Author's Notes: The only things we've ever told about Alex in Trigun is that he
had very spiked up hair, nearly curly, and something else that I won't tell
you because I don't want to ruin the fic for those of you who are not "Trigun-
nies." The thing which Purple speaks with in here is from the Trigun mythos. It
was pointed out to me that I should note that I didn't invent them. In this
fic, there is more than one species of plant, hence the appearance difference
from the plants in Trigun.
I'm listening to the music from Serial Experiments Lain as I write this, most
specifically the Cyberia Mix for the first sequence.
Can anybody reading this tell that I'm currently in the process of watching "X"
and "Ceres: The Celestial Legend?"
Ah yes, fan art for this fic:
Purple and a Control Brain: - bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=204512
Irken Plant:
~
Purple walked in a field of something soft that was white, pink, blue, and gray
all at the same time. There was nothing in sight, no buildings, no ships, no
life. There was only the wind, roaring so loud he couldn't have heard any other
noises even if there had been something to make them. He could feel his robe
blowing against his legs as he walked, not hovered, but truly walked across the
frozen ground.
Nothing was in the sky or on the skyline but shades of gray streaked with
occasional white lines, not clouds but only lines. Whitish flakes were falling
from the sky and landing on his skin. He thought they were… what do you call
frozen liquid from the sky? Snow? He thought it was snow, but it didn't burn.
When he reached out to touch the flake, it rubbed into his skin and turned gray
against thin screen scales
That's when he realized it wasn't snow at all. It was ash. Ash from something
burning, turning the horizon red and orange and licking the sky with yellow
flames. He didn't have to approach the flames to know what they were burning:
corpses. The ash of corpses was falling down on his skin.
When an Irken died with high honors, they were wrapped in the flag and launched
into the sun to rejoin the sun goddess. Burning a corpse in a plain fire, not
sanctified by ceremony, was the blasphemous, dirty version of that. You only
burned the bodies of those you were ashamed of, those society had rejected and
walked upon until they took their final breaths. You only burned the bodies of
the unwanted. Yes, somehow, Purple knew that this particular flame burned to
consume all Irkens.
He knew she'd be coming. Indeed, the very ground beneath him seemed to open up,
reflecting lifeless eyes back at the empty sky, which slowly grew black,
darkening piece by piece. Her eyes were so large and so deep blue that he
hardly believed she was real. Her skin was a pale, pale blue, so translucent
that he could see every vein, bone, and heartbeat beneath it. Long, feathered
blue wings flew out behind her back, stretching upward until they melted into
the very sky itself. She had a mark, like a keyhole, in the middle of her
forehead.
She stood at least twice as tall as he did, the few ragged sheets of white she
wore blowing around her. It looked like the filmy white semi-liquid found in
the innards of eggs. Other than those rags she was naked, but that seemed
unimportant at the time. She didn't need clothes. He would never think of her
sexually.
She was so beautiful that he was never able to speak to her, no matter how many
times she should appear to him. He didn't have the words to speak with. That's
what frustrated him the most. He could only listen to the sound of his own
clothes blowing in the wind. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her eyes
shining with distress and fresh tears. He wanted to ask her what drew her
agony, but he couldn't. Then she found it in herself to tell him. She said, "I
am the cause of all this pain."
Yet once again, Tallest Purple found himself awaking in the middle of the
night, clutching his sheets to his head and sweating profusely enough to dampen
the pillow. His heart was racing in his chest like he'd just run a marathon.
He'd torn the sheets again in his fear. He noted this silently to himself as he
leaned forward, launching into another round of deep, throaty coughing. He
grasped at where his lungs would be were they on the outside of his body,
ripping straight through his nightgown and tearing his skin. Blood dripped onto
his fingertips as he doubled over, shaking violently as everything inside him
seemed to force itself into his throat.
Red was drawn in from the next room by the sound of Purple's spasms. "You
shouldn't be up," he commented dryly when he saw Purple gripping the bedpost to
pull himself out of the bed and into a shaky stance on the floor. His night
robe, which was far longer than it ever needed to be, trailed in a silken pond
across the floor behind him. It had the color and texture of a petal fallen
from a flower. "You're not strong enough to be out of bed yet."
"I saw her again," he weakly answered, not moving from his position beside the
bed. He looked like a smeet attempting to walk for the first time.
Red made it to Purple's side in time to keep his companion from falling. "We
know who she is." He paused in his speech, letting Purple back down onto the
ruffled lavender sheets. Dark stains had spread near the rips; he'd bled on
them. "She chose you to call for help. Not me. They always said that you were
the chosen one," he said bitterly, "That's why there are two of us, after all,"
he quietly added, then swished out of the door.
Purple debated calling after him, but chose to lay back once again, shutting
his eyes and biting back the agony swelling under his ribcage. Everything
seemed to be falling apart at the seams. In his mind, he visualized sand
shifting through his fingers like the shards of his life.
The doors stood as tall as three or four tallests, and took four small Irkens
each to pull open. Each door was made of a heavy, leaden material with a
slightly bluish sheen to it. The left door was decorated with mythological
scenes of Irken creation, featuring several of the Gods and Goddesses in the
process of breathing life into the first Irken as they formed it out of clay.
The right door was embellished in images of the Irken Gods showing the first of
their new creations the stars. The words above the door read "Manifest
Destiny," the idea that Irkens were meant to control all of the galaxies. After
all, the Gods told them that they were the chosen ones.
Red leaned silently over and grasped Purple's shaking claw, steadying it.
Purple looked gratefully over at Red, giving a slight squeeze back in response.
He was still somewhat weak from the illness that had been ravaging his slender
body.
"Are you ready to do this?" Red asked.
"No," was all Purple said, continuing to hold onto the more brazen tallest for support.
"Come on," Red chided, releasing Purple and pushing him back upright. "She'll be waiting for us."
The doors squeaked back on rusty hinges. The inside walls of the room
were covered in thick silver wires, reflecting only blue light. The actual
walls couldn't be seen for the twisting wires spreading outward. A narrow grate
cut through the middle, forming a winding path up to a tall, gray column with a
clear object lying within. If a human had been allowed to view the object in
the center of the room, they would have equated it with a light bulb. As it
were, this room and the images within were allowed to be viewed only by the
eyes of a few chosen ones and tallests.
On top of the column rested a large, brown metal sphere with a round red glass
lens attached to it. The lens had several rusted black triangular plates of
metal behind it. When Red pulled Purple into the room and the doors slowly
squeaked shut behind them, the triangular plates began to pull back with a
noise like a camera lens focusing. White light flowed out and through the red
glass, lighting the room in a bloody tone. The wires covering the walls within
were covered in even more Irken mythology. Most of the stories had been
forgotten as the species had made the eventual switch from magic and religion
to the worship of science and power. The etched figures seemed to have been
frozen in the middle of screams, unable to tell their stories to the outside
world any longer.
The "eye" of the sphere twisted itself, looking down to see whom would come to
disturb its rest. The Master Control Brain took only moments to evaluate the
little creatures before it as the "twin" tallests. It was uncertain how to
react. It had never been fond of either of them, but it was pleased that they
had come to see it without being called. It always swore that as simply a
robot, it didn't need companionship, but spending centuries alone and asleep in
the cold could make anything want to view someone else.
"Why have you come to see me?" it asked, speaking to them directly through
their ID packs. They heard it as voices in their heads, as it had no actual
vocal chords with which to speak. In this respect, it was unlike the lesser
control brains. "Is something wrong?"
"I've been having odd dreams. I dreamed that the plant was hurt," Purple
responded. "I dreamed that she was dying."
"She's fine," the brain cut him off coldly. "But, if you don't believe me, I
will let you see her." A doorway slid open on the column, letting a black
square appear before the two tallests. Red stood up before Purple, who was
still rather shaky. The control brain extended a wire, grasping Red by the
shoulder. "Not you, him," she sternly informed Red.
Red opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again when searing white pain
ripped through his pak, a small electrical gift from the brain to let him know
who was really in control of the Irken race. Red rubbed his pack, fighting back
the urge to hiss or swear at her. Such an action would require dire punishment,
even if there was truly no way he could keep his inner thoughts from her. He
was surprised she didn't punish him for simply thinking hostile thoughts of her.
Red resented the control brain. That much was obvious to at least Purple, if
not to other Irkens around him. He wanted absolute control of the Irken race.
He didn't like being constantly over-ruled or bullied by her. He didn't like
someone being able to hold a sword over his head by a single thread. Still, it
was his job to protect her. Protecting the control brain had been the most
important mission of the tallest since the control brains had come into
existence, when the first Irken merged so far with technology that they could
no longer live without it. How far the mighty ones had fallen. They no longer
controlled their electronics; the technology controlled them.
Purple patted Red lightly on the arm before removing the power packs from his
wrists and setting them down on the ground. Taking a deep breath, he entered
the silver column. He glanced back at Red with a look of loss on his face
before the door vanished, cutting them off from one another.
The inside of the column was slightly chilled, with dials and panels stuffed
full of information spread out on every side. The light bulb itself was
the "plant" of which they'd spoken, or rather, the power plant. The wires
leading out from the bulb powered the Master brain firstly and more
importantly, giving off its excess energy to power the rest of the Massive. If
the power plant should ever fail, and the control brain should grow cold from
lack of energy, the entire Irken race would die.
Such is the price of living with our progress, thought Purple as he laid his
bare claws against the glass. It was cool to the touch, not like one would have
expected a power plant to be. It was so pleasantly cool, just the right
temperature, that he laid his head against it and shut his eyes. His mind went
straight to black, and he nearly fell into the darkness of sleep.
Light touched the outsides of his eyelids, causing them to spring open. There
she was, right on the other side of the glass, her hands pressed against his.
Her eyes were open, shining brightly with a blue light unparalleled by any
color of paint. She looked exactly as she had in the dream. The white gel that
provided her clothing hung back in ribbons, twirling around her wings like a
stairway into the sky. She smiled gently, continuing to press her hands against
the glass, which was the only thing separating the two of them.
Like the control brain, she did not speak with words. Unlike the control brain,
she spoke directly into his mind. "Tell me about Earth," she said softly.
Purple jerked backwards, unable to stop her from reading the surprise in his
eyes. "You know… of Earth?" he asked back, not speaking but instead simply
thinking the words. She knew as long as their hands remained together, she'd
hear him.
"I've heard everyone whisper about it, and the transmissions of Zim. What is
Earth like?" she asked. Purple was unsure of what to answer, so he simply
looked away from her. She looked Irken, but it was obvious from the blue tint
and the transparency of her skin that she was not. She pressed her hands
against the glass harder as he looked away, eager for an answer.
"It's a very dangerous planet. Most of the surface is covered in deadly acid,
and the creatures there are made out of products that can fuse to an Irken's
skin and cause blindness or even death. The planet is run by," he sounded like
he was going to gag, "pure organics, and mammals at that. I'd be hard pressed
to call it a primitive planet."
"I've been told that water is beautiful, that it shines with the light of the
sky, and you can see through it like glass, but it moves and waves like a
living thing. I want to see water," she said softly. "I want to see an ocean.
Not just on a view screen, but I want to stand beside it and hear the sound of
the waves, even if I can't touch them."
"That's impossible," Purple replied. "The only way for you to see an
ocean would be to take you outside of the ship, and if we tried to do that,
you'd die."
"It's not impossible," she replied quietly. "Come back here late tonight. I
need some time to generate it."
"Generate… it? What is it?" Purple asked, narrowing an eye in suspicion.
"Please, don't doubt me," she said. Only the tips of her claws rested against
the glass now. She was slowly floating away, feeling herself getting detached
from him. She'd wasted too much energy, put too much of herself into forming
words for him to hear. She had things that needed to be done. She left the
young tallest alone by himself, staring at empty blue. It was like she'd never
been there at all.
~
7 months later
Dib threw his backpack down on the floor of the living room in his house,
grabbed a soda out of the fridge, and picked up an arc welder from this
father's lab. Gaz was nowhere in sight. She's probably out looting stores with
the rest of the crazed mob, he thought with a slightly disgusted shrug. She'd
always said that she wanted to take part in a riot some time just so she could
see what someone would do if she poked their eyeballs out.
The amount of violence he'd seen on his way home had been ridiculous. Cars had
been set on fire, most of the storefronts were smashed and the merchandise torn
out and carried off. Why did people tend to revert to animals when they thought
there was no chance of being caught, no repercussions? Didn't anyone have
morality for morality's sake anymore?
Pulling on a pair of dark goggles to protect his eyes from the danger of the
flame, he threw down his trench coat and headed out back. It was part
polyester, and only idiots weld in synthetic clothing. It was too easy to
ignite, and would melt right into your skin if you happened to do so. Not that
his burns would matter if the world really were coming to an end, but Dib
wasn't the sort to believe in doomsday prophecies, despite all the things he
did believe in.
He stepped around into the unused garage, empty since his mother's death. She'd
been the only family member to make use of a car, as the professor always took
a taxi at the studio's expense. It was well known that he hated driving. Dib
wondered if it was because he'd finally have to take off his goggles to see to
drive. Dib couldn't honestly think of a time when he'd seen his father without
them.
He jumped in surprise when he found Gaz sitting on top of Tak's ship. The
control panel was open, spread out before her, as was her Game Slave 2. She was
using thick and thin wires of all colors to connect the two together.
"What are you doing?" Dib cried, his eyes wide behind his smudged glasses. She
was messing with HIS ship.
"Getting this thing off the ground," she scoffed. "Which is more than I can say
for you. Tak took the controls with her when she ejected. I'm giving it a new
set of controls."
"Why would you do that?" Dib asked. "Do you honestly care about the Earth?"
"No, but the Game Slave 3 is set to come out in a month, and I've been waiting
too long for it to let the world end now. Is that my soda?" she asked,
partially cracking open an eye as she stared at Dib.
Dib looked down at the blue-green can. "Doesn't have your name on it," he
muttered, setting it down on the table. What a time for his sister to take an
interest in his hobbies, he thought bitterly as he sat down and began doing the
remaining necessary welds to hold the sides of the ship together.
To Be Continued…
