JMJ

Chapter Twelve

Planting Seeds

Sweat beaded on his brow, but Phyto did not answer. His full concentration was on the high cavern ceiling as he retook the jav-stop. Adjusting it in his arm he gripped hard the amentum for the strength and speed of the needed blow.

CRASH!

Despite all terror Phyto launched the jav-stop and leapt with Tunica and the matter changer so that he would not lose it. He was no trained space ranger. His tumble was painful, but not nearly as painful as it would have been had he been struck by the bulk of the cent-impeder or the boulders that fell in its immediate wake. Holding Tunica at his side in her holster-like seat-belt, he peaked out from the hole where he was taking cover before the rumbles subsided. Then despite the further strain on his limp, he staggered to the cent-impeder to attach its system to the matter-changer's main power intake valve.

Is it working?

"I haven't started yet!" Phyto cried, but he was well on his way before he finished his sentence.

He was good. Real good. Gentle but rapid handwork accomplished what he needed in a few short moments. Then he set the power on full blast for the exchange. Adrenaline to max power now himself, Phyto was able to overcome his limp for at least the time needed to run back for his cover, but he struggled on through a tight corridor beyond and did not stop.

It did not take a genius to deduce that a machine of that magnitude and complexity given power in raw brute force from a crude boring machine (however cute the bug shtick) could have repercussions more than the machines themselves exploding. Who knew what could happen? XR sure couldn't calculate for certain, but chances were high that the volatile nature of this narrative could destroy everything from the molecular level for leagues around. Had this been a Team Lightyear plan, XR would have made this known quite audibly, but the past was history. XR would be surprised if Phyto was not history at this moment while Tunica somehow has a miraculous survival.

The lightshow behind them was already unique and not in a good way. The sounds were off the chart for XR's audio-receptors to sounding like static, and the heat was accelerating like an oven ready for its cookie dough blobs made of magma for a race of already volcanic beings

Then Phyto missed a step. He fell with the slip of an eel through a deceitful crevice wider than it looked before a sharp turn. It was the crevice that saved Phyto even if the landing might not make it matter much.

XR could barely stand to watch, but he had no choice.

The electric pulses snatched at them like literal fingers, and Phyto cried out.

Tunica writhed and pulsed.

But the electrical fingers lost their grip.

Limp as rags they fell the more, but not to a hard stone floor. Not to a crash landing into an underground river either. The impact knocked any wind left in Phyto's lungs clean out of him. His chest felt the burn for a few seconds then he lost consciousness in the smothering billowing cushions.

Moaning in pain and disorientation, Phyto fluttered his eyes open some moments later.

"Ngh?"

He jumped. There was light enough to see as in a bedroom aglow in a bright nightlight. At first impulse he feared that the matter-changer had changed something, but as he settled his vision he saw that he had landed in a pile of primeval underground mushrooms glowing soft pink except for the ones that had broken his fall. Their inner ooze was all over him and on the ground sticking and stinking. The smell was almost enough to drive Phyto back into unconsciousness, but after a swoon, he opened his eyes once more.

Clutching his chest he scrambled to his knees. Phyto choked up some of that ooze and hoped it was not poisonous. It tasted as foul as it smelled, but as he looked around he at least had something to let loose a weak smile about. Tunica was safer than he was reaching her tuber limbs to her body as to a face in surprise, but he frowned again when he realized that he could not "hear" her.

He felt at his ear. The translator was gone. There was still so much to be done…

Yet the vision was fading.

"Phyto's losing consciousness again?" XR demanded.

No.

The memory was over.

#

"No, wait! We have to see what happens! Come on! How does he escape? You can't leave it like this."

We don't have…

"—Time. Yeah, yeah, I… right. You just showed me that the matter-changer was destroyed. Nothing left of it. Right?"

Right.

"So Zurg's wasting his whole time with this and—!" XR staggered.

What? Pain. Impatience. Agony.

"What happened to the translator?" XR demanded.

It belongs to me.

"What do you mean, it belongs to you?" XR demanded.

It's all that is left of Phyto that is physical. He tried to remove it once, but he was shortly after the first endeavor… killed. A hero. He never had a chance and I never told anyone. It is deep within my roots. Deeply seeded—

"Ugh!" If XR had a helmet to smack he would have smacked it hard. "You have got to be kidding me! This whole thing's never been about mind reading, or mystical songs, or any of that stuff! There is an ancient relic of the past plaguing the present, but it's tech that was reawakened more recently and now affected by whatever the matter-changer did to it! It's causing the whole system to destroy itself, and probably woke up a couple of Natron's old junk too!" He paused thoughtfully. "It's incredible it's still functional after all this time. Of course, I think I already went over that with the cent-impeder. Phew. They sure knew how to make things last in those days— even it's on the FRITZ!"

What was more amazing than the old tech was getting used to the Mother Bulb's interference— interference only powered by the Electro-plant system but was caused by a translator. The fact that he had fallen for it himself as a spiritual matter was humbling if not downright humiliating. Not that he had not been burning enough from the mental agony of having been duped by a Brain Pod into being depressed about himself. It was enough to be depressed about in its own right!

The idea of organic pain had lost its intrigue and by now most of its agony. Since he was a robot and knew that the pain was not real for his own body, he could ignore it. Then again, maybe it was because the Brain Pod's interference was directed at Buzz now. At first he was going to go find Buzz again, but his logical side told him that if he interfered, the three-some affect would make it more disorienting and harder for everyone to get out if he did not know exactly what he was doing.

"Do you sense the Brain Pod and Buzz?" asked XR.

They're here… said the Mother Bulb; she felt weak.

Maybe the pain was getting old for her too.

"Is, uh… Buzz okay?" XR ventured.

Better than he could be. Others…

"You sense others in the system?" XR demanded.

Not fully. He's connected partly to them now… He's gaining on the 42.

"42?"

The Mother Bulb reacted. XR knew he had given her his memories. He groaned. They were so strong here even for him. It was embarrassing all over again to have this old lady see his intimate thoughts and feelings about his own kind, even just the smallest tidbit about a petite lady bot who had once been his shipmate… literally, but it was all interrupted in a blink to a very contrasting image.

Not just an image either, but the presence of a whole player in the system right before them.

The Brain Pod…

Oh, right the signature with the same number! Brain Pod 42. XR could have laughed. In fact he did laugh as well as he could in a mental void.

"I'll bet Zurg gives him guff!"

FLASH!

"Uh , Oh!"

He saw the Brain Pod in the usual second-hand memory like a file equipped with emotional baggage. He saw Zurg punish him for his mere number. Then?

Brain Pod 42's rage boiled like a lobster in a pot.

"Oh, a sore spot," Buzz was mocking; XR was now in the fray too. "What's the matter? Zurg can't handle a number?"

Buzz felt weary, but he also felt confident. He had been gaining on the Brain Pod just as the Mother Bulb had conveyed. XR could feel the echoes of their deep arguments on good and evil to the very core of its foundation and back out again like nanobots diving into the literal heart of the matter for surgery. And no one could beat Buzz on such a topic no matter how you argue gray's your matter against the complexities of black and white! The remains of that philosophical battle would leave its mark in the Mother Bulb system for centuries into legend.

Too bad XR had missed it firsthand.

"Buzz!" cried XR; their minds met.

Oh. Probably not a good thing, after all.

FLASH!

Watch and Learn…

No… XR resisted. Don't share that with him…

But the image he was seeing was that of the Unimind. It had earlier crossed his mind during the conversation between him and Mother Bulb Madam May-tree-arch just now. XR remembered. He had been watching and learning even if it had only been subconsciously that he recalled the weeks previous to that assault on Planet Z on Team Lightyear's beta first mission ever…

#

And at the moment he thought that Buzz was already dead. A part of him felt dead with him and for the life of him he did not know what it meant. Living was almost as novel as dying. He was so new to being alive.

That's right. Alive. It was at this moment especially that since part of him that knew that he wasn't dead even figuratively his other part of him could now know that he was alive. He was alive no matter how his metal contrasted with Booster's body trembling so near him and made up of flesh, tightening muscles, respiratory retractions, and the like.

But XR felt something different from that moment in actual time.

Buzz.

From Buzz's view, to be exact. This was Buzz's memory too and their memories were now crossing over to his more fully.

Inside the Unimind?

Doubt. It tingling all over with physical pain. The dark power of the Zurg's version of the Unimind burned purple and black and bruised in agony and despair.

Despair's the main weapon evil has against good when it can't convince good of any benefit in its evilness. It was at least a real thought in a mind whirling in evil's chaos in which Buzz had been submerged. A genuine Buzz quote that was not in the Star Command manuals.

Mira. She had all hope in Buzz's ability to fight this.

The courage given to heroes in the end was often motivated by the desire to save a friend.

Can't. Let. It. Be. In. Vain.

Selflessness and—

#

"Wait!"

XR felt his sensory equipment shoved back into his body and in ways they were not exactly supposed to be shoved, by the way. It his own version of robot pain-jerks with that one, and as XR flapped his arms out in resistance against the adversary, he realized that the one who had shouted was Bramble.

"Agh!" XR cried and so did Bramble.

As XR focused his eyes he saw Bramble on his backside and rubbing his chest where XR had shoved him. XR rubbed his own chest although all the discomfort was inside. He was adjusting everything back into proper alignment. Once finished, he sighed.

"What was that for!?" XR wanted to know.

"You were going straight for the Mother Bulb. If you hadn't stopped just now I couldn't've caught up."

"Huh?" XR winced.

Then he saw her. He felt the radiating pulse of her body that had been talked about since the beginning of all this. There were a few other Rhizomians in this canyon hidden by canopies of trees high, high above, except where sunlight filtered through a hole just perfect to give the light to the bulb— massive enough to fit her name as the Mother Bulb. She was just that, a great bulb sprouting out stalky leaves and beefy beet-colored flowers that were no delicate she-loves-me-not type flowers. She looked much like a massive, if not somewhat more grotesque, version of Tunica. Surrounded by a ring of stones like an oversized flowerbed border, she was visibly writhing in the middle like a great campfire too.

XR lowered his head. "Okay… and here I thought the radiation was Buzz's memory."

"You're going to have to look at me while you're talking if you want me understand," said Bramble gently. "I took my hearing aids out."

XR's head snapped back to him. "Do you know about Phyto's hearing aid?"

Bramble registered. Then winced slowly. "Excuse me?"

"Gesundheit," XR muttered.

So far they were far enough away that the healers were not taking note in the pair in the grand archway. Pillars between the archway and the grove were beset with statues of angelic Rhizomians holding trowels, water cans, and mulch containers. Of course, the live healers were far away from the Mother Bulb herself. They were working at the roots and vines way out to the sides often at the start of the hypostyle hall that opened one whole wall into the canyon. No one could approach the bulb with that energy output of hers, and less-so now than ever, because of her sporadic pulses due to her illness caused by Zurg. That illness in turn had compounded her with comorbity of "loose wires" somewhere in those roots. He had no doubt that it was near to where the roots connected to her bulb.

"Look," XR said looking Bramble straight in his dark brown eyes. "This whole thing? With mystical singing, the hearing aids picking up her signal, me picking up her signal, it's part of the old technology. Part of the same technology Zurg's after. It was a translator. Phyto spoke to the first Mother Bulb through a translator."

Understanding lit up in Bramble's eyes. Either that or it was the reflection of the sparking bulb behind XR as Bramble took a brief glance at her.

"You're serious," he muttered.

XR rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not serious— Of course I'm serious!" He grabbed him by the front of his loose open jacket typical of his race's wardrobe.

That Rhizomian stare back was enough to make XR throw his hands up in the air.

"Is there any way to approach the Mother Bulb in order to remove the translator if it's right under her feet, so to speak?" XR demanded. "She conveyed to me it was around her base."

"Of course not."

XR chuckled. "'Of course not' he says, and without batting a deer-lash. So cute. So, you're gloomy suggestion is we give up? Cuz I'm guessing she can't just give it to us… wait, can she just give it to us?"

"My guess would be 'no'."

"Well, that rules that out, but maybe— just maybe, mind… I got an idea."

"You do?"

Forgetting to turn to Bramble XR remained staring at the Mother Bulb. He recalled with perfect clarity the memory of an ancient past that few could claim to have known anything about for millennia. Ancient tech aside, XR was not sure it was healthy for the universe at large to see so far back in such clarity as these Mother Bulbs had for this many generations. Without the sense of sight normally, it was like they had this one magical glimpse of this simple guy who just happened to get mixed up in a big mess. Phyto. It could have been anybody. It could have been Bramble! It could have been someone like Pr. Triffid, anyway. Or Buzz Lightyear himself, for crying out loud. Just a guy doing what he had to at the moment pressed into time like flowers pressed into a book in such a way that it was a wonder that it had not driven those ladies mad a long time ago.

It was all but an ancient crush.

No matter how insubstantial time seemed right now, time kept ticking for here and now, and unless Old Buzz came back from the future there was no time machine to fix that. But Phyto's little plot that worked in ancient times on one of the most powerful tools in all of history could certainly work again on something as simple as this translator. Just get in there and short circuit it. Maybe not with the cent-impeder; though someone was going to have to stop that thing too.

"It could destroy you."

XR jumped.

He couldn't help it. Bramble was just a little bit creepy. A little too close too.

"I've been rebuilt more times than I can count, professor."

"I mean your—"

"Look, I think I know the risks!" XR snapped back. "I'm the seasoned field expert here, and I don't mean a guy harvesting quinoa. I'm just thinking here. Gimme some room."

XR lowered his head and fidgeted. He knew being a hero always meant risks, but he also knew thinking about being a hero often made one take risks that should not be taken. People who had luck or "good aura" seemed to get away with just about anything like Buzz Lightyear for instance. He was not sure if it was feeling sorry for this race of plant people who had been sick because of this machine lodged in the roots the wrong way or not, but XR could see the seedlings of this queen already rooted together with the parent. One that was larger than the others was probably the heir apparent. Inheriting the literal baggage too of a spazzing-out machine getting worse and worse…

All of Rhizome's way of life could be at stake. What would the galaxy be like without Rhizome's optimistic and peaceful influence? Not that he had given Rhizome much thought until this mission, but he knew Rhizomians were a necessary part of the balance of the Galactic Alliance, stopping it from going too far in technology, to slow down its rapid pace sometimes, to think about one's roots a little too. Despite their faults (and come on, who didn't have faults?), the loss of Rhizome would be devastating.

Funny how life worked out like that.

He was not sure either if he had ever quite felt this deep about saving people before other than his immediate friends. Sure, it felt good knowing you made the world a little brighter for someone. It was mostly talk on his part to like rescuing people just to get praise and letters from fan girls that never actually showed up in the mail.

But this?

This was something more. Maybe he was just worn out from not having a decent recharge after all this overheating and energy sapping on this wild mission, but he suddenly was going for it.