Definition - Zephyr: A gentle breeze. An air current. The Greek God of the West Wind.
I. – Rockwell Maine, 2231...
"Not bad, give him a little more encouragement." Tress said to his apprentices.
At age thirty-nine, the two students were only three years younger than their teacher.
"Come on, Acropolis 178." One of the men said. "Inhale the air, fill it in and expand out."
The crude but somewhat intelligible machine blinked it's white eyes and tried again. Thick bulbs of rubber once used as plungers filled with air as the four-legged creature tried hard to breathe… to live. Unable to sustain it's life-force, the old headlights fizzled out and the poor robot collapsed to the ground like a weak colt. Tress dropped his green shoulders in defeat. This was what they did in their free time and they never saw much of that anyway.
"I'm sorry, boys."
The man who had encouraged the droid gave a shrug. He was dirty and missing a tooth.
"Do not be," the former antique caretaker smiled at him.
"Yes, we work all day with finding new ways to make air-efficient droids." The taller of the two swaggered up to Acropolis 178 and gave it a nice pat. "It is unfortunate we were demoted to school," his smile revealed five missing teeth. "I miss the beer, experimenting with the antiques to create fun things and finding out how to make human children. Heh, old Garth never did teach us how to make… sex, as he called it. But the nose and ear…"
"What in Upper Zephyron's good name are you three delinquents doing!.?"
"Hello, Mossec." Tress greeted wearily.
His students went to work dragging their leg-buckled creation back to it's gallery.
"You can play with the antiques when you are aged sixty-five, now what are you doing?"
"Mossec, everyone is at their stations, the food regenerator is working, my job is-,"
"Your career is to teach new students on how to make and maintenance objects to help extend our elders lives, not play around and act as children do. Why do you think we do not wish to have more? They are reckless, mindless creatures! Need I keep saying this?"
"For your knowledge, Mossec," Tress walked up to where the man stared down from one of the makeshift metal huts they worked and lived in "I was escorting the Mistress of Time home from Middle Zephyron on the Iron Rails. Excuse me if I find helping her important."
"Mistress of Time and all that rubbish. She is adequate with holograms, you moron."
Tress's eyes widened as the older man started scrutinizing him.
"As it stands, young one, Miss Abba Gungatung is a caper to our way of life. Just as her mother was a traitor and her grandfather was a failure… not to mention her pariah of a father. We have the Giant's clones off duty from helping Middle Zephyron citizens and guarding the rumored Android Marketers project lying beneath it. We also have word
that the Keeper is coming, he will bring the memory box and raw ironstone with him."
"I-I, Ironstone?"
"Next to iron ore, found in the Earth's crust, the Keeper has obtained ironstone which-,"
"The Keeper? The rumors… he is, he is Hogarth's son. That means, Hogarth is coming."
"Do you think this is a game, Tress? Can you imagine, nay, decipher the consequences
if the naïve Gungatung girl goes through with this hidden plan which traces back to the mid-twentieth century that was formulated by an evil, horrible man. Can you imagine it?"
Tress could not.
"Only a few select know, Tress, and now you are one of them. I will keep you updated."
Mossec pulled open a can opener handle to an aluminum door and stepped inside. Once he had left the blonde-haired man tried to recoup from this startling news. Just as reality was about to fold over and collapse on him a spark of purple out in the distance caught his eye.
Reminiscent of when Hogarth and the Giant had left to stop Kina, the same zigzag of what Tress now knew was a wormhole formed in the sky. The power of Time rammed into the engineer and maintenance man, forcing Tress back in a strong gale which started churning the gray wisps of cloud over the clear sea. This sent him into a state of panic. He went to duck behind a half-buried tire tractor just as three youthful figures and a Giant clone came hurtling out of the wormhole. Tress barely had time to rub his eyes as they hurtled at him.
"AH!"
He jumped away from the tire and cleared a path just as the robot did a bouncy landing.
…
"Taylor!"
"Jean!"
"TAYLOR!"
"JEAN!"
Two giant hands tried to grab them but it was a sphere of solid blue that rolled them to a safe location. The brothers watched as Ivan scrunched his eyes closed and stirred them all with his shiny pole. Then like a Lightsaber the twin beams receded inward a'la Star Wars.
"How'd ya do that Ivan?" Taylor whispered, amazed.
"I was developed as a back-up program to the cyborg project Kina Gungatung created. As it is I will require frequent traveling to reach her and my father's other child, Abba. She is the Mistress of Time, a code name Kina used inspired by my mother." He noticed dirt was on his jacket and tried shaking it off; it stayed. "I am not aware if she holds knowledge of the memory box or Ironstone, but only someone from Kina's genetic trace could awaken me from my hibernation." Ivan looked at the perplexed boys. "Do you not comprehend?"
"Compre…?" Jean shook his head and approached the odd manchild. "I don't really get what you're trying to say." he peered over at a nervous looking Taylor. "You're the son of Uncle Garth… but, he has another kid named Abba? You're not making sense Ivan."
"Logic of this intricacy eludes you," Ivan concluded. "Pygmy." The purple droid walked up to the one she had been separated from for years. "Can you help me locate my sister?"
"Our sister?" She prompted.
"Do not be absurd." The man with the appearance of a nine-year-old walked up to where two junk piles flanked him. "A droid and a human cannot be brothers or sisters. It is in my blueprints, in my blood," he slipped his jacket off as well as his silk shirt. Veins connected like dots at pinpoints across his entire upper body. Taylor gasped. "I exist for blueprints."
Jean eyed his frightened brother and then gave Ivan a suspicious look. "For… what?"
"For the Android Marketers project. I exist only as a foundation and to save my mother."
When he said this there was no emotion. He then walked on through the junk piles.
The brothers looked at each other, up at a confused Pygmy, then ran after their guide.
"Droids and humans… cannot be family?"
She could only follow Jean and Taylor as they followed Ivan.
…
Tress walked out from behind the destroyed hut in a state of disbelief.
"Well," Someone grabbed his shoulder and thrust him forward. "Do not just stand there."
Mossec motioned for his personal Giant clone to approach them.
"Take Rocard and track the children down, I want to know what they will do next."
As the salt-and-pepper-haired man turned to leave Tress gave a few departing words of his own. "Hogarth's son isn't right, you know. Droids and humans can be a family unit."
To his surprise the head teacher actually stopped to consider this.
"Pieces and parts may make us similar… but a unit we will never be, Tress. Nor a family."
II. Same place, 2000...
The scene was one of undeniable tension. Hogarth watched as the Giant stomped up to stand in front of him. His big eyes never left the man as he gazed upon him with a look
of surprise. This could not happen. Hogarth couldn't lose Julie, Pygmy and his best pal.
This couldn't happen!
When he spoke Hogarth was wild with fear. "Giant, I-I can explain…I just… I just…"
There was nothing to explain, he was a fat, hysterical old drifter.
His friend bent down from his enormous height and engulfed the frightened man in his hands, resting his thumbs gently on his shoulders. "It's all right. Please, don't be afraid."
Hogarth felt blood heat his face as he realized not only was he not in trouble but that he was wrong to think the Giant would ever turn against him. Tears came to his eyes again but didn't escape as he pressed the Giant's finger to his cheek and met his eyes placidly.
"Thanks pal." He whispered.
The Giant was calm but still concerned. "Pygmy and your nephews are missing?"
"Yes. Gold, I'm sorry I-,"
"Your apologies are not relevant to finding our family," she said curtly.
" 'Our?' "
"Well you didn't think I was going to let my great grandsons out of my sight, did you?"
Dean, dressed in his old leather jacket, a white T-shirt and dark denim jeans, walked up to them with his cane's help. The relief of seeing his stepfather out of his ridiculous business clothes was short lived. Dean, however, held up his hand and explained what he had seen:
"They're in the future."
"Oh, not again!" Hogarth thumped his forehead and waved up at the sky. "Damn Robert Evans came by here, gave me this piece of… um," he checked his pocket. "Rock of iron."
Dean shrugged at his stepson's inquiring look. "Looks like tiger iron."
"Hogarth." Gold reached down and took the rock from his hand. "Did Robert mention anything else to you?" When he said no she asked the Giant to retrieve his memory box.
"It's been inactive for years, Golden." He pulled the corrugated purple cube out of his iron and gave it to her. "I thought I saved all the memory imprints but it never turned back on."
She studied it. "That's because there was never any memory imprints in it to begin with. I will admit to knowing about this devise, but gentlemen, memory wiping didn't exist then."
"Huh, that figures." Hogarth commented. He and the Giant shared a knowing look.
"What about memory wiping for droids?" the male bot asked her.
"Yes, our memories can be wiped clean." There was no emotion in Gold's voice.
Dean suddenly held his hand up for hers, palm showing. She turned perplexed.
"Do I have to hug him too?"
"Let me see that stone." Gold fingered it in his hand and Dean held onto her fingers.
"McCoppin?"
He kissed her faded gild tips. The Giant blinked. Dean looked pleased.
"Frankenbot finally found a bride," He whispered to Hogarth out of the side of his mouth.
"You're one to talk, Dean." He grinned, also whispering. "You haven't dated in years."
"Speak for yourself, big man."
"Right back at ya, Gramps."
Gold merely pulled her hand away in confusion as the old man examined the stone.
"This tiger iron has hematite in it. I've heard that it can help with healing, thinking, weight loss," he looked directly at Hogarth who scowled. "It can promote peace, boost memory."
"You're a little too into Eastern culture, McCoppin."
"He has a point though." The Giant looked at Gold expectantly.
"It does not have anything to do with boosting memory, that is the Giant's original iron."
"So we're gonna have to go back to the future," Hogarth turned to the east.
"No Delorean or nothin'." Dean walked with him through trees and then on to the shore.
"I do not understand them," Gold caught the Giant's arm as he followed. "A 'Delorean?' "
"I don't pretend to understand them either, but they're my friends. They'll explain it to me if I ask them." He told her happily and left her to be by herself as he usually did, instead he came to be beside Hogarth. He now looked down at him and held out his hand. "Friends?"
Hogarth gazed up at him fondly and smiled. "The best of friends." he let the robot encircle his rusty fingers around his bandaged nub. Gold, meanwhile, lagged behind them. With the utmost courtesy, the Giant bowed back. Dean pretended to be interested in the tide swells.
"Gold, you were right when you said that we're a family and I'm sorry that I accused you when I had no grounds to do such a thing. It was wrong of me to mistreat you like I did."
"Well," She backed away. "I'd better stay here with McCoppin."
"Dean," the sidetracked man said.
"Gold, we want you to come with us." Hogarth urged.
"You know I need you," The Giant added softly.
"Take this." She placed the oil canister from yesterday and a funnel in his hand. There was only the slightest hint of agitation in her voice. "Hogarth can help you now, instruct him."
"Gold…" They both tried to argue further with her when the Giant suddenly noticed Dean had dropped the ironstone and picked it up from the ground. He gave her a look of appeal.
Hogarth voiced his friend's thoughts. "You're an important part of the Giant's life and-,"
"Hogarth." Dean's voice was suddenly serious.
"Not now Dean." He waved at his stepfather in dismissal.
"HOGARTH!" The Giant's voice boomed out like a bomb going off.
In the blind haze of purple Gold somehow managed to snatch Dean up and make for the road. Hogarth and the Giant's eyes snapped to meet one another's as they were forcibly drawn in by the lit ironstone; the light it gave off came from the now active memory box.
…
Julianne looked up at her daughter from the photo album resting on her checkered dress.
"Maybe they were right…" Donna-Lee rambled as she paced. "Maybe there are aliens."
"Break out the tin foil hats then, dear."
"Shut up Mom." The blonde woman snapped at her mother's dry wit.
She paused then. Maybe mother and daughter didn't always see eye-to-eye but they loved each other, Julie brushed off the wrinkles of her white doily dress front and patted the side of her wheelchair for Donna-Lee to sit down on. Sniffling like a small child, she complied.
It was quite a sight, a woman in a shoulder-padded red work suit sitting with her mother wearing a dress straight out of the sixties. "Joe is doing all he can. They'll have a search party going and everything, hon." Julianne reached up to stroke her daughter's hair back.
The pouting red lips and ivory, heart-shaped face were so much like her own mother's. It was the brown eyes that were clearly Julie's father's and the overt slimness of her figure in comparison to Annie's hour glass shape that held Donna-Lee back from true resemblance.
Then there was her hair, that pretty, bushy angel hair…
It was the right texture, wrong color.
"You're going to try to convince me Uncle Garth is a good guy, aren't you?"
"No," Julie stroked Donna-Lee's damp cheek. "I'll let you decide that for yourself."
For once her daughter didn't argue further and instead leaned into her mother.
"I'm going to tell you what I know. What I don't know I'm going to let fate and time tell us." She opened the first page of her personalized album. "You'll see here from letters I received from my brother and pictures I've taken over time what life was really like in Rockwell before you were born… when the Iron Giant legends began." Julianne knew Donna-Lee did not believe these stories either. "I guess you can say that before your Uncle Garth arrived back in town, we all experienced temporary memory loss attributed to a memory erasing device. I, myself, believe that it was the refusal or the inability to accept the past and the events and consequences that transpired from it. To conquer or merely to tolerate what we've done and what has happened to us takes a great courage, Donna-Lee. The only way one can achieve this is by facing down their demons. In essence, their past."
To be continued…
~ Lavenderpaw ~