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.
