The Time Tribulations

by Travis Borne

  Joey’s eyes went wide and he smiled an unsure smile. He looked to Kim and she shook her head, puzzled, perplexed, yet just the same, relieved—for the moment. They’d all become empty, flat-green rubber suits. There remained at least fifty piles of green blobs where once a formidable force stood forcing them into the scanners.

  Twelve humans had gone into the tube network.

  “What happened to them?” Kim asked. But she didn’t expect an answer; her brain was talking to itself, trying to get a grip. The last of the townspeople shuffled out.

  “Malfunction, I guess,” Joey replied. He shrugged a teenager’s shrug then bolted with Lion.

  “Let’s go, Kim,” Crisp said. They had to for it was about to blow. “Nothing left, we better hurry.” A final look at the Boron, deflated, a room gone haywire, and Crisp put an arm around Kim who seemed solidified, as if an entire year had been injected into her vein, just then reaching her brain.

  And together they bolted, right after the last three passed by. Helped along by his two comrades, Hugh, the man in the middle, hunched and tucking his severed hand, left a trail of bright red.

  25. An Agreement

  They bolted—to the same place they’d arrived, where else? All was silent and no longer was it bustling outside. The cliffside city lights flickered to off and deflated Boron were empty suits mottling the ground like cow patties. One lay on each side of the ship’s open ramp: the immense seaweed-green craft that had brought them here. But they couldn’t go back inside; it was a sealed metal chamber. There were benches like those in a locker room but no entryways to any bridge or pilot area, and the outside was sealed, seamless. Behind them, back at the cliffside city, several Boron had deflated beside identical archways, such as the one they’d entered, but all were sealed shut.

  As if each person had received a chest shot of adrenaline they huffed taking in the warm air. Clusters of gatherings formed between the ship and the city. Commotion stirred and cries of, “Now what?” as well bewildered eruptions, “We have to get the fuck out of here!” followed by confused anger, “We don’t even know where here is!” Smoke plumes billowed from the archway they’d been shuffled into and deeper inside they could see it. The dome structure beyond its outer court was a full-blown inferno, one serving to flare the growing tension between shaken minds.

  The last blurt was spot on—nobody knew where they were or where to go—and silence followed, save for the huffing. A mixture of frisson, for they’d escaped, and utter petrification permeated the air. People began looking around but might as well have taken forks to the eyes for they hadn’t a clue what they were perceiving. The pewter-colored landing pad, as if it had been paved with a mix of tan latex and light-gray flint, was immense and flat, at least a half mile in each direction between the trench lengthwise, and about a quarter mile wide between the trench sides. There were three other seaweed-green ships down the line. Behind, eight smaller versions lined the base of the rocky cliff in the distance. Three small silver crafts that resembled not the alien-looking versions, were parked to the left of a gated mineshaft entrance. They had cargo holds big enough to squeeze thirty people or so, but were useless. Their ramps were open and parts were strewn about the perimeter like garbage—as if they’d been picked clean of any necessary parts then disregarded as a junkyard.

  Above, the once glowing ring suspended between the cliffsides had powered down and out-here’s ambiance changed from that of a cloudy day to dusk.

  “Well, what now?” Crisp asked; his inventive mind couldn't fix a way out of this one. Others had gathered around him and Kim, Lion, Joey, and Ivy.

  “I haven’t a clue,” Kim replied. “We’re beneath the ocean in an unfamiliar city inhabited by weird aliens, you tell me. And now the only ones who know anything have deflated, and it looks like the power is off. Crisp, or anyone else for that matter, your guess is as good as mine.”

  Movement stole the attention of those closest to the city and word filtered through. About twenty robots, like the prototype models introduced in 2020 before the war, exited an archway from the cliffside between buildings one and two. They were skinless, stripped, and basic, and moved ungainly but hurriedly to the raging fire, and one, headed their way. As if it had bad knees it tripped. Managing to force itself up after a decent struggle, it lugged its clattering, clumsy self along. The other robots—one had also tripped, causing a small stampede—eventually got there and collaborated to put out the fire.

  “Who are you?” Kim asked, as the old bot approached. It was missing most of its panels and skin. “It’s surely one of the earliest man-made bots,” she whispered to Crisp, looking down at its…

  It had the oldest type of joints which could bend only in one direction, similar to human knees, and, it was naked, obviously one of the male purposed bots. The rod between its legs hung like a third leg and had been fitted on the tip with a hand. The entire contraption was graceless and inefficient.

  “I am Boron, Kim the botanist,” the robot said with a metallic voice, “the only one.”

  “Well, you don’t look so tough now,” Joey blurted. “We have a policy against bullies, ya know.”

  With an elevated, angry tone Kim exploded, “What is going on, Boron? We want answers. Now!”

  “Your minds,” it stuttered, “those I had thus far processed, have disrupted my systems.” The bot was too basic, with a non-moving mouth and orange glowing eyes on an expressionless face. “I’ve—never encountered humans like you, something is happening to me—my systems seemed to have lost the power of control. All of this is continuing to operate with the harvesting of The Special, deactivated, using only what is left in my buffer. Because of this I must use these minimal systems and very basic vessels. My systems are failing and if they shut down completely, if what is left in the buffer runs out, we’re all finished.”

  “That’s great,” Joey blurted. “Just what you deserve!”

  Boron shook his head slowly—zzz-it, zzz-ernt.

  Behind him the others finished extinguishing the blaze and came outside while steam rose high into the sky and clouded a portion of the force field. Clink, clank—their feet pinged the white marble ground until they made it to the beige landing area. They accompanied the clunker Boron that had spoken and after forming a basic two-row formation of seven and eight the likewise similar bots took a knee. About half were female, half male. The first in the formation—one voluptuous breast, the other missing, and half a face—said, “It has been extinguished, sir, shutting down to conserve power.” Their eyes dimmed like lights behind faded orange plastic on automobile blinkers when the battery dies.

  “So, what do you want from us?” Crisp asked. “We should rip your—”

  “Hold on, Crisp,” Kim interrupted. The rising steam had caught her eyes and she glanced up. The force field holding out the ocean, appeared to be shrinking.

  “Okay, spit it out then!” someone said. Following Kim, many realized it too. Heads went up then back like a fluttering wave—the force field, albeit slightly and slowly, was shrinking.

  “Well, this is interesting, isn’t it? A first. I—need your help,” Boron said.

  Commotion blasted from the crowd, people moved forward to the lone robot and in no time it was surrounded. Someone else yelled, “Hey, dick-swinger, we don’t put up with bullies!” Kim extended her arms and commanded them to halt; another second and they would have, with their unpracticed, newfound and exploding potential to inflame emotions, toppled old three-legs with unbridled revenge in about two jerks. While some faces were glassy with tears, all displayed anger.

  Kim yelled again, “Wait!” The people, anger reddening faces, reluctantly heeded her words. She turned to Boron. “Now, why should we help you? After what you did to that poor young girl!” Kim’s own anger fermented and she felt like drop kicking its ersatz dick, but, she did notice the field, and being smart, surmised.

  This new, old, Boron, was of normal height, about 5 foot 6. Many of the early models before
the war were made shorter than their masters, like pets, they were purposed to be dominated. Boron looked up at her. All went quiet awaiting his reply. The neck pistons and motors could be heard—zzz-it, zzz-ernt—behind still fuming breaths of citizens holding everything back. Kim knew, had she not given the order they’d only remain stuck here, outside with nowhere to go. Boron quirked, cocked his head, then held up a single finger as if to gesture: wait a moment.

  Totally screwed, she thought. An unfamiliar sealed-shut city on one side, mountains on the other and all the way up to some sort of field holding out the ocean. Ships, that surely, she didn’t know how to fly, or get into; the ones to the left of the mine shaft looked familiar but they’d been pilfered for parts. Miles deep and the force field is shrinking. Perhaps it’s time to play cards, see what we can learn. Put on your poker face, Kim, go along with it, for now. Then later, after figuring out what in the fucking world, we can form a plan. Arms crossed, she said, “Well, I’m waiting. If you don’t start talking right now, you’ve had it. And it better be good.”

  As if he’d popped a transistor and had to reroute power, the motionless mouth of the ol’ 5-foot-6 finally reverberated some sounds. “Because, I have the others—” Then Boron extended a rusty finger—zzz-it—toward the sky and pointed straight up. “—and if they go, I die, then it’s not long until that field collapses—and you die. Everyone here, me, you, these old individuals behind me, we’ll all die together and the last free thinkers on this planet, outward to the end of this solar system and beyond, an entire 50-light-year sector will be cleansed. Now, Kim the botanist, tell your people to back off.”

  Kim released a breath and motioned with her arms; the anger remained but they forfeited some space. And the Boron nodded—zzz-it, zzz-ernt—in acceptance. She said, “Okay, we will commit to an agreement, for now, but you must promise that there’ll be no more killing, no more hurting our people.” She looked to Crisp. And then she saw Hugh beside him; his severed hand wrapped with a shirt—he won’t be working his old sewing machine anytime soon. His breathing was deep, wheezy, and unstable; hunched over, he looked up to her, they all did. All knew her well from town, always standing tall next to The Mayor, Rob Price. Somehow, she had become their leader. A couple others with less severe cuts from the razor wall, nodded. As if sensing their pain, she said, “Can you help them, please?”

  “I cannot spare the power. This bot I am housed within will be my only channel until you log in to my system and discover the problem. I, and you all, will only last for 48 hours. Once the buffer is fully depleted every one of us will die. Now, follow me, please. I’ll take you inside where you can at least help yourselves.” Without hesitation the antique, buzzing with each step, turned itself around—zzz-it, zzz-ernt—and made its way toward the largest archway on the left, the same from which he and the clumsy firefighting bots had exited, between buildings one and two, right into the cliff. The fifteen that had shut down remained put: tarnished metal statues, scrap-part incongruities; but it was the lewd attachments that made them chimerical pornographic blunders. The lack of objectivity, or desire to care about their shocking appearance, only heightened the degree of surreality twisting minds into knots.

  “Listen, we go along with him for now,” Kim said on the down-low, addressing the large group. “We haven’t a choice otherwise, and he did say they have other humans, and none of us have a clue how to get out of here or back to Jewel City. We don’t know where we are or how far we’ve come, so for now we go along, try to learn what is going on.” She started walking and the rest of the townspeople unquestionably followed.

  26. Mesmer’s Trance

  “Oh gawd,” someone said. And another about puked as the two assisting Hugh paused to peel off his blood-soaked rag; the bleeding had stopped thanks to a cranked-tight headband purposed as a tourniquet but the flesh of his hand seemed to have retreated. Four white candlesticks jutted out like pegs. Upon seeing it, Hugh’s own countenance became that of a man who’d just bonged a gallon of embalming fluid; the town tailor had taken the cleanest slice a razor of a wall could deliver and now, his thumb was a loner. Quickly, his two helpers finished wrapping the ghastly lobster claw with a fresh shirt then did their best to help him continue along. Another had been cut by the walls leading up to that final scanner; Loraine’s four-inch gash needed stitches but she was a spartan. She’d wrapped it tight, herself, and pushed onward with the clan. One hundred and twenty-eight humans remaining.

  Kim followed Boron. Joey, with his dark blue, slightly over-sized security uniform, had her left, as well Lion and Ivy and many others. Toward the city again. They entered the most massive archway in sight, just beyond buildings one and two, and into the cliffside. As Boron approached, the thick metal door slid aside as if a team of drunken donkeys were tugging on it. And every human followed the slow and limping three-legged bucket of bolts, straight into the tunnel.

  It was a cooler, unsettling, box of a room, not dissimilar to the gloomy safe room in Jewel City. The dulled-metal walls followed a slight incline for at least 120 feet, and the width of the corridor was about 50 feet. Evenly, the channel was divided into four sections; slots appeared to contain bulkhead doors and the first lumbered upward just like the outer archway door had opened and closed, as if the motors were being starved of power and the bulkhead was a train that almost couldn't. The seemingly impenetrable void of a room was now one quarter smaller.

  The sloping floor seemed to be giving Boron the workout of his life, motors and pistons sounded like gears eating a bucket of sand, but he was a trooper and pushed onward and upward without complaint. Dim lights mottled the ceiling of each quadrant; there were many but per section only two gave light.

  “I must apologize for the darkness,” Boron said, not turning around to say it. “Power must be conserved.”

  About ten feet behind and leading the mob, Kim said, “After murdering Macy, destroying Jake’s shoulder, it apologizes?” Rick had her right and grimaced in disgust.

  Every human continued on, into each division, and the two-foot-thick metal bulkheads rose from the floor, all the way up until a seal was tediously achieved. Thirty feet at a time the room became more constricting. Boron arrived at the last division and halted before a final, sealed-shut wall. With patience nonpareil he held still as the last of the citizens crept into the now claustrophobic, final chamber; apparently, he was waiting for everyone to cross the threshold, and somehow managing the activation of partitions with a mental command from his mind.

  Kim squeezed in, as close to the old remnant as she dared. Like a meat hammer tenderizing her brain, pulverizing a rationale made rigid by years of mundane simple living—now this? Deranged madness. Can all of this actually be happening? She covertly did a few reality checks, quirks that’d spread like rumors on the down low after Amy had started lending. Nope, she was really here.

  Fuck, she thought, visualizing Jim’s reaction to this shit. And he’d be in the corner taking a shit, if he was here. He’d kick your ass though, Boron. And, is this Boron dork the only individual consciousness residing in this city? It seems so. But he said we’d join with other humans, so it’s just Boron and the previously abducted living here at the bottom of the world? And now, add us.

  Kim realized there would be no easy exit from Boron’s domain, a thought stamped on many worried faces. But what else could be done—and the timer was ticking. The force field was shrinking and the pressure of the ocean would end this nightmare. Perhaps, that would be best.

  All the while Boron waited, slightly hunched over and more patiently than he probably should be—only 48 hours until his death, but he seemed unconcerned. His thin metal arms dangled at his sides and his third limb occasionally wagged like a horny tail.

  With a deep resounding bong the last bulkhead door activated as the last person stepped across, and within twenty, or a hundred, seconds they were sealed inside. After a claustrophobic ten that felt like sixty or triple that, the thickest bulkhead door yet beg
an to open. Dim light flooded in and along with it, warmth. A smell of salt permeated the air, and stale musk as if air conditioners or a filtration system had been shut down for a while.

  Boron clanked along after the last bulkhead finally inserted itself into the floor. Everyone followed, slowly, apprehensively. Awestruck, eyes were abducted as if Franz Anton Mesmer himself had two fingers up and was directing eyeballs. All looked up, down; heads were like windshield wipers trying to take in both sides at once. The grand city of—the machines? Boron apologized again, saying, “It’s usually not this dim inside. And I apologize for the air as well, it is usually very fresh.”

  There were deflated, dark-green cow patties mottled about, dropped as if a green-suit shitting-machine had taken a dump wherever it felt like it: two next to the large bulkhead door that resealed behind them with a vacuuming suck, others lined the purple and burgundy carpeted walkway on each side, about twenty feet apart.

  A glass tube pierced a world of wonders, and the walkway was a particle-collider’s photon. The glass surrounding them possessed not a glare; it seemed to be some type of transparent metal, perhaps a field of some type, not glass at all. And they continued—Mesmer’s trance holding like a wrestler’s hands to a pencil neck. Through the sixty-foot-wide cylinder divided vertically by contrasting realm, heads floated, marveling at the expansive views. Slowly, shuffling feet, shuffling sheep, forward along on the twenty-foot-wide platform that seemed to float inside the grand cylinder. Clean carpet met feet like a movie theater’s, and the out-there, the beyond, had to be a movie!