved to the surface, and that has long been an indefensible position against mutant attacks, to say nothing of the continual drought and the poor soil quality outside the dome. No enclave's attempt to create an agriculture program has ever succeeded. Not in three-hundred years. Our seed archive exists as a symbol of hope more than a practical solution to our problems, I am sad to say.”
Lucca sighed. The answer was about what she expected, but a drowning woman grasped for whatever she could find.
“What do you need me to do, then, Frank? I'd be happy to examine the enertrons, but I'm honestly not sure how much help I'd be. You know that technology a lot better than I do.”
“Perhaps. And I would be less than honest if I claimed that I didn't already have a suspicion of the scope and particulars of the problem. However, my position makes me and my Operators susceptible to a certain... bias. We all tend to approach a problem in the same way, you see, and my junior associates are loath to not follow the methods and lead of their superiors, even if it leads them to a false conclusion. A second opinion is needed, and for that second opinion to have value it must come from outside the enclave. For that reason I cannot share my full suspicions with you at this time, but invite you to deduce the truth of things yourself and then share them with me as you are able. It is not impossible you may come to a different conclusion than I, and we will then have to consider the merits of each. Solving the problem requires that we first correctly identify it.”
“Right,” Lucca nodded curtly. “You can count on me.”
“I know I can,” Doan said warmly. “You are an exceptional student, perhaps the best I have ever taught, yet you retain the flexibility of an independent mind. The enclave dearly needs that right now. But do not feel pressured to complete my request with undue haste. It is more important to be thorough than to be quick on this matter. I wish you luck with your investigation, Miss Lucca.”
Let's hope I don't need it, Lucca thought as she quickly strode out of Director Doan's office and began grappling with the problem in her head. She suspected the remaining pages of her diary would be filled very quickly.
* * *
The hatch of Marle's enertron was already open by the time she reluctantly returned to the realm of the conscious. She felt the bones in her spine crackle as she stretched her lithe form atop the gray upright-angled bed of the machine, but the sensation of early morning vigor and renewal gave no satisfaction. It took only a moment's reflection for Marle to remember why she was in the enertron again so soon after her previous marathon session, and she turned on her face and grabbed the less than comfortable padding in the manner of a teenager who was profoundly unhappy at the state of her life. Which meant hard. She wanted nothing better than to go back to bed again and let the hands of time tick by without her. But it had been six hours, and Marle doubted she would be able to fall asleep again on her own without something like the enertron to wash her worries away into a temporary oblivion.
Maybe it was time to wash them away in a more literal sense, Marle thought. She certainly needed a shower after her worthless exertions from yesterday. Push-ups! And for what? Just so she could make a fool of herself wielding a weapon she had no business touching? Marle pounded the enertron bed with her fist and turned around with a huff. A very cold shower was what she needed to distract herself from that disgraceful memory.
She then started as she finally noticed her empty crossbow bolt quiver hanging by its strap over the small computer screen that controlled the enertron. She didn't remember having put it there before she went to bed. Marle always kept her things together in the far corner of the room, well away from both enertrons so no one would trip over anything. Why was it here? Everything else was where it normally was, she saw.
Marle turned to the enertron opposite hers and saw the blue light of active use shining through the small window of the closed hatch. She shuffled over to the other machine and stood on her tiptoes to see Crono sleeping face-up inside. According to the computer screen of his capsule, Crono's rejuvenation session had started less than fifteen minutes ago. Had he put the quiver on Marle's machine just now? She wasn't sure how many minutes had passed between the end of her own session and the moment she had actually woken up, so maybe he had left it there, but why would he? The quiver wasn't really good for anything. Just a reminder that she had a useless weapon, as if she needed reminding.
A reminder...
Are you trying to tell me something, Crono?
Crono Lantree was a bonafide expert on the art of fighting, Marle knew. In the short time she had known him, Crono had demonstrated that he was not only strong and fast, but that he was always thinking. Always seeing the next move and being able to execute it flawlessly, taking advantage of his opponent's weakness and enhancing his own strengths for maximum benefit. He had used that talent to defeat Krawlie, and the mammoth Guardian machine. And he had correctly predicted the risks of Marle using a weapon she clearly wasn't proficient with, however similar it was as a ranged weapon. If she had used her own crossbow in the Protectors trial instead of the rifle, the results would surely have been very different, even with those pointless push-ups, but she couldn't use her crossbow because she didn't have any...
Marle started tittering in spite of herself. Her problem was a simple one, and Crono had pointed it out with an equally simple gesture from beyond the veil of his slumber. Stick with what you know, he was saying. She didn't need to train with a new weapon, she needed to rearm the one she already had.
It was something she hadn't even considered since her crossbow was so archaic by the standards of this era. Who needed a crossbow when there were rifles that could blow glassers in half with a single shot? Crossbow bolts weren't something that would be kept in a modern armory anyway. Those had been uncommon enough in her own time, with firearms supplanting everything and older weapons being relegated to the passions of hobbyists and extremely bored princesses. Where could she possibly find crossbow ammunition in a world that had absolutely no reason to have it?
She wouldn't, of course.
That meant it had to be made. The Makers!
Marle abandoned all thoughts of her cold shower and collected her belongings and rushed out of the room. She wasn't sure what asking for help from the Makers would entail, but it was the one shot she had at redeeming herself and she wasn't going to miss this one.
She came into the lobby of Dormitory 7 at a trot and abruptly slowed, realizing it was the middle of the night. More studious residents preferred this time to peruse the library computers along the walls due to the lack of other distractions, and Marle didn't want to disturb them unnecessarily. Only a few people were present.
Lucca was one of them.
Marle very nearly called out to her, since it was now time for Lucca to get in the enertron herself after having surreptitiously exchanged her sleep time for Marle's. But one look at Lucca's expression gave her pause. It wasn't unusual for Lucca to be absorbed in her work. Marle had seen her in that same chair, using that same computer, hour after repeated hour over the near week they had been in the enclave, when she wasn't off somewhere being tutored by Director Doan on the use of all of this crazy tech. But she seemed different this time. Felt different. Her magnified blue-eyed gaze bore into the computer screen as if a mortal enemy were staring back at her. Lucca barely even blinked. Only her hands moved as she manipulated the displayed “windows” to show her more information or close out information she no longer needed to see. Almost all of it appeared to be diagrams and formulas of some kind. Lucca muttered something Marle couldn't quite make out, then changed windows again to grumble at another set of diagrams and formulas. One of the pictures resembled an enertron machine. Lucca then reached for her diary and made some quick notations before resuming her computer work.
I've never seen her this focused. What is she working on?
Regardless, Marle decided that bothering her for any reason was probably a bad idea right now. Lucca already had a surplus of irritability where Marle was concerned due to her repeated demands for help with the computers during their first days here, and their differing views on addressing their time-traveling origins had done nothing to deflate the tension. Marle didn't want to test the temper that Lucca gamely kept a lid on most of the time over something as trivial as a bedtime reminder. Not when she was this preoccupied.
Hunger would remind her soon enough, Marle reflected. A bit of hunger was a fact of life for those who lived off of enertron machines, and that hunger began to hurt after so many hours away from the capsule. Marle quietly crept her way around the library and left Lucca to her work, leaving Dormitory 7 behind to focus on her own problem.
Marle attracted a fair number of glances as she wandered around the too-same passageways of dispiriting grey that seemed ubiquitous to this future era, embellished only by badly fading directional markers and those glowing rods of cool light that made everything feel unnatural and lifeless. When she'd first arrived at the enclave, those glances were entirely due to her extravagant clothing, jewelry, and comparatively healthy complexion, but there was little doubt now that those glances were either passively hostile or outright deriding. Yes, she had been demanding during her early days here, Marle had to admit, but that was hard to help when even the most elementary tasks required an understanding of technology she simply didn't have. She had become a beggar because she had no choice. Add to that the humiliation of yesterday's trial, and there probably wasn't a single person in the enclave who wouldn't look at her askance. Marle marched on, refusing to meet anyone's eyes until she found what she was looking for.
She made her way slowly to the opposite side of the enclave, not far from the seldom used entrance that Marle had passed through when she first came here. The entrance led directly into the sewers, being about three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flew, from the location of Krawlie's lair. It was widely considered too dangerous of a route for scouting parties to begin their sorties out of the enclave, and this was reflected by a couple of heavily-armed Protectors always being posted by the door to keep watch on things. Marle avoided the guards' notice and turned the corner to a stairway leading down. This was the lowest populated level of the enclave, the only one lower being where the granary and the classified computer database were housed. A short distance from the bottom of the stairs was the entryway to Common Area 3, the exclusive domain of the Maker-caste.
Marle looked around the expansive space and found her natural inclination towards excitement when she was visiting someplace new surge to the forefront of her bearing. Common Area 3 was nothing less than a full-blown factory. Industrial equipment of every size and shape dominated the space, and there was a good bit of activity even at this time of night. The enclave never had a shortage of things that needed to be repaired or modified. Stuff was breaking down all the time, and it was principally the Makers job to make sure the inevitable mechanical and electrical misfortunes of the enclave remained at a manageable level. They also manufactured the tools that the Operator-caste used to maintain the more advanced technology that only they knew how to handle, and the Protectors were entirely reliant on the Makers when they had a problem with their – Marle now realized were hard to use - weapons. The Makers were arguably the most important of the enclave's castes, as the entire underground society of Bangor would grind to an unceremonious, and deadly, halt without them.
It's so much bigger than the dormitories, Marle observed. Not to mention warm. She could feel the heat from the surrounding foundry alcoves press against her bare arms and shoulders, and everyone working around them seemed to be sweating profusely. She would definitely be needing that shower whenever she was done here. No matter. She would stay around as long as she needed to complete her task in the meantime. Maybe she would start with one of the smaller...
“Can I help you, guest?”
Marle turned with a start to see a surprisingly heavy-set woman looming over her holding a wrench. Her brow glistened with sweat, and her narrow eyes regarded Marle with, if not quite hostility, somewhat elevated indifference. Though she hadn't met the domineering woman in person, Marle immediately recognized her from computer images as Assistant Director Chieko Vals, the leader of the Maker-caste, and the enclave's third in command.
No way she wouldn't have heard about what happened in the armory, Marle thought glumly. Her all too brief excitement plummeted into a gutter of forlorn recrimination, and she fought to stay afloat in her self-made sea of censure.
“I need to have something made,” Marle said, putting on the bravest face she could. “I used up the last of my ammunition getting to Bangor. Can you make some that's compatible with this old crossbow?” She held up her weapon for Vals to see.
“No,” the Assistant Director said without deigning to even look at the crossbow.
Marle's face fell. “What? But I need...”
“I know what you need,” Vals said darkly. “I also don't care. Thanks to you, rifle #57 has to be overhauled. Full power discharges like the one you so foolishly unleashed causes considerable degradation of both the barrel and the capacitor. Or did you think you were shooting something fresh off the assembly line? It'll take no less than four days to repair, and I'm not about to put that job on hold just so you can play with your archaic toy.”
“So you won't help, then?” Marle said, dejected.
Vals gave her a withering look. “My people are very busy, Miss... Marle, is it? Generator three has a continual flutter. Water pump eight is shut down pending engine replacement. And the backup compressor for the granary is due for replacement as well. I shouldn't have to tell you what could happen if that last job isn't finished on time. The main compressor has no other back-up, and it's the single oldest piece of equipment in the whole enclave. You've caused us enough trouble by taking one of our rifles out of service. We don't have time to deal with any more of your nonsense.”
“But it's such an easy job!” Marle protested. “My crossbow is a heck of a lot older than that 'compressor' thing you're talking about. How hard can it be to...?”
“Enough!” Vals barked harshly. The Assistant Director gave a long huff through her nose and then directed a weary gaze at the floundering target of her ire. “Go talk to Mary, then. She just got back from an errand. She'll either help you or she won't. If she chooses not to, I'll expect you to leave. I won't tolerate any more distractions here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to fabricate a new barrel for the rifle you trashed.”
Assistant Director Vals lumbered off without another word, and Marle shook herself to regain what little remained of her composure. Chieko Vals was a hard woman for a hard job, and speaking to her ever again was something Marle wouldn't contemplate lightly.
I guess I better go find this “Mary” she was taking about.
Marle strode through the Makers domain at a brisk pace, taking mind to stay out of the way of the caste's purposeful activity as much as possible. A few short queries directed her to an even more sweltering area far to the rear of Common Area 3. A large machine very similar to the power generator Marle remembered from the ZDF facility filled the space, and a diminutive passage branched off into near darkness just behind it. Marle had to crouch to make her way through the tiny corridor. The droning sound from the presumed generator machine was constant, and loud enough to cause her mild discomfort.
What is a Maker doing all the way back here? she wondered. There was no one else around, and it looked as though very few people ever came this way. The glow-bars were scant and much more widely spaced than she had seen anywhere else in the enclave, giving the place an eerie ambiance. The sound of the generator gradually receded as Marle continued her stooped passage, and the oppressive heat began to subside. Marle was beginning to wonder if Assistant Director Vals had simply lied to get rid of her.
She finally came out into a room that only seemed large because she had been stooped over for so long. In reality it wasn't much bigger than a closet. Various tools littered the space, and a couple of metal storage racks stood against one wall holding a multitude of objects Marle couldn't identify in the dim light. A drab mattress that looked very much like a discarded enertron bed lie forgotten on the floor and was covered in blankets. There was no sound aside from the now faint droning from the generator room. There were no other outlets, either.
Marle leaned back against the wall with a weary sigh. Vals had taken her for a ride all right, but she wasn't about to go back and give the AD a piece of her mind after the way she had been roasted over the events in the armory. This was just one more way that the enclave was punishing her for her behavior and poor judgment, she decided. What really hurt was that she knew she deserved it.
“Who's there?”
Marle was so startled by the sudden voice that she jumped back and then fell on her rear, her crossbow clattering to the floor. She thought the room was empty!
A shadow rose up from the old enertron bed, and the blankets were tossed aside to reveal the figure beneath them. A small person stood regarding Marle with mild consternation.
“What are you doing in my room?” the former shadow asked. “Can't you see I was trying to catch a nap? It's kinda late.”
Marle stared back at the individual in surprise. Not a small person. A child! A little girl!
“I'm sorry,” Marle stammered, clambering to her feet. “I didn't think anyone was actually back here.”
“What are you talking about?” the child asked. She looked to be maybe ten years old. “This has always been my space. Why would you be back here if you weren't looking for me? Everyone knows where I hide out.”
Marle shook her head. “Assistant Director Vals sent me. She said there was a Maker named Mary who might be able to take a job for me. But... I guess she lied.”
“Chieko didn't lie!” the little girl pouted. “I'm Mary! How could you not know who I...?” The red-haired child stepped closer. “Oh, wait! You're one of those three visitors who came here a few days ago, right? I should have known from your clothes. No one around here dresses like that.”
This was Mary?! A little girl was working as a Maker?
“Why are you here by yourself?” Marle asked with concern, momentarily forgetting why she was here. “Where are your parents?”
“Oh, they died. Muties got 'em.”
Marle shuddered. Not so much at the tragic revelation as the casual way the little girl had said it. Her parents must have been gone for a long time.
“You said you had a job for me?” Mary asked. “I just got done with one, but I guess I could take another. The adults don't really need me right now. They're all working on important stuff. Chieko said I'd just be in the way.”
Marle closed her eyes and again lamented the recent direction of her fortunes. How could she ask a little girl for help in the middle of the night? Would she really be forced to stoop so low? She had already been begging everyone else for help.
“I... don't want to be any trouble,” Marle said, deeply conflicted.
“It's no trouble!” Mary said with a touch of heat. “Just because I'm a kid doesn't mean I can't make stuff. And if you need something I can't make, I can find it! I'm always finding stuff for people.”
“I don't think you'll be able to find what I need,” Marle said reluctantly. “It's ammunition. For a weapon that isn't made anymore. That's what this is.”
Mary knelt down to examine Marle's crossbow with great interest.
“Oh, wow! Is that a crossbow? I've only seen one in pictures! That's super, super rare!”
Marle sniffed with amusement. “I suppose so.”
“You're right. I won't be finding stuff for this. It's gotta be custom made. That means the price is going up.”
Marle blinked. “Huh?”
Mary regarded her with a quizzical frown. “It's a one-of-a-kind weapon. The ammunition would be one-of-a-kind, too. I'd have to set up the foundry with a whole new pattern, and that's after I take all the measurements and find out what kind of scrap is best for the mould. Scrap is really expensive because it's so dangerous to get more. It's a really big job. And because it's a custom order and not an enclave assignment from Chieko, the price goes up even more. It's not every day I get a job like this one. It costs, and I don't work for free. How much of this ammunition do you want?”
An uneasy feeling was creeping into Marle's heart. “My quiver holds up to 35 bolts,” she said.
Mary's eyes widened. “That's a lot! Are you sure you can afford this? What do you have to trade for them? You're a visitor, so I know you can't have any credits.”
And now we get to it, Marle thought. The economy of the Bangor enclave was largely barter-based, though it did have a strange form of currency that existed solely in the computer systems that could be used to trade for certain goods and services. The problem for Marle was that non-citizens didn't have access to a credit balance, and she wouldn't know how to use it even if she had one. That left only barter, and that left Marle with some painful choices.
The bracelets, she decided. The golden bands that so well complimented her outfit were the most logical things for her to put up as trading stock. Gold had been a mainstay of value for pretty much all of recorded history, so Marle knew she could get a lot for them. More importantly, the bracelets didn't have so much sentimental value that she couldn't do without them. The fashion hit would hurt, no question, but Marle could endure it.
“How about this?” Marle asked, unclasping one of her bracelets and handing it to Mary.
The child looked at her as if she'd stated water was dry. “What about it? This isn't worth much.”
Marle froze. She couldn't have just heard that right.
“I couldn't even get 300 credits for this,” Mary said with a scowl. “Do you think I'm dumb or something?”
“It's gold!”
“Yeah, and gold is just melted down for circuits and stuff. We already got lots of that.”
This couldn't be happening, Marle thought. She didn't know the credit system well enough to know what 300 of them were truly worth, but it was apparently a pittance. Even if she put up every piece of gold she wore she wouldn't even get 1,500 for the set! This future was truly demented!
And that brought another question to mind.
“Uh... Mary? How much would you say this job is worth in credits?” Marle asked with trepidation.
The young Maker took a moment to think about it.
“Hm, depends on the scrap I use. But it wouldn't be less than 12,000.”
“Twelve-thousand?!”
Mary grimaced at Marle's outburst. “Why are you yelling at me? It's the job, I can't help it! I'd lose money if I asked for less than that.”
Marle found herself sliding down the wall, and her remaining jewelry tinkled as her bottom hit the floor. “How...? How could I possibly get that much?” she muttered faintly.
“Save money. It'll do ya good.”
“But... I don't know how to make any money!” Marle exclaimed with frustration. “I'm not even a citizen!”
“Well, what about that pendant you're wearing? I've never seen a jewel that big. Chieko could probably turn it into a really nice focusing lens for our energy guns That'd be worth something.”
Marle shook her head quickly. “Sorry. That's not for sale.” Sentimental value aside, there was no way of returning home without it.
Mary snorted derisively. “You're not very good at this. And I don't see you carrying much else. What's in the satchel?”
“Um...”
Marle fingered the small satchel around her belt that held Queen Leene's music box. Could she really pawn that off? That had been a gift from Leene herself. Her physical twin. The music box meant almost as much to her as her pendant did.
What would Leene do?
With the utmost reluctance, Marle gently lifted the small music box out of its satchel and wound the key. She placed the box on one of the racks next to Mary and let the lullaby play.
Mary put her ear to the box in wonder and stood completely still as the song played. She turned to Marle with an expression of childish delight when the music came to a close.
“Oh, wow! We don't have anything like this! It has to be really old!”
“You have no idea,” Marle remarked.
Mary regarded the old music box with intense thought, her eyes shifting between cold appraisal and the undisguised avarice of a child in a toy shop. “I don't think I can sell this, but... I really want it! I'll give you, uh... 7,000 credit for it. That's towards the job. That makes my fee only 5,000. How's that sound?”
Marle's face scrunched in anguish. Little more than half the price in exchange for something she truly cherished, and she had nothing else to bargain with. Adding her bracelets to the mix wouldn't be nearly enough to cover the balance.
“Hey, don't cry!” Mary said with concern. “That price is for 35 bolts. If you can't afford an extra 5,000 credits, why don't we reduce the order to 20 bolts instead and we can call it even? I don't want to lose this deal!”
The despair that nearly consumed Marle at that moment abruptly vanished, and she gazed at the ceiling feeling a bit foolish. Having her quiver fully stocked wasn't strictly necessary for what she needed to do, now that she really thought about it.
Still, giving away Leene's music box in exchange for having her weapon back would leave an open wound. But she had no other options. Marle reverently picked up the cherished gift from the shelf and then placed it into Mary's eager hands, her lips quivering with emotion.
“Okay, Mary,” Marle said in a husky tone. “You've got a deal.”
Mary bounded on the balls of her feet in evident excitement, looking every bit the ten-year-old she was. “Great! Let's go get started, then,” she said. “And don't worry about the music box. I promise I'll never sell it, and you can come by and listen to it any time you want!”
The bargain struck, Mary stowed the precious artifact among the numerous odds and ends on her storage racks and then led Marle back through the diminutive passage from her modest hideaway towards the much warmer sections of Common Area 3.
“I haven't seen any other children among the residents here,” Marle said, deciding to make some small talk with the girl she had just bargained with. “How many are there?”
“Oh, just me.”
Marle balked. “What? You mean you're all alone?”
“Yeah. But it's okay,” Mary said. “The other Makers all like me. They don't yell at me much. Just at each other. How old are you? You look younger than everyone else.”
“I'm sixteen. So are my friends Crono and Lucca.”
“Wow, that makes you guys younger than Junior Assistant Director Evans. She's twenty-two, I think. She's the next youngest person after me. It must be nice having friends your own age. Have you always been together?”
“Crono and Lucca have. They grew up in the same tow..., uh, place. I just sort of...” she tittered. “...stumbled into their path. And we've been more or less together ever since.”
“I haven't always lived in Bangor. I was born in Trann. My dad was a merchant that traveled between the enclaves. At least that's what everyone says. I'm too young to remember. 'Save money, it'll do ya good?' My dad used to say that. It was his motto. So saying it makes me feel closer to him, like he never died. What about your parents? Are they still alive?”
Marle halted her pace for a moment at the pull of painful memories. “My mom isn't,” she said softly. “She died when I was only six. My father, well...”
Mary turned to face her in the gloom of the small passage. “It's okay. You don't have to tell me. You must have a reason for coming all the way to Bangor.”
“Yeah.”
The conversation drifted off as Marle and Mary got closer to the generator room, where it was too hard to talk over the endless drone of whatever process the giant machine used to generate electrical power for the enclave. Marle closed her eyes against the brutal heat. The two then made their way through the fabrication section, where numerous Makers were currently putting together small parts and components for the enclave's many machines and other pieces of equipment. Marle thought she saw Chieko Vals over to one side and made sure she stayed well clear of her.
“I never told you my name,” Marle said. “It's Marle.”
“Limova is my last name,” Mary said. “But nobody calls me that. I think it's a grown-up thing, people calling each other by their last names. Do you have a last name?”
Marle colored. “Uh... Not really.”
“I guess that means you're not really a grown-up, then,” the young Maker teased. “That gives us something in common.”
More of Marle's titters followed the child Maker as she found herself back where she had started in this domain of the Maker-caste. The activity in the foundries hadn't lessened at all, and much of the equipment Marle could see was being used in furious purpose. The people all around were focused intently on their jobs and didn't pay Mary or Marle any mind.
It was amazing that a child could grow up and live in such an industrious environment, Marle thought. And Mary's confidence in her skills didn't feel at all forced or false, like she truly belonged here among the hard working adults and was happy for it. Yet Marle couldn't help but feel it was a tragic fate for a young girl so full of life.
“Is it hard being a Maker?” Marle asked.
“Sometimes,” Mary replied. “Mostly it's just a lot of running around looking for stuff. It's a lot more fun when I'm actually making things. Though it does get pretty hot in the foundries. And by the fabricators. And the generator, too. Actually, it's pretty hot all through here.”
“I noticed. Especially in the generator room. Is it always like this?”
“Yeah, everyone's always sweating. And we never have anything cool to drink, either. The water pipes all go behind our machines to help keep them from getting too hot, so the water coming out of the faucets is always warm. Sometimes people sneak off to the dormitories early to drink the cooler water there, but that makes Chieko really mad. Says it wastes too much time, and that the enertrons can cool people off during the juvee sessions, which everyone has to do anyway since there's no food.”
“But you weren't sleeping in an enertron back in your hideout,” Marle pointed out. “That's why I was so startled when you suddenly popped out of bed. I thought that everyone here slept in enertrons.”
“We do. But I don't really like the enertrons. I always feel a bit funny when I get out of one, like the machine's taken away a part of me I can never get back. That's why I only stay in them a short time and do the rest of my sleeping in my hideout. It doesn't get very hot back there. That's why I like it.”
Taking away a part of you, Marle thought. She couldn't remember feeling a similar sensation after her own sessions, though she didn't much care for the enertrons either. They were restful only in the moment, and never particularly energizing.
Mary and Marle strode up to one of the unoccupied foundry stations, and the young Maker opened a rust-colored door in a nearby cabinet to reveal a multitude of tools and protective gear inside. She drew out a measurement tape and motioned for Marle to place her crossbow on the table.
“Okay, lets see what kind of dimensions the crossbow can work with,” Mary said. “Then we'll talk about the kind of scrap we'll need to use to forge the new bolts.”
“Will they be harder than iron?” Marle wondered aloud.
Mary looked at her peculiarly. “Are you kidding?”
* * *
The cool water cascaded in rivers across Marle's skin, and her unbound hair lay satisfyingly plastered against her naked back. Being in Common Area 3 for the better part of the early morning was an experience marginally shy of being inside a volcano, and Mary had been generous in describing that section's faucets as merely “warm”. Becoming a Maker had never been high, or on, Marle's list of things she wanted to accomplish in the enclave, and after this morning she would add it to the list of things she actively wanted to avoid contemplating, though she had learned a few elementary aspects of how the Makers' equipment worked and how they tackled the art of repair and fabrication. But the toil and sweat had been worthwhile. Five shining crossbow bolts of forged steel now rested in her quiver, with the remaining fifteen bolts of her order expected to be completed before tonight.
It felt good to not be completely useless.
Mary had taken a break in order to have a scheduled three-hour enertron session, and Marle had taken the cue to refresh herself in a more pleasant fashion back in her own dormitory. The women's bathroom was happily empty of other souls, and Marle took advantage of the solitude by standing under the streaming water of the shower for a length of time that any other resident of the enclave would have considered indulgent in the extreme, despite the abundance of clean water and its continual recycling. Amelia Evans had given her several bothersome lectures on water conservation, another source of friction between Marle and the JAD.
Marle spent an additional five minutes letting the forceful spray engulf her face and contentedly slicking her golden hair back with her hands before grabbing her towels – tan, of course, like every other garment in the enclave – and exiting the shower stall with her body and hair fully wrapped in them. She regarded herself in the mirror and braved a smile. The face of Queen Leene was staring back at her. She had done good today. Perhaps, for the first time, she had demonstrated a level of generosity in keeping with her ancient ancestor. Mary Limova would be a good keeper for Leene's music box, cherishing it no less than Marle had for the short time it was in her possession. It would always be on her shelf, waiting to be played, every night or free moment to lull young Mary into contentment after a hard day of work.
Very hard.
The heat. The scrounging. The horse-trading. The endless sweat and toil. The eternal hunger, and a rest that took as much as it gave. Every day the same, and only a music box to numb the pain that Mary had to feel every moment of every hour deep inside. No father. No mother. No friends, and no sunshine to share with them. Only work. That was Mary Limova's future.
The tears came before Marle could stop them, and knowing she was alone in the bathroom persuaded her to just let go of her always fragile emotional balance and embrace the chaos.
“Mary...” she sobbed. “You deserve so much better than this.”
Marle fumbled for the faucet handles below the mirror and splashed water on her now burning face to relieve the sting.
Or tried to.
Ice cubes fell out of her hands instead.
Marle regarded the fragments of ice in the sink's basin with stunned bewilderment. What had just happened? Even the water in this part of the enclave wasn't that cold. In fact, ice was one of the rarest things to be seen in the enclave proper. Only the granary on the enclave's lowest level was kept cold enough to keep water frozen, and entry was highly restricted since that was where all of the enclave's food was kept, as well as the seed archive that was key to one day restoring the world's agriculture.
Turning the faucet on again revealed nothing but normal running water. Cool, but far from frozen.
Of course, frozen water would never have come out of the faucet to begin with, Marle thought. Nothing would have come out of it at all.
It wasn't the faucet, it was her!
Marle thought back to her desperate stand in the ruins of old Bangor; her, Crono, and Lucca holding back a wave of glasser mutants from behind a warped and failing door. That should have been the end of their adventures through time, as well as their lives, but it wasn't. For reasons that continued to elude her, Marle had channeled powerful elemental magic at the moment of catastrophe, encasing all of their attackers in frozen death before passing out. She didn't even think about it, as much as her addled memory could recall. Never called upon her usual concentration that channeled her restorative and energy-draining abilities. She just did it. No explanation at all.
But that wasn't wholly true. Indeed, she hadn't been thinking, but she was doing something else. Feeling. Feeling they were about to die. Feeling that everyone's deaths would be her fault. Feeling that she had lived almost her entire short and tragic life without any friends.
She had been in despair. Total and complete despair. Her spirit had broken.
And then her spirit had risen back with astonishing vengeance.
“How about you think all that stuff and then throw your hands around or something?” That was what Lucca had told her, facing the glassers above Krawlie's lair, but Marle had been utterly spent at that moment. Truly on her last legs and ounce of strength. Nothing had happened at all.
But something was happening now. She felt. She grieved. She lamented.
And she now had strength.
Marle turned on the faucet a third time, let the water spill into her waiting hands, and then instead of merely concentrating, she felt. Remembered how she felt when her mother died, when her father turned cold, when Crono had been sentenced to die, when everyone had been stranded in the future because of her. And she remembered Mary. All the misery and anguish she had ever felt was in the forefront of her memory as Marle looked at the cupped water in her hands.
It solidified into a wintry block.
Marle had just become a Maker.
It was official. Nothing Marle did surprised her anymore.
That was what Lucca would write in the dwindling pages of her diary sometime tonight, and in bold lettering despite the limited space. After six days of making a general nuisance of herself in the Bangor enclave, and with Lucca in particular, the former Princess of Guardia had publicly – and loudly - declared her intention to join the enclave as a full citizen.
And as a member of the Protector-caste, no less.
“What? You think I'd do better as as an Operator or a Maker?” Marle asked her.
“I'm not even going to honor that with a response,” Lucca replied, trying not to sound snide.
“Thought you'd agree. So what are you worried about? This can only help us, you know?”
Lucca, Marle, and Crono were walking side-by-side down one of the main corridors of the Bangor underground towards the enclave's central armory, where dozens of beige-clad Protector-caste citizens were assembling for the unexpected ceremony that had been announced two hours ago. More than a few enclave residents were giving Marle a dubious look as they made their way past.
“I know I said there wasn't any rush in going back to Krawlie's lair,” Lucca said. “That doesn't mean I intend to make this my permanent residence. Just long enough to figure out how to get us home without messing things up.”
“Marle, I'm not sure you understand what a big step this is,” Crono said. “Full citizens are expected to carry their weight and give their all for the survival of the enclave. I've been awake long enough to tell you that much. An oath of citizenship isn't something you can easily walk away from.”
“These people need our help,” Marle said more seriously. “And if we can't tell them everything about us, we need to make up for it in other ways. Using our best talents to help them survive. For me, you know what that means.” She hefted her crossbow for emphasis.
“You do know that plasma rifles are an entirely different animal from that thing?” Lucca pointed out. “Using one might not be as easy as you think.”
“What's hard about pointing and shooting? I've been doing that my whole life! Ranged weapons might change over time, but the discipline of marksmanship doesn't. No problem.”
“I used to think the same thing about swordsmanship,” Crono cautioned. “It's not that simple. There have been many different sword types developed over the years, and each of them require their own technique to wield effectively. And even if you only specialize in one, you have to adjust your technique to deal with whatever weapon your opponent is wielding, too. Switching to an unfamiliar weapon always presents dangers, even if you've mastered another.”
“Oh, come on, Crono! It's not like people are going to be shooting at me during the trial. Nothing the Protectors shoot at ever shoots back, so it's just a question of hitting things before they get close enough to hurt you. I can't imagine this trial of theirs could be more involved than dealing with GATO at the Millennial Fair.” Marle shrugged confidently. “It'll be easy.”
Lucca scowled. In three years, no crossbow wielder had ever gotten a perfect score challenging GATO, and Marle had done it from the top of the stands. Shameless show-off. “The first thing I'll do when I get home is make a new program card for GATO that'll take your ego down a peg,” Lucca said. “Don't think that I can't.”
“I look forward to it,” Marle said with a playful wink.
The three time-travelers came to a large storeroom that the enclave residents had long ago converted into an armory and shooting range, and the two men standing guard – each holding well cared for plasma rifles across their chests - let them pass. Nearly a hundred Protectors and curious citizens from other castes were already present, sitting on makeshift chairs or leaning against the walls as space permitted. None of the people Lucca recognized as Protectors, she noticed, looked all that pleased to be here.
Like they have anything better to do, Lucca mused. The Protectors were by far the smallest of the three castes, and most of them often found themselves with a surplus of free time despite their numbers. Partly that was because of the limited number of weapons available. Not a one of Bangor's rifles or pistols was less than 300 years old, and their sophisticated components were notoriously hard to duplicate with the materials the enclave had, resulting in a stockpile that was frequently traded out to avoid unwelcome maintenance issues from piling up. But the food supply was also an issue. There were only so many rats to be hunted at any one time before their numbers were exhausted, and sending people out with little prospect of getting a kill only put them at risk of being ambushed by glassers (or “mutants”, as the enclave residents called them) out of the shadows. There simply wasn't a need for that many Protectors. Likely, the enclave's defenders were only lamenting the fact that one of the most annoying people to ever visit their domain was about to join their ranks. Marle's reputation for bugging people and asking them for help operating pretty much anything electronic didn't make her very popular, and her frequent locking of horns with Amelia Evans over reg violations was a subject of continual gossip among the residents.
A burly looking man with dark skin and a scraggly beard of peppered silver then stepped into view and rapped on a nearby metal shelf with a much abused pan to get everyone's attention. Burly was perhaps too strong a word, as everyone who sustained themselves via enertron developed a uniformly gaunt appearance, as if perpetually on the brink of starvation, but the man's eyes were uncommonly focused and his posture was ramrod straight. Lucca recognized him as Assistant Director Stephan Morris, leader of the Bangor underground's Protector-caste, and the enclave's overall fourth in command.
“I'll get straight to it, people,” the gruff Assistant Director said without preamble. “A new soul wishes to join the ranks of our community today. A soul of the forgotten wastes whose aimless wandering brought her to be among us through providence.”
A few snickers echoed through the crowd at that last word, but they were quickly silenced by a glare from Morris. Lucca knew he was just reciting the age-old proclamation for the sake of appearances. Any outsider who sought to join the enclave as a full citizen was a “soul of the forgotten wastes”, and someone to be cherished as if delivered through providence. Lucca wondered if there had ever been a time when these words were uttered with a similar lack of sincerity.
“Given a choice between the three great castes of our community, this young woman desires the role of Protector.” He then turned to where Marle was standing. “Is this what your heart desires?”
“It is,” Marle said clearly enough for all to hear.
Assistant Director Morris nodded solemnly, and his gaze took on a harder edge. “Is it, truly? The life of a Protector is one without ease. One which you may be called upon to freely give in the defense of our community. To be sent into danger at a moment's notice without question. To fulfill your duty and the orders of your superiors at all costs.” Morris said all of this with growing volume and stepped closer to Marle with each statement. His formality had been completely dropped now, and the Assistant Director looked almost angry. “This is not a game, young lady! I have watched people die! Friends! A single careless moment or delayed action can get you ripped apart! The freaks of nature that infest our once great city do not think! They do not feel! They are completely and utterly without mercy! And they never stop. There are always more. The ruins ever belong to them and the rats on which they feed. So I ask you again: Is this... what your heart... desires?”
It was to Marle's eternal credit that she didn't blanch at the verbal drubbing she was being subjected to. Lucca couldn't honestly say if she could have done the same, especially knowing too well the truth of the AD's words. But maybe it was because Marle had developed a sort of immunity to such things. Being the daughter of King Malcolm probably helped a lot, as by all accounts the reigning monarch of Guardia from 1300 years ago was no less hard or demanding than the man she was facing now.
“I've dealt with those 'freaks of nature' before,” Marle told her interrogator evenly, their faces almost touching. “They were rather... frozen by what I could do to them. I only need a new weapon to continue the fight. Give me one, and I'll show you what I can do.”
A wicked grin spread across Assistant Director Morris' features. “So let the trial begin. But first, prove to us that you have the vigor and vitality of a Protector. Only then will we allow you to wield the arms of Bangor.
“DROP AND GIVE ME FIFTY!”
* * *
Marle found herself suddenly paralyzed by the barked command. A command louder than any her own father had given her in her former life. Drop and give him what?
“Push-ups!” Crono and Lucca said in unison.
Are you serious? Marle thought with dismay. What did this have to do with marksmanship? All she needed was a weapon, for Creation's sake!
Still, her body responded almost immediately once she finally understood what was asked of her, and she fell to the floor and began unsteadily pushing her body upward from a face down position. Over and over and... over. Her face colored noticeably, but more from embarrassment than from the exertion. Her ponytail fell backwards across her face as she moved, and the golden bracelets around her arms shifted and slipped down to her wrists where they inevitably got in the way of her repetitive task. The Star of Guardia around Marle's neck clanked on the concrete floor every time she let gravity take hold. If she knew she would have to do something like this, she'd have left her jewelry with Crono and Lucca. What a disgrace!
“ON YOUR FEET, PROTECTOR!”
Marle gasped. “But I'm not...” She was sure she had only counted to thirty.
“I SAID ON YOUR FEET! THE ENEMY'S COMING!”
“Wha...?”
Marle nearly missed catching the well-polished rifle Assistant Director Morris abruptly tossed to her. She fumbled with the unfamiliar firearm. It was the first time she had so much as touched a plasma rifle, and it was a lot heavier than she thought. Or maybe it was just because her arms were so tired. Laughter began to ensue from a few of the spectators.
“THERE! THE TARGET! FIRE!”
A crudely painted target depicting the image of a red-skinned glasser mutant suddenly appeared in Marle's peripheral vision, and she turned to face the far wall where it had popped up. The distance was about seventy-five feet, a shot that Marle could bullseye half asleep any day of the week with her crossbow, and she pulled the trigger after an uncomfortable moment steadying the barrel. She had never fired a rifle before. There was nowhere in Guardia Castle she could have practiced with something so loud without the Royal Guard immediately taking notice and alerting her father to her activities. Malcolm would have certainly locked her up for months if she'd tried. Still, it was just point and shoot. Nothing could be more simple.
Nothing happened.
“TAKE THE SAFETY OFF, GRUNT!” Morris crowed. “IT'S GONNA GETCHA!”
“Safety?! Huh?!”
More laughter echoed through the armory, and Marle found herself beginning to panic. Why wouldn't the stupid thing fire? It wasn't like those crazy computers with hundreds of buttons that you needed to know calculus to decipher. In fact, the weapon had four buttons along with the trigger, she finally noticed, and something that looked like a dial on the left side of the forestock. That was five controls too many for something with such a simple function. What kind of sadist would design something like...
“THREE...!”
“TWO...!”
“ONE...!”
Marle hit the weapon's controls at random and spun the forestock dial before lining up again for the shot. That had to do something. She pulled the trigger just after her loudmouth examiner reached the count of one.
“No, wait!”
Lucca's shouted warning just had time to register in Marle's mind, but a split second too late to stop her shaking trigger finger. The next thing she knew, she was flying backwards into the spectators behind her, a deafening shriek having erupted through the barrel in the general direction of the target, and the sound of flying debris hitting stone and steel was dimly heard through Marle's ringing ears. So were screams.
A moment later, a dazed Marle was helped to her feet by Crono while Lucca was examining the infernal weapon still clutched firmly in Marle's hand. A sizable chunk of stone had been blown out of the far wall about two feet above the target. She had missed.
Missed!
“'Protector', you are more dangerous to your allies than the enemy!” Morris barked. His earlier gleeful heckling had been replaced with genuine anger.
“Maximum setting,” Lucca remarked quietly in Marle's ear. “This could have blown up a Dragon Tank with one shot. What were you thinking just punching things at random?”
I was thinking that a weapon should be easy to use so I can actually concentrate on what I'm shooting at, Marle thought with growing fury. What a humiliation! She couldn't remember the last time she had missed a target that badly, or at all. It was a wonder someone wasn't seriously hurt just now.
“Set it... up for me, then,” Marle told Lucca through gritted teeth, her temper hanging on by the thinnest of threads. “This isn't over.”
Lucca took all of three seconds manipulating the weapon's controls and then slapped Marle on the shoulder. “Single-action, minimal power, trigger free,” she said. “Go knock 'em dead. And try not to take that literally, okay?”
Marle snorted and stormed up to Assistant Director Morris, holding her weapon as confidently as she could project under the circumstances.
“All right, playtime's over!” she said loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the armory. “Set up ten targets at the farthest distance you can, then set up ten more targets after I burn through the first set. If I don't bullseye five consecutive sets without a miss, I'll withdraw my request to join the Protectors and you'll never hear from me again. How's that sound?”
Assistant Director Morris seemed suitably taken aback by Marle's audacious boast, though it almost seemed to her that he was trying hard not to burst into laughter.
We'll see who's laughing after I'm done, she promised the arrogant man silently.
As it turned out, the weapon only had enough energy for four more shots, but one shot was all that was needed to end Marle's trial.
* * *
“We all have bad days, Marle,” Crono said soothingly. “And it wasn't a fair test. They deliberately wore you out before handing you a weapon you'd never used before. There's no winning a contest like that. Don't let it get you down, okay?”
The three time-travelers were back in their designated room in the rear area of Dormitory 7, Marle lying face-down on her enertron bed and wanting beyond anything to just curl up into a ball and disappear. It was the fate that suited her best after what happened today. How could she dare show her face in the enclave proper ever again?
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Marle muttered miserably into the bed's padding. She appreciated Crono's concern, but nothing he could say could make things better at this point. He had warned her about the dangers of expecting good results with a weapon she'd never trained with, and she'd brushed aside his warning like she was Creation's gift to all marksmen. That last certainly wasn't true anymore. Five shots total she had fired from the enclave's plasma rifle, and all of them had missed their targets completely. All! That had never happened to her before, not even when she had been a complete novice playing casually in the Guardia Castle armory as a little girl. It was a performance that defied belief. She had been too good for too long to just choke like that, unfamiliar weapon or not.
“Well, as a constructive critique, I think the shot speed was throwing you off,” Lucca said with sympathy. “You were trying to adjust for ballistic drift with a weapon that doesn't really have any. Pointing directly at the target would have served you better in this case, but no one can blame you for not being accustomed to that. It would probably take months of practice for you to change those old habits. I know it would for me.”
Lucca's words barely registered. What mattered was that Marle had failed, and she would have to rethink all of her plans going forward. Where would she even start? It was hard to think when all she could dwell on was her own humiliation.
Marle sighed. “Can I go to bed now?”
“Already? It's still six hours until your scheduled session,” Lucca reminded her.
“Ask me if I care.”
“Well, I can talk to Amelia, try and switch out my hours for yours. I've got plenty of things to do on the computer, so I don't mind. But you know what a stickler she is for the rules. Two days in advance for all exchanges.”
“That's ridiculous!” Crono protested. “Marle needs the enertron now. And I don't see anyone else waiting to use it. Just start the session anyway, and we'll make the exchange ourselves without telling Amelia. No big deal.”
Lucca shook her head. “Won't work. All enertron activity is logged in the computer network. And you can't fool the machine into thinking one person is actually someone else. Everyone's DNA is distinctive. It can't be faked. Not once it's been already registered.”
Crono blinked, uncomprehending. “DNA?”
“Sorry. Call it a genetic imprint. The bottom line is that Amelia will know it was Marle using the enertron instead of me, and she'll make a stink about it. And Marle has broken so many regulations already that she could get in real trouble this time. I don't think we should risk that after what happened in the arm... well, you know.”
“Oh, forget it!” Marle said despairingly. “I'll just sleep on the floor. It's no less than I deserve.” Of course, Marle was certain she wouldn't be able to sleep at all without the enertron, given how she was feeling, but...
“Hey, I won't have you talking like that!” Crono said sternly. “What happened wasn't your fault. And who cares what Amelia thinks? All she cares about is her job.”
“Yeah, ain't that the tru...”
Lucca then started laughing all of a sudden, interrupting herself, and Marle lifted her head from the enertron bed wondering what had gotten into her.
“Yeah! That's it exactly!” Lucca said jubilantly. “I was looking at it from completely the wrong angle! We can fool Amelia easy.”
“How?” Crono asked. “You just said that DNA thing couldn't be faked.”
“It can't. But that has nothing to do with the actual schedule. Amelia writes that up on her own system. It's completely separate from the enertron itself.”
“You're saying Amelia's schedule can be faked? Changed to say something else?”
“That would never work,” Marle said. “Amelia knows exactly when my next session is supposed to be. She was lecturing me about it earlier today.”
Lucca's eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “Amelia's a bureaucrat. It doesn't matter what she knows, it only matters what's in her records. If the record conflicts with her own memory, she'll just assume she misremembered things and move on without a second thought. That girl has about as much imagination as a Heinchraw.”
“And you think you can change Amelia's records without her finding out?” Crono asked dubiously.
“Are you kidding? I probably know these systems now better than she does. There's a difference between knowing how to use something, and knowing how it actually works. Don't underestimate Lucca the Great!”
Marle felt a smile creep across her face for the first time since failing her Protectors trial. Just picturing Amelia's consternation the next time she looked at her records almost made this whole situation worth it.
“So how long do you want to sleep for?” Lucca asked her. “Just tell me and I'll make it happen. Within reason, of course.”
“Long enough to forget about things,” Marle said. “I don't think a regular session's going to cut it.”
“Six hours it is, then. Sweet dreams and bon appétit... you glutton.”
A moment later, the hatch of the enertron sealed itself against the machine, and Marle drifted off into a blessedly dreamless slumber.
* * *
The definition of a good teacher, Lucca decided, was someone you were always delighted to see when you were unexpectedly called into their office.
Lucca could count the number of people who had tried to teach her effectively on two hands. The number of people who actually did she could count on as many fingers: her mom, who had taught her how to read a couple of years before her tragic accident, and her dad, who had taught her everything else - once she had dedicated herself to the path of science. Lucca never expected to add a third finger to the list. Her parents had done enough to open the door of knowledge and coax her through it, and Lucca thereafter had been able to learn anything else worth knowing on her own. Such was the expectation, and the reality, until Lucca met the director of the human enclave of Bangor. The best teachers were the ones who knew things you didn't know that you didn't know and were freely willing to share them, and Frank Doan met that description better than even her dad could ever have hoped to. Doan's knowledge of science and technology was, if Lucca could pare it down to a single word, sublime. Such that if Lucca dared to share her knowledge of time-travel with him, Doan would not just absorb and understand the concepts involved almost immediately, he would also improve on what Lucca had already figured out and start teaching her the subject she had only recently pioneered herself.
His was a spirit akin to her famous grandfather, Alistair Ashtear, a man that Lucca had barely gotten to know as a child, and who would never live to see just how prodigious his granddaughter would become. Like Director Doan, Alistair knew things nobody knew that they didn't know, and he had used his stupendous intellectual gifts to change the world forever. Meeting Frank was almost like going back in time to meet Grandpa Alistair.
In another era, Lucca thought, Director Doan would almost certainly be another such world-changing individual, but the whims of history had relegated him to a post of heartbreaking obscurity instead. Still, his gifts were not going completely to waste, and Lucca was determined to learn everything she could from him while their historical paths intersected.
Now, Lucca was admiring the threadbare efficiency of Doan's office, a far cry from her own “office” back home, which could only charitably be called a bedroom, such was its clutter. It was all too easy to get disorganized when your mind was running at a million miles an hour trying to make new scientific discoveries and putting them into action, but Doan somehow utilized his own gifts cleanly and left nothing that could be trampled on or lost. A few viewscreens depicting various real-time images of certain areas of the enclave ringed the walls, and there were very few other accouterments of note. The owner of the space leaned pleasantly towards Lucca across a modest dust-free desk upon which rested a single integrated computer terminal that sat off to one side.
“Thank you for coming so promptly, Miss Lucca,” Director Doan began in his typically polite fashion. “For a moment, I was afraid that I had caught you rejuvenating in the enertron, as I'd momentarily forgotten when you were scheduled to rest today. But there seems to have been a... change in the scheduling. I do hope Miss Marle is resting comfortably in your stead?”
Lucca froze. Was it possible that he knew already? She thought she had covered her tracks well enough, but then, that was just to hoodwink a certain junior assistant director who took her job too seriously, not the full-blown Director himself. Was he really keeping tabs on her that closely?
“She had a pretty rough day,” Lucca allowed.
“So I noticed. I was rather displeased by how Assistant Director Morris handled that whole situation in the armory. Whatever else Miss Marle may be, she is still a guest of the enclave, and her desire to join the Protectors was genuine enough to warrant proper training. I fear we have treated her poorly. Please extend my personal apologies to her, as well as my pledge that she will be permitted to re-take the Protector's trial if she chooses to.”
Lucca released the breath she didn't know she was holding and smiled at Doan's generosity. She really shouldn't have expected any less after his patient tutelage of her on the finer points of computer science over the past week.
“Thanks. I'll do that,” Lucca said gratefully, then found herself reddening at the whole affair. “Sorry about this. I don't mean to cause you any trouble, Frank.”
Doan's eyes glinted with amusement. “If you are referring to your rather clever subterfuge in Junior Assistant Director Evans' scheduling system, please don't apologize. I have contemplated that I may have promoted Miss Evans too quickly. There is more to a supervisory role than mere efficiency. One must be aware of the people around them and cater to their needs with empathy. It is a lesson she must take to heart if she expects people to respect her leadership.”
Lucca quirked her mouth. “I hope you're not offering me her job, because I don't want it.”
“Oh, no,” the Director chuckled. “That would be quite the waste of your talents. In fact, it is principally the matter of your talent that led to my summoning you just now. You have demonstrated sufficient knowledge of our systems and technology now to undertake a task I had hoped you would be able to manage from almost the first moment we met.”
Frank Doan's expression then turned very serious.
“The enclave has a problem, Lucca. One that could be qualified as an existential threat, both to Bangor and to the entirety of the human race.”
Lucca stared at him for a long moment, and her heart tingled with sudden dread. There was a certain... terror behind Doan's carefully crafted demeanor. It was almost too subtle to notice, but a good student always perceived things in their teachers that no one else would catch. Anything which terrified Frank Doan was a matter to be taken with the utmost seriousness.
“What's the problem?” she asked.
“The enertrons.”
Lucca sat back in her chair and felt her blood turn cold.
“As you know, our equipment is quite old,” Doan continued. “Most of it dates from before the Day of Fire, and our most recently built enertron has been confirmed to have been made almost forty years before that. Serving as a nearly total substitute for food was something these machines were never intended to do. Not on this scale, and not for so very long.”
“You think they're failing!”
Doan's face was even. “Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are merely showing their age. Or, perhaps...”
“...They already have?” Lucca finished breathlessly.
“There is sufficient evidence to say it could be so. I am old enough to have seen many generations of enertron users go about their lives. The process has been gradual enough to have been missed by most, but it is evident that every successive generation of enclave citizens have been less vigorous, less healthy, than the one that came before. And then there was the arrival of yourself, Mister Crono, and Miss Marle, who, it must be said, are demonstrably healthier than any man or woman has been in decades. And it is also evident, at least to me, that the three of you are quite new to enertron sustenance. This begs the question of where you could possibly be from that would enable you to survive so, but that is a matter for another time. What matters at this moment is that everything I have related to you suggests a serious issue with enertron sustenance. This must be investigated.”
Lucca took a lengthy interval to collect her wits and recall everything she had seen and witnessed in the few days she had been a guest of the Bangor enclave. There was much truth in what Director Doan was saying. She didn't have the benefit of experience or decades-worth of observations, but she had enough to make the same general hypothesis, now that Frank had alerted her to the problem. The enertrons were failing. Or worse.
Perhaps more seriously, Doan's analysis of Lucca, Crono, and Marle was leading him frightfully close to their origins as time-travelers. She was getting the distinct impression that Doan was being cagey and already knew, or suspected, more than he was saying on that particular question. That would make matters immeasurably more complicated if the enertron machines were, in fact, failing. No book Lucca had ever read provided any insight into how to solve the ethical dilemma that was rapidly developing around her. Without the enertrons, most of the enclave's population would be dead inside of a week. The food stores were simply too minuscule for the enclave to survive longer than that with 1,500 mouths to feed.
“What about the seeds?” Lucca asked desperately. “You told me the granary was fully stocked with almost every type of crop. Is it possible...?”
“It wouldn't be enough,” Doan said. “And that underscores humanity's most fundamental problem of the age: where to plant the seeds. The underground isn't large enough to sustain a crop that can feed everyone, even if we could get it to grow under such conditions. The operation would have to be moved to the surface, and that has long been an indefensible position against mutant attacks, to say nothing of the continual drought and the poor soil quality outside the dome. No enclave's attempt to create an agriculture program has ever succeeded. Not in three-hundred years. Our seed archive exists as a symbol of hope more than a practical solution to our problems, I am sad to say.”
Lucca sighed. The answer was about what she expected, but a drowning woman grasped for whatever she could find.
“What do you need me to do, then, Frank? I'd be happy to examine the enertrons, but I'm honestly not sure how much help I'd be. You know that technology a lot better than I do.”
“Perhaps. And I would be less than honest if I claimed that I didn't already have a suspicion of the scope and particulars of the problem. However, my position makes me and my Operators susceptible to a certain... bias. We all tend to approach a problem in the same way, you see, and my junior associates are loath to not follow the methods and lead of their superiors, even if it leads them to a false conclusion. A second opinion is needed, and for that second opinion to have value it must come from outside the enclave. For that reason I cannot share my full suspicions with you at this time, but invite you to deduce the truth of things yourself and then share them with me as you are able. It is not impossible you may come to a different conclusion than I, and we will then have to consider the merits of each. Solving the problem requires that we first correctly identify it.”
“Right,” Lucca nodded curtly. “You can count on me.”
“I know I can,” Doan said warmly. “You are an exceptional student, perhaps the best I have ever taught, yet you retain the flexibility of an independent mind. The enclave dearly needs that right now. But do not feel pressured to complete my request with undue haste. It is more important to be thorough than to be quick on this matter. I wish you luck with your investigation, Miss Lucca.”
Let's hope I don't need it, Lucca thought as she quickly strode out of Director Doan's office and began grappling with the problem in her head. She suspected the remaining pages of her diary would be filled very quickly.
* * *
The hatch of Marle's enertron was already open by the time she reluctantly returned to the realm of the conscious. She felt the bones in her spine crackle as she stretched her lithe form atop the gray upright-angled bed of the machine, but the sensation of early morning vigor and renewal gave no satisfaction. It took only a moment's reflection for Marle to remember why she was in the enertron again so soon after her previous marathon session, and she turned on her face and grabbed the less than comfortable padding in the manner of a teenager who was profoundly unhappy at the state of her life. Which meant hard. She wanted nothing better than to go back to bed again and let the hands of time tick by without her. But it had been six hours, and Marle doubted she would be able to fall asleep again on her own without something like the enertron to wash her worries away into a temporary oblivion.
Maybe it was time to wash them away in a more literal sense, Marle thought. She certainly needed a shower after her worthless exertions from yesterday. Push-ups! And for what? Just so she could make a fool of herself wielding a weapon she had no business touching? Marle pounded the enertron bed with her fist and turned around with a huff. A very cold shower was what she needed to distract herself from that disgraceful memory.
She then started as she finally noticed her empty crossbow bolt quiver hanging by its strap over the small computer screen that controlled the enertron. She didn't remember having put it there before she went to bed. Marle always kept her things together in the far corner of the room, well away from both enertrons so no one would trip over anything. Why was it here? Everything else was where it normally was, she saw.
Marle turned to the enertron opposite hers and saw the blue light of active use shining through the small window of the closed hatch. She shuffled over to the other machine and stood on her tiptoes to see Crono sleeping face-up inside. According to the computer screen of his capsule, Crono's rejuvenation session had started less than fifteen minutes ago. Had he put the quiver on Marle's machine just now? She wasn't sure how many minutes had passed between the end of her own session and the moment she had actually woken up, so maybe he had left it there, but why would he? The quiver wasn't really good for anything. Just a reminder that she had a useless weapon, as if she needed reminding.
A reminder...
Are you trying to tell me something, Crono?
Crono Lantree was a bonafide expert on the art of fighting, Marle knew. In the short time she had known him, Crono had demonstrated that he was not only strong and fast, but that he was always thinking. Always seeing the next move and being able to execute it flawlessly, taking advantage of his opponent's weakness and enhancing his own strengths for maximum benefit. He had used that talent to defeat Krawlie, and the mammoth Guardian machine. And he had correctly predicted the risks of Marle using a weapon she clearly wasn't proficient with, however similar it was as a ranged weapon. If she had used her own crossbow in the Protectors trial instead of the rifle, the results would surely have been very different, even with those pointless push-ups, but she couldn't use her crossbow because she didn't have any...
Marle started tittering in spite of herself. Her problem was a simple one, and Crono had pointed it out with an equally simple gesture from beyond the veil of his slumber. Stick with what you know, he was saying. She didn't need to train with a new weapon, she needed to rearm the one she already had.
It was something she hadn't even considered since her crossbow was so archaic by the standards of this era. Who needed a crossbow when there were rifles that could blow glassers in half with a single shot? Crossbow bolts weren't something that would be kept in a modern armory anyway. Those had been uncommon enough in her own time, with firearms supplanting everything and older weapons being relegated to the passions of hobbyists and extremely bored princesses. Where could she possibly find crossbow ammunition in a world that had absolutely no reason to have it?
She wouldn't, of course.
That meant it had to be made. The Makers!
Marle abandoned all thoughts of her cold shower and collected her belongings and rushed out of the room. She wasn't sure what asking for help from the Makers would entail, but it was the one shot she had at redeeming herself and she wasn't going to miss this one.
She came into the lobby of Dormitory 7 at a trot and abruptly slowed, realizing it was the middle of the night. More studious residents preferred this time to peruse the library computers along the walls due to the lack of other distractions, and Marle didn't want to disturb them unnecessarily. Only a few people were present.
Lucca was one of them.
Marle very nearly called out to her, since it was now time for Lucca to get in the enertron herself after having surreptitiously exchanged her sleep time for Marle's. But one look at Lucca's expression gave her pause. It wasn't unusual for Lucca to be absorbed in her work. Marle had seen her in that same chair, using that same computer, hour after repeated hour over the near week they had been in the enclave, when she wasn't off somewhere being tutored by Director Doan on the use of all of this crazy tech. But she seemed different this time. Felt different. Her magnified blue-eyed gaze bore into the computer screen as if a mortal enemy were staring back at her. Lucca barely even blinked. Only her hands moved as she manipulated the displayed “windows” to show her more information or close out information she no longer needed to see. Almost all of it appeared to be diagrams and formulas of some kind. Lucca muttered something Marle couldn't quite make out, then changed windows again to grumble at another set of diagrams and formulas. One of the pictures resembled an enertron machine. Lucca then reached for her diary and made some quick notations before resuming her computer work.
I've never seen her this focused. What is she working on?
Regardless, Marle decided that bothering her for any reason was probably a bad idea right now. Lucca already had a surplus of irritability where Marle was concerned due to her repeated demands for help with the computers during their first days here, and their differing views on addressing their time-traveling origins had done nothing to deflate the tension. Marle didn't want to test the temper that Lucca gamely kept a lid on most of the time over something as trivial as a bedtime reminder. Not when she was this preoccupied.
Hunger would remind her soon enough, Marle reflected. A bit of hunger was a fact of life for those who lived off of enertron machines, and that hunger began to hurt after so many hours away from the capsule. Marle quietly crept her way around the library and left Lucca to her work, leaving Dormitory 7 behind to focus on her own problem.
Marle attracted a fair number of glances as she wandered around the too-same passageways of dispiriting grey that seemed ubiquitous to this future era, embellished only by badly fading directional markers and those glowing rods of cool light that made everything feel unnatural and lifeless. When she'd first arrived at the enclave, those glances were entirely due to her extravagant clothing, jewelry, and comparatively healthy complexion, but there was little doubt now that those glances were either passively hostile or outright deriding. Yes, she had been demanding during her early days here, Marle had to admit, but that was hard to help when even the most elementary tasks required an understanding of technology she simply didn't have. She had become a beggar because she had no choice. Add to that the humiliation of yesterday's trial, and there probably wasn't a single person in the enclave who wouldn't look at her askance. Marle marched on, refusing to meet anyone's eyes until she found what she was looking for.
She made her way slowly to the opposite side of the enclave, not far from the seldom used entrance that Marle had passed through when she first came here. The entrance led directly into the sewers, being about three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flew, from the location of Krawlie's lair. It was widely considered too dangerous of a route for scouting parties to begin their sorties out of the enclave, and this was reflected by a couple of heavily-armed Protectors always being posted by the door to keep watch on things. Marle avoided the guards' notice and turned the corner to a stairway leading down. This was the lowest populated level of the enclave, the only one lower being where the granary and the classified computer database were housed. A short distance from the bottom of the stairs was the entryway to Common Area 3, the exclusive domain of the Maker-caste.
Marle looked around the expansive space and found her natural inclination towards excitement when she was visiting someplace new surge to the forefront of her bearing. Common Area 3 was nothing less than a full-blown factory. Industrial equipment of every size and shape dominated the space, and there was a good bit of activity even at this time of night. The enclave never had a shortage of things that needed to be repaired or modified. Stuff was breaking down all the time, and it was principally the Makers job to make sure the inevitable mechanical and electrical misfortunes of the enclave remained at a manageable level. They also manufactured the tools that the Operator-caste used to maintain the more advanced technology that only they knew how to handle, and the Protectors were entirely reliant on the Makers when they had a problem with their – Marle now realized were hard to use - weapons. The Makers were arguably the most important of the enclave's castes, as the entire underground society of Bangor would grind to an unceremonious, and deadly, halt without them.
It's so much bigger than the dormitories, Marle observed. Not to mention warm. She could feel the heat from the surrounding foundry alcoves press against her bare arms and shoulders, and everyone working around them seemed to be sweating profusely. She would definitely be needing that shower whenever she was done here. No matter. She would stay around as long as she needed to complete her task in the meantime. Maybe she would start with one of the smaller...
“Can I help you, guest?”
Marle turned with a start to see a surprisingly heavy-set woman looming over her holding a wrench. Her brow glistened with sweat, and her narrow eyes regarded Marle with, if not quite hostility, somewhat elevated indifference. Though she hadn't met the domineering woman in person, Marle immediately recognized her from computer images as Assistant Director Chieko Vals, the leader of the Maker-caste, and the enclave's third in command.
No way she wouldn't have heard about what happened in the armory, Marle thought glumly. Her all too brief excitement plummeted into a gutter of forlorn recrimination, and she fought to stay afloat in her self-made sea of censure.
“I need to have something made,” Marle said, putting on the bravest face she could. “I used up the last of my ammunition getting to Bangor. Can you make some that's compatible with this old crossbow?” She held up her weapon for Vals to see.
“No,” the Assistant Director said without deigning to even look at the crossbow.
Marle's face fell. “What? But I need...”
“I know what you need,” Vals said darkly. “I also don't care. Thanks to you, rifle #57 has to be overhauled. Full power discharges like the one you so foolishly unleashed causes considerable degradation of both the barrel and the capacitor. Or did you think you were shooting something fresh off the assembly line? It'll take no less than four days to repair, and I'm not about to put that job on hold just so you can play with your archaic toy.”
“So you won't help, then?” Marle said, dejected.
Vals gave her a withering look. “My people are very busy, Miss... Marle, is it? Generator three has a continual flutter. Water pump eight is shut down pending engine replacement. And the backup compressor for the granary is due for replacement as well. I shouldn't have to tell you what could happen if that last job isn't finished on time. The main compressor has no other back-up, and it's the single oldest piece of equipment in the whole enclave. You've caused us enough trouble by taking one of our rifles out of service. We don't have time to deal with any more of your nonsense.”
“But it's such an easy job!” Marle protested. “My crossbow is a heck of a lot older than that 'compressor' thing you're talking about. How hard can it be to...?”
“Enough!” Vals barked harshly. The Assistant Director gave a long huff through her nose and then directed a weary gaze at the floundering target of her ire. “Go talk to Mary, then. She just got back from an errand. She'll either help you or she won't. If she chooses not to, I'll expect you to leave. I won't tolerate any more distractions here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to fabricate a new barrel for the rifle you trashed.”
Assistant Director Vals lumbered off without another word, and Marle shook herself to regain what little remained of her composure. Chieko Vals was a hard woman for a hard job, and speaking to her ever again was something Marle wouldn't contemplate lightly.
I guess I better go find this “Mary” she was taking about.
Marle strode through the Makers domain at a brisk pace, taking mind to stay out of the way of the caste's purposeful activity as much as possible. A few short queries directed her to an even more sweltering area far to the rear of Common Area 3. A large machine very similar to the power generator Marle remembered from the ZDF facility filled the space, and a diminutive passage branched off into near darkness just behind it. Marle had to crouch to make her way through the tiny corridor. The droning sound from the presumed generator machine was constant, and loud enough to cause her mild discomfort.
What is a Maker doing all the way back here? she wondered. There was no one else around, and it looked as though very few people ever came this way. The glow-bars were scant and much more widely spaced than she had seen anywhere else in the enclave, giving the place an eerie ambiance. The sound of the generator gradually receded as Marle continued her stooped passage, and the oppressive heat began to subside. Marle was beginning to wonder if Assistant Director Vals had simply lied to get rid of her.
She finally came out into a room that only seemed large because she had been stooped over for so long. In reality it wasn't much bigger than a closet. Various tools littered the space, and a couple of metal storage racks stood against one wall holding a multitude of objects Marle couldn't identify in the dim light. A drab mattress that looked very much like a discarded enertron bed lie forgotten on the floor and was covered in blankets. There was no sound aside from the now faint droning from the generator room. There were no other outlets, either.
Marle leaned back against the wall with a weary sigh. Vals had taken her for a ride all right, but she wasn't about to go back and give the AD a piece of her mind after the way she had been roasted over the events in the armory. This was just one more way that the enclave was punishing her for her behavior and poor judgment, she decided. What really hurt was that she knew she deserved it.
“Who's there?”
Marle was so startled by the sudden voice that she jumped back and then fell on her rear, her crossbow clattering to the floor. She thought the room was empty!
A shadow rose up from the old enertron bed, and the blankets were tossed aside to reveal the figure beneath them. A small person stood regarding Marle with mild consternation.
“What are you doing in my room?” the former shadow asked. “Can't you see I was trying to catch a nap? It's kinda late.”
Marle stared back at the individual in surprise. Not a small person. A child! A little girl!
“I'm sorry,” Marle stammered, clambering to her feet. “I didn't think anyone was actually back here.”
“What are you talking about?” the child asked. She looked to be maybe ten years old. “This has always been my space. Why would you be back here if you weren't looking for me? Everyone knows where I hide out.”
Marle shook her head. “Assistant Director Vals sent me. She said there was a Maker named Mary who might be able to take a job for me. But... I guess she lied.”
“Chieko didn't lie!” the little girl pouted. “I'm Mary! How could you not know who I...?” The red-haired child stepped closer. “Oh, wait! You're one of those three visitors who came here a few days ago, right? I should have known from your clothes. No one around here dresses like that.”
This was Mary?! A little girl was working as a Maker?
“Why are you here by yourself?” Marle asked with concern, momentarily forgetting why she was here. “Where are your parents?”
“Oh, they died. Muties got 'em.”
Marle shuddered. Not so much at the tragic revelation as the casual way the little girl had said it. Her parents must have been gone for a long time.
“You said you had a job for me?” Mary asked. “I just got done with one, but I guess I could take another. The adults don't really need me right now. They're all working on important stuff. Chieko said I'd just be in the way.”
Marle closed her eyes and again lamented the recent direction of her fortunes. How could she ask a little girl for help in the middle of the night? Would she really be forced to stoop so low? She had already been begging everyone else for help.
“I... don't want to be any trouble,” Marle said, deeply conflicted.
“It's no trouble!” Mary said with a touch of heat. “Just because I'm a kid doesn't mean I can't make stuff. And if you need something I can't make, I can find it! I'm always finding stuff for people.”
“I don't think you'll be able to find what I need,” Marle said reluctantly. “It's ammunition. For a weapon that isn't made anymore. That's what this is.”
Mary knelt down to examine Marle's crossbow with great interest.
“Oh, wow! Is that a crossbow? I've only seen one in pictures! That's super, super rare!”
Marle sniffed with amusement. “I suppose so.”
“You're right. I won't be finding stuff for this. It's gotta be custom made. That means the price is going up.”
Marle blinked. “Huh?”
Mary regarded her with a quizzical frown. “It's a one-of-a-kind weapon. The ammunition would be one-of-a-kind, too. I'd have to set up the foundry with a whole new pattern, and that's after I take all the measurements and find out what kind of scrap is best for the mould. Scrap is really expensive because it's so dangerous to get more. It's a really big job. And because it's a custom order and not an enclave assignment from Chieko, the price goes up even more. It's not every day I get a job like this one. It costs, and I don't work for free. How much of this ammunition do you want?”
An uneasy feeling was creeping into Marle's heart. “My quiver holds up to 35 bolts,” she said.
Mary's eyes widened. “That's a lot! Are you sure you can afford this? What do you have to trade for them? You're a visitor, so I know you can't have any credits.”
And now we get to it, Marle thought. The economy of the Bangor enclave was largely barter-based, though it did have a strange form of currency that existed solely in the computer systems that could be used to trade for certain goods and services. The problem for Marle was that non-citizens didn't have access to a credit balance, and she wouldn't know how to use it even if she had one. That left only barter, and that left Marle with some painful choices.
The bracelets, she decided. The golden bands that so well complimented her outfit were the most logical things for her to put up as trading stock. Gold had been a mainstay of value for pretty much all of recorded history, so Marle knew she could get a lot for them. More importantly, the bracelets didn't have so much sentimental value that she couldn't do without them. The fashion hit would hurt, no question, but Marle could endure it.
“How about this?” Marle asked, unclasping one of her bracelets and handing it to Mary.
The child looked at her as if she'd stated water was dry. “What about it? This isn't worth much.”
Marle froze. She couldn't have just heard that right.
“I couldn't even get 300 credits for this,” Mary said with a scowl. “Do you think I'm dumb or something?”
“It's gold!”
“Yeah, and gold is just melted down for circuits and stuff. We already got lots of that.”
This couldn't be happening, Marle thought. She didn't know the credit system well enough to know what 300 of them were truly worth, but it was apparently a pittance. Even if she put up every piece of gold she wore she wouldn't even get 1,500 for the set! This future was truly demented!
And that brought another question to mind.
“Uh... Mary? How much would you say this job is worth in credits?” Marle asked with trepidation.
The young Maker took a moment to think about it.
“Hm, depends on the scrap I use. But it wouldn't be less than 12,000.”
“Twelve-thousand?!”
Mary grimaced at Marle's outburst. “Why are you yelling at me? It's the job, I can't help it! I'd lose money if I asked for less than that.”
Marle found herself sliding down the wall, and her remaining jewelry tinkled as her bottom hit the floor. “How...? How could I possibly get that much?” she muttered faintly.
“Save money. It'll do ya good.”
“But... I don't know how to make any money!” Marle exclaimed with frustration. “I'm not even a citizen!”
“Well, what about that pendant you're wearing? I've never seen a jewel that big. Chieko could probably turn it into a really nice focusing lens for our energy guns That'd be worth something.”
Marle shook her head quickly. “Sorry. That's not for sale.” Sentimental value aside, there was no way of returning home without it.
Mary snorted derisively. “You're not very good at this. And I don't see you carrying much else. What's in the satchel?”
“Um...”
Marle fingered the small satchel around her belt that held Queen Leene's music box. Could she really pawn that off? That had been a gift from Leene herself. Her physical twin. The music box meant almost as much to her as her pendant did.
What would Leene do?
With the utmost reluctance, Marle gently lifted the small music box out of its satchel and wound the key. She placed the box on one of the racks next to Mary and let the lullaby play.
Mary put her ear to the box in wonder and stood completely still as the song played. She turned to Marle with an expression of childish delight when the music came to a close.
“Oh, wow! We don't have anything like this! It has to be really old!”
“You have no idea,” Marle remarked.
Mary regarded the old music box with intense thought, her eyes shifting between cold appraisal and the undisguised avarice of a child in a toy shop. “I don't think I can sell this, but... I really want it! I'll give you, uh... 7,000 credit for it. That's towards the job. That makes my fee only 5,000. How's that sound?”
Marle's face scrunched in anguish. Little more than half the price in exchange for something she truly cherished, and she had nothing else to bargain with. Adding her bracelets to the mix wouldn't be nearly enough to cover the balance.
“Hey, don't cry!” Mary said with concern. “That price is for 35 bolts. If you can't afford an extra 5,000 credits, why don't we reduce the order to 20 bolts instead and we can call it even? I don't want to lose this deal!”
The despair that nearly consumed Marle at that moment abruptly vanished, and she gazed at the ceiling feeling a bit foolish. Having her quiver fully stocked wasn't strictly necessary for what she needed to do, now that she really thought about it.
Still, giving away Leene's music box in exchange for having her weapon back would leave an open wound. But she had no other options. Marle reverently picked up the cherished gift from the shelf and then placed it into Mary's eager hands, her lips quivering with emotion.
“Okay, Mary,” Marle said in a husky tone. “You've got a deal.”
Mary bounded on the balls of her feet in evident excitement, looking every bit the ten-year-old she was. “Great! Let's go get started, then,” she said. “And don't worry about the music box. I promise I'll never sell it, and you can come by and listen to it any time you want!”
The bargain struck, Mary stowed the precious artifact among the numerous odds and ends on her storage racks and then led Marle back through the diminutive passage from her modest hideaway towards the much warmer sections of Common Area 3.
“I haven't seen any other children among the residents here,” Marle said, deciding to make some small talk with the girl she had just bargained with. “How many are there?”
“Oh, just me.”
Marle balked. “What? You mean you're all alone?”
“Yeah. But it's okay,” Mary said. “The other Makers all like me. They don't yell at me much. Just at each other. How old are you? You look younger than everyone else.”
“I'm sixteen. So are my friends Crono and Lucca.”
“Wow, that makes you guys younger than Junior Assistant Director Evans. She's twenty-two, I think. She's the next youngest person after me. It must be nice having friends your own age. Have you always been together?”
“Crono and Lucca have. They grew up in the same tow..., uh, place. I just sort of...” she tittered. “...stumbled into their path. And we've been more or less together ever since.”
“I haven't always lived in Bangor. I was born in Trann. My dad was a merchant that traveled between the enclaves. At least that's what everyone says. I'm too young to remember. 'Save money, it'll do ya good?' My dad used to say that. It was his motto. So saying it makes me feel closer to him, like he never died. What about your parents? Are they still alive?”
Marle halted her pace for a moment at the pull of painful memories. “My mom isn't,” she said softly. “She died when I was only six. My father, well...”
Mary turned to face her in the gloom of the small passage. “It's okay. You don't have to tell me. You must have a reason for coming all the way to Bangor.”
“Yeah.”
The conversation drifted off as Marle and Mary got closer to the generator room, where it was too hard to talk over the endless drone of whatever process the giant machine used to generate electrical power for the enclave. Marle closed her eyes against the brutal heat. The two then made their way through the fabrication section, where numerous Makers were currently putting together small parts and components for the enclave's many machines and other pieces of equipment. Marle thought she saw Chieko Vals over to one side and made sure she stayed well clear of her.
“I never told you my name,” Marle said. “It's Marle.”
“Limova is my last name,” Mary said. “But nobody calls me that. I think it's a grown-up thing, people calling each other by their last names. Do you have a last name?”
Marle colored. “Uh... Not really.”
“I guess that means you're not really a grown-up, then,” the young Maker teased. “That gives us something in common.”
More of Marle's titters followed the child Maker as she found herself back where she had started in this domain of the Maker-caste. The activity in the foundries hadn't lessened at all, and much of the equipment Marle could see was being used in furious purpose. The people all around were focused intently on their jobs and didn't pay Mary or Marle any mind.
It was amazing that a child could grow up and live in such an industrious environment, Marle thought. And Mary's confidence in her skills didn't feel at all forced or false, like she truly belonged here among the hard working adults and was happy for it. Yet Marle couldn't help but feel it was a tragic fate for a young girl so full of life.
“Is it hard being a Maker?” Marle asked.
“Sometimes,” Mary replied. “Mostly it's just a lot of running around looking for stuff. It's a lot more fun when I'm actually making things. Though it does get pretty hot in the foundries. And by the fabricators. And the generator, too. Actually, it's pretty hot all through here.”
“I noticed. Especially in the generator room. Is it always like this?”
“Yeah, everyone's always sweating. And we never have anything cool to drink, either. The water pipes all go behind our machines to help keep them from getting too hot, so the water coming out of the faucets is always warm. Sometimes people sneak off to the dormitories early to drink the cooler water there, but that makes Chieko really mad. Says it wastes too much time, and that the enertrons can cool people off during the juvee sessions, which everyone has to do anyway since there's no food.”
“But you weren't sleeping in an enertron back in your hideout,” Marle pointed out. “That's why I was so startled when you suddenly popped out of bed. I thought that everyone here slept in enertrons.”
“We do. But I don't really like the enertrons. I always feel a bit funny when I get out of one, like the machine's taken away a part of me I can never get back. That's why I only stay in them a short time and do the rest of my sleeping in my hideout. It doesn't get very hot back there. That's why I like it.”
Taking away a part of you, Marle thought. She couldn't remember feeling a similar sensation after her own sessions, though she didn't much care for the enertrons either. They were restful only in the moment, and never particularly energizing.
Mary and Marle strode up to one of the unoccupied foundry stations, and the young Maker opened a rust-colored door in a nearby cabinet to reveal a multitude of tools and protective gear inside. She drew out a measurement tape and motioned for Marle to place her crossbow on the table.
“Okay, lets see what kind of dimensions the crossbow can work with,” Mary said. “Then we'll talk about the kind of scrap we'll need to use to forge the new bolts.”
“Will they be harder than iron?” Marle wondered aloud.
Mary looked at her peculiarly. “Are you kidding?”
* * *
The cool water cascaded in rivers across Marle's skin, and her unbound hair lay satisfyingly plastered against her naked back. Being in Common Area 3 for the better part of the early morning was an experience marginally shy of being inside a volcano, and Mary had been generous in describing that section's faucets as merely “warm”. Becoming a Maker had never been high, or on, Marle's list of things she wanted to accomplish in the enclave, and after this morning she would add it to the list of things she actively wanted to avoid contemplating, though she had learned a few elementary aspects of how the Makers' equipment worked and how they tackled the art of repair and fabrication. But the toil and sweat had been worthwhile. Five shining crossbow bolts of forged steel now rested in her quiver, with the remaining fifteen bolts of her order expected to be completed before tonight.
It felt good to not be completely useless.
Mary had taken a break in order to have a scheduled three-hour enertron session, and Marle had taken the cue to refresh herself in a more pleasant fashion back in her own dormitory. The women's bathroom was happily empty of other souls, and Marle took advantage of the solitude by standing under the streaming water of the shower for a length of time that any other resident of the enclave would have considered indulgent in the extreme, despite the abundance of clean water and its continual recycling. Amelia Evans had given her several bothersome lectures on water conservation, another source of friction between Marle and the JAD.
Marle spent an additional five minutes letting the forceful spray engulf her face and contentedly slicking her golden hair back with her hands before grabbing her towels – tan, of course, like every other garment in the enclave – and exiting the shower stall with her body and hair fully wrapped in them. She regarded herself in the mirror and braved a smile. The face of Queen Leene was staring back at her. She had done good today. Perhaps, for the first time, she had demonstrated a level of generosity in keeping with her ancient ancestor. Mary Limova would be a good keeper for Leene's music box, cherishing it no less than Marle had for the short time it was in her possession. It would always be on her shelf, waiting to be played, every night or free moment to lull young Mary into contentment after a hard day of work.
Very hard.
The heat. The scrounging. The horse-trading. The endless sweat and toil. The eternal hunger, and a rest that took as much as it gave. Every day the same, and only a music box to numb the pain that Mary had to feel every moment of every hour deep inside. No father. No mother. No friends, and no sunshine to share with them. Only work. That was Mary Limova's future.
The tears came before Marle could stop them, and knowing she was alone in the bathroom persuaded her to just let go of her always fragile emotional balance and embrace the chaos.
“Mary...” she sobbed. “You deserve so much better than this.”
Marle fumbled for the faucet handles below the mirror and splashed water on her now burning face to relieve the sting.
Or tried to.
Ice cubes fell out of her hands instead.
Marle regarded the fragments of ice in the sink's basin with stunned bewilderment. What had just happened? Even the water in this part of the enclave wasn't that cold. In fact, ice was one of the rarest things to be seen in the enclave proper. Only the granary on the enclave's lowest level was kept cold enough to keep water frozen, and entry was highly restricted since that was where all of the enclave's food was kept, as well as the seed archive that was key to one day restoring the world's agriculture.
Turning the faucet on again revealed nothing but normal running water. Cool, but far from frozen.
Of course, frozen water would never have come out of the faucet to begin with, Marle thought. Nothing would have come out of it at all.
It wasn't the faucet, it was her!
Marle thought back to her desperate stand in the ruins of old Bangor; her, Crono, and Lucca holding back a wave of glasser mutants from behind a warped and failing door. That should have been the end of their adventures through time, as well as their lives, but it wasn't. For reasons that continued to elude her, Marle had channeled powerful elemental magic at the moment of catastrophe, encasing all of their attackers in frozen death before passing out. She didn't even think about it, as much as her addled memory could recall. Never called upon her usual concentration that channeled her restorative and energy-draining abilities. She just did it. No explanation at all.
But that wasn't wholly true. Indeed, she hadn't been thinking, but she was doing something else. Feeling. Feeling they were about to die. Feeling that everyone's deaths would be her fault. Feeling that she had lived almost her entire short and tragic life without any friends.
She had been in despair. Total and complete despair. Her spirit had broken.
And then her spirit had risen back with astonishing vengeance.
“How about you think all that stuff and then throw your hands around or something?” That was what Lucca had told her, facing the glassers above Krawlie's lair, but Marle had been utterly spent at that moment. Truly on her last legs and ounce of strength. Nothing had happened at all.
But something was happening now. She felt. She grieved. She lamented.
And she now had strength.
Marle turned on the faucet a third time, let the water spill into her waiting hands, and then instead of merely concentrating, she felt. Remembered how she felt when her mother died, when her father turned cold, when Crono had been sentenced to die, when everyone had been stranded in the future because of her. And she remembered Mary. All the misery and anguish she had ever felt was in the forefront of her memory as Marle looked at the cupped water in her hands.
It solidified into a wintry block.
Marle had just become a Maker.
15
Fan Fiction / A novel fragment - Flight of the Man
« on: April 09, 2024, 11:47:10 pm »
Chapter 29 - Flight of the Man
The long walk to sector 32 of the Bangor ruins wasn't as uneventful as Crono had hoped. Two glasser mutants had to be dealt with before the time-travelers even made it past the tenth block heading north. Dispatching them hadn't been difficult. Lucca, with her new plasma pistol given to her by Director Doan, had done the job almost all by herself, landing all twelve shots she fired and leaving the red-skinned abominations reeling enough for Crono to finish them off with no real effort. Things had become more tense at the end of the eastern leg, when five glassers approached them from two directions. Crono, Marle, and Lucca all had to drop their backpacks to fight the fiends effectively, and the charge on Lucca's new gun had dropped to a dangerous level by the time the last glasser stopped twitching. Doan's pistol could fire up to twelve consecutive shots at normal power and speed before needing to recharge from its internal capacitor, which was a process that took up to a full minute. Lucca had been forced to fire only single shots near the end of the engagement, necessitating Marle to take a much larger role in the fight than any of them wanted. The battery pack that Lucca carried in her satchel had several hundred normal shots-worth of power, which could be employed whenever the gun's capacitor became low on energy. Marle only had the thirty-five crossbow bolts in her quiver. Wasting any of those on mutants here would leave fewer to deal with unknown threats in the ruins of Arris. Two of the five bolts she fired had been completely imbedded in the glasser corpses through their eyeballs and couldn't be recovered in any acceptable amount of time in the open ruins, so they were forced to leave them behind and continue on their way. A comparatively short walk further north brought them into the declared red zone of sector 32.
“There's the sign. Thank the Divine,” Marle said.
It was the rickety remains of a street sign, labeled “stop”, that Crono guessed had been placed erect by Director Doan sometime after he had sealed his vehicle away. It was implanted in a small pile of rubble in the middle of the street rather than where it would normally be on the side of the road, so he knew it had to have been placed deliberately as a landmark. A shadowy descent lie a short distance to their right, situated between two decaying buildings of stunted height.
“How's your gun, Lu? Ready to brave the shadows?” he asked.
Lucca tipped her glasses and held her gun aloft in one hand. “Good to go.”
“Let's hope this vehicle's still okay,” Marle said. “It's been sitting here for over thirty years, right?”
“Gotta think it's okay,” Crono said. “Mutants don't feed on machines. Just us. Let's keep our eyes open until we know the place is clear.”
Marle turned on the flashlight modification of her crossbow and gingerly led the way down into the dark, Crono and Lucca flanking her position from just behind. Going lights on was a bit of a risk since mutants were always attracted by the glare, but if the vehicle was here they had no choice but to clear out the area anyway. Crono made ready to slip off his backpack and draw his sword in an instant. Lucca kept her gun in a two-handed grip and slowly panned her aim, scanning for any threats.
The underground area was fairly small, perhaps no bigger than the entirety of Dormitory 7 back at the enclave. A brief examination showed the only outlet being the ramp they had just descended. Sitting off to the right side of the otherwise empty space was a large narrow object about forty feet in length covered by some type of tarp. Marle circled the object at a distance moving to her left, splashing the beams of her flashlights across the tarp and then focusing on the unrevealed shadows on the object's far side. Nothing was seen except bare concrete.
“Clear!” she called out.
“All right, let's get this tarp off and see what we're dealing with,” Crono said.
Marle kept her flashlights spotted on the unknown vehicle and occasionally looked back up the ramp for mutant threats while Crono and Lucca got to work on removing the tarp. Decades-worth of dust rolled off the covering as it came off, causing a fair bit of coughing for all present. Everyone was expecting to stare in great interest at whatever the dusty tarp finally revealed.
Instead they were completely transfixed.
The vehicle was quite unlike any they had ever seen. It didn't resemble a steam buggy so much as a giant dart. A two-tone dart of blue and gold with more wing than wheel. The narrow seating compartment was completely enclosed by a canopy of glass and was resting atop a strange hollow that dominated the whole front end of the vehicle. On either side of the hollow at the very front was a small metal wing angled downward that Crono had no clue as to the function of. Further back were two larger wings extending rearward from the vehicle's center that grew gradually wider until coming to an abrupt halt at the vehicle's far aft. Above the canopy was another slightly smaller hollow that tapered back to a sharp wedge at the very rear. Below and a bit in front of this wedge were three more hollows with apertures facing rearward. Most everything above the wings was painted in blue, while everything below the wings was painted in gold, both colors sparkling where Marle's flashlights played across the vehicle's surface. The lightning bolt and fireball emblem on the key Doan had given them was duplicated prominently on either side of the wedge fin. Crono felt the vehicle's metallic skin with fascination. It was totally smooth. Crono's gaping expression stared back at him from the blue.
“Lucca? Did you ever...?”
“No,” Lucca told him. “I never saw anything like this on the computers.”
“It's beautiful!” Marle said in wonder. “Whoever built this was as much an artist as an engineer.”
“No doubt,” Lucca chuckled. “I wonder at the practicality, though. It has almost no carrying capacity that I can see. Just what's under that canopy. I wonder if we can even all fit in there?”
Crono rose on the balls of his feet to peer inside the glass. “There's three seats, all in a row front to back,” he related. “Gonna be pretty tight with the packs, but I think we can do it.”
“Three seats? It's almost like it was made for us,” Marle mused.
Crono didn't believe in that level of coincidence. He was just happy enough that things seemed to be going their way. He checked the vehicle's skin around the canopy for any levers or controls that might get the canopy open, praying it wasn't stuck in place from the vehicle sitting around unused for thirty years. Nothing stuck out at him, though. The skin and the canopy both seemed unblemished.
“Let me see it,” Lucca said. “Marle, get the light in tight, would you?”
Lucca saw it before Crono did: an almost invisible square-shaped switch the size of his thumb that was contoured perfectly with the vehicle's skin. Lucca pressed the switch inward about half an inch, and a light thudding sound was heard coming from somewhere just inside the canopy. A moment later, the canopy began rising sideways to the vehicle's left in a slow smooth motion.
“That's some really precise engineering there,” Lucca remarked approvingly.
Crono wasted no time climbing into the vehicle's front seat, pulling his backpack in behind him and stuffing it as best he could in the confined space.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Lucca protested.
“I got the key, I call the seat,” Crono smirked back at her.
Lucca scoffed. “You're such a child, Crono! You've never even driven a steam buggy before. I know dad wouldn't let you even touch the wheel of ours, Anne be praised.”
“First time for everything. How hard can it be?” Crono settled himself and regarded the controls in front of him. As expected, the vehicle had a wheel - of sorts - directly in front of him, and there were a couple of pedals he could feel with his feet below. But the wheel was quite small and wasn't shaped anything like a circle, though it did turn a bit, and the pedals wouldn't depress. There was also a lot more. A square pane of glass, probably a viewscreen of some sort, faced him from between his legs, and there were dozens of buttons and switches on the consoles to either side of the strangely shaped wheel. The controls altogether looked more like a small computer terminal than the simple control scheme of dials and levers found on a steam buggy of his time. Maybe this wouldn't be quite as easy as he thought.
“See? Everything's computerized,” Lucca said smugly. “That means this is my show. Come on, switch out and let me show you how it's done. We'll be driving off inside of an hour.”
Crono grumbled. Lucca was probably right. Computers tripped him up almost as much as they did Marle if he attempted anything beyond the most basic operations. Still, if he was going to be driving a vehicle for the first time, he wanted it to be this one. Nothing for it but to put in the key and see. He'd examine the controls further once he turned the vehicle on and then pass the task on to Lucca – maybe - if he couldn't figure it out. Bringing the long key out of his pocket, he inserted it into what looked like a matching slot just above the presumed viewscreen and turned it.
A glowing circle appeared around the key as soon as it was fully turned. The buttons and switches all around Crono then started lighting up in groups, and a low pitched whine began to sound from somewhere behind the canopy.
“All right, Crono, don't start getting any funny ideas,” Lucca warned.
Crono laughed. Computerized or not, the functions of the wheel and the pedals would certainly be the same as on a steam buggy. Why would that be changed? He might not even need to use the other stuff anyway.
“Come on, you two. Find yourselves a seat,” Crono said eagerly. “The sooner we can get to Arris, the better.”
“I agree with Crono,” Marle said, deftly scrambling into the seat behind his. “The noise from this thing is bound to attract mutants if we don't leave in a hurry. We can figure things out as we go.”
“Figure things out as we go?!” Lucca said, flabbergasted. “There's a difference between knowing how a vehicle drives and knowing how it actually functions! I don't even know what kind of engine it uses!”
“You want to take it apart? Fill out the rest of your diary dissecting this thing while glassers are wandering about looking for their next meal?” Crono asked disdainfully.
“Well, no, but I...”
“Ain't no one takin' the Comet apart!” came a shrill voice.
In the next instant, the steering wheel and the floor pedals all retracted from Crono's reach. Crono, Marle, and Lucca all looked around in sudden alarm. Who was that who just spoke?
Crono tried to get out of the vehicle quickly to investigate the sudden intrusion, but the tight fit impeded his efforts. No one else was supposed to be out here. He knew there were no active scavenging runs going on, and sector 32 was a red zone anyway. No one could cross into a red zone without Director Doan's express permission. Could it be a traveler from outside of the Bangor enclave, perhaps? Such travelers were exceedingly rare.
“Who's there?!” Lucca called out to the dark surroundings. “This is a red zone! We thought we were the only ones here!”
“What you talkin' 'bout, girl? You blind or somethin'?” came the unknown voice again. “You in the presence of 'da Man.”
Crono looked around in befuddlement. The voice didn't seem to be coming from anywhere around them, it seemed to be coming from the vehicle itself. But that didn't make any sense. Crono and the others had checked the vehicle thoroughly. There was no one hiding inside the hollows, and for the life of him Crono couldn't imagine anywhere else on the vehicle large enough to hold a man even if there was some access he wasn't aware of. He assumed the entire rear end behind the canopy held the engines or other vital equipment.
“Da... who?” Lucca said uncertainly.
“Da Man, baby!” the voice crowed. “Alias for old Johnny Comet! Grand Champion of '97, '98, and '99! Fastest racer there ever was, or ever will be.”
Racer?
Crono looked down at the controls. A face was staring back at him. From the viewscreen.
“Wait,” Marle called out. “Where exactly are you?”
“I'm all around you, baby!”
There was no question. The visage in the viewscreen had just talked. It was a cartoonish depiction of a dark-skinned man with an exceptionally odd hairstyle consisting of a strip of black strands in the middle of an otherwise bald scalp, sticking almost straight up as if reaching for something. He was wearing wildly angled opaque glasses and an orange vest that looked to be made of metal rather than cloth, the bulb of a large flashlight device prominently displayed in the center of his chest. Oddest of all were the things he was wearing on his back. They appeared to be tires.
“Uh... Lucca?” Crono uttered.
Lucca bent over where Crono was sitting from outside of the open canopy, staring at the odd visage with evident disbelief. Marle got out of her seat to goggle at the face from over Crono's opposite shoulder.
“Are you... the vehicle?” Lucca inquired.
The face appeared to scoff. “Vehicle?! Do I look like a garbage truck to you, Violet? I'm 'da Man! What would you go turnin' me on for if ya didn't know who I was?”
Lucca gaped in astonishment. “It's an artificial intelligence! Integrated into the computer systems of this vehicle! There's still one of them left!”
An artificial intelligence, Crono thought. Just like what the homicidal robots of Arris were said to possess to some degree. He very nearly went for his sword right then, but stopped the thought before the impulse reached his hand. Director Doan had used this very vehicle to escape Arris and its malfunctioning robots, after having sabotaged them to prevent any more machine on human carnage. There couldn't be any danger. That “worm” thing Doan had mentioned would have caused the vehicle to destroy itself if it were present the moment it left the vicinity of Arris. That meant he saw no reason to install it in the first place.
“You called yourself Johnny Comet, right?” he asked.
“In the sheet-metal, bro! You talkin' to the car who ain't never lost a race. Hit over a thousand my very first time on the track and I wasn't even tuned up yet. Nearest chump finished thirty seconds behind me.”
“A... thousand?” Marle asked with a frown.
“Ohhh, yeah, baby! Said it couldn't be done back in '97, but I showed them! Wanna see the reaction on their faces when I did it?”
The viewscreen shifted from the ridiculous cartoon visage to an image of a crowd with astounded faces. A healthy and very well dressed crowd that knew nothing of want or enertron sickness, from all appearances.
“You date from the age of the domes!” Lucca said. “That's incredible!”
The image shifted back. “You know it, sister. They made Johnny Comet to last. So what you doin' turnin' me on? Need a ride somewhere?”
“We need to get to the ruins of Arris,” Marle said. “Director Doan said you could get us there fast.”
The cartoonish figure's face grew in size, as if moving closer to the screen, and donned a wicked smile. “You need to get to Arris fast? You talkin' to the right car! Sweetness! Been awhile since I stretched my legs. The Trans-C ain't the same without 'da Man.”
“Trans-C? What's that?”
“Probably slang for the Transcontinental Highway,” Lucca said.
“Fast is good,” Crono said, feeling more confident by the second. “Well, if you can put your controls back where I can reach them, Johnny, we can be on our way. I'm assuming you moved them before? We shouldn't waste much time with mutants wandering around outside.”
Johnny Comet's gleeful expression disappeared.
“Oh, no, bro. That ain't the way it works,” the artificial intelligence said darkly. “Ain't no one drive Johnny Comet but Johnny Comet! Been my rule since some blue-haired maniac take me for a joyride back in '98 and scratched up my paint!”
Crono wasn't sure he heard that right.
“You can drive yourself?”
“Who you think you talkin' to? Ya want something done right, do it yourself! I'll show you how to get to Arris fast!”
The low whine coming from behind the canopy then abruptly raised in pitch, went down just as quickly, then raised up and down again several times. The vehicle shook where it sat on the pavement, as if it were a bull raring to charge.
“I think that's our cue to sit down,” Lucca remarked, looking white in the face.
“Buckle up ladies and gent. We gonna fly!” Johnny Comet said with manic enthusiasm.
Lucca quickly clambered into the back seat, while Crono and Marle pulled sturdy-looking straps down from the top of their seats across their chests and locked them in place to a securing ring across their stomachs, doing the same thing with straps to either side and from below per Johnny's instructions. The canopy of the blue and gold racer closed with a gentle thunk and sealed itself with an audible hiss. Crono's heart hammered in his chest. They weren't even moving, and somehow Crono knew the next few moments would be the most thrilling of his life. That anyone should have to be secured to a vehicle's seat with six straps implied an astonishing level of performance.
“You ready back there, Lu?”
“Oh yeah. Perfect. Back here I know I won't be the first one to die if we crash,” Lucca replied with a nervous laugh.
Crono snorted. “We're set here, Johnny. Ready when you are.”
“That's what I wanna hear!” Johnny Comet said. “Let's rock!”
A very loud piece of music suddenly began to play within the canopy, with intense chords and a rapidly kicking rhythm, and the vehicle known as Johnny Comet kicked out of its place of long slumber just as suddenly.
Crono saw three glasser mutants at the top of the ramp directly in their path.
“Look out!” he warned.
“Psh! Roadkill,” Johnny said dismissively.
Johnny Comet began his turn before reaching the ramp's apex, sliding his right side directly into the mutants and sending them flying across the street to crash violently into the buildings on the other side in a cloud of dust. The stop sign landmark was the next casualty. Johnny then blazed a path down the street heading south, turning east, then south, then west, then south again at a rate of speed far in excess of anything on the ground Crono could conceive. He cried out in delight at the vehicle's furious motion, the acceleration out of the turns, the way the seat straps and buckle pressed into his skin. The opening seconds of this mad dash to Arris had already exceeded his expectations. And for all of the risks taken maneuvering in such a way when the streets were filled with rubble, Johnny somehow didn't run into anything. The rubble might as well not even have been there.
It was like foot-racing in the streets of Truce City at peak pedestrian hours, never knowing precisely what was waiting for you around the next corner, only about fifty times as fast. A Truceian street racer often risked humiliation, detainment by the police, or actual injury every time they got truly serious on their makeshift racetrack. Johnny Comet risked a lot more than that at every corner and was laughing at the danger, letting it fuel his advance, fearing nothing except being too slow. This while not even racing anyone. Marle's joyous laughter filled the narrow cabin. Lucca's cries were a thin hair short of hysteria.
Almost before he was conscious of it, the shattered archway marking the entrance to Bangor from the road Crono remembered walking under that first day in the city was past them, and Johnny Comet and his passengers were on the Transcontinental Highway heading east. The giant road to Arris stretched to the horizon in front of them.
Goodbye, Bangor. Stay safe until we can fix things.
The racer's radical lateral motions then diminished to a more stately juking between holes in the road's pavement, and Crono felt himself being pressed even harder into the back of his seat. He was expecting greater acceleration outside of the ruins, but not like this. It felt like two heavy men were sitting on his chest trying to force his breath out. This thing was now traveling faster than one of Marle's crossbow bolts could fly.
Crono willed himself not to worry. The most hazardous part of the trip, outside of Arris itself, was probably behind them now. There were no sharp corners he remembered seeing on the computer generated map back in the enclave. Just a gradual turn southeast as the highway carved through the eastern half of the Tarvor mountains, and then it was over two-thousand miles of straight empty road and bridge. At these speeds, if Johnny could sustain them, they might reach Arris in as little as two days, three at the most. Crono had to laugh at the notion of a three month trip reduced to as many days.
So why did it feel like he was forgetting something important?
“The beam! By Creation, the beam!” Lucca cried out at the top of her lungs.
There was no time to comment on what was coming. Barely any time to lament the thing Crono had forgotten about. The giant slab of steel, a remnant of one of Bangor Dome's main structural members, thrown out here in the explosive chaos of the Day of Lavos, was lying across all eight lanes of the road directly in front of them. They would hit it in under two seconds. Crono's life flashed before him.
Johnny Comet skirted left, leaving the road and running up the short hill the time travelers had climbed over their first time here to get around the immense obstacle. He wasn't on the hill long.
Crono, Marle, and Lucca screamed. The ground could no longer be seen, nor could it be felt through the vibration in the cabin. Johnny Comet had gone completely airborne.
So this is how it ends, Crono thought, staring straight ahead into the open sky. Their quest to save the future brought to an unceremonious close barely outside of Bangor by a talking vehicle that suddenly aspired to become a bird. He supposed it was no less lunacy than everything else he had been through of late. Crono wondered what he could say to his father when he saw him.
And then Johnny Comet was down. They weren't dead. The giant beam was behind them, and the now unobstructed lanes of the Transcontinental Highway lie ahead of them. They were back on the road! Off the road and then in the air for several seconds, and Crono barely felt the moment of their landing. How had Johnny done that?
“Whooo yeah! Five-point-two seconds of Johnny Comet airtime!” the figure in the viewscreen gloated. “Told you we was gonna fly. Who 'da Man?”
Marle's elation filled the compartment. “We flew! We were flying! This is incredible!”
“This is insaaaane!” Lucca yelled, a measure less than elated.
“Insane? What you talkin' 'bout, Violet?” said Johnny. “We haven't even hit the big straight yet. This is nothin'. You wanted to get to Arris fast? I can get you there today!”
“Uh, I'll settle for merely tomorrow.”
Crono's thoughts mirrored Lucca's audible unease. Today? Surely Johnny could not be serious. It was a journey of over three-thousand miles!
But Crono's doubts were beginning to falter as Johnny Comet continued his blistering pace on the gently curving road, driving faster and faster as the craters along the pavement grew less frequent. The road then shrank from eight lanes to six. Johnny stopped juking entirely and kept to the center lane of the right-hand set of three, increasing his speed even further. As gradual as the turn to the southeast was, Crono still felt himself pressed against the side of his seat. Insane was about right. And thrilling.
“Johnny, how fast are we going?” Crono asked breathlessly. “I can't even begin to guess, this is so crazy.”
“What, you don't see the speedo?” Johnny answered. “We just passed 800 kph. Nothin' crazy 'bout that. Slowest chump I knew could do that in his sleep.”
Crono blanched. He still didn't know the metric measuring system of the future all that well, but 800 kilometers per hour sounded ridiculous. “Uh, Lucca? How fast is that in miles per hour?”
“Oh, um, just under five-hundred,” Lucca said with a fearful chuckle. “Totally not crazy, that. I can come up with a much better word once I stop shaking in my straps.”
Five-hundred miles in an hour! Crono thought numbly. Johnny wasn't boasting in the least. Not only would they get to Arris today, they would probably arrive with half-a-day to spare. He suddenly understood why Director Doan's tone had been so dry last night. “Rather quickly” didn't begin to describe this experience.
“Miles per hour?” Johnny inquired curiously. “Old-fashioned, huh? I'm down with that. How's about I put my mph above my head here, and you can go 'whoooa' with every tick of my awesome vel-os-eh-tay?”
A number then appeared above the gleeful visage of Johnny Comet's cartoonish avatar. It read “504 mph”. And that figure was continuing to climb.
We really don't need to go faster than this, Crono thought. But the greater part of him – perhaps not the wiser, but the greater – wanted to know what this talking vehicle's upper limit was. Crono had always pushed his own limits on the streets of Truce, and made a habit of knowing the upper limits of the people he raced. He couldn't imagine the knowledge being useful in this instance, but he still wanted to know.
The Transcontinental Highway began to straighten, and the cresting of one more shallow rise revealed the longest roadway Crono had ever seen. A slight downhill grade marked the path, which extended to a point in the far distance Crono wasn't sure an eagle could make out from here. From the map, he knew this was the beginning of the straight that would lead almost directly to Arris. No turns. No hills. Just thousands of miles of straight pavement. If Johnny was going to demonstrate the upper levels of his performance, it would be here.
“Here it comes, kiddos,” the artificial intelligence said eagerly. “The straight of Tylair. Longest stretch of road there ever was. Called it the big three-K back in the day. Ain't no excuses here. This patch of pavement show who be fast and who be slow.”
“Be fast, Johnny,” Crono said with a boyish grin. After all, he had actually flown in this thing for over five seconds and somehow survived. He could handle this.
Johnny Comet's avatar then folded its body at impossible angles and suddenly took on the form of a... tricycle. A tricycle with Johnny's head in place of the handlebars and with pink wings extending out the side of its body. The wide tires formerly on its back now touched the virtual ground in the form of a tricycle's rear axle, and two long pipes, perhaps exhausts, angled out above facing rearward. It was an incomparably odd picture, but one that promised impending excitement.
“Goin' for my personal best, then. Sonic booooom!”
Crono was then thrown back in his seat with such force it was like the two proverbial men sitting on his chest suddenly became five. The whine of the vehicle's strange engine rose to a painful pitch, and the sudden change of music in the cabin was almost entirely drowned out. Johnny's speed increased from 500 to 700 mph in mere seconds. Crono's response was about what the self-aware vehicle had prophesied.
“Whoooa!”
“Crono, what have you doooone?” Lucca wailed.
Johnny Comet streaked down the road at a velocity that Crono could only imagine was akin to a shooting star. He had no other frame of reference aside from the number displayed on the vehicle's viewscreen. Seven-fifty. Eight-hundred. Eight-fifty. Each passing second seemed to increase the number by twenty, and the rate of acceleration wasn't slowing. The road went by in a blur. The engine howled. The seats shook.
“Uh... maybe we should slow down,” Marle said, sounding disquieted for the first time.
“Slow down?! I haven't even hit a thousand yet!” Johnny said. “I thought you guys wanted to go fast?”
“This isn't fast!” Lucca shrieked. “This is demented!”
“Any chump can go supersonic. The real mark of greatness is for a car to break the big one-nine-double-oh. That's 1,180 mph for you old-fashioned folk. Me, my record's 1,940 kph, meanin' 1,206 for you guys. I'm gonna break that today for sure!”
“S,somebody stop this thing!” Marle cried.
But there was no stopping Johnny Comet, and Crono didn't dare start pushing buttons while the crazy vehicle was traveling at these speeds. The four-digit barrier was soon breached, and the mph continued to climb. Crono then saw the surrounding land disappear, and all that remained were the lanes of pavement in front of them. They had crossed onto the giant bridge that spanned the remnants of the Tylair Ocean. Guardrails to either side passed them by in a mist of gray.
Lucca's moaning abruptly ceased. Crono didn't have to see why. He thought about passing out himself. Time seemed to slow down all around him. The cabin grew strangely quieter, and the pressure on his body eased. The speed indicator was close to 1,200 mph.
“Whoooo, yeah!” Johnny finally crowed. “Twelve-oh-nine, baby! Who's da' Man, huh?! Who's da' Man?!
“Uh... you are?” Crono managed. He didn't know what else to say. Just that he had to get this speed demon to stop before he got everyone killed.
“I can't heeeear you!”
“You are!” Crono and Marle cried in unison.
Johnny Comet's avatar then reverted back to it's man-like form, apparently satisfied, and pointed at himself with both thumbs. “And don't you forget it, baby!”
Satisfied or not, Johnny took his sweet time decelerating from his record-breaking 1,209 mile-per-hour run. It was a long while before Crono could stop shaking.
* * *
One of the great things about being the author of your own story was that you had the power of Creation – which was to say omission – over incidents that painted you in a negative light. Fainting was a completely understandable occurrence given the situation Lucca had been in. She had an intimate knowledge, academically speaking, of what happened to things that collided with other things at a high rate of speed. It wasn't her fault that the laws of physics demanded bad things happen to a human skull that hit a solid object at anything faster than a brisk trot, let alone a hundred times as fast. Lucca had no qualms about omitting Marle's use of magic to keep said author in the realm of the conscious shortly after the ludicrous 1,209 mile-per-hour speed record was set. After all, such things weren't supposed to happen to the heroine.
Since then, her diary would record the unaltered tale of Johnny Comet reducing his speed – after much persuasion and shameless flattery – to a “mere” 300 miles-per-hour to time their arrival at Arris shortly after dark. Lucca, Crono, and Marle had decided that arriving after dark was the best way of avoiding unnecessary encounters with robots in the ruins, though it made the task of finding an entrance into the Arris enclave more challenging. Better to be slow and unnoticed than to be quick and dead, the thinking went.
The following hours were spent making almost normal conversation with the vehicle's undaunted artificial intelligence, which Lucca tackled with a vigor to make up for her earlier spell of fright. Speaking with a genuine programmed intelligence, with the capacity for self-awareness and an ability to make its own decisions, was a tremendous opportunity. A relic of a now bygone era, for Lucca it represented everything a machine could aspire to be. She couldn't help but think of GATO speaking in its own voice instead of playing records of other people's voices, and not even needing a change of program card to conduct itself differently and adapting to the situation at hand. It was an avenue of research she wanted to undertake sometime after all of this Lavos business was behind her.
“So you replenish the fuel for your boosters by harvesting hydrogen directly out of the atmosphere through your intakes?” Lucca asked. “That's amazing! And because your jet engines operate from a fusion cell, you can never run out of fuel. You can just keep going and going.”
“Oh, yeah. I ride the wind, baby.” Johnny Comet replied proudly. “Might have still been goin' these past thirty years if there were anyone left to race. Most of my old buds got melted right where they were on the day that rain o' fire come stormin' down, and the few who didn't got sent to the scrap pile to keep those underground enclaves a runnin'.”
“How many of you were there?” Crono asked with fascination. Naturally, anything to do with racing caught Crono's interest.
“A full circuit, brother. First racers started showin' up in the mid seventies, though none of them lot were AI. Just a bunch of workin' class chaps that took it in their minds to go soupin' up their cars to see how quick they could drive between the domes.” Johnny chuckled. “Drove the cops bananas, what with them guys weavin' back and forth through traffic lookin' for the glory of a checkered flag, and then doin' it all again goin' the other way. It was all the rage, man. For every one of that lot the cops threw behind bars, there were two more lookin' to join in the action. People even started recordin' the races and placing bets on who won. Things got so crazy by the nineties that the government in Keepers Dome decided to make an official circuit and cleared the highways every couple months for people to race. Them's were the glory days, brother. That's when they stopped usin' cars you could buy off the lot and started buildin' bonafide racers from the ground up. Changed all the rules about what a car could be. Only restrictions were they had to carry at least two passengers and couldn't fly more than a hundred meters. Other than that, it was anything goes. Jet engines. Fusion cells. The works.”
Including wings, Lucca thought. Not for flying, but to help keep the car on the road. Looking at Johnny Comet's design, Lucca now understood the aerodynamic principles at work. Each set of wings generated downforce, which was essential for the vehicle's stability at high speeds. Those same wings could also be used to generate lift in an emergency, such as when Johnny jumped that hill to get over the giant steel beam lying across the road. A slight and continual adjustment of those wings in mid-air would account for the way Johnny had landed back on the road with hardly any impact. It was the kind of stunt no human driver would have been able to manage.
“And that's when they started putting artificial intelligences into the cars,” Lucca reasoned.
“You got it, sister. I come around back in '97. Some guys wanted to shatter every record in the books by puttin' an AI behind the wheel, so they gathered up every credit between them and put me together. Broke a thousand kph in my first race, dusting everyone. That brought about the AI era, and every team worth its rubber put one into their cars hopin' to take me down. Nope! Didn't happen. Grand Champion of '97 right here.” Johnny made a thumbing gesture to himself through his avatar. “Then teams started puttin' hydrogen boosters into their cars to get that added edge, only they did the same with me as soon as my crew chief got wind of what they was doin'. Nope! Supersonic, baby! Grand Champion of 98' right here.” Another thumb point. “Then my rivals get it into their heads to break 1,900 on the kph meter, and I was the only one to actually go and do it. Right here on the three-K. Boom! Grand Champion of 99'. Fastest racer there ever was or ever will be, that's Johnny Comet!”
“Are you saying you're the last one, Johnny?” Marle asked. “The last racer?”
“'Fraid so. Wandered the highways for years. Never saw another. Then I run into Brother Frank. Said he'd protect me from scavengers as long as I did what he said. Seemed like a good deal, so he hid me away in Arris for a bit, then later in Bangor. Better than the scrap heap. Then the three of you turn me on, and here we are.”
“Then Frank did us and the world a great service keeping you in one piece,” Lucca said with a smile. “Especially in Arris. Did he do something to prevent you from going crazy like the robots did? I'm still trying to understand how that happened.”
Johnny's avatar shrugged. “All Brother Frank did was turn me on. As for those robot psychos in Arris, I don't know nothin' about that. Brother Frank said some song they was hearing was drivin' them batty. All I heard over the comms was static. Whatever that song was, it had no effect on ol' Johnny Comet. Maybe 'cause all I know or care about is racin'. Don't have no weapons, neither.”
That made sense, Lucca thought. If the directive the robots received from this “song” demanded the destruction of all humans, a machine like Johnny Comet wouldn't serve any practical use. He would just be ignored by whatever the source of the song was.
“What about the robots themselves?” Crono asked. “Director Doan only gave us a few basic descriptions. Is there anything you can tell us about them?”
“Yeah, they shoot you on sight, man! What, you think I'm some kind of encyclopedia on anything other than racin'? You want those kind of details, you're lookin' for one of them double-sixers.”
“Double-sixers?” Marle inquired.
“General-purpose robot, generation sixty-six,” Johnny said. “Top-o'-the-line 'bot from '95. Know everythin' about everythin' since the Great War them 'bots do. Problem is the song got to them, too. Brother Frank was the last guy to speak to one without gettin' his head blown off. You want my advice? If it's metallic and it moves, you best be movin' yourself and hope it don't see you.”
A dome-era robot that survived the Day of Lavos? This was news to Lucca. She knew nothing about the sixty-six series, but she had read a few articles describing much older robots in the general-purpose category, including a few schematics. Perhaps the survivors of Arris had been able to scavenge the remains of these advanced robots and put them back together as their level of robotics knowledge allowed.
“Can you show us a picture of a sixty-six, Johnny?” Lucca asked.
“Can do.”
A half-solid, half-wireframe schematic then appeared on the viewscreen set into the back of Marle's seat. Lucca's breath caught. The seven-foot-tall robot was bipedal, with a round bronze-colored body that eschewed sharp angles everywhere Lucca could see. Sturdy metal plates covered every section of the robot aside from the upper legs and arms, which were wrapped in a dark synthetic material that covered the elbow and knee joints. Scattered rivets precisely measured from one another kept the plates in place. A large hose curved upward from a protrusion on the machine's left breastplate and was inserted high into the robot's torso just below the head, and a more vertical protrusion, perhaps a cooling vent, fronted the right breastplate. The head was squat and without a face, with one large plate covering the cranium and two sizable optic mechanisms facing front. Sticking up out of the head was a cylindrical protrusion Lucca thought to be a radio receiver and transmitter. Most notable to Lucca, and the most human-looking part of the robot, were its hands, which were five-fingered and looked to have all the joints and articulation of a human hand.
It was mechanical perfection. Something even Lucca wasn't sure she could improve upon for all of her imagination and industriousness. The ultimate evolution of GATO. A mechanical being with the self-awareness of Johnny Comet, but also one with the versatility of a human, and loaded with knowledge of every kind to serve and protect the people it was designed to aid. Such a thing had to be Creation sent. Inspired by the Divine and built by man to do good.
Burn.
Lucca suddenly felt faint, and not from her earlier episode. What was that just now?
It's perfect. And it was corrupted to kill. Someone must pay. Burn them all!
It was her mind's voice. The same one that confronted her in the ruins of Bangor after running out of the classified archive, trying to come to grips with the reality of humanity's doom. But the voice felt different, somehow. A dark fragment of Lucca's soul that wasn't simply berating her weakness in the face of the truth, it was a part of her clinging to the edges of sanity. Silent fury and rage warred on the border between thought and action, and Lucca felt her body begin to shake.
Burn! Burn! Burn!
Lucca doffed her helmet and clutched at her forehead with growing alarm. Her breath was suddenly coming in fits. She felt... hot! Her forehead was fire. Her eyes smouldered. Her heart raged inside her chest. A tingling sensation crept across her whole body as if she had been thrown into a forge and was beginning to succumb to the flames. What was going on?
“Lucca, are you okay? What's wrong?” came Marle's concerned voice.
Lucca could only grunt in response. How could she answer? She didn't even know what was happening to her.
“Here, give me your hand. I'll channel some magic. Whatever it is, I'll take care of it.”
Unthinking, Lucca extended her left hand. Marle grabbed hold of it from her seat.
“You're burning up!” Marle said in astonishment. “Hold on, Lucca. I'll concentrate a bit harder.”
The stifling heat radiating from Lucca's skin then was draped over as if from a damp towel guarding against an August sun at the beach. Her breathing returned to normal. Her eyes cooled. Her heart steadied. And she suddenly felt exhausted.
“What's going on back there?” asked Crono with evident worry.
“That's strange,” Marle said, sounding oddly pained. “There's nothing wrong with her that I can sense. Just the opposite, she was overflowing with energy just now. I actually had to siphon strength away from her to calm her down.”
Crono looked baffled as he stared at Lucca from the front seat. Lucca could only gaze back with failing eyelids.
“Johnny, I think we all need to take a break,” Crono said. “We've been riding for hours in this tiny compartment. Lucca needs some fresh air before we go any further.”
“I'm down with that.” Johnny said. “Gonna have to slow down soon anyway. We're only a few hundred klicks away from Death Peak. The force o' that insane eruption that made it did some damage to the bridge. Gotta go over that bit with care. It's a good spot to get out and take a look if ya wanna sightsee. No other view like it.”
Lucca took a deep breath and forced herself to stay awake. She had a pretty good idea what the view was going to be like, but the fresh air could only do her good, whatever had just happened to warrant a second magical intervention from Marle. She needed to think of how she could even explain this one in her diary, if she cared to share it at all.
* * *
The breeze was deceptively peaceful.
The westerly wind was just cool enough for Marle to have to dig her blanket from Landis out of her backpack and drape it across her shoulders as she gazed mesmerized to the east from where she sat. Crono and Lucca sat to either side of her on the concrete median divide of the bridge, separating the three right-hand lanes Johnny Comet had been driving down from the less appealing left hand lanes that had borne the brunt of Lavos' emergent wrath. Much of the left-most lane no longer had a guardrail to restrain careless vehicles from toppling over the side, and there were a few spots where there was no left-most lane at all. It was a long way to fall. Before the Day of Lavos, the surface of the Tylair Ocean had lain about a hundred feet below the bridge. Now, the surface was actually the solid mud-caked crust of the earth, almost 1,500 feet further down. All that now remained of the Tylair Ocean in this region was a pockmarked series of shallow lakes littering the surface, mocking a greatness that would never again be. The ruined seascape extended to the horizon in all directions, but it was to the east where Marle and the others were focusing their attention.
In the far distance, a maelstrom of gray was in perpetual battle against the surrounding sky. Continual flashes of lightning lit up the spiraling clouds from within, hinting at appalling climatic violence beyond the veil of gloom. It was a hurricane that never went anywhere, doomed to watch over a place that hadn't existed before 300 years ago. Death Peak. The mountain itself couldn't be seen from this distance. The lightning occasionally exposed a shadow reaching over the very edge of the horizon, but that was the only glimpse any of them could see. The highest point of a caldera that was dozens of miles in diameter, and who knew how many miles deep. It was from this place that Lavos had bathed the world in fire, condemning the human race to extinction.
Marle wrapped her blanket more tightly around her. Just looking at the distant storm chilled her skin, knowing what it represented, knowing that she somehow had to find a way to stop it from happening. There was no need to get any closer to it. Marle couldn't imagine a reason anyone would want to get closer to it. A traveler would have to climb down to the muddy seabed, navigate around hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny lakes between here and the mountain, and then somehow make an ascent to Death Peak in the midst of hurricane-force winds. Marle wasn't sure why Director Doan was so adamant they not go there. No one in their right mind would even make the attempt.
“Nice scenery,” Lucca quipped after a long moment. “I can see the postcard now. 'See the glorious sights of 2300. Death Peak: A scene of majesty that will blow you away.'”
“Well, your sense of humor seems fine,” Crono remarked. “You sure you're feeling all right otherwise?”
Lucca shrugged. “I guess. Putting down some grub and a whole canteen's done me good. Dare I say it, but I'm starting to develop a taste for rat. Makes me wonder if the food we'll get back home will even taste the same to us after all this.”
Marle exchanged a look with her. Lucca seemed okay at the moment, but Marle still didn't understand what had happened to her. Trying to heal the sudden unexplained malady only revealed that Lucca had positively been bursting with energy, and when Marle had reversed the magical weave to drain Lucca of that excess energy, the resulting blowback nearly caused Marle herself to faint. She was still nursing the remnants of a headache from the experience. It almost felt like... No, that was impossible. Lucca was just stressed from their insanely fast trip across the world, that was all. Marle then channeled another ice cube into being and handed it to Lucca, who popped it into her mouth with silent gratitude.
“We'll be having a feast no matter what it tastes like,” Crono said with a grin. “But first we actually have to get home. We're only about two hours out from Arris once we get back on the road. We should probably review what we know about the robots before setting out again.”
“Good idea. Let's whip out old reliable and take a look-see.”
“Old reliable”, of course, was Lucca's diary. Normally Marle would agree with that quaint description. It was certainly easier to use than a computer. Though lately the thick volume was pretty much indecipherable to anyone but Lucca. Blank pages were now at such a premium that she was making notes anywhere she could find space, and that meant important information on any particular subject could be found in any number of different places, and often not in chronological order. Thankfully, Lucca had sketched what she knew about the robots on one of her few remaining clean pages since it was such a vital subject. Two sketches appeared on the page she flipped to, and Marle and Crono scooted in close to get a good look.
The first sketch was a squat thing on four spindly legs that extended well past the robot's small body. “This little guy I call the 'bugger',” Lucca explained. “It's about three feet tall and was apparently designed to hunt down rats. Don't know for sure what kind of weapon it carries, but I'm guessing it's some kind of standard projectile, since plasma fire has a way of destroying the target's food value. This thing is probably pretty quick, so we can't count on outrunning one if it picks up our trail.”
“Are there any weak points I can aim at?” Marle asked.
“Just the eye, and there's only one, right at the body's center mass. You take that out it should be blinded, though it'll probably take a plasma shot or a good sword hit to put the bugger down for the count.”
Lucca then directed their attention to the sketch below the insectile machine. This one seemed to be bipedal, and carried two mouth-like apertures on its upper body on either side of the machine's head in place of where the shoulders and arms would be on a normal biped. “This one is just short of the height of an average human,” Lucca said. “Call it the 'hunter'. Those clamper things on the upper body hide weapon emplacements, probably plasma-based. These were the things the Arris enclave sent when they had mutant problems. It looks a bit awkward on its feet, so it doesn't move very quickly in all likelihood. It's probably meant to hold a position and lay down fire to anything that crosses its sights. We'll have to be especially wary of them. I'd rather not test the limits of Marle's healing talents by eating a plasma bolt.”
“Weaknesses?” asked Crono.
“The same. One eye. Bigger than on the bugger, so it'll be easier to hit. But I wouldn't advise challenging it from the front. Too much firepower to safely deal with. Its awkward stance suggests it could possibly be flanked, but I don't know how much good a sword will be against that. Its plating looks thicker than on the bugger from the images I saw, so expect that it is. Any sword strike would have to be aimed at the joints, and that's a narrower target than the eye is.”
Crono nodded soberly. “Best to avoid both of these things if we can. This won't be like fighting glassers or the like. These things will actually shoot back.”
“Only if we give them the chance,” Marle said. “I don't intend to let any of these machines see what they're shooting at if it comes down to a fight.”
“What about that other thing Johnny showed us a bit ago? That sixty-six model robot?”
Lucca looked uncomfortable. “If we see one, we should probably run like the Day of Lavos were upon us. Nothing short of a plasma bolt will make a dent in the plating it has, and there's no way to know how vulnerable its joints might be.”
“It didn't look like it had any weapons, though,” Marle pointed out.
“That was an old schematic, dating from around the time it was first built before the Day of Lavos. 1995 or so. If it's been corrupted by that 'song' Johnny mentioned, it could have any number of offensive abilities to suit its new directive. I think its two front chest plates open up, so it could be hiding weapons in there. That's what I saw in the schematic, anyway.”
“Avoid at all costs, then,” Crono said. “Is there anything else we should know?”
“Just that all the info we have is at least thirty years out of date. The only thing we know for certain is where the temporal gate is. We need to stay hidden and get to the gate as quick as we can. No unnecessary heroics.”
“It's as good a plan as we're going to have under the circumstances. Nothing for it but to make it happen.”
Lucca closed her diary, and Marle came to her feet and stretched, gazing into the swirling chaos to the east that was Death Peak. She wanted this image burned in her memory. The picture of what would happen and what would always endure if the future didn't change. Then she turned around and regarded the setting sun. As far as Marle was concerned this would be the last time the sun would be allowed to set on this ruined future. Once she was back in the past, all of the rules would change. A new future would be created, and the creature known as Lavos would never live to wreak such destruction as she had witnessed.
Thinking of Mary, doubtlessly hard at work back at the Bangor enclave, Marle collected herself and strode over to where the proudly shining Johnny Comet was parked on the road, waiting to drive everyone to their destiny.
The long walk to sector 32 of the Bangor ruins wasn't as uneventful as Crono had hoped. Two glasser mutants had to be dealt with before the time-travelers even made it past the tenth block heading north. Dispatching them hadn't been difficult. Lucca, with her new plasma pistol given to her by Director Doan, had done the job almost all by herself, landing all twelve shots she fired and leaving the red-skinned abominations reeling enough for Crono to finish them off with no real effort. Things had become more tense at the end of the eastern leg, when five glassers approached them from two directions. Crono, Marle, and Lucca all had to drop their backpacks to fight the fiends effectively, and the charge on Lucca's new gun had dropped to a dangerous level by the time the last glasser stopped twitching. Doan's pistol could fire up to twelve consecutive shots at normal power and speed before needing to recharge from its internal capacitor, which was a process that took up to a full minute. Lucca had been forced to fire only single shots near the end of the engagement, necessitating Marle to take a much larger role in the fight than any of them wanted. The battery pack that Lucca carried in her satchel had several hundred normal shots-worth of power, which could be employed whenever the gun's capacitor became low on energy. Marle only had the thirty-five crossbow bolts in her quiver. Wasting any of those on mutants here would leave fewer to deal with unknown threats in the ruins of Arris. Two of the five bolts she fired had been completely imbedded in the glasser corpses through their eyeballs and couldn't be recovered in any acceptable amount of time in the open ruins, so they were forced to leave them behind and continue on their way. A comparatively short walk further north brought them into the declared red zone of sector 32.
“There's the sign. Thank the Divine,” Marle said.
It was the rickety remains of a street sign, labeled “stop”, that Crono guessed had been placed erect by Director Doan sometime after he had sealed his vehicle away. It was implanted in a small pile of rubble in the middle of the street rather than where it would normally be on the side of the road, so he knew it had to have been placed deliberately as a landmark. A shadowy descent lie a short distance to their right, situated between two decaying buildings of stunted height.
“How's your gun, Lu? Ready to brave the shadows?” he asked.
Lucca tipped her glasses and held her gun aloft in one hand. “Good to go.”
“Let's hope this vehicle's still okay,” Marle said. “It's been sitting here for over thirty years, right?”
“Gotta think it's okay,” Crono said. “Mutants don't feed on machines. Just us. Let's keep our eyes open until we know the place is clear.”
Marle turned on the flashlight modification of her crossbow and gingerly led the way down into the dark, Crono and Lucca flanking her position from just behind. Going lights on was a bit of a risk since mutants were always attracted by the glare, but if the vehicle was here they had no choice but to clear out the area anyway. Crono made ready to slip off his backpack and draw his sword in an instant. Lucca kept her gun in a two-handed grip and slowly panned her aim, scanning for any threats.
The underground area was fairly small, perhaps no bigger than the entirety of Dormitory 7 back at the enclave. A brief examination showed the only outlet being the ramp they had just descended. Sitting off to the right side of the otherwise empty space was a large narrow object about forty feet in length covered by some type of tarp. Marle circled the object at a distance moving to her left, splashing the beams of her flashlights across the tarp and then focusing on the unrevealed shadows on the object's far side. Nothing was seen except bare concrete.
“Clear!” she called out.
“All right, let's get this tarp off and see what we're dealing with,” Crono said.
Marle kept her flashlights spotted on the unknown vehicle and occasionally looked back up the ramp for mutant threats while Crono and Lucca got to work on removing the tarp. Decades-worth of dust rolled off the covering as it came off, causing a fair bit of coughing for all present. Everyone was expecting to stare in great interest at whatever the dusty tarp finally revealed.
Instead they were completely transfixed.
The vehicle was quite unlike any they had ever seen. It didn't resemble a steam buggy so much as a giant dart. A two-tone dart of blue and gold with more wing than wheel. The narrow seating compartment was completely enclosed by a canopy of glass and was resting atop a strange hollow that dominated the whole front end of the vehicle. On either side of the hollow at the very front was a small metal wing angled downward that Crono had no clue as to the function of. Further back were two larger wings extending rearward from the vehicle's center that grew gradually wider until coming to an abrupt halt at the vehicle's far aft. Above the canopy was another slightly smaller hollow that tapered back to a sharp wedge at the very rear. Below and a bit in front of this wedge were three more hollows with apertures facing rearward. Most everything above the wings was painted in blue, while everything below the wings was painted in gold, both colors sparkling where Marle's flashlights played across the vehicle's surface. The lightning bolt and fireball emblem on the key Doan had given them was duplicated prominently on either side of the wedge fin. Crono felt the vehicle's metallic skin with fascination. It was totally smooth. Crono's gaping expression stared back at him from the blue.
“Lucca? Did you ever...?”
“No,” Lucca told him. “I never saw anything like this on the computers.”
“It's beautiful!” Marle said in wonder. “Whoever built this was as much an artist as an engineer.”
“No doubt,” Lucca chuckled. “I wonder at the practicality, though. It has almost no carrying capacity that I can see. Just what's under that canopy. I wonder if we can even all fit in there?”
Crono rose on the balls of his feet to peer inside the glass. “There's three seats, all in a row front to back,” he related. “Gonna be pretty tight with the packs, but I think we can do it.”
“Three seats? It's almost like it was made for us,” Marle mused.
Crono didn't believe in that level of coincidence. He was just happy enough that things seemed to be going their way. He checked the vehicle's skin around the canopy for any levers or controls that might get the canopy open, praying it wasn't stuck in place from the vehicle sitting around unused for thirty years. Nothing stuck out at him, though. The skin and the canopy both seemed unblemished.
“Let me see it,” Lucca said. “Marle, get the light in tight, would you?”
Lucca saw it before Crono did: an almost invisible square-shaped switch the size of his thumb that was contoured perfectly with the vehicle's skin. Lucca pressed the switch inward about half an inch, and a light thudding sound was heard coming from somewhere just inside the canopy. A moment later, the canopy began rising sideways to the vehicle's left in a slow smooth motion.
“That's some really precise engineering there,” Lucca remarked approvingly.
Crono wasted no time climbing into the vehicle's front seat, pulling his backpack in behind him and stuffing it as best he could in the confined space.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Lucca protested.
“I got the key, I call the seat,” Crono smirked back at her.
Lucca scoffed. “You're such a child, Crono! You've never even driven a steam buggy before. I know dad wouldn't let you even touch the wheel of ours, Anne be praised.”
“First time for everything. How hard can it be?” Crono settled himself and regarded the controls in front of him. As expected, the vehicle had a wheel - of sorts - directly in front of him, and there were a couple of pedals he could feel with his feet below. But the wheel was quite small and wasn't shaped anything like a circle, though it did turn a bit, and the pedals wouldn't depress. There was also a lot more. A square pane of glass, probably a viewscreen of some sort, faced him from between his legs, and there were dozens of buttons and switches on the consoles to either side of the strangely shaped wheel. The controls altogether looked more like a small computer terminal than the simple control scheme of dials and levers found on a steam buggy of his time. Maybe this wouldn't be quite as easy as he thought.
“See? Everything's computerized,” Lucca said smugly. “That means this is my show. Come on, switch out and let me show you how it's done. We'll be driving off inside of an hour.”
Crono grumbled. Lucca was probably right. Computers tripped him up almost as much as they did Marle if he attempted anything beyond the most basic operations. Still, if he was going to be driving a vehicle for the first time, he wanted it to be this one. Nothing for it but to put in the key and see. He'd examine the controls further once he turned the vehicle on and then pass the task on to Lucca – maybe - if he couldn't figure it out. Bringing the long key out of his pocket, he inserted it into what looked like a matching slot just above the presumed viewscreen and turned it.
A glowing circle appeared around the key as soon as it was fully turned. The buttons and switches all around Crono then started lighting up in groups, and a low pitched whine began to sound from somewhere behind the canopy.
“All right, Crono, don't start getting any funny ideas,” Lucca warned.
Crono laughed. Computerized or not, the functions of the wheel and the pedals would certainly be the same as on a steam buggy. Why would that be changed? He might not even need to use the other stuff anyway.
“Come on, you two. Find yourselves a seat,” Crono said eagerly. “The sooner we can get to Arris, the better.”
“I agree with Crono,” Marle said, deftly scrambling into the seat behind his. “The noise from this thing is bound to attract mutants if we don't leave in a hurry. We can figure things out as we go.”
“Figure things out as we go?!” Lucca said, flabbergasted. “There's a difference between knowing how a vehicle drives and knowing how it actually functions! I don't even know what kind of engine it uses!”
“You want to take it apart? Fill out the rest of your diary dissecting this thing while glassers are wandering about looking for their next meal?” Crono asked disdainfully.
“Well, no, but I...”
“Ain't no one takin' the Comet apart!” came a shrill voice.
In the next instant, the steering wheel and the floor pedals all retracted from Crono's reach. Crono, Marle, and Lucca all looked around in sudden alarm. Who was that who just spoke?
Crono tried to get out of the vehicle quickly to investigate the sudden intrusion, but the tight fit impeded his efforts. No one else was supposed to be out here. He knew there were no active scavenging runs going on, and sector 32 was a red zone anyway. No one could cross into a red zone without Director Doan's express permission. Could it be a traveler from outside of the Bangor enclave, perhaps? Such travelers were exceedingly rare.
“Who's there?!” Lucca called out to the dark surroundings. “This is a red zone! We thought we were the only ones here!”
“What you talkin' 'bout, girl? You blind or somethin'?” came the unknown voice again. “You in the presence of 'da Man.”
Crono looked around in befuddlement. The voice didn't seem to be coming from anywhere around them, it seemed to be coming from the vehicle itself. But that didn't make any sense. Crono and the others had checked the vehicle thoroughly. There was no one hiding inside the hollows, and for the life of him Crono couldn't imagine anywhere else on the vehicle large enough to hold a man even if there was some access he wasn't aware of. He assumed the entire rear end behind the canopy held the engines or other vital equipment.
“Da... who?” Lucca said uncertainly.
“Da Man, baby!” the voice crowed. “Alias for old Johnny Comet! Grand Champion of '97, '98, and '99! Fastest racer there ever was, or ever will be.”
Racer?
Crono looked down at the controls. A face was staring back at him. From the viewscreen.
“Wait,” Marle called out. “Where exactly are you?”
“I'm all around you, baby!”
There was no question. The visage in the viewscreen had just talked. It was a cartoonish depiction of a dark-skinned man with an exceptionally odd hairstyle consisting of a strip of black strands in the middle of an otherwise bald scalp, sticking almost straight up as if reaching for something. He was wearing wildly angled opaque glasses and an orange vest that looked to be made of metal rather than cloth, the bulb of a large flashlight device prominently displayed in the center of his chest. Oddest of all were the things he was wearing on his back. They appeared to be tires.
“Uh... Lucca?” Crono uttered.
Lucca bent over where Crono was sitting from outside of the open canopy, staring at the odd visage with evident disbelief. Marle got out of her seat to goggle at the face from over Crono's opposite shoulder.
“Are you... the vehicle?” Lucca inquired.
The face appeared to scoff. “Vehicle?! Do I look like a garbage truck to you, Violet? I'm 'da Man! What would you go turnin' me on for if ya didn't know who I was?”
Lucca gaped in astonishment. “It's an artificial intelligence! Integrated into the computer systems of this vehicle! There's still one of them left!”
An artificial intelligence, Crono thought. Just like what the homicidal robots of Arris were said to possess to some degree. He very nearly went for his sword right then, but stopped the thought before the impulse reached his hand. Director Doan had used this very vehicle to escape Arris and its malfunctioning robots, after having sabotaged them to prevent any more machine on human carnage. There couldn't be any danger. That “worm” thing Doan had mentioned would have caused the vehicle to destroy itself if it were present the moment it left the vicinity of Arris. That meant he saw no reason to install it in the first place.
“You called yourself Johnny Comet, right?” he asked.
“In the sheet-metal, bro! You talkin' to the car who ain't never lost a race. Hit over a thousand my very first time on the track and I wasn't even tuned up yet. Nearest chump finished thirty seconds behind me.”
“A... thousand?” Marle asked with a frown.
“Ohhh, yeah, baby! Said it couldn't be done back in '97, but I showed them! Wanna see the reaction on their faces when I did it?”
The viewscreen shifted from the ridiculous cartoon visage to an image of a crowd with astounded faces. A healthy and very well dressed crowd that knew nothing of want or enertron sickness, from all appearances.
“You date from the age of the domes!” Lucca said. “That's incredible!”
The image shifted back. “You know it, sister. They made Johnny Comet to last. So what you doin' turnin' me on? Need a ride somewhere?”
“We need to get to the ruins of Arris,” Marle said. “Director Doan said you could get us there fast.”
The cartoonish figure's face grew in size, as if moving closer to the screen, and donned a wicked smile. “You need to get to Arris fast? You talkin' to the right car! Sweetness! Been awhile since I stretched my legs. The Trans-C ain't the same without 'da Man.”
“Trans-C? What's that?”
“Probably slang for the Transcontinental Highway,” Lucca said.
“Fast is good,” Crono said, feeling more confident by the second. “Well, if you can put your controls back where I can reach them, Johnny, we can be on our way. I'm assuming you moved them before? We shouldn't waste much time with mutants wandering around outside.”
Johnny Comet's gleeful expression disappeared.
“Oh, no, bro. That ain't the way it works,” the artificial intelligence said darkly. “Ain't no one drive Johnny Comet but Johnny Comet! Been my rule since some blue-haired maniac take me for a joyride back in '98 and scratched up my paint!”
Crono wasn't sure he heard that right.
“You can drive yourself?”
“Who you think you talkin' to? Ya want something done right, do it yourself! I'll show you how to get to Arris fast!”
The low whine coming from behind the canopy then abruptly raised in pitch, went down just as quickly, then raised up and down again several times. The vehicle shook where it sat on the pavement, as if it were a bull raring to charge.
“I think that's our cue to sit down,” Lucca remarked, looking white in the face.
“Buckle up ladies and gent. We gonna fly!” Johnny Comet said with manic enthusiasm.
Lucca quickly clambered into the back seat, while Crono and Marle pulled sturdy-looking straps down from the top of their seats across their chests and locked them in place to a securing ring across their stomachs, doing the same thing with straps to either side and from below per Johnny's instructions. The canopy of the blue and gold racer closed with a gentle thunk and sealed itself with an audible hiss. Crono's heart hammered in his chest. They weren't even moving, and somehow Crono knew the next few moments would be the most thrilling of his life. That anyone should have to be secured to a vehicle's seat with six straps implied an astonishing level of performance.
“You ready back there, Lu?”
“Oh yeah. Perfect. Back here I know I won't be the first one to die if we crash,” Lucca replied with a nervous laugh.
Crono snorted. “We're set here, Johnny. Ready when you are.”
“That's what I wanna hear!” Johnny Comet said. “Let's rock!”
A very loud piece of music suddenly began to play within the canopy, with intense chords and a rapidly kicking rhythm, and the vehicle known as Johnny Comet kicked out of its place of long slumber just as suddenly.
Crono saw three glasser mutants at the top of the ramp directly in their path.
“Look out!” he warned.
“Psh! Roadkill,” Johnny said dismissively.
Johnny Comet began his turn before reaching the ramp's apex, sliding his right side directly into the mutants and sending them flying across the street to crash violently into the buildings on the other side in a cloud of dust. The stop sign landmark was the next casualty. Johnny then blazed a path down the street heading south, turning east, then south, then west, then south again at a rate of speed far in excess of anything on the ground Crono could conceive. He cried out in delight at the vehicle's furious motion, the acceleration out of the turns, the way the seat straps and buckle pressed into his skin. The opening seconds of this mad dash to Arris had already exceeded his expectations. And for all of the risks taken maneuvering in such a way when the streets were filled with rubble, Johnny somehow didn't run into anything. The rubble might as well not even have been there.
It was like foot-racing in the streets of Truce City at peak pedestrian hours, never knowing precisely what was waiting for you around the next corner, only about fifty times as fast. A Truceian street racer often risked humiliation, detainment by the police, or actual injury every time they got truly serious on their makeshift racetrack. Johnny Comet risked a lot more than that at every corner and was laughing at the danger, letting it fuel his advance, fearing nothing except being too slow. This while not even racing anyone. Marle's joyous laughter filled the narrow cabin. Lucca's cries were a thin hair short of hysteria.
Almost before he was conscious of it, the shattered archway marking the entrance to Bangor from the road Crono remembered walking under that first day in the city was past them, and Johnny Comet and his passengers were on the Transcontinental Highway heading east. The giant road to Arris stretched to the horizon in front of them.
Goodbye, Bangor. Stay safe until we can fix things.
The racer's radical lateral motions then diminished to a more stately juking between holes in the road's pavement, and Crono felt himself being pressed even harder into the back of his seat. He was expecting greater acceleration outside of the ruins, but not like this. It felt like two heavy men were sitting on his chest trying to force his breath out. This thing was now traveling faster than one of Marle's crossbow bolts could fly.
Crono willed himself not to worry. The most hazardous part of the trip, outside of Arris itself, was probably behind them now. There were no sharp corners he remembered seeing on the computer generated map back in the enclave. Just a gradual turn southeast as the highway carved through the eastern half of the Tarvor mountains, and then it was over two-thousand miles of straight empty road and bridge. At these speeds, if Johnny could sustain them, they might reach Arris in as little as two days, three at the most. Crono had to laugh at the notion of a three month trip reduced to as many days.
So why did it feel like he was forgetting something important?
“The beam! By Creation, the beam!” Lucca cried out at the top of her lungs.
There was no time to comment on what was coming. Barely any time to lament the thing Crono had forgotten about. The giant slab of steel, a remnant of one of Bangor Dome's main structural members, thrown out here in the explosive chaos of the Day of Lavos, was lying across all eight lanes of the road directly in front of them. They would hit it in under two seconds. Crono's life flashed before him.
Johnny Comet skirted left, leaving the road and running up the short hill the time travelers had climbed over their first time here to get around the immense obstacle. He wasn't on the hill long.
Crono, Marle, and Lucca screamed. The ground could no longer be seen, nor could it be felt through the vibration in the cabin. Johnny Comet had gone completely airborne.
So this is how it ends, Crono thought, staring straight ahead into the open sky. Their quest to save the future brought to an unceremonious close barely outside of Bangor by a talking vehicle that suddenly aspired to become a bird. He supposed it was no less lunacy than everything else he had been through of late. Crono wondered what he could say to his father when he saw him.
And then Johnny Comet was down. They weren't dead. The giant beam was behind them, and the now unobstructed lanes of the Transcontinental Highway lie ahead of them. They were back on the road! Off the road and then in the air for several seconds, and Crono barely felt the moment of their landing. How had Johnny done that?
“Whooo yeah! Five-point-two seconds of Johnny Comet airtime!” the figure in the viewscreen gloated. “Told you we was gonna fly. Who 'da Man?”
Marle's elation filled the compartment. “We flew! We were flying! This is incredible!”
“This is insaaaane!” Lucca yelled, a measure less than elated.
“Insane? What you talkin' 'bout, Violet?” said Johnny. “We haven't even hit the big straight yet. This is nothin'. You wanted to get to Arris fast? I can get you there today!”
“Uh, I'll settle for merely tomorrow.”
Crono's thoughts mirrored Lucca's audible unease. Today? Surely Johnny could not be serious. It was a journey of over three-thousand miles!
But Crono's doubts were beginning to falter as Johnny Comet continued his blistering pace on the gently curving road, driving faster and faster as the craters along the pavement grew less frequent. The road then shrank from eight lanes to six. Johnny stopped juking entirely and kept to the center lane of the right-hand set of three, increasing his speed even further. As gradual as the turn to the southeast was, Crono still felt himself pressed against the side of his seat. Insane was about right. And thrilling.
“Johnny, how fast are we going?” Crono asked breathlessly. “I can't even begin to guess, this is so crazy.”
“What, you don't see the speedo?” Johnny answered. “We just passed 800 kph. Nothin' crazy 'bout that. Slowest chump I knew could do that in his sleep.”
Crono blanched. He still didn't know the metric measuring system of the future all that well, but 800 kilometers per hour sounded ridiculous. “Uh, Lucca? How fast is that in miles per hour?”
“Oh, um, just under five-hundred,” Lucca said with a fearful chuckle. “Totally not crazy, that. I can come up with a much better word once I stop shaking in my straps.”
Five-hundred miles in an hour! Crono thought numbly. Johnny wasn't boasting in the least. Not only would they get to Arris today, they would probably arrive with half-a-day to spare. He suddenly understood why Director Doan's tone had been so dry last night. “Rather quickly” didn't begin to describe this experience.
“Miles per hour?” Johnny inquired curiously. “Old-fashioned, huh? I'm down with that. How's about I put my mph above my head here, and you can go 'whoooa' with every tick of my awesome vel-os-eh-tay?”
A number then appeared above the gleeful visage of Johnny Comet's cartoonish avatar. It read “504 mph”. And that figure was continuing to climb.
We really don't need to go faster than this, Crono thought. But the greater part of him – perhaps not the wiser, but the greater – wanted to know what this talking vehicle's upper limit was. Crono had always pushed his own limits on the streets of Truce, and made a habit of knowing the upper limits of the people he raced. He couldn't imagine the knowledge being useful in this instance, but he still wanted to know.
The Transcontinental Highway began to straighten, and the cresting of one more shallow rise revealed the longest roadway Crono had ever seen. A slight downhill grade marked the path, which extended to a point in the far distance Crono wasn't sure an eagle could make out from here. From the map, he knew this was the beginning of the straight that would lead almost directly to Arris. No turns. No hills. Just thousands of miles of straight pavement. If Johnny was going to demonstrate the upper levels of his performance, it would be here.
“Here it comes, kiddos,” the artificial intelligence said eagerly. “The straight of Tylair. Longest stretch of road there ever was. Called it the big three-K back in the day. Ain't no excuses here. This patch of pavement show who be fast and who be slow.”
“Be fast, Johnny,” Crono said with a boyish grin. After all, he had actually flown in this thing for over five seconds and somehow survived. He could handle this.
Johnny Comet's avatar then folded its body at impossible angles and suddenly took on the form of a... tricycle. A tricycle with Johnny's head in place of the handlebars and with pink wings extending out the side of its body. The wide tires formerly on its back now touched the virtual ground in the form of a tricycle's rear axle, and two long pipes, perhaps exhausts, angled out above facing rearward. It was an incomparably odd picture, but one that promised impending excitement.
“Goin' for my personal best, then. Sonic booooom!”
Crono was then thrown back in his seat with such force it was like the two proverbial men sitting on his chest suddenly became five. The whine of the vehicle's strange engine rose to a painful pitch, and the sudden change of music in the cabin was almost entirely drowned out. Johnny's speed increased from 500 to 700 mph in mere seconds. Crono's response was about what the self-aware vehicle had prophesied.
“Whoooa!”
“Crono, what have you doooone?” Lucca wailed.
Johnny Comet streaked down the road at a velocity that Crono could only imagine was akin to a shooting star. He had no other frame of reference aside from the number displayed on the vehicle's viewscreen. Seven-fifty. Eight-hundred. Eight-fifty. Each passing second seemed to increase the number by twenty, and the rate of acceleration wasn't slowing. The road went by in a blur. The engine howled. The seats shook.
“Uh... maybe we should slow down,” Marle said, sounding disquieted for the first time.
“Slow down?! I haven't even hit a thousand yet!” Johnny said. “I thought you guys wanted to go fast?”
“This isn't fast!” Lucca shrieked. “This is demented!”
“Any chump can go supersonic. The real mark of greatness is for a car to break the big one-nine-double-oh. That's 1,180 mph for you old-fashioned folk. Me, my record's 1,940 kph, meanin' 1,206 for you guys. I'm gonna break that today for sure!”
“S,somebody stop this thing!” Marle cried.
But there was no stopping Johnny Comet, and Crono didn't dare start pushing buttons while the crazy vehicle was traveling at these speeds. The four-digit barrier was soon breached, and the mph continued to climb. Crono then saw the surrounding land disappear, and all that remained were the lanes of pavement in front of them. They had crossed onto the giant bridge that spanned the remnants of the Tylair Ocean. Guardrails to either side passed them by in a mist of gray.
Lucca's moaning abruptly ceased. Crono didn't have to see why. He thought about passing out himself. Time seemed to slow down all around him. The cabin grew strangely quieter, and the pressure on his body eased. The speed indicator was close to 1,200 mph.
“Whoooo, yeah!” Johnny finally crowed. “Twelve-oh-nine, baby! Who's da' Man, huh?! Who's da' Man?!
“Uh... you are?” Crono managed. He didn't know what else to say. Just that he had to get this speed demon to stop before he got everyone killed.
“I can't heeeear you!”
“You are!” Crono and Marle cried in unison.
Johnny Comet's avatar then reverted back to it's man-like form, apparently satisfied, and pointed at himself with both thumbs. “And don't you forget it, baby!”
Satisfied or not, Johnny took his sweet time decelerating from his record-breaking 1,209 mile-per-hour run. It was a long while before Crono could stop shaking.
* * *
One of the great things about being the author of your own story was that you had the power of Creation – which was to say omission – over incidents that painted you in a negative light. Fainting was a completely understandable occurrence given the situation Lucca had been in. She had an intimate knowledge, academically speaking, of what happened to things that collided with other things at a high rate of speed. It wasn't her fault that the laws of physics demanded bad things happen to a human skull that hit a solid object at anything faster than a brisk trot, let alone a hundred times as fast. Lucca had no qualms about omitting Marle's use of magic to keep said author in the realm of the conscious shortly after the ludicrous 1,209 mile-per-hour speed record was set. After all, such things weren't supposed to happen to the heroine.
Since then, her diary would record the unaltered tale of Johnny Comet reducing his speed – after much persuasion and shameless flattery – to a “mere” 300 miles-per-hour to time their arrival at Arris shortly after dark. Lucca, Crono, and Marle had decided that arriving after dark was the best way of avoiding unnecessary encounters with robots in the ruins, though it made the task of finding an entrance into the Arris enclave more challenging. Better to be slow and unnoticed than to be quick and dead, the thinking went.
The following hours were spent making almost normal conversation with the vehicle's undaunted artificial intelligence, which Lucca tackled with a vigor to make up for her earlier spell of fright. Speaking with a genuine programmed intelligence, with the capacity for self-awareness and an ability to make its own decisions, was a tremendous opportunity. A relic of a now bygone era, for Lucca it represented everything a machine could aspire to be. She couldn't help but think of GATO speaking in its own voice instead of playing records of other people's voices, and not even needing a change of program card to conduct itself differently and adapting to the situation at hand. It was an avenue of research she wanted to undertake sometime after all of this Lavos business was behind her.
“So you replenish the fuel for your boosters by harvesting hydrogen directly out of the atmosphere through your intakes?” Lucca asked. “That's amazing! And because your jet engines operate from a fusion cell, you can never run out of fuel. You can just keep going and going.”
“Oh, yeah. I ride the wind, baby.” Johnny Comet replied proudly. “Might have still been goin' these past thirty years if there were anyone left to race. Most of my old buds got melted right where they were on the day that rain o' fire come stormin' down, and the few who didn't got sent to the scrap pile to keep those underground enclaves a runnin'.”
“How many of you were there?” Crono asked with fascination. Naturally, anything to do with racing caught Crono's interest.
“A full circuit, brother. First racers started showin' up in the mid seventies, though none of them lot were AI. Just a bunch of workin' class chaps that took it in their minds to go soupin' up their cars to see how quick they could drive between the domes.” Johnny chuckled. “Drove the cops bananas, what with them guys weavin' back and forth through traffic lookin' for the glory of a checkered flag, and then doin' it all again goin' the other way. It was all the rage, man. For every one of that lot the cops threw behind bars, there were two more lookin' to join in the action. People even started recordin' the races and placing bets on who won. Things got so crazy by the nineties that the government in Keepers Dome decided to make an official circuit and cleared the highways every couple months for people to race. Them's were the glory days, brother. That's when they stopped usin' cars you could buy off the lot and started buildin' bonafide racers from the ground up. Changed all the rules about what a car could be. Only restrictions were they had to carry at least two passengers and couldn't fly more than a hundred meters. Other than that, it was anything goes. Jet engines. Fusion cells. The works.”
Including wings, Lucca thought. Not for flying, but to help keep the car on the road. Looking at Johnny Comet's design, Lucca now understood the aerodynamic principles at work. Each set of wings generated downforce, which was essential for the vehicle's stability at high speeds. Those same wings could also be used to generate lift in an emergency, such as when Johnny jumped that hill to get over the giant steel beam lying across the road. A slight and continual adjustment of those wings in mid-air would account for the way Johnny had landed back on the road with hardly any impact. It was the kind of stunt no human driver would have been able to manage.
“And that's when they started putting artificial intelligences into the cars,” Lucca reasoned.
“You got it, sister. I come around back in '97. Some guys wanted to shatter every record in the books by puttin' an AI behind the wheel, so they gathered up every credit between them and put me together. Broke a thousand kph in my first race, dusting everyone. That brought about the AI era, and every team worth its rubber put one into their cars hopin' to take me down. Nope! Didn't happen. Grand Champion of '97 right here.” Johnny made a thumbing gesture to himself through his avatar. “Then teams started puttin' hydrogen boosters into their cars to get that added edge, only they did the same with me as soon as my crew chief got wind of what they was doin'. Nope! Supersonic, baby! Grand Champion of 98' right here.” Another thumb point. “Then my rivals get it into their heads to break 1,900 on the kph meter, and I was the only one to actually go and do it. Right here on the three-K. Boom! Grand Champion of 99'. Fastest racer there ever was or ever will be, that's Johnny Comet!”
“Are you saying you're the last one, Johnny?” Marle asked. “The last racer?”
“'Fraid so. Wandered the highways for years. Never saw another. Then I run into Brother Frank. Said he'd protect me from scavengers as long as I did what he said. Seemed like a good deal, so he hid me away in Arris for a bit, then later in Bangor. Better than the scrap heap. Then the three of you turn me on, and here we are.”
“Then Frank did us and the world a great service keeping you in one piece,” Lucca said with a smile. “Especially in Arris. Did he do something to prevent you from going crazy like the robots did? I'm still trying to understand how that happened.”
Johnny's avatar shrugged. “All Brother Frank did was turn me on. As for those robot psychos in Arris, I don't know nothin' about that. Brother Frank said some song they was hearing was drivin' them batty. All I heard over the comms was static. Whatever that song was, it had no effect on ol' Johnny Comet. Maybe 'cause all I know or care about is racin'. Don't have no weapons, neither.”
That made sense, Lucca thought. If the directive the robots received from this “song” demanded the destruction of all humans, a machine like Johnny Comet wouldn't serve any practical use. He would just be ignored by whatever the source of the song was.
“What about the robots themselves?” Crono asked. “Director Doan only gave us a few basic descriptions. Is there anything you can tell us about them?”
“Yeah, they shoot you on sight, man! What, you think I'm some kind of encyclopedia on anything other than racin'? You want those kind of details, you're lookin' for one of them double-sixers.”
“Double-sixers?” Marle inquired.
“General-purpose robot, generation sixty-six,” Johnny said. “Top-o'-the-line 'bot from '95. Know everythin' about everythin' since the Great War them 'bots do. Problem is the song got to them, too. Brother Frank was the last guy to speak to one without gettin' his head blown off. You want my advice? If it's metallic and it moves, you best be movin' yourself and hope it don't see you.”
A dome-era robot that survived the Day of Lavos? This was news to Lucca. She knew nothing about the sixty-six series, but she had read a few articles describing much older robots in the general-purpose category, including a few schematics. Perhaps the survivors of Arris had been able to scavenge the remains of these advanced robots and put them back together as their level of robotics knowledge allowed.
“Can you show us a picture of a sixty-six, Johnny?” Lucca asked.
“Can do.”
A half-solid, half-wireframe schematic then appeared on the viewscreen set into the back of Marle's seat. Lucca's breath caught. The seven-foot-tall robot was bipedal, with a round bronze-colored body that eschewed sharp angles everywhere Lucca could see. Sturdy metal plates covered every section of the robot aside from the upper legs and arms, which were wrapped in a dark synthetic material that covered the elbow and knee joints. Scattered rivets precisely measured from one another kept the plates in place. A large hose curved upward from a protrusion on the machine's left breastplate and was inserted high into the robot's torso just below the head, and a more vertical protrusion, perhaps a cooling vent, fronted the right breastplate. The head was squat and without a face, with one large plate covering the cranium and two sizable optic mechanisms facing front. Sticking up out of the head was a cylindrical protrusion Lucca thought to be a radio receiver and transmitter. Most notable to Lucca, and the most human-looking part of the robot, were its hands, which were five-fingered and looked to have all the joints and articulation of a human hand.
It was mechanical perfection. Something even Lucca wasn't sure she could improve upon for all of her imagination and industriousness. The ultimate evolution of GATO. A mechanical being with the self-awareness of Johnny Comet, but also one with the versatility of a human, and loaded with knowledge of every kind to serve and protect the people it was designed to aid. Such a thing had to be Creation sent. Inspired by the Divine and built by man to do good.
Burn.
Lucca suddenly felt faint, and not from her earlier episode. What was that just now?
It's perfect. And it was corrupted to kill. Someone must pay. Burn them all!
It was her mind's voice. The same one that confronted her in the ruins of Bangor after running out of the classified archive, trying to come to grips with the reality of humanity's doom. But the voice felt different, somehow. A dark fragment of Lucca's soul that wasn't simply berating her weakness in the face of the truth, it was a part of her clinging to the edges of sanity. Silent fury and rage warred on the border between thought and action, and Lucca felt her body begin to shake.
Burn! Burn! Burn!
Lucca doffed her helmet and clutched at her forehead with growing alarm. Her breath was suddenly coming in fits. She felt... hot! Her forehead was fire. Her eyes smouldered. Her heart raged inside her chest. A tingling sensation crept across her whole body as if she had been thrown into a forge and was beginning to succumb to the flames. What was going on?
“Lucca, are you okay? What's wrong?” came Marle's concerned voice.
Lucca could only grunt in response. How could she answer? She didn't even know what was happening to her.
“Here, give me your hand. I'll channel some magic. Whatever it is, I'll take care of it.”
Unthinking, Lucca extended her left hand. Marle grabbed hold of it from her seat.
“You're burning up!” Marle said in astonishment. “Hold on, Lucca. I'll concentrate a bit harder.”
The stifling heat radiating from Lucca's skin then was draped over as if from a damp towel guarding against an August sun at the beach. Her breathing returned to normal. Her eyes cooled. Her heart steadied. And she suddenly felt exhausted.
“What's going on back there?” asked Crono with evident worry.
“That's strange,” Marle said, sounding oddly pained. “There's nothing wrong with her that I can sense. Just the opposite, she was overflowing with energy just now. I actually had to siphon strength away from her to calm her down.”
Crono looked baffled as he stared at Lucca from the front seat. Lucca could only gaze back with failing eyelids.
“Johnny, I think we all need to take a break,” Crono said. “We've been riding for hours in this tiny compartment. Lucca needs some fresh air before we go any further.”
“I'm down with that.” Johnny said. “Gonna have to slow down soon anyway. We're only a few hundred klicks away from Death Peak. The force o' that insane eruption that made it did some damage to the bridge. Gotta go over that bit with care. It's a good spot to get out and take a look if ya wanna sightsee. No other view like it.”
Lucca took a deep breath and forced herself to stay awake. She had a pretty good idea what the view was going to be like, but the fresh air could only do her good, whatever had just happened to warrant a second magical intervention from Marle. She needed to think of how she could even explain this one in her diary, if she cared to share it at all.
* * *
The breeze was deceptively peaceful.
The westerly wind was just cool enough for Marle to have to dig her blanket from Landis out of her backpack and drape it across her shoulders as she gazed mesmerized to the east from where she sat. Crono and Lucca sat to either side of her on the concrete median divide of the bridge, separating the three right-hand lanes Johnny Comet had been driving down from the less appealing left hand lanes that had borne the brunt of Lavos' emergent wrath. Much of the left-most lane no longer had a guardrail to restrain careless vehicles from toppling over the side, and there were a few spots where there was no left-most lane at all. It was a long way to fall. Before the Day of Lavos, the surface of the Tylair Ocean had lain about a hundred feet below the bridge. Now, the surface was actually the solid mud-caked crust of the earth, almost 1,500 feet further down. All that now remained of the Tylair Ocean in this region was a pockmarked series of shallow lakes littering the surface, mocking a greatness that would never again be. The ruined seascape extended to the horizon in all directions, but it was to the east where Marle and the others were focusing their attention.
In the far distance, a maelstrom of gray was in perpetual battle against the surrounding sky. Continual flashes of lightning lit up the spiraling clouds from within, hinting at appalling climatic violence beyond the veil of gloom. It was a hurricane that never went anywhere, doomed to watch over a place that hadn't existed before 300 years ago. Death Peak. The mountain itself couldn't be seen from this distance. The lightning occasionally exposed a shadow reaching over the very edge of the horizon, but that was the only glimpse any of them could see. The highest point of a caldera that was dozens of miles in diameter, and who knew how many miles deep. It was from this place that Lavos had bathed the world in fire, condemning the human race to extinction.
Marle wrapped her blanket more tightly around her. Just looking at the distant storm chilled her skin, knowing what it represented, knowing that she somehow had to find a way to stop it from happening. There was no need to get any closer to it. Marle couldn't imagine a reason anyone would want to get closer to it. A traveler would have to climb down to the muddy seabed, navigate around hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny lakes between here and the mountain, and then somehow make an ascent to Death Peak in the midst of hurricane-force winds. Marle wasn't sure why Director Doan was so adamant they not go there. No one in their right mind would even make the attempt.
“Nice scenery,” Lucca quipped after a long moment. “I can see the postcard now. 'See the glorious sights of 2300. Death Peak: A scene of majesty that will blow you away.'”
“Well, your sense of humor seems fine,” Crono remarked. “You sure you're feeling all right otherwise?”
Lucca shrugged. “I guess. Putting down some grub and a whole canteen's done me good. Dare I say it, but I'm starting to develop a taste for rat. Makes me wonder if the food we'll get back home will even taste the same to us after all this.”
Marle exchanged a look with her. Lucca seemed okay at the moment, but Marle still didn't understand what had happened to her. Trying to heal the sudden unexplained malady only revealed that Lucca had positively been bursting with energy, and when Marle had reversed the magical weave to drain Lucca of that excess energy, the resulting blowback nearly caused Marle herself to faint. She was still nursing the remnants of a headache from the experience. It almost felt like... No, that was impossible. Lucca was just stressed from their insanely fast trip across the world, that was all. Marle then channeled another ice cube into being and handed it to Lucca, who popped it into her mouth with silent gratitude.
“We'll be having a feast no matter what it tastes like,” Crono said with a grin. “But first we actually have to get home. We're only about two hours out from Arris once we get back on the road. We should probably review what we know about the robots before setting out again.”
“Good idea. Let's whip out old reliable and take a look-see.”
“Old reliable”, of course, was Lucca's diary. Normally Marle would agree with that quaint description. It was certainly easier to use than a computer. Though lately the thick volume was pretty much indecipherable to anyone but Lucca. Blank pages were now at such a premium that she was making notes anywhere she could find space, and that meant important information on any particular subject could be found in any number of different places, and often not in chronological order. Thankfully, Lucca had sketched what she knew about the robots on one of her few remaining clean pages since it was such a vital subject. Two sketches appeared on the page she flipped to, and Marle and Crono scooted in close to get a good look.
The first sketch was a squat thing on four spindly legs that extended well past the robot's small body. “This little guy I call the 'bugger',” Lucca explained. “It's about three feet tall and was apparently designed to hunt down rats. Don't know for sure what kind of weapon it carries, but I'm guessing it's some kind of standard projectile, since plasma fire has a way of destroying the target's food value. This thing is probably pretty quick, so we can't count on outrunning one if it picks up our trail.”
“Are there any weak points I can aim at?” Marle asked.
“Just the eye, and there's only one, right at the body's center mass. You take that out it should be blinded, though it'll probably take a plasma shot or a good sword hit to put the bugger down for the count.”
Lucca then directed their attention to the sketch below the insectile machine. This one seemed to be bipedal, and carried two mouth-like apertures on its upper body on either side of the machine's head in place of where the shoulders and arms would be on a normal biped. “This one is just short of the height of an average human,” Lucca said. “Call it the 'hunter'. Those clamper things on the upper body hide weapon emplacements, probably plasma-based. These were the things the Arris enclave sent when they had mutant problems. It looks a bit awkward on its feet, so it doesn't move very quickly in all likelihood. It's probably meant to hold a position and lay down fire to anything that crosses its sights. We'll have to be especially wary of them. I'd rather not test the limits of Marle's healing talents by eating a plasma bolt.”
“Weaknesses?” asked Crono.
“The same. One eye. Bigger than on the bugger, so it'll be easier to hit. But I wouldn't advise challenging it from the front. Too much firepower to safely deal with. Its awkward stance suggests it could possibly be flanked, but I don't know how much good a sword will be against that. Its plating looks thicker than on the bugger from the images I saw, so expect that it is. Any sword strike would have to be aimed at the joints, and that's a narrower target than the eye is.”
Crono nodded soberly. “Best to avoid both of these things if we can. This won't be like fighting glassers or the like. These things will actually shoot back.”
“Only if we give them the chance,” Marle said. “I don't intend to let any of these machines see what they're shooting at if it comes down to a fight.”
“What about that other thing Johnny showed us a bit ago? That sixty-six model robot?”
Lucca looked uncomfortable. “If we see one, we should probably run like the Day of Lavos were upon us. Nothing short of a plasma bolt will make a dent in the plating it has, and there's no way to know how vulnerable its joints might be.”
“It didn't look like it had any weapons, though,” Marle pointed out.
“That was an old schematic, dating from around the time it was first built before the Day of Lavos. 1995 or so. If it's been corrupted by that 'song' Johnny mentioned, it could have any number of offensive abilities to suit its new directive. I think its two front chest plates open up, so it could be hiding weapons in there. That's what I saw in the schematic, anyway.”
“Avoid at all costs, then,” Crono said. “Is there anything else we should know?”
“Just that all the info we have is at least thirty years out of date. The only thing we know for certain is where the temporal gate is. We need to stay hidden and get to the gate as quick as we can. No unnecessary heroics.”
“It's as good a plan as we're going to have under the circumstances. Nothing for it but to make it happen.”
Lucca closed her diary, and Marle came to her feet and stretched, gazing into the swirling chaos to the east that was Death Peak. She wanted this image burned in her memory. The picture of what would happen and what would always endure if the future didn't change. Then she turned around and regarded the setting sun. As far as Marle was concerned this would be the last time the sun would be allowed to set on this ruined future. Once she was back in the past, all of the rules would change. A new future would be created, and the creature known as Lavos would never live to wreak such destruction as she had witnessed.
Thinking of Mary, doubtlessly hard at work back at the Bangor enclave, Marle collected herself and strode over to where the proudly shining Johnny Comet was parked on the road, waiting to drive everyone to their destiny.