JMJ
Chapter Thirteen
Alive
No humanoid could approach the Mother Bulb's energy on the fritz with this machine. She may not have been a robot, but she was closer to XR's physiology in the sense of electric current and influence. And as he approached he could sense the Mother Bulb's voice again without his scanning equipment.
Determination? She all but wheezed.
Yeah, different, huh?
You're like Phyto…
Nah, you're just sick right now, XR felt back. You said yourself you needed a reboot. This is what you meant, isn't it?
The sizzling got stronger.
Pain's gunna stop now, XR pressed.
What if it reboots you?
Yeah, I thought of that. It's the power of this once simple translator to now compel everything around it. It might just suck my mind right out of me.
I can protect my seedlings from it by blocking power to them. It might hurt me too.
Self-preservation was strong in XR. Performing his function was stronger.
Watch and learn… and repeat!
Buzz did it.
So could he.
"To infinity and beyond, Bramble," said XR nudging him playfully in the rib. "Tell, Buzz I reached my optimal understanding of my programming when you see him if I…" He gulped and he relished in that gulp that was 100% to express himself as much as it was to keep literal tears down.
"I will," Bramble promised.
XR did not look back at him. Now he just plunged.
He closed his eyes. Terror was everywhere very alive, very acute, and it was all his own and more real than any fabrication of his mind to understand what the Mother Bulb felt in a physical sense of pain. Everyone had to accept what and who they were. No one could do that for you.
If he was meant to watch and learn from Buzz Lightyear, this was indeed what he was meant to do!
Without further thought than the mission ahead, he felt through his connection with the Mother Bulb just where that mutated translator was before he got to it. Before a startled Rhizomian healer could stop him, he was enveloped in the light of throbbing energy. He had as much protection up as he could against it as he would in the bottom of the deepest ocean or in the hottest lava pit (without actually entering the lava itself, though, this had to be the closest thing to it.)
Pain. Mental Resistance. Everything.
He turned it off.
On purpose.
He could do that.
It was hard to, but he did.
It was harder to fight the instant weakness on his body, though, that the pain would have been trying to tell him about.
He took hold of that machine. He entered its system. His mental functions were failing. He was not even sure of what or why he was doing what he was doing, but his determination was not gone. If it was the last thing he did, he would stop it.
XR! Sobbed the Mother Bulb.
She could not believe what he was doing for her.
She could not bear it.
XR went on.
Consciousness was breaking up. Spazzing out. Warnings from his mind told him to shut down himself or risk losing everything. XR turned those warnings off. He had to override them to do-so.
The Mother Bulb had sensed them. Her maternal instinct went out to XR. Please, this is a bad idea. You have to—
The system failed. Broken forever.
The effort was over.
He won.
There! He thought. At least—
But he had no power left to even finish the thought.
#
"XR, reporting for duty…" XR's voice came out emotionless, lifeless, but even as the words came out he felt them like a bad taste.
His brows twitched as a response.
They furrowed.
Where am I? he thought.
He saw but did not register. He blinked, but nothing cleared. Static outside. Static inside and then—
"XR, no!" cried a voice so full of life that it was like a torrent of verve crashing like a sentient liquid battle hammer through XR's audio receptors, and speaking of torrents…
A great sweep of a red tidal wave of flesh hammered down upon XR as to crush him flat, but it was only to embrace.
"Ah!" XR cried nonetheless.
The earthquake stopped, and he was held out like a kitten to Booster's blinking face.
"XR?"
"Are you trying to mulch me or what, Booster?"
"XR!" cheered Booster and Mira together.
"You're back!" cried Mira.
"Back?" XR blinked. "Oh, right that explains the 'plant talk'."
Everything came back in a wave, and he did not hold back that wave to stretched out his arms to hug his friends back.
"Aww, guys! You have no idea what I've been through!"
"But XR!" Booster insisted. "Buzz told us everything!"
"Everything?" XR looked around.
The sunk back to his normal height normal arm-length. He was in the science bay, and that did not surprise him. The LGMs were all beaming from their job well done at riving him memory and all, and there was Buzz leaning against a large tube, arms crossed, and trying to look rugged like he sometimes did, but he was too much of an overgrown boy scout to fool anyone who knew him. He gave XR a thumbsup before approaching now himself.
"Good to have you back, XR!"
XR beamed. "Good to be back, Buzz!"
#
—Excerpt from Buzz Lightyear's Personal Log
The Brain Pod had accidently revealed to me that Warp was coming. I had expected to find him behind me when I came back out of the Mother Bulb's system holding Pr. Triffid's plant in my lap aboard 42. I was surprised to find it was only my two assistants glad to have me back in one piece.
Ericale begged forgiveness for the idea, but if it was not for her I might not have stopped the Brain Pod, XR might not have then been able to save the Mother Bulb in time, and we might not have known about XR in time either as Pr. Bramble did not know where I was. She is now, however, going join us at Star Command. After all this had been conveyed to her and she had time to think it over, she came and told me she would very much like to before the mission was at a close. I know I'll give her a recommendation, and she will use her skills to help behind the scenes and we be a great benefit for the forces of good. She can leave Rhizome too knowing that Pr. Bramble and Pr. Triffid are working together as friends again.
Brain Pod 42 was apprehended in his lair. He gave no resistance in the end and agreed to reveal the whole plan if we would lock him up and keep him from Zurg's wrath. We promised him as much. He seemed strangely happy last I saw him being taken away.
Warp escaped, yet he had not tried to stop me in the vulnerable position I was in. Part of me wants to believe that it has something to do with the good I know is still in there somewhere. After having spoken with Pr. Bramble and from the account given by Brain Pod 42 I know it is at least in part because of Natron. That in itself would not have been enough as Natron would not have been revived from this no matter what happened. I think it was because the resurrecting of these ancient super weapons from a time best left to antiquity was too much even for him. Nothing will shake that from my mind. Even if I also know that Warp is not ready to let go of his union with evil, I know that just one more chink has been chipped out from what makes it pleasurable to him.
For now should focus on what I know for sure. XR and I have both come out of this mission a little different and a little better. We're both made to improve ourselves whether human or robot. As XR told me after he was revived by the LGMs, that's the nature of being alive.