Chapter Four
The One that got away
"More like the reanimation of the spirit rooted plant tissue in a new form than a ghost," said the first healer folding his hands together as for a deep apology for the misunderstanding. Though that funny smile on his face was enough to want to punch clear to Planet Z.
"Well, that puts the phrase 'pushing up daisies in a whole new light,'" XR laughed.
"How can you be laughing about this!?" Buzz demanded.
"Not all laughter is in jest!" said the second healer with a heartfelt sigh. "Laughter is also the result of pure joy unbound in the final burst of the sparkle weed's seed pods taking flight like a spray of stars on a late summer's evening."
"And like a burst of bad poetry from those not poetically inclined," XR butt in, "we can all make the best of a bad situation and at least say the applause is honest in being grateful it ended."
"Whatever that's supposed to mean," Buzz rolled his eyes. "XR. We have a mission, and that mission does not include time to play oracle in front of an overly trusting native populous, which by the way is against regulation— taking advantage of another person's cultural beliefs for one's own gain, even if that gain is for a good cause!"
"And if Booster were here, he'd remind everyone about that mission that had you accidently landing on a Class M planet where everyone believed you and Warp Darkmatter were the gods of Land and Sea according their prophesies set down by the original Elders on the Bank-side!"
XR wrapped his arm around Buzz's shoulder. But Buzz was distracted before he could answer when he saw that one of those Rhizomians had sprouted up a call line to tell someone right now what was happening. This wasn't going to end well.
"Wait!" XR gasped suddenly back to seriousness. "I just remembered. Through all the strange imagery and incoherent conversations! We can't stay around and chat! Our friend Goozman Du's furthest suburb is being attacked!"
"What? Where?" Buzz demanded.
"Uh… I think over by Goozy Lake. It flashed by pretty fast. Almost didn't notice. Waterberry Town. I don't think it's an accident with the harvesters."
"You're sure?" Buzz demanded.
"Sure I'm sure!" XR retorted, a little offended, and just a little wary of Buzz's frame of mind.
That made them even, Buzz supposed, as he had been unduly stressed since they got here. Maybe he was still overreacting, but they could figure that out later.
"Come on!" Buzz said.
"Right!" XR agreed.
"Wait!" cried Ericale already a small figure below.
Ericale relented when the rangers did not answer, but she was pushing past the healers nonetheless. She had not been excited about XR's spiritual revelations as she was engrossed in the crime. Maybe she knew more than she had said so far, but as Buzz followed XR, he was sure they could nip this in the bud and they wouldn't need any more "help" from anyone on Rhizome.
Was it Zurg?
He had a feeling he was involved; though some of the strings were a little different. A very strong, sickening feeling only made him focus more so that he did not flinch as the graying sky let loose a spray of rain. It was a shower, nothing to be too concerned about, and XR led on like a bloodhound just as uninterrupted. They flew towards a cluster of buildings like a fairy ring round a small curving peninsula sprouting into the lake. Something was buzzing along the line.
"Perfect!" Buzz huffed under his breath and he grinned zipping in front of XR to the source.
Not so perfect…
The flashing was the root line itself.
Just fifteen feet up in the air, Buzz stopped. XR hovered beside him as they stared down at the pulsing electricity, looking not unlike the vines of Booster's "red plant" he had brought to Star Command a few years ago. Did flashing lights have something to do with what the saboteurs were doing or was it just flashing for being wounded?
XR looked at Buzz. His expression surprised him. It looked so filled with pity he did expect XR to have for the plant. He looked lost too. But he had been right about this.
The rain was picking up. Sparks flared.
"Wah!" XR cried.
Both he and Buzz thrust out of the way.
And they were so close to this cluster of buildings.
"Warn the residents!" Buzz ordered XR. "I'm going to see if we can't find someone already running!"
"No need, Buzz!" XR called.
He did not have to explain as XR maneuvered out of the way of the reason: a distinctive Rhizomian emergency system erupted into action. Whether a Rhizomian citizen had triggered the system or it had been bred to be automatic for such an occurrence, surrounding vines were blooming broad sheltering leaves to block the rain from striking the flashing wound. Shouts of inhabitants followed an alarm that sounded like a grass-horn. Emergency personnel in natural electrical-safe suits swarmed like honey bees to see about the wound.
Buzz saw that they had everything under control and was off on his own course of action. There was no sign of anything not Rhizomian. Plant and bovine-sentient alike were all headed towards the wound rather than sneaking away, except one or two people ushering children into residential homes.
A rupture of motion caught his attention, but to his disappointment it was a burst of butterbirds. Their iridescent, butterfly-patterned wings caught the light from glow-mushrooms like flashes of mini fireworks, but Buzz was not sidetracked. XR had a pair of night vision binoculars activated over his usual eye bulbs. Buzz initiated his own from a button in his suit.
Nature and natives. Nothing more, nothing less. None of the wildlife look fake. None of the people were acting suspicious. Nothing. They had missed the attacker.
XR was the first to land on a smooth rock used as a lookout over the lake. Ornamental fungi growths of various neon colors adorned the natural stone steps behind him. Coarse moss acted like a carpet keeping onlookers from slipping. Reluctant to give up the chase, though he was Buzz knew there was no chance of catching the offender now.
"No escape vehicle out on the lake," XR reported. "Nothing!"
"Hmph, but you were right about the attack," Buzz muttered.
XR looked down guilty and twiddled his fingers together. "Look, Buzz. It's my fault. I was— uh, distracted. We could have caught him if I hadn't let the whole thing distract me," XR said smacking his fist against his hand with full XR-style passion.
The hint of an idea snatched Buzz's mind. He allowed it to expand. Then he nodded.
"XR," said Buzz.
XR looked at him as though blinking back from a bright light suddenly in his face.
"Do you think that there's any way you could ask the… Mother Bulb to track anything important like the residue on whatever tool or clothing attached to the criminals, or anything of a similar nature."
Pausing to consider the notion, XR fidgeted a little more. "Uh… well! I mean, it sounds like a good idea since I can't use my scanning equipment for anything else. But— uh, you really trust me with this?"
Buzz made a face. "Should I… not trust you with this?"
"No! I mean, you should be able to! I'm just not sure if the bulb herself will be all that cooperative. The pain is pre-heh-heh-tty much overtaking any of these guys' ability to have a decent conversation with or process information in the subtleness you're suggesting. Like I said, I barely even registered the source of her pain. The conversation transcends, if you will, logical chronology. It's about feeling in a sort of earthy way, let's put it at that! I don't even know if it's the bulb herself or the individual power plants or who I'm exactly communicating with directly, by the way, but—"
"Just answer me one thing, XR," said Buzz turning away from the lake.
XR's poetic description matched the rippling water a little too intimately for comfort.
"Yeah?" XR asked spinning his head around first; then he rolled and hopped down the stone-made steps after the captain.
"How exactly is this thing affecting your ability to process information?"
XR stopped alarmed. "Uh…"
"Just tell me if you're not sure then and be honest."
"I'm not… sure?" XR repeated with a childlike shrug and, as far as Buzz could sense, childlike honesty, but in a way that did mean he would rather not talk about it either like a rash in an embarrassing place. "But as you can see I'm no worse for wear when it's over!"
Should he press him? Could he even be pressed if he did not understand it himself?
"You know what, let's just get back to the scene of the crime and see if there's anything they left behind, huh?" XR asked.
Buzz shook his head. "There won't be anything to find there that wasn't where we already were. They weren't expecting us to catch them unaware."
"Not unless that line we're connecting with is something the saboteurs can get into and overhear too," XR shrugged.
"Can they?" Buzz snapped despite himself.
"Not that I'm aware of! It seemed pretty much a private chat room to me. I mean, maybe we have a rogue Rhizomian on our hands somewhere working for Zurg or whatever, but—
"So! Do you really want me to ask the power system if it can find our info for us or are you the one who isn't sure now? Come on, be honest." At least XR's teasing was more genuine again.
Buzz frowned. "I think before we do anything else, we need to have a real chat with Pr. Triffid."
#
Rain continued its steady pace in silence; yet the rangers were still observable on their way back to Bloomeria when something moved again. A solar screen was folded back like an extra pair of wings on the small drone that was about the size of a humming bird. Its actual wings made a similar sound to such a creature too while cautiously rising up out of the greenery. When the rangers were out of sight, the drone dove into the forest in the opposite direction.
Doused in the scent of a Rhizomian stink bug, none of the more active plants were interested in attacking it. This was not Karn as Buzz Lightyear had already noted. The ecosystem was a bountiful and benevolent sort of place in comparison to most other planets. At the moment, the rain was as subdued as its greenery, even if Rhizome could have torrential downpours of legend at certain cycles.
The drone tore its way through a giant leaf or two when the forest grew too thick as though proof of the artificial's destiny to conquer the natural world. It took as straight a line as possible, in part to put as much space between it and the rangers as possible and in part out of spite against the rhythms and beats of the ongoing resilience life.
As it approached a little alcove of a cave, the ground floor peeled up.
The natural world might have got revenge, after all. A thing like a mushroom cap appeared from the shade and opened a sort of mouth underneath. Its teeth, however, had a very metallic sheen. The teeth were not sharp but flat, and there were only four perfectly identical disks that spread out from each other to form an access to a manufactured cavity instead.
Passing through a visible veil of a cloak, the drone buzzed a tinny echo into the cold mechanical hum resonating beyond. Total blackness was resolved after the mouth closed in an emerging synthetic blue-green glow. Although dim, it pierced the tunnel with its unnatural color in defiance after the earthy introspective pallet in the rain shower above. This light had nothing to reflect upon about itself no matter the sheen of the sheet metal.
The drone meandered as might forever in nightmarish tunnels, but it was not mere synthetics that made the place so callous. It was the aura of something searing too, however distant its touch. As the drone passed one more automatic doorway as to the control room of a submarine, there came a very passionate sigh through a warbled watery vocal-processing unit.
It was not the processors of a robot however similar the sound. The isolated brain, forever purposely cut off from the natural world in which it had been formed, was more inside of a submarine than the lair was cut off from Rhizome. The anticipation of living forever had lost some of its luster after a decade in the pitch-fork grip of Zurg's passionate claws, and his kind of passion was not the kind you wanted squeezed around you, metal body as separation or not. The craving for enhanced mental capacity to the point of being able to compute like a computer became a loss of appetite with the melancholy of being confined in one's own artificial brilliance.
No one tells you in the brochures that the ability to mentally torture oneself is also enhanced, the Brain Pod thought.
Buzz Lightyear had not seen. He had not even sensed with his hero sense just yet what was really going on here. Nevertheless, Brain Pod 42 had to tell Zurg the news, and with a name like his, it felt like any time he brought attention to himself Zurg considered it bad news.
Glancing up at the screen he should have been using to contact Zurg already, Brain Pod 42 rubbed his flat claws together as he recalled with the opposite of relish those flights across the science lab or against the throne room wall, or even that kick into the backside of a generator when a certain infamous ship of the same name appeared and he had happened to open his big mouth at the wrong time. It was a sort of jinx!
He was happy enough to spend time with the other 40's in the think tank designated for that unit of pods, but he researched everything he could to perfection to guard against snags in this plan to end all plans or to begin them for his own promotion. He knew more about Rhizome than his own family history now. Not that his family was anyone he cared about. But even the best laid plans of Grubs and pods always had to figure in Buzz Lightyear who was a permanent light fixture shining bright in even the darkest corners of the galaxy.
Chance gave the Brain Pod a smidge of hope. There was one bit of good news to go with all the bad. It was small, but it could work in their favor yet. If there was one weakness in Buzz Lightyear, it was at least the same as any other hero's, and that was his allies. No matter how often they were the edge he needed, they could just as easily slide into being a hindrance, and what was happening now was quite the hindrance if Brain Pod 42 knew what he thought he knew, and he was pretty sure he did.
"You don't become all-brain for nothing if you're not prepared to utilize it full throttle, after all," he muttered to himself.
In his nervousness, the bubbling liquid that kept him soft and easy-flowing, bubbled to the point of blocking most of the screen he was now switching on having gathered enough initiative. He prepared himself to act more confident than he felt. He made sure to check himself for the perfect balance of humility and competence for the temperamental lord.
The sound of planet-access chimed.
He cleared what served as a throat, "Evil Emperor Zu—"
"You have reached Planet Z," came a soothing female voice— speaking of synthetic, "home of trademarked evil and the overlord who lords it over with an iron fist: Evil Emperor Zurg. All lines are occupied with full malicious intent at this time. Please hold until one of our representatives can direct your call to the right evil channel."
Brain Pod 42 glowered. His bowl was like a pot of steamed chowder about to boil over.
"In the case of delay for potential vital calls, to complain at the Grub division, dial 1. To complain at the Brain Pod division, dial 2. To complain to the top, dial 3, but for the third option be prepared to make your complaint a good one or forever hold your peace, and we mean that. Have a nice solar cycle! … To hear this message again, dial 4."
"Oh!" moaned Brain Pod 42. "And some people wonder why there's a theory among palace staff that Zurg has reached the point of evil that he soaks up energy from others' pain like plants photosynthesize sunlight. As if the whole pressure riding on this thing hasn't built up mental strain so that I can't even dare step foot up there without choking on some restraining Rhizomian weed— on top of that…!"
He paused. Then he turned the rotary dial to 1. At least the Grubs could have an earful before he had to see Zurg face to face— screen in between them or not.
They too were making him wait.
"Oh!" he flustered, but he did not have to wait long to relieve himself of solitary confinement anymore.
Of course not in the way he would have liked. As the door behind him lifted with a hiss Warp Darkmatter threw his prowess about like a panther after a prowl. It was did not look like a successful one either.
"Ugh!" Darkmatter rolled his eyes like he was the one with problems.
The Brain Pod rolled his eyes back, but Darkmatter was not paying the least bit attention to him.
Surprise, surprise.
"Looks like Operation Bruised Fruit's gunna turn into Zurg's bruised ego in a minute," he huffed noticing the waiting screen as he muscled way with zero effort in front of the slinking Brain Pod. "There's nothing going on in the underworld of Rhizome but tube roots growing fungus mold in its ancient rotting beard lichen. Already had some of that fungus try to eat through my boots more than once!"
"Oh, go complain to the Brain Pod division," A Grub came on just now, and he squeaked in garbled surprise. "Agent Darkmatter!"
Darkmatter smirked. Zero humor in it. 100% spiteful.
But it did not last even on him when the Grub jolted around with a bow that almost had him splatting against the sleek blood-black floor. "My Evil Emperor! Warp Darkmatter wants to complain!"
Brain Pod 42 could only feel satisfied spite.
Quickly Warp exchanged his almost teenager-styled huffiness for that of the full serious agent he could be. He could never complete a total eclipse of that defiance out of his untamable eyes, but Zurg seemed to accept that. After all, that was why he had been able to recruit Warp all those years ago from Space Ranger Academy in the first place.
"What is it, Darkmatter!?" Zurg snapped a little like a crabby old parent more than a dictator of worlds. "Can't you see I'm overseeing important work here!? Scare Grubs some other time when I'm not giving them something to really shiver about!"
"Like how to fix that 'highly advanced' toilet system again?" muttered Warp under his breath as he caught sight of a Grub out of the corner of the screen hiding a not so advanced plunger.
"What was that?" Zurg warned.
"The weed's rumor's just that," Warp reported with a sniff. "We got nothing but false leads even with torture sessions and all the blackmail, and now we got rangers here, besides."
"How did—?" the Brain Pod quivered.
"The news is all over the planet already that some spiritual enlightenment struck a lightning rod into a Star Command robot and we all know what that means."
"Buzz Lightyear's on this job!?" snarled Zurg and he let out a roar of disapproval and stamp of his foot beneath his long robes.
One had to give the dark lord credit that he never tripped on those no matter how childish his tantrums.
"You'd think he'd have something better to do than trim some sick vines!" Zurg complained.
"And that's all we have," Warp nodded. "Sick vines. No all powerful ancient super weapons upon which modern Rhizomian power is based so that it could even outdo your pet renegade project from your box. Veggie tech beat him because NOSSY didn't like his vegetables, after all."
"And just Buzz Lightyear himself leading those vegetables! He could rally a Dum Dum sucker if he had no other choice! Curse hero morale!" snapped Zurg and he pouted— or rather he made a pouting sound. Expressive as he could force his mask to be it had no lip to protrude.
But now was 42's chance!
"My Evil Emperor, if I might interrupt?" he said slipping back for a bit of the screen.
"WHAT?!" snapped Zurg.
Warp's doubtful frown inflated Brain Pod's spirits rather than pulled him under.
"What Agent Darkmatter is referring to about the robot is not all bad. For us anyway."
"I'm pretty sure a Rhizomian claiming Team Lightyear's enlightened can only mean they're on the way here," Warp laughed.
"Oh, not at all!" 42 closed his eyes relishing in his haughtiness. "In fact! The false trail is only just beginning! And I think you're really going to like it! Taking advantage of cultural beliefs for your own gain is among one of your favorites, I believe, o, Evil One! Not to mention psychological warfare!"
"Explain yourself!" Zurg demanded. "And I hope this is not bogus optimism for your sake. You remember the meeting you all had about that!"
"Heh, heh!" 42 nodded. "Of course, my Evil Emperor, allow me to explain the details in full if you so desire."
Zurg's red false eyes glowed from the hatred of those piercing real ones never to be seen by the outside world. "I desire it!"