JMJ
Chapter Seven
Defining Terms and Cliffs
"Oh, come on, it's so yours!" XR shot back to the challenge. "Be careful or you'll be left to rot in your own tears. It's not that we don't feel sorry for you, but no doctor likes helping a crab-grass patient. I might even take that to 'crab-apple' if you don't watch it."
Salty for a bot.
"What do you know about bots?" XR demanded. "Now you want my help or don't you? Just because I'm not getting my energy from photosynthesis doesn't mean I can't synthesize what my photo receptors take in around me. Whether my main programming or not, all robots with a half-decent intelligence chip can detect organic salt once they been around long enough to sense past the artificial sweeteners, pumpkin pie. You're a lot nastier than yesterday. Wanna talk about it? I'm all sensors. Figuratively speaking, since I was almost drowned in it all yesterday."
Well… I… I'm having trouble thinking…
"So you are," tutted XR. "Though you are a bit more articulate than yesterday too, you know?"
Does that make it suspicious?
"I dunno," mocked XR, "does it?"
Pause.
He could feel the other presence as though right beside him. Uneasiness. Anger. Frustration. It oozed everywhere. Messy stuff. If XR did not know better he would have diagnosed that this plant had been sick before she was sick.
"So… why'd you bring me out here?"
I didn't.
"Ouch, I'm feeling a lot of defensiveness here. Almost as if you're trying to hide something."
So are you.
"But it's useless to do so if we can sense each other's moods too."
Right.
"So are you going to let me help or aren't you? The sooner we get through this the sooner we can all go back to our lives."
Discomfort. Almost as if there were two discomforts separate from each other, and the other was echoing the old throb: pain, pain, pain… it's not fair… go away. This was paraphrasing but the eloquent discomfort was so convoluted that it would have taken chapters of misery to describe it all in its twists and turns and second guessing, should XR try to put into words. Well, unless he boiled all that spinach down to the phrase: "get over yourself'" that XR thought about answering back. Of course it was quite possible that the bulb was getting a sense of XR's sentiment anyway.
XR tapped his foot.
Well… you could go and find how to begin again…?
"Ah, you mean the rebooting thing? Yeah, that might be a start, but… you don't know how, do you? Didn't think so."
But—
"But you do know where one could, in theory, figure out how? A manual or something?" XR chuckled.
Phyto— It was a whine. A plea. A sorrow. That man on the hill?
But the thoughts interrupted each other as though the plant had multiple personality disorder: Written down by the Rhizomian botanist! Yes! Can you see him?
XR Winced. "What?"
The desperation was intense— a flood of terror swam through XR. He knew it was coming from the simpler side of her, but he was swimming in it second-hand in such a way that XR felt afraid to answer. He shook his head in an attempt to regain control, but it was difficult like trying to see through very thick and grimy smog.
In the clearing? He could see the ancient Rhizomian as clearly as he had in his dream.
Phyto? Not to be confused for the well-known Byroph in all the history logs and in all the preserved painting on leaves. Phyto? Was he like the plant's pet who sang the song for her… or wait…
"How long do you live?" XR demanded.
Memories…
Yes, the memories are passed down from mother to daughter photo-genetically.
"Photo… okay. Do you always interrupt yourself like this?"
Cattail-bit-your-tongue moment. Loneliness. Fear. Apprehension.
"Sensitive, aren't you."
Flash! Cut off. XR could see it. Bubbling mire in heat, surrounded by cold. Fear rose like a physical pain present and in memories. Torture. Metal. Zurg.
"Zurg!?"
No time. Find Phyto.
"But he's dead," XR pointed out blunt and to the point. "Where's Zurg?" To himself he muttered, "This is getting serious."
Muddled confusion. Sick with struggle.
Look I can't move, you know. If you focus on Phyto, you should be able to find out where he stored his work. It's hidden. Where?
"Uh… beneath that hill?"
Uncertainty.
My hill… potted… sweet Phyto… his gentle hands… his song…
The acerbic tone had muted or became one with this sickly sad one.
XR could hear that song too from his dream again. Nostalgic, sweet, sad and somehow uplifting at the same time. He could see Phyto. He was diving down as though in a plunge of green waves. They were not waves but leaves, and soon they were left at the surface.
Down.
…..down.
….down.
….down.
The memory was like XR's own.
Roots protruded from earthen walls made of stone in some places and very hard clay-compounded dirt in others. The air was moist. Drips trickled from stone ruins. The light source in such a place? A good old fashioned torch.
"The catacombs," the youthful voice of Phyto echoed as he gazed upon what was in his time a place already of antiquity. "This is all that remains of my forefathers who first came to this paradise."
They were before a slab of decaying symbols and what looked like one grand insignia lost to time and space. Even now— whenever now was— roots hung like a curtain over the top half of the sign.
It is a lost time? asked his companion, a bulb plant, in fact. She was in a pot beside him.
"Not quite," said Phyto. "It was about one hundred years ago, and yet will this world be destroyed before we know you?"
I don't think so, said the young mother bulb.
"All the same I don't like this place."
Natron does not know it and does not know us?
"True, and it is a good thing too, but he is looking for it. It is the only reason he would be here. It is here that the technology that destroyed us is still hidden, and would that I could destroy its presence. We're here for one purpose, my dear."
I hope it does not take long.
Phyto chuckled sadly.
I hope I can do something.
"Maybe your mother can," said Phyto.
She doesn't trust you.
He had already rescued the daughter from something, though. That had formed this unusual bond. From what? Natron. Indirectly, but yes.
Phyto packed the little pot back up into a safe hold like a holster on his hip. He took up his pack and a small disk installed with non-plant-based buttons. It looked very high tech in that ancient, mysterious sort of way. What was he checking it for?
XR felt himself enough to strain to know. It seemed to him to be monitoring biosignatures. Monitoring? Or hiding! It was an ancient personal cloaking device!
Phyto hopped down with surprising skill considering all he was lugging down into the next passage, which was a few feet down from the one he was on. Torch in hand, he hurried along at a very good pace until he staggered to a stop.
Why? Oh. A drop.
The torch could not light up how far down it went, but Phyto took no chances of anyone seeing from below.
Eerie ghostly sounds rose like incense to an evil god, and Phyto shivered. His companion's tiny green shoots recoiled too.
I don't like it here.
Wait… XR was noticing something else that looked a little too techy to not be important. It was on Phyto's ear like an ear tag. Was he an escaped slave of some kind? Maybe he was either way, and yet, he sensed something else about it. It reacted when the plant had 'spoke' by a soft orange light blinking.
It was reading her thoughts. That's how Phyto was doing it. The ancient Rhizomians had ancient technology after all!
Don't tell me they made robots out of dead plants, XR thought not without some humor.
But was it their tech or Natron's tech? XR still had this strong feeling that Phyto was an ex-slave. But where was Byroph then? No one had ever said Byroph was a slave, did they? Not that XR had ever paid attention and the current Mother Plant was giving XR zero help in all this. Maybe she couldn't, but XR felt annoyed about it.
What is it? Asked the little bulb.
"Natron," shivered Phyto.
Back against the wall now— or pack against the wall— he held his torch as away from the edge as he could.
"He's looking for it."
What? The old tech you guys brought?
"Tunica," Phyto said fidgeting his knobby but dexterous fingers. "I… I have to confess that, we stole it."
Stole what?
"The designs of his grandfather's work. He was killed. We—we did not kill him, mind. But we did take advantage of the situation. My people… the rest of my people, they—" he gulped, and hurried on in silence before a tunnel into another passage.
They're under Natron's control.
"Yes. For centuries it has been thus."
I knew it! XR thought.
"We're nothing but cattle to them, but we are the machinists. We are the ones who know how these things work. We are the brains behind it all! All that terrorizes the universe right now. That's why my forefathers stole it. And then we came here, my dear.
Yeah, you told me all about that.
"Yes, well…" Phyto paused.
His breath was taken away.
What?
"Natron."
He blew out his torch, and the light glowed from elsewhere. It glowed from all the cracks in the wall, and through one crack that was large enough to see through. Phyto gathered up all his courage to look down.
Well?!
"Shush!" hissed Phyto.
Phyto, he can't hear me.
"I don't care, don't think so loud. You don't know what he's capable of.
Well, obviously not capable enough since he has to come here and steal the tech that you stole even though your people technically made it, so it isn't stealing. Right? Phyto?
Phyto released a slow jerking nod and then shook his head. "They say it's able to control matter and change it into… anything."
Anything!?
"My forefathers when they saw this beautiful planet our hearts were in love. We wanted to live here in peace, but— but now I… don't think that's possible as long as that thing even has a possibility of existing.
Is Natron down there in person?
"Yes. Working. Well, his slaves are working. But he is surveying it all to make sure it all goes to his liking. His power…"
Is oppressive. It's like a thousand voices all pushing at once.
"And if we were zapped in the head, or bulb, by his staff, we would be consumed, Tunica. We would be driven mad."
Do you know that madness?
Phyto lowered his head, his face sunken by the memory as he looked away from his peep hole. He looked very ill in the shadows flickering like off a liquid surface. He slumped down and put his arms over his knees. A heavy sigh burst from him.
Phyto!
"I know it too well, and I'll never be the same."
You said Rhizome healed your people. It can heal you too.
"No," Phyto moaned. "It's too late, Tunica. It's my own fault that I was caught under his power, and I suffered it. It's a miracle that I escaped."
Maybe you need to start over.
Phyto smiled.
Cut down to the roots and allow yourself to grow new shoots!
He chucked despite himself. "My people can't do that."
Yes, you can. All you have to do is—
Glang! Glang! Glang!
It boomed, reverberated through every cell and interrupted everything all thought. Chunks of dirt and rubble fell from the walls. Phyto leapt up in full agility in seconds.
"Come on!" he called racing down the corridor again. "There isn't time. We have to stop this! Only! I don't know how!"
You don't? Then why are we here?
"Well! Not entirely!"
You're the one shouting now, Phyto!
"No one can hear us through this racket! We— Ah!"
Just in the knick did he dodge a falling boulder, and then a bright light flashed. He tumbled backwards all but crushing Tunica's holster. One second he gave himself to make sure and feel relieved that she was safe, but there was no time for anything else.
Some slithering artificial technology that looked like a giant centipede was dancing with its million metal legs like mountain climber picks. It was aiming right for them with the force of a tanker!
