Alive
A fan fiction in progress by
Bryan Harrison
Pt 6
David lingered on the edge of a dream. A face loomed before him, gentle and loving; gazing an expression of eternal compassion. He knew her; loved her. Longed to be with her again. But she was fading quickly. He tried to follow her back into the retreating Morphean realm, but his bed was hard and bumpy and caused his body pains that pulled his attention back into the 'real' world. He twisted and turned in an attempt to find comfort and return to his dream, but could not. Reluctantly he rose from his slumber only to be greeted by pain and sickness… and memories.
He moaned at the realizations. Of course this was not his hospital bed. That episode of his life was over, a matter of history. He was lying on the solid earth. He could smell it now: the damp, mossy odor of the forest, and a sharp burning smell that caused his stomach to jump. He opened his eyes to see dark trees looming over him. Whispers and odd noises seemed to float on the breeze that washed over his face. He tried to sit, to see who it might be. But he fell back as a wave of dizziness gripped him.
Then a face appeared. "Oh Lord! The toy boy is up 'n runnin'! He's runnin' jus fine!" it said.
David remembered that face and the comical voice that came from it, but found no humor in it. His stomach turned. He moaned. Somehow he had to explain to this crazy machine that he was no longer Mecha; that he now required sustenance to go on. He opened his mouth to speak but another voice came first.
"Shut up Jeggs, ya damned idiot!"
David shuddered. There was something spiteful in that sound. A bustle of movement broke out and then Jegg's voice came again. "Forgive me, Oh Lord," the robot intoned. "Thy will be done! Yessa! Thy Will!"
"Get yer metal arse out of my way!" said the other.
David turned his head toward the voice but saw only a flickering flame burning brightly in a shallow pit. He turned his head again and saw strange shapes sitting motionless amid the trees. He tried to focus his vision, to understand what he was seeing, but a dark shape suddenly blocked his path. It was a boot. He looked up to see a large robed figure standing over him. Its face was cloaked in the shadows of the forest, and obscured from the flame by a thick lapel. But David could see the malignant gaze of its eyes.
The figure said nothing but David could hear its ragged breathing. A man! It was a man, he realized. The dark man leaned over and seemed to study David's face. David stared back, unable to discern the dark man's features and too scared to utter a sound. This inspection went on for minutes it seemed. Then the man rose up quickly and let fall something to the ground. It landed with a muted clang just beside David's head.
"Eat!" the dark man commanded, as he walked away to sit before the fire. He was only a dark silhouette now.
David turned to see that the man had dropped a plate bearing something with a burnt aroma that caused a surge in his gut. His arm reached out automatically, and pulled the food to his mouth. There was something disturbing to the slick texture of the meat, but David felt his strength returning quickly as he devoured it.
"Chew yer food, brat!" the dark man scolded "Or it'll come back up faster than you shoved it down!"
Something in the man's voice commanded respect. David forced himself to chew slower.
"That's better." The dark man said. "Meat's hard enough to come by without you wastin' it."
David considered an apology but was too busy swallowing.
"See there!" Jeggs said, "The Lord provides for all his little toys! Din't I tell ya dat? Din't I?"
The dark man picked something from the ground and threw it. It struck Jeggs in the head with a hollow thud. "Shut up ya fiber freak or I'll put ya with the rest!" the man yelled. Jeggs hooted and scampered away to hide in the trees. David could hear it muttering its peculiar lunatic ramblings softly. "I should'a never messed with those damn personality parameters," the man muttered to himself as he went to work on his meal. "It's what happens when ya get bored, eh?"
David grunted a hesitant acknowledgment and then realized something was missing. "Where's Teddy?" he asked in alarm.
The man swallowed a mouthful before he responded. "What the hell is a Teddy?" he said.
"My bear," David replied quickly. "I had a bear with me. He has data…" David stopped himself, realizing it would be better to not share too much with this stranger. "He's my friend," he explained simply.
The man was quiet a moment, as if he was thinking over an answer. Then he shook his head. "Nope. No bear. No toys. Just you. Now finish yer food. I got no need for a sick brat on my hands."
"Jeggs knows!" David said quickly. "Jeggs?" David called. "Where's my bear?" But the dark man wheeled sharply.
"Mind yer mouth! I don't call for that damned machine until I need it, and I'll decide when that is! Now finish yer damn food and keep yer trap shut!"
David shrank from that attack. Angelo was dead. Teddy was gone. He was alone now. He wondered how he would get back to Mommy's house without the data in Teddy's head. But he had bigger worries for now. The dark man was obviously dangerous. He had to think of a plan of escape. He'd need energy. He scooped up his plate but realized that he had already finished his meal. He also realized what it had been: the snake Jeggs had caught and killed. The meat made his stomach roll a bit and left a peculiar taste in his mouth. But he felt much better. His strength was returning. He wiped his face with a forearm and sat up to study his surroundings, keeping an eye on the dark man lest he get another scolding.
He was surrounded by scattered mechanical debris, arms and legs and torsos; wires protruding from their broken joints. Amid the clutter sat lifeless forms, metallic and warped faces staring with blank eyes. Clowns with drooping smiles; motionless dancers in tattered tutus, a one eyed butler and a faceless maid, and so many others… Discards, he realized; abandoned Mecha. All of them were arranged as if in worship, their eyes cast to the sky in silent prayer, their faces locked in all manner of emotions. Joy, sadness, elation…
Fear. Chief among them was fear.
And there was something else. The whispers he had heard on the breeze had not been his imagination. They were coming from the still forms like the soft sighs of mechanical ghosts. They were not dead.
"What are they?" David asked and then cringed, thinking the man might scold him for speaking out of turn. He didn't. But when he answered there was a snarl in his voice.
"What the hell do they look like?" the man replied without looking up from his meal. "What are ya, daft or sumthin?"
"No, but I…" David started but didn't know how to continue. He thought for a moment. "I mean, what happened to them. Why are they… like that?"
"Like what?"
David looked at the frozen robots and didn't know why the man couldn't figure out what he meant. "I mean… they're kneeling like…" he stopped, thinking the rest must be obvious. He saw the man's shoulders lift in a dismissive shrug.
"Oh that." The man said with a snicker. "Ahh, that's just a little game I play. I get bored sometimes, ya know." He chewed and swallowed. "The way I figger it, they owe me their lives… or whatever is left of 'em. I can give it and I can take it away. So, I guess that makes me like a God to them, eh? The all-powerful king of the fiberhead buffoons. Wouldn't ya say?"
David had no response for this. He had no concept of Orga Gods and had no idea if this was an appropriate theological interpretation. Whatever information had been in his Mecha data banks had been lost when he became flesh. But even in his ignorance, he knew there was something very wrong here.
"If you're like a God," David said slowly, careful to not anger the man, "then why let them suffer this way."
"Wellll," the man drawled, "So I've got me a little philosopher!" The man barked a dry laugh that seemed to contain the bitterness of a lifetime. Even in his innocence to Orga life, David recognized the depth of hatred in that sound.
"It's what happens to us all," he laughed darkly. "Ya get old. Ya live longer than you're useful. Then nobody needs ya nomore.." The man shot a sneering glance at David. "So they grab ya up and dump ya in the woods so they don't have to deal with ya. Then time takes over and yer skin rots away, and yer limbs fall off and if yer lucky someone comes a long and takes ya out of yer damn misery!" The man was quiet a moment, his jowls trembling in the firelight. "If yer lucky, that is" he continued. "But luck is as rare as an Orga brat in the wilds, so more than likely ya wind up old and useless and dyin' in the company of yer lessers, like a common vagabond! Cast off and forgotten!" He coughed harshly and spat. David's unease had risen at the tirade. The man seemed to sense this and laughed again. David realized the man took pleasure in fear.
"Mecha. Orga. Either way, it's all the same. It'll happen to you too," the man said. "If ya live that long," he added with a dark chuckle and turned back to his plate.
His features were still obscured, silhouetted against the campfire. But David thought there was something familiar in the contours of his face. He rose to his knees, carefully, hoping to not ignite the man's anger again. Then he moved a bit closer, straining his eyes against the background of firelight to see the man's face. The man looked up and scowled at the inspection. A sudden chill grew inside David's heart. Memories from a life ago were disturbed from their rest.
"Who are you?" David asked, stunned.
The dark man did not respond at first. He rose and turned his back on David, to walk among the praying robots. They followed his passage with vacant eyes. He ran a hand over their heads as he strode among them, as if casting a blessing on the faithful. After a moment he spoke, but not to David. He spoke to the throng; his silent worshipers, the mechanical followers who knelt in programmed obedience and prayed in soft digital whispers.
"Ya know, I think I figured it out," the man said. "I've been working on it ever since that idiot came back with my dinner. I thought that just maybe it was one of those weird coincidences. But then I decided that was just my mind bein' lazy. So I worked on it. I figgered that someone must have stole his face, because it's illegal to dupe a living person… but that was years ago. And if they stole his face back then … that would mean… that would mean he'd have grown. Right? He'd be older… a teener by now! But he's the same!" The man cast his eyes on David again and roared. "How in the hell can ya be the same?"
David froze at the sound of those words. He fell back and tried to scamper away. But it was too late. The man moved quickly and stood over him. David could now see the man's face clearly in the firelight. It was older, covered in a thick beard and wrinkled from decades of hate and frustration. But the fire in his eyes was all David needed to recognize the man who had once tried to take his life.
Lord Johnson Johnson, fallen Orga hero and self appointed God of discarded Mecha, stared in perplexed awe at the impossible boy who cringed on the forest floor beneath him; the boy whose innocent pleas had crushed his kingdom and cast him among the discarded.
"It doesn't really matter now does it, lad?" Johnson growled. "However you came to be whatever the hell you are, doesn't really mean a damn thing! The way I figger it, you owe me. You owe me everything I ever fought for and lost! You owe me yer very life!" He reached down and grabbed David up by the collar. "And I'll have it, boy!" he screamed. "Oh yes, I will have it!"
(cont...)