The Remnants

Lucca sat down on the crate next to Chrono. "It turns out they were all right about the monster – it did exist."

"Did exist?" Chrono sat up, wincing. Everyone else took a step closer.

"Yes. The best I can tell, there was some kind of giant machine. It scared me out of my wits at first, but I realized that it couldn't move. The thing must have been inoperative."

"What?" Nadia and Chrono asked simultaneously.

"Inoperative. That means shut down. Not working. Broken."

"Fine, fine. Continue."

"I was only scared at first because of the way the light reflected. It was an illusion – some kind of light was glowing in the 'eye' of the thing, if that indeed was an eye… 'that must be what scared off these people,' I was thinking, when I was almost sawn in half by… well, I'm not sure. I saw this bright beam of light coming at me and ducked out of the way. Just in time, too – the pipes behind me were melted."

"So that must be what's keeping the people out of the food storage," Chrono mused. "What happened next?"

Lucca glared. "Don't interrupt! Anyway, it turns out there was this little machine standing by the door. From what I could gather, it was some kind of security, or weapon, or something, and it had severely malfunctioned… you know, malfunction? Broken, not working, crazy, whatever… never mind. You'll see. But I think it was designed to destroy anything that moved. See, just as I ducked out of the way, another one of those giant rats crawled out of a hole and got fried. But I gave the bugger a good kick and one of its legs fell off. It's still there, if you want to see it. Oh, don't worry, it can't shoot you anymore unless you walk right above it.

"Right behind was the door to the food storage room. But all the food was rotten. I guess the refrigeration failed… refrigeration. You know, it keeps things cold? Never mind. But I found a whole bunch of seeds there. I just hope their present food supply lasts long enough for those to grow. Oh, and I found that guy who was supposed to have gone down yesterday…" she got silent all of a sudden.

One of the women in the crowd burst, "What? Where is he?"

"He's… well, he didn't make it." The woman broke down. "Sorry!" Lucca stammered, trying to continue the story without looking insensitive. "I don't know what happened. All I know is he somehow made it past that little bugger by the door." She said this last part to herself, as Doan escorted the woman away. Then, she turned back to Chrono and Nadia. "And… he managed to find out the password for the 'info center.'"

"The what?"

"The info center? He wrote something about it before he died. Apparently it's a place when we can learn all sorts of information passed down from past geniuses. And – we can find out how we can get back into the present."

Chrono and Nadia waited a beat before asking, "so how do we?"

"I don't know, I haven't been in there yet… it should be totally safe. No reason not to go now." Lucca shrugged. "Oh well. Tell me if you want to go down with me. I have to talk with someone who knows something about gardening." With a crash of metal, she was gone, and the crowd slowly followed.

Nadia squinted at Chrono. "Did I hear that right?"

Chrono just smiled back at her. "I'd be afraid to be down there alone too."

Just then Gere returned, carrying a small bottle. "Hello again. Here, I found you some medicine for the pain. It should relieve you for awhile. But, to be honest, I could not find anything better. I think this wound you have didn't exist back when the documents were written… Well, you'll just have to wait until it – uh, goes away." He awkwardly passed Chrono the bottle. "Just take one every few hours."

"Take what?"

Gere looked confused. "The medicine."

"I mean, what are these?" Chrono shook the bottle – clack, clack, clack. "This is medicine?"

"Hah!" the doctor chuckled. "They're called pills. Edible. You can eat them."

Chrono gave the doctor a disapproving glance before popping open the lid – or, at least, attempting to pop open the lid. Mmph! He chuckled at himself as though he had forgotten something trivial, and tried again. Rrgh! His face contorted into a red mass of wrinkles, and his knuckles gripped the container until they were white, but nothing happened.

"Here," Gere bent down. "Let me see this." He glanced at the bottle. "Hm. It says 'childproof lid.' Oh, I see. It's one of those. It happens to everyone." He handed the bottle back to Chrono. "You have to press down, and then try to twist the lid."

"Oh." Chrono had on his face a look of wonderment, as well as embarrassment at being outsmarted by a piece of – what was it – plastic, they called it. He rolled his eyes and opened the bottle effortlessly. Figures it was the one thing I hadn't tried. He pulled out one of the "pills" and placed it in his open palm. Strange, this little white thing is supposed to heal me. If Lucca could see this… well, what are you waiting for? "What was I supposed to do with this?"

"Eat it."

Chrono was thinking about asking what Gere mean exactly, but the instructions were so direct, and he was sitting in front of a girl. So, with a last glance at the two, he leaned his head back and tossed in the white pill, and promptly began to chew. He looked fine for a second, but then his eyes bugged, and he stuck out his tongue, revealing freshly crushed yellowish powder. "Ugh!" he cried, wiping his tongue with his free hand and coughing, his face red as his hair. He buried his head in his hands when he saw Gere and Nadia laughing.

The doctor spoke between chuckles. "No, you're supposed to swallow without chewing. I forgot to mention that."

He got a dark look from Chrono.

"Well, I thought it was funny," Nadia giggled.

"If you think I'm going to eat another one of those…"

"Oh, come on, Chrono. If it'll make you feel better, why not?" Nadia was trying not to smile too broadly.

Several minutes seemed to go by before Chrono threw up his free hand. "All right. Never mind." He pulled out another pill and tossed his head back, but hesitated a split second before swallowing. One second later the pill was gone (the grimace remained). He licked his lips (why am I doing this?) before asking, "so, what happens now?"

Gere folded his arms. "You have to wait until it starts to work. I think you'll feel a slight numbing sensation in your leg… that's what others have said. Be sure to take them at least three times every day. Well, I think you're ready now." The doctor put his hands to his side and smiled. "I hope to see you soon."

Nadia waited until he was gone before responding. "I hope not."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Careful climbing down the ladder, Chrono."

Lucca stood barely visible in the darkness at the bottom of the hole, hands on hips. "I almost slipped last time. One of the rungs must be broken."

Chrono hesitated. "You know, perhaps I shouldn't go down with you two."

"What, you're going to let a little pain stop you?"

"It doesn't hurt!" Chrono shot back. That was true – the pills seemed to be working, and he only felt slight pressure on the wound with every step. Still, to be safe, he carried a "walking stick," a piece of metal piping currently lodged in his rags while he hung on the ladder. "Just give me some time – ooh!" So, maybe it hurt a little.

"Are you sure you can do this?" Nadia asked, squatting by the opening. "It might be safer to stay up here."

"Oh, right – " Lucca said. "He's going to enjoy sitting up there doing nothing the whole time. What would you rather do, Chrono: stay up there where it's 'safe' and boring, or come exploring with us?"

"I'd rather go home."

"Well, if you come down here, we can find out just how to do that." Lucca pulled off her glasses and gave them a good wipe. "I'd like to do that today, if it's possible."

"Are you in a hurry or something? Here, take this stick thing, it's getting in the way." Chrono pulled out the metal rod and tossed it to the floor.

"Hey! You almost brained me!"

"Oops. Sorry. Hard luck." He took another tentative step. "I bet that would hurt or something." Another step – grooooan – he stopped. "Lucca, what did you say about a broken lung?"

"Rung. I think it's the one you're standing on right now."

Crack.

"Whoa!" Chrono yelped, flailing wildly before gracefully crashing to the floor.

"Look at it this way," Lucca said, hovering over him, "at least you only fell halfway."

Nadia hurried down the ladder, careful to avoid the broken rung. "Chrono! Are you okay?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" he groaned, motioning for the walking stick.

"No, I'm talking about your leg. You didn't land on it, I hope."

"Nope, just on my back. Not a problem. Ha ha!" He grabbed the stick from Lucca and slowly stood.

Lucca waited courteously until he was in walking condition, then sped off. "This way!"

She got impatient very fast, considering she had to constantly stop and wait for Chrono, who hobbled along somewhat faster than a crippled old man. Nadia was helping as much as she knew how, which involved hovering on all sides and making sure that if Chrono fell, he would fall in her direction, thus allowing her to cushion his fall. Of course, all this "assistance" made Chrono try all the harder to prove he was in good condition. At least he had plenty of time to see all the dilapidated machinery around… including the "bugger" Lucca had described, still lying dead by the storage room door. He got a long look at that one.

"Chrono, would it be faster if I carried you?" Lucca brought him back to reality, and he pressed on as fast as his numbing leg allowed.

"Sorry," he mumbled, taking another tentative step. He couldn't tell when his leg hit the floor, or even where the floor was.

"It's just through this door – here, I'll input the code while I wait. But I'd assume the door only stays open for so long."

Still – Chrono managed to limp to the door before Lucca had succeeded in deciphering the code. Then he did his best to sit and wait, without interrupting his friend at all, until the door was opened.

Somehow he had expected a greater thundering groan to accompany the opening. This one barely shook the floor. Behind the door lay – blackness. Nothing that any of them could see.

No one moved until Lucca spoke up. "Why aren't we going in?"

Oh, no reason.

Finally she took a hesitant step in. Then another. Finally her whole body was enveloped in the darkness. "Hello, are you guys coming in? Come on, it's not that dark. There's a big hallway up ahead. I can see everything once – "

Suddenly the room filled with light, revealing Lucca standing, her hands covering her eyes, in front of another open door. Chrono and Nadia caught up with her, giving her the "I told you so" stare.

Lucca blinked a few times. "Oops. I guess the lighting is activated by motion, like most everything else around here…" She grinned as if nothing had happened, then backed through the opening.

"Greetings."

All three jumped at the voice. Lucca herself stared to her right and prepared to kick.

"I am – am – am Proto 2-73A. Welcome to the Arris Information Archives." Chrono and Nadia joined Lucca at staring at their new visitor. It reminded them of a knight's armor – from the breastplate up, the armor was in stunning similarity to Guardian style. But in place of the visor was a small circle embedded with a pink node that hung out a few inches – some kind of bizarre eye. The shoulder pad also came with small circle holes that appeared to have nothing in them. Below the golden "breastplate," the machine obtained comical proportions. It was as if Chrono was staring at a hilariously short knight – the breastplate morphed suddenly into two stocky bulbs that looked like legs. On the very bottom were flat black pads that served no purpose as far as any of the humans could tell.

They were a little startled when the eye-node whirred to life, emanating a soft pink glow and wiggling from left to right – as if examining the visitors. "Follow me," it beeped, whirring in a half-circle and rolling off down another brightly lit hallway (how it did that, they had not yet guessed).

Lucca followed first, then motioned for the others to join her. Fortunately, the "Proto" whirred at a drugged pace, allowing Chrono to keep up with everyone. But the machine seemed not to even notice them. "This way – here is the director's office." It rolled through an opening which might have been a door at some other time. "The director is in charge of all relations with other information centers, as well as everyone in the building. He is also an advisor to the Prime Minister himself. - - - Please do not disturb. The director is in a very important meeting. If you wish to speak to the director, please file a request in Customer Service." With that it rolled out of the opening and continued along the halls.

"What's going on?" Nadia whispered to the other two.

Lucca shrugged. "I think it's malfunctioning. That didn't look like a director's office."

"Well, it could have been anything," Chrono added.

"Right." Lucca shielded her eyes again. "Wait, which way did it just go? I can't see with all this light!" As if an answer, a long tube of glass fell from the ceiling right in front of them. It shattered into a ring of crusty white powder, but the room stayed as bright as before.

When they turned the corner, they saw Proto, waiting for them like a faithful dog. Then it whirled around and continued a few steps ahead of them. "Ahead is the administrator's office. Our administrator is responsible for everything you see here. All maintenance work and construction is his job, as well as upkeep on all mechanical devices. Even I am a part of his work." Proto stopped again, outside an intact door. It waited a few seconds, then continued. "Please do not disturb. The administrator is in a very important meeting. If you wish to speak to the administrator, please file a request in Customer Service." It started again.

Nadia nudged Lucca. "Hey, what was it you said we came down here for?"

"We need to find a source of blue matter so we can get out of here."

"Do you think we could ask the machine where we can find it?"

Lucca bit her lip and shook her head. "I don't think it can even hear us. Watch." She cupped her hands over her mouth. "Hey, Proto! Which way to Trann Dome? Why is the sky blue? When was the Battle of Zenan Bridge?" The machine gave no sign it had recognized Lucca's call. "See?" She turned back to Nadia. "It's malfunctioning."

Meanwhile, Proto continued along the white halls. "Ahead is our main archive. There are thousands of computers, all storing mankind's greatest achievements. All recorded history, its knowledge, and its productions, are here in this lab. They are all connected to one super-computer which can pull any information from any other computer, thereby allowing our staff to reach any information he needs within a moment's notice. - - - Please do not disturb. The information staff is not present at this time. If you wish to tour the main archive, please file a request in Customer Service."

Proto headed off once more, and Chrono instinctively began to follow it. "Hold it!" Lucca grabbed Chrono's rags. "This is the room we want." She pointed at the dark opening.

The main archive room was only dark for a few moments, until the automatic lights came on. For some reason Chrono feared the light. Everything was so silent that his mind began to invent mechanical monsters that lurked around every corner, just out of sight. And the more oppressive the silence became, the easier it was for him to imagine. In the pure whiteness he knew there was no place to hide. He kept looking over his shoulder at the door, waiting for something to burst into the room.

"Chrono, will you quit it? That's very distracting." Lucca was bent over a large panel covered in buttons and switches. Most of them were probably ornamental, he guessed.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Just a moment, I have to figure out how to work this thing." She rolled up her sleeves and methodically hit the first button that came within her reach. "Nope. That's not it. – That one either."

Soon the "moment" became a minute, which became five, then ten, and so on. Not only did Lucca have trouble figuring out which button turned the machine on, but she couldn't make sense of the "formatting," so she called it.

Chrono and Nadia waited extremely patiently, occasionally glancing at the entrance to see if their imaginary monster had arrived. No such luck. Once Lucca had the machine running, there was so much noise that they'd never hear any monsters until it was too late.

"All right. Finally. I've got a lock on 'blue matter.' At least, I think so. We'll find out." Chrono and Nadia crowded around her to see the monitor. "No, silly. Look up there!" She pointed to the wall, where a giant monitor hung at a peculiar angle. Apparently one of the supports had snapped.

"This is a map of the world," Lucca said. "At least, it's a geographical map, so those outlines are the lines between land and sea. Now, when I press this button…" Suddenly the map grew brightly colored. "We see just where the blue matter is. I think the computer is measuring places with space/time disturbances – so those blue areas are clean… never mind, just ignore them. It's the red stuff we're looking for. See those two points? That one on the left is where we came from. Trann. That red spot on the right is the one with the blue matter. Hold on one moment." She flipped a few more switches. "No, not that one… ah, here. I'm getting a closer look at those coordinates. Ah. Proto Dome. That's pretty close to the blue matter."

She turned to see if Chrono and Nadia had absorbed any of the information. They just gave her blank stares. "Okay," she grimaced. "In other words, we have to go to Proto Dome."

Chrono rolled his eyes. "It would be too easy if we could go home now."

"Well, we're done here, so – "

Nadia held up a hand. "Wait. I want to do something while we're here."

"Please, Nadia."

"No. I want to know what's happened. I want to know why the future is like this – Chrono, Lucca. We can't just leave. Maybe if we know how bad it gets, we might be able to stop it."

Her friends just looked at her.

"Lucca, please? I'm going to spend the rest of my life having nightmares about this place. At least I should know what happened, right? Aren't you curious, too?"

Lucca shook her head.

"Chrono?"

He didn't move.

"If you don't, then… I will."

"Don't be a fool, Nadia. You don't know how to use that."

"Then," she smiled blandly, "why don't you show me."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Here it is," Lucca announced after a half hour of searching. "All recorded history. What do you want to see?"

Nadia shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted. "You could try looking at the latest date and see what it says."

Lucca pressed a few more buttons. "The latest date is in 1999. It's simply called 'The Day of Lavos.'"

"Day of Lavos, huh?" Nadia folded her arms across her chest. "What else does it say?"

"There's a subtitle – 'The last days of Earth.' Someone went to all the trouble of writing that? Oh, and there's… hold on, it says 'video.' Wonder what that does?"

After a short beep, the screen on the wall came to life – both in sight and in sound. They all jumped a few inches back.

The "video" was simply a moving picture. First it looked one way, than the other way. It must have been made from the top of a building, overlooking a lush and green midafternoon landscape. "Things have certainly changed," Lucca mused. Then the video focused on a girl. She was dressed in odd clothing. It looked constricting and unpleasant to Chrono, but he was interested in the scene behind her and so ignored the girl – she was saying something but the words were all muddled. Behind, on the ground, were little black dots that seemed to be racing across the landscape. Lights flashed everywhere.

Then there came a rumbling so realistic Chrono grabbed a nearby desk for support. The girl on the screen tripped and said something. The video recorder seemed to shake wildly, pointing at the roof, the girl, the ground, and the sky. It was the sky that interested Chrono – the clouds had suddenly congregated over one point of land, and grew darker as they got closer to the center. The girl gasped. All of a sudden, the clouds withdrew, and the ground beneath them cracked and split the entire landscape into several pieces. Rocks, dirt, and water heaved out of the hole as if trying to escape, but they fell back in. Then fire came out of the hole. The girl screamed something and ran off.

It didn't help Chrono's nerves that the video recorder stayed on the roof to watch. Nor did it help that he zoomed in on the hole in the ground. Or that something began to crawl out of the hole. At first, it looked like a grotesquely misshapen porcupine – a ball of spines. Then it revealed its "head," three beaks like a bird, which opened and produced the most chilling scream Chrono had ever heard. The video recorder zoomed out, and he could now see just how large the creature was – easily half the height of one of the faraway buildings. Now there were bright red bolts of light coming out of the back of the creature. Thousands of them – so high even the video could not see them. It looked to the sky, when suddenly those red bolts of light fell all over the earth! Where they hit, they exploded in a ball of fire – and released red flaming bodies which hit everything in sight, as if having minds of their own. Explosion after explosion sent metal and smoke into the air, as well as freshly barbequed bodies, flailing hundreds of feet to the molten earth below. The video suddenly looked at the floor, then back at the sky – red with flame. The recorder dropped the device, and it went bouncing down a flight of stairs until it rested at the feet of the girl. She screamed some more and ran up the stairs, only to be hit by a flaming body. Chrono, Nadia, and Lucca turned away – they weren't interested in watching a girl burn to death.

And like that the video stopped.