The Guardians of Zoone

by Lee Edward Födi

  Aunt Temperance shook her head in bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”

  Yeah, Ozzie added silently as he clung to her. What are you talking about? He remembered Captain Traxx accusing Aunt Temperance of giving up her life for someone, someone who wasn’t Mercurio. Had there been someone else? Another boyfriend?

  “It is because of you,” Klaxon announced. He raised a long, mechanical finger to emit a red beam, like a laser pointer.

  Fidget audibly gasped. Ozzie turned to stare at her, only to realize she was already staring back.

  “What is it?” he asked. Then he slowly turned his gaze downward, to his own chest, where a pinprick of red was flickering.

  Klaxon was pointing at him.

  26

  Doorway to Destiny

  Ozzie felt like he had just been clobbered by one of Moton’s giant mechanical hammers. None of this makes sense, he thought, his mind swirling. None of this . . .

  “Ozzie,” Aunt Temperance said. She was still clutching him, but now even more tightly, with both arms.

  “Yes,” Klaxon said, the despair clear in his voice. “There he is. The symbol of your true love.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Aunt Temperance told him.

  Klaxon clasped his two mismatched hands, one flesh and one metal, behind his back. Then he began pacing back and forth in front of them in a straight line, taking sharp, measured turns. “There I was, years ago. Waiting for you. Waiting for my fiancée. My love. But you did not come.”

  “I went to find you, I went to be with—”

  “NO!” he roared, a mechanically enhanced cry so loud that it reverberated off the walls of the terrace, twisted with pain.

  And maybe menace, Ozzie thought as Scoot whistled in surprise. Tug mewled and tried to thrust his massive head into Fidget’s armpit, like an oversized kitten hiding from thunder.

  “After you abandoned me, I wandered the multiverse,” Klaxon continued. “I sought relief from my pain. But true succor does not exist for a broken heart. Finally, in my despair, I returned to Eridea, to seek you.”

  “I wasn’t with the circus anymore,” Aunt Temperance explained, “but if you had looked harder, you would have found—”

  “I did find you,” Klaxon stated. “I can see you now. Pushing your carriage down the street. Pushing him.” He was pointing his red beam at Ozzie again. “Who is the father?” Klaxon asked. “Not-me-not-me-not-me.”

  “This is Ozzie,” Aunt Temperance announced, now standing behind him with both hands on his shoulders. “He is my nephew. His father is my brother. You misunderstood everything. After Ozzie was born, his mother received a once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity overseas. And my brother was sent to open a new regional office in South America. There was pressure to stay, to help the family.”

  Ozzie started. He hadn’t known any of this. Aunt Temperance had stayed to “help”? If anything, it was more like his parents did the helping, just showing up whenever it was convenient for their careers.

  Klaxon’s antennae were gyrating again. “You chose him. Over me. Over-me-over-me-over-me.”

  Aunt Temperance bristled. “Not over you. But I chose to stay with him. Yes.”

  Ozzie felt an unfamiliar shiver down the back of his neck. He had never thought of himself as chosen. Ignored? Yes. Abandoned? Yes. But chosen?

  He slowly turned and stared at Aunt Temperance. He knew her better now than ever before. Knew she could do so much more than he had ever given her credit for. But for most of his life he had taken her for granted. He had latched on to her, depended on her, but it had never occurred to him to wonder what she had given up. It hadn’t even occurred to him that there had been anything to give up.

  But she had given up something—many things. Mercurio. The circus. Her whole life.

  For me, Ozzie realized.

  Aunt Temperance’s gaze was fixed on Klaxon. “And what about what you chose? You could have chosen to stay. To talk to me. To find out what was going on. What I was going through! You could have chosen to stick with us . . . you could have been a part of ‘us.’” She squeezed Ozzie’s shoulder again. “You chose to be alone.”

  “I chose to end pain,” Klaxon declared. “That is why I returned to my home world. To the machines. People, with all their emotions, are unpredictable. Fallible. But machines are not-not-not.”

  “You can’t simply decide to think like a machine,” Aunt Temperance said.

  “I am not worried about thinking,” Klaxon said. “It is feeling that I mean to end.”

  “That’s why you’re going to unleash your motos on the multiverse,” Ozzie said. “You’re going to . . . eradicate everyone.”

  “I do not want to end the people of the multiverse,” Klaxon insisted. “I want to end-end-end their suffering. I want to save them. Just like I am being saved.”

  “Mercurio, what are you talking about?” Aunt Temperance implored. There was a quaver in her voice, but also—finally, Ozzie thought—a hint of suspicion. “How are you being saved? These mechanical monstrosities have broken you! They’ve—”

  “You have it backward,” he declared. “The motos did not break me. They are rebuilding me. Saving me. I do not live in despair anymore. I chose motonization.”

  He undid a latch at the side of his torso and pressed a button, and the entire front panel of his chest creaked open.

  A gasp caught in Ozzie’s throat.

  Lights flashed from within a metal cavity. Gears whirred and pistons pumped. Some sort of bag was inflating and deflating, slowly, rhythmically. There was no flesh there—no organs, no heart. Everything inside Klaxon had been replaced with machinery.

  Aunt Temperance emitted a painful, animal-sounding moan and collapsed to her knees. Ozzie clung to her, desperate to do something to help her. But he had no idea what that might be.

  “Now you see,” Klaxon declared. He shut his chest, swiveled, and marched back to the dais to stand next to the archway. “Take the fallen ones to the prison,” he directed his motos. “They will be saved later.”

  “The deviation must be destroyed,” the robots responded. They were pointing at Scoot, prompting Klaxon to turn toward her.

  “My long-lost moto,” he said. “I regret creating you.”

  Ozzie’s jaw dropped. “You’re the one who built her?!”

  “Her?” Klaxon said. “It is not a her. It is an it.”

  Scoot began spinning around in an anxious circle, wringing her hands. “But . . . but . . . ,” she sputtered, pivoting toward Ozzie. “I am a her. I want to be a her. Creator, you said I can be a her.”

  “Do not look at the human boy,” Klaxon commanded. “I am your creator.”

  “No, you’re not!” Scoot warbled, rotating to him. “I remember Creator! He wasn’t like you.”

  Klaxon’s lips curled upward—almost in frustration, Ozzie decided—his metal teeth glinting in the light. “Moto, I cobbled you together from the bits and pieces of other machines when I was nothing more than a naive boy in the last days of Creon.”

  “You told me you were born in Europe,” Aunt Temperance murmured. “You . . . you lied.”

  Klaxon inclined his head slightly toward her, robotically, without emotion. “That was before I was machine. When I was imperfect.” He considered Scoot again. “My family could not take you during our hurried evacuation of Creon. At the time, it caused me great sorrow. Now it saddens me that you exist. You will be terminated.”

  Scoot released a mournful whistle and clung to Ozzie’s sleeve.

  “You won’t touch her,” Ozzie said, glaring at Klaxon.

  “She’s fine just the way she is,” Fidget added.

  “She’s an aberration, you know,” Tug supplied.

  “It comes to Moton,” Klaxon decreed. “After I am done saving the rest of you, I will melt it down. I will create something new. Something better.”

  Scoot wailed. Ozzie caught sight of the quirl darting into the shadows. There’s no one else she can
call for help, he thought sadly as the moto army closed in on them.

  They had no choice but to go through the door to Moton.

  Ozzie grimaced as the motos forced him and the others into the command center. Even more terminals and panels had been installed since the last time he had been there. He craned his neck toward the gauges, but he was surrounded by motos and couldn’t quite get close enough to read them. It didn’t matter, he decided; he didn’t need to read the meters to know they were in trouble.

  “Welcome to the completed Destiny Machine,” Klaxon announced as he stepped through the Zoone door and sealed it behind him with the flick of a switch.

  Ozzie turned to the moto-man. “This whole complex is the machine?”

  “You are correct,” Klaxon said, seeming pleased that he had asked. “The simulations require extensive computing power and an amelthium reactor of a scale never before built.” He pointed to the door labeled Simulations, the one they had seen their first time in the command center. “You will all enter the simulation chamber, and you will comprehend that no matter which path you choose, it will lead to the same destiny: agony. Once that is made plain to you, you will decide to be moto.”

  “And if we don’t?” Cho demanded.

  “Why would you refuse to end torment?” Klaxon asked, seeming genuinely confused.

  Ozzie pressed closer to Aunt Temperance, his mind working furiously. Is that what happened to Lady Zoone? he thought. Did he try to make her choose? “You want us to make the decision,” he said to Klaxon. “So that means if we don’t choose motoniza—”

  “You will.”

  “Yes,” Ozzie persisted, “but if we don’t? What then?”

  Klaxon stared at him, lenses slowly spinning. “If you do not choose motonization, then I will release you,” he said at last. “But it will not happen. You will see.”

  Aunt Temperance finally seemed to collect herself. Pulling away from Ozzie, she stepped in front of Klaxon and held out a hand. “You don’t have to do this,” she told him. “You . . . you are still Mercurio. I know you are. I still see you in there, that inventive and slightly sad young man. Let’s go back to Zoone. We can talk, just you and I—”

  “You do not understand that I am trying to save you,” Klaxon interrupted. “I ask you to imagine a multiverse without strife or agony. But your limited mind cannot conceive of it. Instead, you insist on cradling your humanity. You clutch it to you like a wounded limb. You will see, in the Machine.”

  “I will face your contraption,” Cho declared, stepping forward.

  “Stand down, Captain,” Aunt Temperance said. “I will go first. This is my responsibility.”

  “It’s my duty to take the lead,” Cho insisted.

  “Why? Because you’re used to being the hero?”

  “That’s not Cho,” Ozzie argued. “He—”

  “Because I’m the Captain of Zoone,” Cho announced. “The rightful captain”—he cast a glare in Klaxon’s direction—“and it’s my job to protect the nexus. I’ll find a way to defeat the Machine.”

  “So will I,” Aunt Temperance declared. “I know him better than you. How he thinks. How his machine will think.”

  The silvery locks of her hair were hanging loose and wild, but she let them dangle. She lifted her head high and marched forward. Ozzie felt a swirl of pride—and worry. He tried to step toward her, only to be confronted by the electrified fingers of a moto soldier.

  Klaxon gave Aunt Temperance an approving nod, then strode to the nearby terminal and began tapping buttons. The door to the simulation chamber slid open, revealing a dark cavity beyond.

  “Aunt Temperance?” Ozzie called out. It sounded weaker, needier, than he intended.

  She turned around and flashed him a smile—it seemed forced. “I’ll be back, Ozzie. Before you know it.”

  She stepped through, and the door slammed shut, leaving Ozzie to stare at the blank wall of metal. Then he noticed the screens on Klaxon’s terminal flickering with images, hundreds per second, so many that Ozzie couldn’t absorb any meaning from them. Klaxon seemed to, though. He had plugged a wire from the control panel directly into his helmet and was completely engrossed by the activity on the screens.

  He’s interacting with the Machine, Ozzie guessed. Maybe he’s actually communicating with Aunt Temperance while she’s in there.

  “It’s like TV Land,” Tug said, staring up at the screens. “Is that where we’re going?”

  Ozzie shook his head. After a few minutes, a red light began to whirl and blare.

  “Decision made,” Klaxon announced, turning to the group.

  “What?!” Ozzie cried. “So quickly?”

  “That’s how TV Land works,” Tug said knowingly. “Except I don’t understand. Our stories are real. TV Land is fake.”

  “The simulations are very realistic,” Klaxon declared proudly. “And it only seems quick to you. Time does not work the same way inside the Machine as it does here. She has chosen wisely. She has chosen motonization.”

  Cho was radiating fury, the scar on his cheek hot and red. “Let me in there. NOW.”

  “Your enthusiasm is admirable,” Klaxon commended him.

  “Cho, wait—” Fidget tried to say, but the captain was already standing at the door.

  The metal panel slid open and the captain stepped through. Now the adults were gone—unless you counted Klaxon, which Ozzie didn’t. After the door closed behind Cho, the machine-man turned to contemplate the screens at his console. Once again, images began to flicker and flash.

  “I’m going through next,” Ozzie announced to his friends.

  “We need to work together,” Fidget said. “There’s no way I’m ending up as some machine.”

  “Me, neither,” Tug concurred.

  “At least you wouldn’t have the munchies all the time,” Scoot told the skyger.

  “But I like having the munchies.”

  Ozzie frowned. “If we beat the Machine, he releases us. That’s what he said. I’m going next.”

  “Listen to me!” Fidget implored. “We need to go through all at once. That’s how we’ll win.”

  “As a team!” Tug purred in agreement.

  Ozzie shook his head. “He’s not going to let us.”

  “We can do it,” Fidget insisted. “We’ll barge through the door the moment it opens.”

  “Ooh!” Tug said. “Just to tell you, I’m good at barging. And Scoot can, well, she can scoot.”

  “Definitely!” Scoot beeped.

  Ozzie peeked over his shoulder. Klaxon was still preoccupied with his control panel; he hadn’t even flinched. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t using his motonic hearing to eavesdrop on their every word.

  Ozzie exhaled in frustration. If they tried to force their way into the Destiny Machine, Klaxon might just send them directly to the operating room. Then they’d have no chance at all.

  “I can beat him,” Ozzie said. “I know I can. I beat the glibber king, didn’t I?”

  Fidget snorted. “Is that what you think? That it was just—”

  “I’ve been overruled enough,” he cut her off. He had been told to go to boarding school. He had been told to go to Moton in the first place, way back when they had been aboard the Empyrean Thunder. Enough was enough. Now it was time for everyone to listen to him.

  But thinking of the pirate ship reminded him of something else: Captain Traxx’s beacon. He fished it out and passed it to Fidget.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Backup. I’m going through next. But if I don’t come back, activate it.”

  “What? We should do it now!” She clicked open the small orb, revealing a stubby switch. She flicked it and a tiny light began to blink.

  Klaxon was suddenly looming over them. His goggled lenses spun; Ozzie could see angry red laser lights flickering from within those deep and otherwise dark wells. Then Ozzie realized the alarm in the ceiling was wailing again.

  Cho had failed.

  Som
ehow, incomprehensibly, he had chosen motonization.

  Klaxon snatched the beacon from Fidget’s hands, betraying a temper that should have been impossible for a machine. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

  Fidget crossed her arms.

  “It does not matter,” Klaxon said. He lifted the beacon in his metal claw and squeezed. Ozzie watched in despair as the orb crumpled in his fingers, the same as Aunt Temperance’s locket. When Klaxon opened his claw, all that was left of the beacon was a mangled lump of metal. A tiny wisp of smoke curled from its remains.

  Klaxon cast away the beacon, then grabbed Ozzie by the scruff of the neck and lifted him completely off his feet, seemingly without the slightest physical exertion. He activated a switch on his chest plate and his moto-men clattered forward to surround Tug, Fidget, and Scoot.

  Ozzie fixed his eyes on his friends as he was carried across the command center, toward the door. He had finally gotten his way; it would be up to him, just like he wanted. But as he saw Fidget’s periwinkle eyes stare back at him in panic, he suddenly felt a wave of doubt and dread. Aunt Temperance had failed, and so had Captain Cho.

  Maybe we should have gone with Fidget’s plan, he thought. Maybe we should have stuck together.

  But it was too late.

  “Time to confront your destiny,” Klaxon announced—then he heaved Ozzie through the doorway.

  27

  A Mangled Multiverse

  Ozzie tumbled into darkness, the door sliding shut behind him with a menacing bang. He pulled himself to his feet and looked around. A solitary chair sat in the very center of the room. It reminded him of a dentist’s chair, but far more threatening, with tubes, wires, and cords pouring out of the sides. A row of cylindrical glass tanks lined the far wall, containing some sort of viscous and slightly green liquid. Except for the two tubes at the very end. They also contained people: Aunt Temperance and Captain Cho.

  Ozzie stumbled forward and pressed his face to the glass of his aunt’s tank. She was suspended in the liquid, her mouth and nose enclosed by some sort of breathing apparatus. Her eyes were open, but completely vacant, as if she were in stasis. Her glasses floated forlornly next to her head.