51. Borg Industries
~Yang
I raced across the pavement, my feet clanging into the brand new "interactive" street constituent, pushing my way through the school of colorless people who were walking the way opposite me, a new rain starting to fall down on the metropolis. I followed the dark but noticeable form of Cole in front of me—he was obviously monitoring how fast he was running, because if he ran without thinking, you'd blink and he'd already have been miles ahead of you—in our small chain of trackers sticking close to Zane's heels. I heard many people shouting at me as I ducked underneath their umbrellas, some hands on my shoulders, some elbows digging into my ribs. My eyes never tore off of the back of Cole's dripping wet head. I was afraid that if I did, I'd lose sight of him.
Jay was hard on my heels, and I heard him throw snarky retorts at angry businessmen that he bumped into. We raced through the rain at full speed, being pelted in the face with water cold as ice but not completely solid yet. In the dark strike of the weather, I couldn't understand how Zane was able to keep his eye on the falcon, because even glancing up was a risk of losing your eyes to one of the hard balls that the clouds were flinging down on us. And he wasn't a robot anymore, so he wasn't immune to bruising injury, either.
I couldn't tell where we were headed. There was no guarantee we'd find the car again after running so far away from it through unrecognizable surroundings. I dodged running into a woman seconds before she came out of nowhere in the fog.
"Can you see him?!" I yelled over the rain, wondering if anyone heard me. The sounds of the city among the cry of the ice balls thwacking against the pavement roared in my own ears, and I could barely hear my own footsteps. Could anyone else hear my voice the way I barely heard mine?
I didn't need to even ask that question, not when I thought about it. Of course Cole could hear me. "Yeah!" He shouted, loud enough for me to recognize his voice. Then, he started to pick up his pace. I was already running as fast as I possibly could without slipping and cracking open my face; I knew I wouldn't be able to match Cole's inhuman speeds. I couldn't do much but shout at him as he sped past my line of vision.
"Cole!" I yelled, and I lost my bearings, still running at full speed but whirling my head around. I couldn't see anyone.
Then a hand clamped down on my wrist, making me yelp. I looked over to see Kai pulling me down a detour, his eyes dark and unreflecting in the shielded sun. I followed him down into the detour, making sure Jay had seen (he did) before I started to run after him. "Where's Cole?!" I shouted, forgetting our feud.
"Ahead! Zane's too fast!" Kai yelled. "I can't keep up with him!"
"What if we lose them?" Jay came up onto my side, and that way we ran, in a staggered formation but somehow uniquely matching each other's strides.
Neither of us could answer Jay's question. We'd have to find a place to hunker down until the rain let up, and could call Cole then. Still, it was risky to be separated at a time like this…but at least Zane wouldn't be alone.
We ran across a street, avoiding being hit by a car just barely. I would have gotten plowed over if Jay hadn't pushed me from behind, my arm being tugged on by Kai's as a honking driver zoomed past. The hazards were beaten and avoided, and on the other street, I could see Cole's blurry form creating a dark shape as it zipped through the people's forms. I took off after him.
"This way!" I shouted when Cole turned down a corner, but we were far behind him. I ducked down a small inner street between a few buildings.
"Wait!" Jay yelled behind me, but I stuck to my shortcut. I didn't look to see if they were following me as I wove through the dumpsters in the back alleys, sloshing through a couple of puddles and passing crumpled heaps that may have been people. I emerged out onto the street at the end just seconds before Zane whizzed past me.
"Hello!" Zane yelped as he passed. I skidded to a stop, but quickly aired my stride back, running after him. Kai wasn't kidding, I thought, watching him outrun me. He's fast!
"Lloyd?!" I looked behind my shoulder, finding Cole appearing at my side. He frowned.
"Get him, Cole!" Behind Cole, Jay and Kai jumped out onto the sidewalk. "RUN!"
We were officially caught up. I could see the falcon better now, floating not that far above Zane's head, surviving the harsh weather pretty well. I wondered what he was trying to show Zane for the first time since I'd begun running; he only ever showed us important things over the years, and I was pretty sure that he wasn't here to show us a fifty-percent off sale at a clothing store. Could he be showing us something to do with the Greater Evil?
Am I dead?
He didn't feel any pain… in fact, he felt integral, but do you feel separated in death? Do you feel as if you are a thousand little broken pieces instead of one?
He forgot how to move for a moment, listening to the noise around him and finding that the sounds of rain still existed, in a way he would not assume if he had died. Or was he now a ghost? Was he an entity that still lived on the human plane after he had met an end, forever roaming this world, unseen and unheard?
He was afraid to find out, but he opened his eyes, the sound of the gunshot still in his ears, heavier in his, er, 'bones' than anything had ever felt.
The world still went on. Rain still fell to his skin and dripped down his cheeks, the air still chilled the feeling part of him; the fresh smell of the sky crying wafted into his nose and mixed with the stink of a fired gun.
Yuki saw her. The woman—the Class 32 droid—was still standing with her arm outstretched, the gun still clutched between her fingers, but she didn't move. Had time frozen? When you die, does the last thing you see freeze over, and the world stops moving forever, hanging you in the final journey of your death for the rest of your afterlife?
He looked down at himself, searching for injury. Slowly, Yuki reached up and patted his chest, searching for a hole within him that spouted oil or blood. His hands moved over himself, treating his own body like a patient he might have doctored when he was burdened with a life to save. Memories of his childhood sprouted into the back of his mind, and he could suddenly see all the dying people that his mother had worked on, forcing him to watch as a morbid way of education. The young ones, the old ones, it didn't matter; every one of them he had to watch. He'd used to have to see babies, sickened by tuberculosis, die in his mother's arms. The near hundred of them he'd seen die just through his mother had rotted a hole into his brain.
Yuki wasn't hurt. He wasn't bleeding. No trauma to his body. He was fully able to move, and in fact took a step back. I must truly be dead, he thought, sucking in a cold breath. This must be my world suspended the last I saw it. My afterlife.
It sounded like a hell until it was proven untrue.
She moved. Her arm lowered to her side, and the gun with it. He looked through the fog at her face, and only caught sight of short auburn hair and dark eyes. Yuki didn't know what to do, if this was showing him what happened after he'd died or if he really wasn't dead yet. Yuki turned his head down the other end of the alley behind him, expecting to see his true body on the ground dead, and this form he now took was a soul—but the body he saw didn't register as himself.
It was a small child with dark hair, about twelve. Glasses had come off his face and landed on the ground. His clothes were too outdated to be modern, button trousers and a button down shirt. His ruffled, curly hair was sewn down to his head by the pounding rain. A shotgun lay under his arm.
And there was a steaming hole right through his forehead.
"He's mine," said the woman, and Yuki whirled back to her, thinking she was talking about the boy. She'd shot the child over his shoulder quicker than his eye could register.
"H-h-he w-was y-yours?" stuttered Yuki.
"No. You are mine." She reached out and grabbed him tightly by the wrist, and twisted it, bending him over. Yuki grunted at the unnatural pressure on his arm. "He does not get the humanity. I do."
It dawned on him then that the boy was going to kill him when he thought no one was looking.
Oh, splendid. He was a droid too. He looked down at the boy through the long silver hairs that collapsed over his shoulder, and something clicked in his mind, making him gasp.
"Angus," he whispered. "Angus Juliens."
It was Carolyne and Danielle's "little brother," the boy who Carolyne had taken with her when Dr. Julien shut off all of the robots after the Reckoning. He was an orphan who had died from Arachnaeus back then, and both the Juliens girls had taken him in as if they were related. Carolyne adored him.
Yuki had only met him officially once—but that was the only time he wanted to.
"Oh, you do remember," the woman growled, and twisted his arm. It was his robotic arm, the one with the panel in the wrist that controlled some of his 'functions', and it didn't exactly hurt, but it didn't feel good. "That means you are not completely stupid."
"I'm not stupid," Yuki snapped through his teeth.
"You might as well be." The woman shoved him to the side. "You are coming with me."
"Oh, am I?" No point in being nice now.
"You have no choice if you wish to live."
"You see, you must have me mixed up with someone else. I've been alive for longer than you can count, and have seen all I need to see." His arm whined. "I don't wish to live if the option to die is on the table."
"That is not nobility," she whirred. "It is not martyrdom either. It is simple stupidity."
"No," he disagreed. "It's just exhaustion. Exhaustion of living."
She broke his arm.
"It's headed for the tower!" yelled Jay, running across the road—this time not a green light—on Kai's tail. The falcon soared toward the tallest tower in all of Ninjago, the blue circular logo glowing through the fog stanchly like Batman's signal in a familiar place that had to have been pulling on Lloyd's memory strings.
Zane was already so far ahead of them in the creeping rain that he could barely hear them, his eye on the falcon. Of course he was paying attention to the things in front of him, but he focused on his flying friend.
His mechanical feathered friend had something in mind, leading them all the way out here, and certainly it was to show them something very important. He did not usually waste time showing Zane other things that did not matter unless they were playing a game. Usually, he would show him very neat objects like a discarded flask by the river, or a broken, century-old cart in the woods. But the falcon knew that this was not a day to mess around, didn't he?
The tower that the falcon was headed for was very tall, but its guiding light could be seen even way down here. He slowed his quick running to a walk, and ultimately heard Cole jar to a stop behind him.
He expected it when Lloyd, Jay, and Kai scuttled to a slow next to him, and he smiled, waving his fingers at them. Jay glared at him for a second. "Why…" he panted, "…are you running…so fast?" Each of them nearly fainted from running so fast.
Zane thought about it for a moment. "Because," he decided.
The weather dimmed to a flurry that kicked out the sheets of rain and ice pelting him in the back, loosening up the fog that had vaporized the city. Each of them made their way over the final crosswalk, headed for the glowing tower with wide glass doors that viewed the inside of the first floor, glowing with warm, inviting light, and most likely warmth. It reminded him how cold he was.
He held out his arm, and the falcon derived from the sky, perching on his soaking arm neatly. It flapped off its wet feathers and assailed him with hard droplets of water against his cheek. He glanced up at the tower again and shook out his own hair.
"Wait a second, you guys," Jay said breathlessly, and latched onto Lloyd's arm, stopping dead in his tracks. His eyes were glued to the tower. "Oh, my God."
"What?" Kai asked.
"This is—oh, my goodness, this place is—" Jay's eyes turned large the way Lloyd's would if he saw candy, and Zane, arm still out for his feathered friend, peered around Cole at him. They all were stopped in a horizontal line on Jay's sides. "You guys! This place is the place! I've only ever read about it in magazines and online and stuff—"
"You mean Borg Industries?" Lloyd asked him, and Zane tilted his head. Borg Industries. What an impressive name. It sounded rather technological and quite important, especially if the impasse Lloyd knew what it was.
"Yes! It's the center of all technology and invention and pretty much all amazing things that have ever been invented!"
"Really?" Zane inquired, looking up at the building. The way Jay talked about it made the height fit the amazing description. "Was it here that the first automobile was invented? I actually do not recall ever seeing this place before…"
"MODERN STUFF, Zane." Jay bounded forward a step, hands over his mouth. He was enjoying this quite enthusiastically. "This is where the hovercar was invented! Oh, my goodness—CYRUS BORG IS HERE!"
"Cyrus Borg?" asked Kai, brushing his flat hair from his eyes. They all began walking again. "Who's that?"
"THE INVENTOR OF THE HOVERCAR AND PRETTY MUCH EVERY COOL ELECTRONIC THINGS!" Jay said as if Kai should know that, and the soggy blacksmith shrugged.
"I do not remember him inventing me," Zane grumbled for a moment of self-pity—but of course Jay thought he was 'cool', and no pun intended. They were very good friends, after all, and Zane was no longer the nindroid that Jay had ogled before, so it was not as if he thought of Zane as a mechanical masterpiece anymore.
But that did not mean that his friends liked him less…did it?
No one seemed to have heard him. Jay was gasping, nearly hyperventilating as they approached the large glass doors, their faces glowing with the light from inside the tower. Kai reached for the handle as Zane looked at his falcon, moving his arm gently. "I do not think pets are allowed," he said, and smiled at the bird watching him. "Thank you, my friend."
The falcon squawked, jumping off of his arm and retreating back into the dark sky. Zane watched him fly away almost sadly.
"Why did the falcon bring us here?" Lloyd asked, grabbing Zane's distracted arm and pulling him into the building that everyone had already entered. Zane was unsure that it was hospitable to enter a building with his wet shoes, but the thought did not seem to bother anyone else.
The inside of the tower—the first floor—was layered with technology as far as he could see. Screens like a flat television lined walls, and computer monitors as big as a TV were poached and displayed on desks everywhere. The floor was made of large blue tiles that came outlined in neon blue lines of something or other, dark paneled walls surrounding the innards of Borg Industries. A staircase of blue ascended one wall.
Zane had to admit that this place was flourished with the extravagant technologies that it had apparently invented. No one was short of flaunting things, for sure.
Walking inside, Jay was gasping and pointing at everything, making garbled, excited comments that no one could understand. "Oh, look at—" and "LOOK AT—" and "OHMYGOODNESSWOULDYOULOOKAT—" kept coming out of his mouth to the point where Zane thought he was going to have a heart attack. He kicked him in the shin gently.
There were workers manning many large computers, but not one acknowledged that the ninja had entered the floor. "Again, why did the falcon lead us here?" Lloyd repeated, putting his hands on his hips. "It's not like we have business here…"
"BUTIT'SSTILLREALLYCOOL!" Jay exclaimed. No one listened.
"I don't know," Cole admitted. "Maybe this has something to do with whoever Sensei Wu said would be our ally in his letter?"
Zane was gazing around curiously, particularly looking at one worker's computer screen from a distance, where it looked to be a camera shot of a street somewhere in the city. Perhaps it was a security camera of some sort…
"Welcome to Borg Industries," said a musical, feminine voice, and Zane turned around like the rest of his friends, but his reaction was much different than theirs.
His heart felt like it stopped.
She is beautiful, he thought, watching a woman coming down the stairs toward them, her skin pure white but drawn on with purple wiring and bolts that told him she was not human. Her eyes were the most beautiful shade of emerald green, bright and alert, that he had ever seen, and her hair was pulled back loosely from her face, metallically silver. Her lips were full and white like the rest of her, ah, skin. Her form was slender and tucked into a one-armed purple robe with accents of red and gray, wrapped at her waist by a sash of gray and falling into form-fitting violet pants.
She reached the floor and walked toward them, her face completely blank. But when her dark eyelashes batted over her green orbs, Zane felt cold for a second, frozen in place as he watched her with the most choked up feeling he'd ever felt. His breath caught in his throat.
She was walking toward him. He didn't know what he was supposed to do—
"I am Pixal, a primary interactive X-ternal assistant life-force," continued the woman with a gorgeous but mechanical voice, her walk elegant and measured. Zane still couldn't breathe, especially not when she came closer and stopped right in front of him. She is even more magnificent up close, he thought, his eyebrows rising. The violet decals on her cheeks were stunning…
She looked at him, and blinked again. "You are dripping on the floor," she announced.
Zane couldn't find the words to speak. His lips flexed for the formation of words, but none would come.
"It's raining out," said Cole, filling in for him. Zane didn't even notice the others had come to his side.
"I apologize for the unexpected weather," Pixal put her fingertips together in front of her. "We can quickly dry you off with our Turbo Water Eradicator, if you'd like."
Kai frowned. "Your turbo what?"
"YES PLEASE!" Jay fisted his hands, but not as expression of anger, putting them to his cheeks excitedly.
"Do you even know what it is?" Cole grumbled to him.
"No, but it sounds SO COOL!"
Pixal did not seem to be bothered by the banter, but rather looked directly at Cole.
"Our Turbo Water Eradicator eliminates water and perspiration from all clothing, hair, and skin in under a minute, no charge. It is a useful invention created by Cyrus Borg, the founder and director of Borg Industries."
Cole's furry brows shot up. "Under a minute, huh? Well, I think we could give it a try."
Pixal nodded. "If you will please follow me, I will direct you to the Turbo Water Eradicator. Then you will be escorted to Mr. Borg's office for your meeting." Pixal turned around, her back as creamy white as the rest of her, creating a rise in heart rate inside of Zane. But at her latest sentence, he stopped gawking and frowned.
"Our…meeting?" repeated Kai slowly.
Pixal turned back around, blinking. "Is that not why you are here? You had a meeting scheduled with Mr. Borg."
"We did?" Cole shook his head. "I don't think—"
"I recognize the five of you as the ninja, heroes of Ninjago." Pixal looked at Zane again, and he clammed up, once again confused as to how she was making him feel this way, a way he had never felt before, where his body warmed up and burst every time she glanced at him. "Your facial features match the facial features of the ninja. Am I mistaken?"
"No," Zane blurted quickly, his first spoken word to her. Everyone looked at him. "W-we are the ninja, yes." Get it together…
Carolyne's face flashed in his mind, and he suddenly felt very, very guilty. Had he not spoken to Carolyne just yesterday, told her through his dream that he loved her, and now here he was, swooning over this magnificent woman with the most butterflies he'd ever have reproducing in his stomach?
But why was it so hard to look away? To stop getting fuzzy inside over Pixal?
"I was told that you all would be arriving for an unset meeting with Mr. Borg at any arbitrary time." Pixal looked away from him, and Zane lowered his head. "This meeting was arranged by Wu Garmadon, who claimed he was your teacher. Is this incorrect information?"
Cole looked at Zane, but Zane didn't look at him. "This must've been his final act of help. The 'assistance' that he got us that he told us about in his letter." He turned back to Pixal. "That's correct information. We'll use your turbo water doohickey, and then meet with Mr. Borg—if that's okay."
"Turbo Water Eradicator," corrected Jay.
"Yeah, whatever, that."
Pixal nodded. "I am sure that Mr. Borg will be pleased to see you. Please follow me to the Turbo Water Eradicator." But instead of turning to guide them away, Pixal looked at Zane—he felt it, because his skin began to tingle. He looked up at her. "I recognize you as well," she said finally. "You are the Original Nindroid, yet I do not feel that you are a droid. Was this what they call a 'hoax'?"
Zane shook his head. This time when he spoke, it didn't have much life in it. "It is a long story," he told her, "but I was once a nindroid, as you say. I am human now."
"I am curious to know how that works."
"Maybe he can tell you sometime," Lloyd nudged Zane gently in the ribs, giving him a knowing smile. Zane's cheeks burst into flames. Pixal didn't bat an eyelash and whirled on her heel, heading the other direction. The others were quick to step in and follow her, but Zane stood there, watching her walk. What is this strange connection I feel? He wondered, putting a hand over his heart. Why do I feel like seeing Pixal for the first time was the first time I have ever truly lived—when I know for a fact I have had a life three times before?
"You comin'?" called Jay. When Zane's eyes came into focus, everybody was waiting for him some feet away, staring back at him.
Even Pixal.
She was waiting for him.
And he couldn't help it when he gave her a small smile. It broke his heart when she mimicked him and smiled back, not showing any teeth but just smiling, and his fingers curled in on one another. I am sorry, Carolyne, he thought despondently, and Zane jogged to catch up with them.
But I can't help that I feel so much for her already.
"I love being dry," Jay sighed dreamily, patting his warm, arid shirt on his chest. The turbo water thingy had been pretty amazing, as far as dehydrating things goes. All Kai had to do was stand inside of the wide tube after the door closed, and let a bunch of hot hair smack him around for forty seconds until he came out completely dry, not a drop of water on him.
It didn't eliminate his feelings about technology, though. One day it would eventually come back to bite the human race, and then he could cross his arms and say, "I freakin' told you so," before a hacked toaster would come eat him.
Kai couldn't help but notice that Zane was being unusually quiet. His bubbly, excited face was less than his trademark happiness at the very moment they were standing in the outside elevator, riding up to the top floor where this Cyrus Borg's office was while also getting to see Ninjago City from a levitating point of view. Kai nudged him in the arm. "You okay?" he murmured. Zane gave him a tiny smile.
"Fine."
You don't sound fine. But he didn't press. Pixal stood with her backs to them, facing the door, and she didn't move at all. Zane glanced at her a couple of times when he didn't think anyone noticed—but Kai did, and he wondered if Zane's unusual mood was because of her.
Kai hadn't ever seen a robot outside of the ones Dr. Julien created, so it was pretty weird to see another person's interpretation of an android. Pixal was pretty human-esque, but didn't look as humans as they who Dr. Julien crafted out of his own spare parts and imagination; if you saw one of the Clockworks, you'd never have known he wasn't human unless he spoke (depending on who he was.)
Jay's face was almost stuck to the glass. He was staring out the elevator windows so intently he couldn't be reached through communication. Cole just stood there being Cole, and tapping his foot anxiously for the elevator to stop moving. Kai was slightly worried that he'd put an unmatchable force on a tap one of those times, and accidentally break a hole in the floor, or worse, make the elevator break and start falling down.
Lloyd was looking at the buttons on the elevator, almost tempted to touch one. Kai knew better than to say something to him—their cooperation in the rain meant nothing to the now. He was sure of it.
"So you're a droid, then?" Jay asked Pixal out of the blue. She turned her head toward him.
"I am a primary interactive X-ternal assistant life-form."
"Yyyyeah. Got that. Like a robot?"
"I would be called that by human terms." Pixal turned back around, facing the elevator doors again. Kai glanced over his shoulder onto the landscape of Ninjago City, and sighed at the view. Ninjago City had always been fascinating in a weird way. Up here, it was just as breathtaking.
The elevator stopped, suspending them high above the city. The elevator door slid open, and Pixal stepped out immediately, her purple flats shuffling against the paneled floor. They filtered out after her into a brilliant room more technology-ized than the last. Kai shook his head. All of the computer screens flashed different images, and the ones mounted on the walls looked like they were playing different TV shows, although he couldn't be sure. The wall across from the elevator was actually a gigantic window that peeked out onto Ninjago City. And in front of it was a long desk, a literal stack of computer screens mounted onto its corner—go figure.
Pixal walked into the room and stopped in the middle of it. Jay was having a fanatic attack, hands clapped over his mouth. It looked like he wasn't going to get over this any time soon. Sighing, Kai put his hands on his hips. Technology…
The five of them wandered in. "Mr. Borg, you have visitors," Pixal announced, and that was when Kai saw the guy sitting behind that fat ol' desk that had blended into the area behind him. Cyrus Borg glanced up, brown eyes flaring with interest behind a pair of wide- lensed glasses. Tidy, combed black hair parted on his head. He was wearing a gray suit with a pitch black turtleneck sweater underneath, and, putting his pen down on his desk, sat up straight, smiling at them, the right half of his mouth rising up further than the other.
"Thank you, Pixal," Cyrus Borg said. His voice was light and unevenly toned.
Pixal turned around without saying anything, heading for the door. Zane murmured to her as she passed him, a quick, "Goodbye," that made her stop.
"Goodbyes are not needed," she said. "I am certain we will see each other again." She left.
Cyrus smiled at the ninja. "I'd expect ninja to sneak through a window, not use the elevator," he greeted them.
"We've been out of commission lately," Cole admitted.
"So I've seen." Cyrus started moving around his desk, but for the time that Kai thought he was rolling on a wheelchair, he popped out from the side and was sitting in something unexpected, a spider-like contraption that had six legs instead of eight, operating somehow—maybe a button on the handlebars that Cyrus was holding tightly onto. All five of them leaned back. Cyrus gave them a sad but not sad smile. "I've been disabled all my life. But no matter, technology seems to have a helping hand in some of life's simple problems, doesn't it?"
The spider thing moved across the floor toward them, every leg stabbing the floor as he came toward them, friendly. Jay's face was in euphoria the whole time. "You made this?" He reached toward Cyrus's transportation, but then thought twice about it, drawing his hand back to his cheek.
Cyrus nodded. "It's truly a pleasure to meet all of you. I see…all of you are here," he said. Something sped in his eyes that Kai couldn't quite name because it was gone before he could register it.
"It's so awesome to meet you tooooo." Kai shook his head at Jay. The techy world wasn't where he rode, but Jay was so deep into it that he should've just been a puddle on the floor.
Cyrus rubbed the back of his head. "I wasn't sure when any of you were going to turn up. I had word with Mr. Garmadon about meeting any of you, but we never agreed a time, and he never returned my calls."
"You spoke to Sensei?" Cole asked.
Cyrus nodded, and waved his arm toward his desk. "Not long ago, he got in touch with me asking for help. He told me a war was coming, and that if I could assist the, eh, army in any way, it would be greatly appreciated."
"He said that?"
"I paraphrased. There was a lot more discussion in fine print there." Cyrus's robot legs crawled over to one of the monitors on the left side of the room, and he pressed a few buttons, after which a panel in the floor opened. Kai stared as a table rose up out of the rectangular gap in the tiles on a floor of its own until you couldn't tell that it hadn't been there before. "Have a seat, boys. I believe we have a lot to discuss."
~Yang
"Mr. Garmadon had me read a few pieces of rolled up paper about a magical battle between good and evil that far outstrived the Final Battle, as I recall," Cyrus said. Seated restfully at the popup table, we leaned forward, hanging on to every word coming out of Cyrus's mouth for different reasons. "My assistance would benefit you greatly, through use of my technology and inventions that I could build for you to use as weapons. It seemed fair."
"So you know all about the Great Battle," Kai assumed, leaning back in his chair. This time around, I didn't have a hard time looking at him; in fact, it felt like something was different, and that I could look at him without getting upset. I was proud that I'd gotten over the worst of my anger that I knew was amplified by the Devourer's venom.
Cyrus nodded, running a hand over his smooth hair. "The majority of the big details, I know. Which means I can adapt my new inventions to my knowledge of it. I've already begun several sketches of weapons that you'll be able to use—but unfortunately, I have to get them, eh, approved before I can begin building them."
"Approved?" Cole asked, speaking my questioning thoughts exactly.
"Regrettably, Mr. Garmadon made the deal elsewhere before he came to me for help," he said. "My hand in the deal, if it was brought to me first, would have been, of course, uncostly. I feel it's the least I can do to repay you heroes for saving Ninjago more than once."
Jay drew inexpressible patterns in the gray table's surface. He beat me to the question that all of us were already thinking. "Who did he bring it to first?"
Cyrus sighed. He paced his spider around. "My father," he replied simply.
"Your father?" We all repeated at once.
The elevator door sounded off. In trudged an old man in maybe his seventies with white hair falling in his face, a dirty lab coat pleated around his body, rectangular glasses covering his eyes. I was stunned like the rest of the guys for things to happen so on cue.
The old man's face was in a frown. He shambled toward us. "Cyrus," he grumbled, craggly. "What have you?"
"Hello, Dad," Cyrus chuckled. "Perfect timing."
"Who're these?" asked who I figured I'd call Mr. Borg if there weren't two of them. Cyrus was talking about Uncle Wu and calling him Mr. Garmadon, but aren't I the same thing?
"These are the, eh, beloved ninja of Ninjago," Cyrus explained, taking his spider around the table. I still was a little creeped out by the way that machine moved, the clacking of the metal splints against the floor, constantly beating. "Remember the discussion we had with Mr. Garmadon?"
"I remember, Cyrus." Cyrus's father stood at the end of the table and gave us all hawkeyed stares. I felt like I was being picked apart underneath his piercing glower and those dark eyes of his were seeing underneath my skin, and all my insecurities were suddenly on display, more noticeable than a change in status on a social networking website. Mr. Nobody looked onto Cole, too, but I'm pretty sure tough-as-a-rock didn't flinch. Kai, however, moved his eyes onto the table when it was his turn.
Mr. Nobody's eyes hit Zane. I thought he was going to crack and not enjoy being picked at, but he surprised me when he just met Cyrus's dad's eyes equably. It surprised me more when Mr. Nobody smiled, though it was virulent.
"Never thought I'd see you again." Mr. Nobody took his seat at the head of the table, winning a furrowed brow from Zane. He sighed thankfully for his seat, brushing white hair off his eyelids. "Can't believe you're still working. I would've thought you'd been too outdated and busted by now."
"I…beg your pardon?"
Cyrus crawled around the back of his father's chair (in the spider), looking down his shoulder at Mr. Nobody. The old man looked up at his son, elbow on the arm of his chair, and waved it. "Asked Pixal to get me my pills, and have no idea what's taking her so damn long."
"I'm sure that she's moving as quick as she can, father. But, eh, shouldn't you be using your cane? I know you don't like it, but you need it…"
Mr. Nobody rubbed his forehead, worn out. I had to question why exactly Sensei Wu would come to this guy first before relying on Cyrus Borg, the man of a million accomplishments. Also, how would he know Zane, or at the minimum pretend he did? The way he was talking, it sounded like he thought Zane was still a nindroid.
"I thought you'd all show up eventually," said Cyrus's father, ignoring Cyrus now. "I don't know what took you all so long."
"We didn't exactly know about this whole deal until today." Jay now looked slightly less excited. I didn't blame him. Something about the feel that came off this guy was weird, but not that weird feeling you got when you were tangoing with evil. Mr. Nobody seemed a little too cranky to be the father of the most important man in Ninjago City, to Cyrus's friendly attitude. I didn't understand what the jig was, here.
Mr. Nobody relaxed into his chair. Cyrus smiled at all of us over his chair. "This is my father, if you haven't already guessed," he announced. "He's the man who taught me the basic joys of technology when I was younger and helped me to make my dreams come true. He is, essentially, my best friend." His half smile made me believe more that he was an honest man more helpful than the next. "His name is Seamus."
So Mr. Nobody has a name, I thought, looking at the wild hair of Cyrus's father, and tried to see the family resemblance. "Hello," I said in sync with the others, and Seamus nodded once in greeting.
"I'm not gonna waste my time playing icebreaker games…" Seamus sat up in his chair, correcting the glasses on his nose. "I'm going to come out and say it. You want my son's help? You fill out your end of the deal, and you can have all the help you want."
I found myself exchanging a glance with Jay. Cyrus had mentioned briefly that there was a price to his help, and I was going to take a lucky guess and say it was something his father had set up. What was worrying me the most was the fact that I had a strong gut feeling that whatever expense we were supposed to pay was something we weren't going to like.
"Mind elaborating what our end of the deal is?" Of course it was Cole who spoke up, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. I noticed that his pupils had grown larger despite the amount of light in here, making his gray eyes turn into a silver band around a black pit. Cyrus Borg must've seen this too, because he was staring inquisitively at our vampire leader—but Cole's extreme focus was on Seamus.
Seamus brought his fingers together, creating a wrinkly steeple, his elbows braced on either arm of his chair. "Didn't your sensei tell you?"
"He didn't tell us any of this in person. He briefly explained we had allies in a letter," Zane pointed out. "We were clueless as to what ally he'd bargained with until my falcon guided us here."
"Your falcon, eh? How many repairs have you had to give to that one?" Seamus asked. He knows about the falcon? How does he know about the falcon?
My friends all had the same stunned, clueless questions on their face, and Seamus chuckled, moving his shoulders as he nestled into the chair. "Oh, I know all about Julien's creations," he said. "His androids, his mechanical animals—I know about them all. Especially you." He looked at Zane pointedly. "You were his favorite. He always brought you along when he came to visit me."
"Visit you?" Kai leaned forward. "You knew Dr. Julien?"
"I knew Julien before he started calling himself Dr. Julien." Seamus's black orbs glinted. "He was my best friend."
…
Stunned, I stared at Seamus for a long time, but the information that caught us all off guard was more upsetting to Zane, the non-android that Seamus had recognized. It made sense now why he'd know about the falcon, and say that he hadn't seen Zane in a long time, but I didn't understand why Zane didn't recognize Seamus…was it because he was old, and he didn't look the same as before?
Seamus nodded at our surprised expressions. "Yes," he croaked, turning sullen. "Julien and I had been best friends since we were young. We did everything together, and visited each other often even when he moved away to Fireman's Circle. Often we'd spend hours in our workshops, creating machines and blueprints together. We'd build boats that manned themselves, machines that processed liquids, bowls that were also radios…"
Zane stuck to every word that Seamus said, his eyes shining for a way to connect with his father when the poor inventor was long gone. "I'm sorry, but…I do not remember you."
Seamus shook his head. "I'm not surprised. It was when Julien's obsession with his androids became more and more serious that we began to drift apart, and I'd guess he'd eliminate every memory of me you had."
"Drift apart?"
"He was consumed by them," Seamus recalled, his eyes distancing themselves from the world he lived in. "Our meetings soon became less of correlations between friends, and it seemed like I was only his assistant helping him build his robots. Meanwhile, I was taking in every detail I could about this. Julien was a genius—he invented the first android life-forms resembling humans that this world has ever seen, and they were fully functional, and so realistic. I was inspired. So I took everything that I learned from helping Julien create androids, and went home and began building my own." He sighed. "And soon, our friendship soured into a rebellious rivalry. We were racing to create the best android. Eventually, we'd each created so many androids that people were starting to notice."
"What happened?" Jay asked quietly, riveted to the story just as much as I was.
Seamus stared into the air, and the sounds of Cyrus's spider legs walking around to the other end of the table became all we could hear for a long time. "He won. And then, what I've heard him call 'the Reckoning' began. It was a bloody, oily war between humans and robots, and so many died on both sides…"
"He won? How did he win?" asked Kai from the other side of the table.
I saw something change in Seamus's eyes. He was no longer staring wistfully back at his past in the air before his eyes. The look fermented into something much darker, a harbored hatred that pitted itself into his heart for his loss of the battle between friends. A chill ran up my spine.
"He created the Cyborg," growled Seamus through his teeth. "I was never able to recreate it, no matter what method I used or how many times I tried." The last of it died into a whisper: "His secret…"
I exchanged a glance with everyone at the table. I hadn't known anything about Dr. Julien creating a cyborg, much less heard Zane talk about it when he often sat around keeling over his past lives. Where walking skeletons, snakes, robots and living shadows used to seem like a thing of adventure stories, it no longer surprised me to hear about something you only saw on TV being real. Cyborgs didn't seem like such a big deal.
"The…Cyborg?" Kai repeated.
"I didn't know there was a cyborg," Jay said, looking at Zane. But he was just as dumbfounded as the rest of us, shaking his head.
"I…I don't…"
Seamus stood up, slamming his hands down on the surface of the table loudly. Bent over the table, he stared at Cole, old eyes looking over the rims of his glasses into the face of our leader with a penetrating resilience that I questioned. "Your end of the deal is simple," he said. "Your sensei agreed wholly and fully to our agreement. I will allow you to appropriately take advantage of Cyrus's gifted assistance—on one condition: I can dismantle and examine the Cyborg when you bring it to me."
