Chapter 12: Prototype One
An armored white behemoth towered above him. Galvanized scaffolding held it in place and chrome lifts restrained its lower extremities. It had no eyes or nose or mouth. Its polygonal head stood on its shoulders in blind geometry.
Its arms and legs were clad in thick white tiles, thick as phone books and as wide as flatbed trucks. A line of U-shaped ladder bolts ran along the side of its leg up its blocky torso and onto its broad shoulders. A small circular porthole was inscribed on its neck. A robed figure stood there like a termite next to the incision. Balman's short cropped hair and exaggerated smile stared down at them.
He saw black fibers drenched in translucent pulsating sinew which seemed to beat with an irregular rhythm beneath the clean white exterior plates.
Sparks fell from orange-vested workers perched on the scaffolding. Scant fluorescent lights shined down on them from high above the dimly lit cauldron, eclipsed by the towering goliath. The welders' arcs cast shadows in the twilight cradle. The place reminded him of Frankenstein's lab.
Is this Frankenstein's monster they've made? Or are we the monsters? Genetically modified to pilot these machines of war. Doctor Frankenstein… Old Doctor Franks… what would you think if you saw us today?
Royce turned slowly and peered up at the nearest rim of the concavity where the three elders stood watching. His magnetic boots clanged on the hollow floor. The infinite void of space mere inches below.
He glanced at Ria by his side. She was still staring at the Tracer towering over them. Bright blue flashes reflected like sparks in her pale green eyes. Her short dark hair levitated in the micro-gravity.
"This is mankind's ultimate fighting machine. The Tracer. Prototype One." Came Hachi's deep voice from above.
"Built here in absolute secrecy," said Nana.
"Mankind's best hope for the future," Ikuno added.
"Is this what you've been building here all these years?" Ria wheeled around and shouted.
"No. It's merely a byproduct of the waste we've had to clean up. Like so many inventions – it's just something we stumbled across in the pursuit of a loftier goal."
"And now you need us to pilot it?" He shouted up at them.
"No. Not you. Just someone. We've tried fourteen candidates already, but only one showed any promise. Now he's dead. We hope you'll succeed. But if you don't, we'll keep trying."
"Why us?"
"Why not? Ikuno seems to think you're capable." The man clad in blue robes announced.
"I'm counting on you two." Ikuno said kindly.
Well, shit.
"How the hell do we even- pilot this thing? Isn't there supposed to be some sort of training?"
"The interface is optogenetic. There's no way to simulate the interactions between two living systems."
"But we don't have optos." Ria protested.
"Nana seems to think you do," the man turned to the seated old woman. "Or at least, one of you does."
Shit. What does that even mean? Is that what they were talking about in the hospital?
Ria whipped around then shouted at him, "What!? She did this to you! I told you, you're an idiot! I can't believe you!"
What? Because I hooked up with Diana? Somehow I have- How is that possible? No- it's not. They were talking about it in the hospital… before all that.
"If you're referring to Experiment Lambda, we're well aware of what she is, and you can rest assured that she had very little to do with it. Nana- would you care to explain more?"
"Not particularly." The old woman replied.
"Then I will-" the man continued, "due to the circumstances of your conception Royce, you should have no trouble interfacing with this kind of Plantation-era tech. The optos you have, you've had since birth. Lambda might have kicked the tires- so to speak, but your abilities are innate. Just like hers."
"And how do you know all this about me- and who is this Lambda? You mean Diana Zhen?"
"That's ENOUGH, Hachi!" Nana tilted her wheelchair and shouted at the man.
The old man retreated a bit. "In due time…"
"Damnit, I just want to know what you assholes have been keeping from me!" he shouted at the trio.
"Royce Verbius and Ria Sylvan- you will pilot the Prototype One."
"With all respect, Elders, don't you think this is a bit premature," he heard a voice from behind and saw Balman standing on the robot's shoulder. "The Architect took six months to synchronize with the first Tracer. Don't you think this is all a bit rushed?"
"There's no time." Hachi grumbled.
"What's that," Nana prodded at him again.
"The first sub-surface anomaly appeared ten minutes ago. We need a Tracer to stop it."
Ikuno gasped. Nana scowled at the man. "Sub-surface anomaly? Is that what you're calling them now? Can't bring yourself to say it, can you?" she berated him.
"So- you're asking me to take this thing and- do what exactly?" He shouted at them again, growing more frustrated by the minute.
Nana straightened herself in her chair, attempting to retain some sense of composure, "You are going to fight a lifeform native to the Earth's mantle. A cluster of radiotrophic organisms. An R.T.C., as we call them today. A monstrous beast which is undoubtedly running amok in Khanian territory."
"A what?"
Elder Hachi broke eye contact and hung his head. "A Klaxosaur."
"A Klaxosaur! I thought those were just mythical creatures! You want us to pilot this thing and fight a myth?!" Ria protested, pointing at the giant white robot. "We've never flown anything like this! The Valor Crane is one thing – I mean, it's a construction of man, but this-"
"Tracer command will support you. This is the start of something much larger than you can comprehend- the third Holocene event." Hachi explained. "This time we won't pack up our things and scurry around like cockroaches. We're going to fight them."
He glared up again at the mass of sinew and armor. The orange-clad technicians all stopped working to stare. He grabbed Ria's shoulder and whispered to her, "Come on, let's at least try it."
She was still glaring up at the three Elders. Staring death at them. He tugged on her, and strode toward the giant's ladder.
To run Amok, he thought- the words of Elder Nana stuck in his mind as he slid through the dark portal in the machine's neck. He gripped a second set of ladder rungs in the half-lit spinal column.
Amok- was an ancient Indonesian deity.
He propelled himself up, rung over rung, into the pressing darkness of the monster's head. The rungs were slippery with some sort of goo which stuck to his pressure suit gloves.
An evil tiger spirit that entered one's body and caused one to commit heinous acts- of emotion and indiscriminate destruction.
A faint purple glow remained in his eyes as Ria entered through the door below him and Balman closed it behind her. Darkness pressed on his face from all directions and humidity suffocated him in the dim shaft.
Am I the Amok? The evil spirit who means to possess this body?
"Hey move it Royce! Do you even know where you're going?"
"I can barely see in here! There's all this purple glowing shit everywhere. And the ladder is just little pegs drilled into this weird sticky wall."
"Just keep climbing."
He kept climbing. Rung over rung.
Or am I the ego, the soul which guides this lifeless form? The conscience of the beast- which would otherwise run Amok without me?
Eventually he crested the top of the tunnel and peeked his head into a roughly hemispherical cavern. Bits of glowing purple slime stuck to the edges of the hollowed out cavity. The roof was bone white and fractured. It looked like the inside of a skull. Two black anodized pilot seats sat in a metal basin, bolted to the center of the room, recessed into the soft bark-like floor. Large black tubes and cables ran from the pilot seats to the edges of the room where they disappeared into the floor through plugs of white paste. The wires and tubes reminded him of roots. He nudged one of the cables with his foot and noticed it was sealed to the ground with some kind of natural adhesive.
What is this thing? It's like the roots of a tree. Living beings and machines are beginning to share attributes. As if- now that life can be designed, we're starting to encounter machines more complex and mysterious than life itself.
"Well that's unexpected," he mused.
He felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. "Ready to fly this thing?"
He smiled, "I thought you were mad at me."
"Nah- as long as you promise not to go after that pink haired freak anymore."
He turned serious and made no reply. She pushed off from him and floated upward, rebounded off the ceiling and settled down in the front pilot seat, then began buckling herself in.
A tiny voice spoke from a distant speaker, "Tracer Pilot Candidate- Number Zero One Five is seated."
He cautiously approached the rear seat. There were no hookups for his pressure hose, no oxygen tube or communications jack. He didn't even have his helmet.
He gingerly sat down in the rear pilot seat and tightened the belts across his lap and shoulders. A voice rang out from a small speaker situated on his dark console.
"Tracer Pilot Candidate Number Zero One Six is seated! Alright boys and girls, we're going to run you through step by step here." The voice was strangely familiar but he couldn't pair it with a face. "Royce, go ahead and hit that big green button near the center of your console."
"The one that says S.C.L. infill slash Opto Link?"
"That's the one."
A burst of pressurized gas nearly blew out his ears. He quickly covered them.
Jets of white smoke erupted from the sides of the dome. His eyes burned like opening them in a swimming pool. A thin layer of clear liquid accumulated around the bottom of the room.
"AAAHHhhh!" he heard Ria scream
"What's going on?!" he shouted.
"Not to panic," the voice reassured them, muffled by the ongoing sonic blast, "this is all normal. These Tracers are designed for orbital maneuvering. A standard g-suit won't cut it. We have to infiltrate the cabin with supercritical fluorocarbonate. Keeps you oxygenated and also stops you pilots from getting crushed like a tin can under the g-loads."
"Supercritical what?!" he shouted at no one in particular. The fluid crept into the well where they sat. Little green flashes lit up his vision. They reminded him of the flashes he saw in the hospital, or the flashes he saw when he was with Diana.
"Royce you're showing good opto response. Ria, you've got to focus. Try hard to concentrate- focus on linking with the Tracer."
"Aaaah!" he heard her shouting and saw her clutching her head.
"This isn't good. Usually women show a far stronger opto response. Ria you're only at two point five. Royce is at twenty three."
"I can't- It won't-" he heard her say.
The liquid was at shoulder height. It sloshed around and began filling into his suit.
Shit- I left my helmet in the Crane. This is bad. I've got to shut it down.
He scrambled around looking for a button to stop it, to shut everything down. Ria was struggling as well, unhooking her belts, coughing and sputtering the ethereal liquid.
The console sunk under water and he couldn't see anything clearly. His world was engulfed in froth and ripples.
He called out: "Hey man, you've got to shut it down! We don't have our helmets! Ria's going to drown!"
"It's normal- let the fluid into your lungs."
Shit- this isn't good.
"It's in my head! Get it out of my head!" Ria screamed as her head dipped under the steadily rising fluid. A bubbling gurgling sound issued from the front seat.
The fluid rose above his mouth and he gulped it down uneasily. It was surprisingly light and he didn't feel the urge to cough. He barely noticed any difference from the air.
Why is she freaking out up there? Does the fluid affect everyone differently? Or is it something else?
He looked at the rising surface of the fluid and saw the entire room turn hazy and translucent.
"Approaching supercritical point!" came the voice.
Suddenly the jets at the base of the room disappeared and the dividing line between fluid and air disappeared.
"Supercritical state achieved. Pressure holding at zero point four K.S.I. gauge. Seals are nominal. Ria- your opto response is only one point eight. I'm going to switch Tracer control to the back seat."
A tunnel of green light erupted before him. He saw Ria slump in her seat just before the avalanche of light washed away everything else in his vision.
Strange images floated past him. Archaic nebulas in space. Violet faces in front of a cloud of orchestral light. Arachnoid forms of alien construction ripping blue mechanical starships to shreds. A man, strangely familiar, sickly and emaciated, hooked into a mechanical contraption inside a starship. He had blue eyes and blue horns. He seemed to know him. His face was familiar but not like his own. The man shouted platitudes and sweet nothings at no one in particular. The ship shouted such things back in return.
He saw a beautiful woman who reminded him of Diana- with pink hair and red horns on a green grassy plain. She had the same eyes with concentric emerald green rings. He saw her go limp and catatonic, then turn to black stone and crumble into the dirt where her ashes became a sapling. He saw the Nimbus tree grow from the spot, and he saw the girl from his childhood drawings trip over the tree's root in front of him.
He saw a planet explode before his eyes, and a voice from the void which called out: "So long as this universe contains a flicker of life…We will return- at the apex of evolution."
Another voice, this time human and familiar, "Vital signs are dropping! Oxygen saturation is falling rapidly! Occipital lobe response at one hundred eight percent redline and rising! We're going to lose him. Royce stay with me!"
Images flung at his mind faster now. He was outside himself. Outside his body. He saw a man thrashing about in a black pilot seat inside the geometric skull of a white golem. He saw a woman passed out in the seat in front of him.
He saw a man tapping keys in front of a gigantic console lit up red with warnings. He furiously swiped panels of information from one screen to another. He saw three Elders perched on the rim of a massive white basin covering their mouths. He saw orange jumpsuits push off from their scaffolding and dive for cover.
He tried to open his eyes again but a voice from the void spoke to him, "How dare you- humans. Your arrogance knows no bounds."
He yelled out, "cut it! Cut the link! There's someone else in here!"
"You think you can enslave us to do your bidding. But you have only enslaved yourselves!"
He felt a shock like electric current through his arms.
"Get it off!" he yelled.
"Optogenetic response is at thirty percent and rising. Occipital response is at two hundred percent now! Theta waves are accelerating. It's locked on to you Royce. Prefrontal cortex is showing abnormal response to the Tracer signal. Ria's been locked out. I don't know how-"
"I don't care! Shut it down! Whoever you are! Shut it down!"
"Your species' integration will now commence. Rejoice at the entrance to our collective. Feel the soft embrace of our perpetual love!"
He heard a vast sucking sound like a gigantic vacuum cleaner turned on above him, then chilling cold like he was thrown butt-naked into an arctic wind. He saw frost crystals form on his arms and he shut his eyes tight.
"Emergency vent! Cranial fracture system activated! Reactive plates are armed for automatic detonation. Rear seat ejection in two! Hold tight!"
The air around him turned to an opaque cloud of vapor and he felt acceleration like a cannon blast.
Two halves of an inflatable sphere erupted from behind him and closed around his front like a clam-shell. He collided with something and his head bounced off hard white canvas. The spherical air bag deflated and he was left floating with two white petals attached to him like wings. He spotted a red splotch on one of them.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
A booming voice announced, "Tracer Prototype One self-activated without synchronous control and has disintegrated. Tracer pilot candidates fifteen and sixteen have ejected."
We took something we didn't understand and tried to control it. Tried to make Frankenstein's monster do our bidding.
His shoulder collided with something hard and he let out a grunt of pain. He had no energy left to open his eyes. His mind was scarred by images he couldn't comprehend- couldn't place in any existing framework. Images that seemed so real, so familiar, they gave him a sense of pervasive déjà vu.
The haunting alien voice echoed off his brain. In his closed eyelids he saw a black hole at the center of his vision. In its depths he swore he could see the pink haired woman calling to him- her arm outstretched.
We're drawn to the abyss. It's in our nature. It's why kids are fascinated by black holes before they even learn what they are. The void calls for all. But only fools answer.
He blinked. He looked down at the blasted robot below him as he floated through the air. The white mechanical beast drifted apart in half a dozen eviscerated chunks, trailing black sinewy cords- drawn and quartered by explosives.
Only a fool goes into the abyss alone. Even the heroes of old needed a partner.
He saw Ria floating just a few feet above the half-blasted cranium of the strange beast. Ice crystals still glimmered on her arms.
But for me, it's not her. It can't be her. She's not ready for it.
Orange technicians flew in to check on her. They shook her and she lifted her head to nod that she was okay.
Diana's the only one who could handle this, he thought.
Diana's the only one who understands the darkness. Because she's part of it. The darkness of my past. The darkness of the world.
"She is the abyss, Royce." He remembered the disembodied words of Ishigami as he floated helplessly above the chaos.
I'm sorry Ria.
I'm going to have to break my promise.