The ground shook repeatedly as if there were mini earthquakes occurring. Mere steps of these giants were enough to cause loud rumbling.
Were they looking for something? After a few minutes, Jess noticed the mechs' peculiar behavior. They weren’t aimlessly walking. They were carefully brushing through the trash piles as if they were looking for a needle in a haystack.
Another loud rumbling resounded. The ground beneath shook once more. Jess looked out to see that one of the mechs' foot was already on his doorstep. He was almost flattened to death without him noticing. A fluke occurred once more as the proceeding step of the giant entirely missed his dwelling, sparing it of untimely destruction. The ground trembling halted.
The surroundings suddenly became serene, as if the giant mechs weren't even there in the first place. Jess wondered what would happen, thin brows from his now human face raised. He slowly peered through a tiny opening in the door, which he carefully pulled open slightly. He could not see anything from such a small gap, and so he pulled a little further, opening the door a quarter of the way.
Two loud noises suddenly sounded from the roof, startling Jess out of his wits. He slammed the door tight. Another series of crashes echoed, this time from the front door. Beads of sweat dripped from Jess's forehead. He didn't mean to slam the door. They had heard the sound. Now that his location was compromised, had the time for him to follow his brethren into the afterlife finally arrived?
Chapter 4: Distant Redemption
Ashadow fell over the entire house. Jess went completely still, trying to halt even his breathing so as not to give himself away further.
Could it possibly be that the arrival of the mechs at his house was only a coincidence? On such a huge planet, and such a large continent, it seemed unlikely. He thought they had come here directly. They were looking for something, and they knew where to find it.
A quiet hydraulic noise sounded outside. Suddenly Jess's door nearly exploded from its hinges, bowing inward under immense pressure like a door in a cartoon. It settled back again, in a cloud of dust. And again it was struck by something huge and heavy. This time, Jess heard splintering as the door began to give way.
"Knock, knock," a huge, robotic voice resounded. The voice of God, Jess thought. "Open up or we'll bring the house down on your head."
Thus the choice was made. Jess grabbed the door handle. But the door was so distorted now that he had to put his foot on the wall and pull with all his might before it popped open. Yellow, junkyard light flooded in, along with a thick mote of dust and flying pieces of disintegrated garbage.
Beyond that, all he saw was a huge, metal hand. It was black and red; huge knives, almost the length of Jess himself, jutted from each finger. The hand soon pulled away, revealing the face of the mech. The mech was turned away from the house, but bent in half so that its upside-down face was visible between it legs. With speed that seemed impossible from such a large thing, the mech blew Jess a kiss.
From the right, the other mech marched into his view. The footsteps of the giant, glimmering beast nearly shook the world apart. Despite the hatred and anger Jess felt for these humans, he had to admit that their mechs were something to behold.
"Stay there," the red and black mech boomed, its voice an eerie marriage of organic and machine and loud enough to make a thunderstorm seem tame. "Don't move a muscle."
The other mech stopped moving, its foot compressing the ground in front of Jess's door and slowly sinking into a crater. A series of loud noises came. A minute later, a human male floated down, wearing some sort of suction-cup looking apparatus on his back. He hit the ground walking, and approached Jess. He was wearing an atmospheric helmet, but his smiling face was visible behind it. The face was of a middle-aged person, bristling with a square-shaped beard.
"Commander Zhang Wei," the man said, introducing himself. "I think you should salute me before you get in trouble."
"I'd do it, if I were you," thundered the voice of the other mech.
The problem was that Jess didn't know what a salute was. He stood there looking dumb, fidgeting awkwardly as he tried to make something up. In that moment he was lost in an ocean of shock. He briefly forgot his anger, and that was a good thing; he might have tried to strangle the murderer in front of him otherwise, and ended up dead under the boot of a hundred-foot robot.
"Getting dizzy," said the robot. It stood up straight and turned around to face Jess. It moved slowly and precisely, changing its stance without destroying anything.
It was clear that these mechs had very fine-tuned controls. The movement of the pilot was amplified, the impulses from a human brain and human muscles mirrored in huge robotic limbs. A human could be graceful; the mech could be graceful. A human could be strong, forceful, destructive, violent and abrupt; the mech could be all those things, times a hundred.
Jess's thirst for revenge had not been quenched. But he had become more patient during his five years of solitude. He started to hatch a loose plan, and decided to give his entire life and purpose over to seeing that plan through.
"No salute," said Zhang Wei. "What's the matter with you? Got amnesia, or something? And what are you even doing down here?"
Jess saw himself reflected in the Commander's face shield. He saw that his strange new appearance, brought about by the green orb's assimilation into his bionic arm, was in fact the appearance of a human. That was why these people hadn't killed him on sight. They thought he was one of them.
"I don't know," Jess said.
"You must be part of the last crew to set foot on this planet," the Commander replied. "They landed and swept the ground, searching for any remaining Nerians. Not all of them returned to the space station. We decided that they had been killed by landslides. Or, I suppose you might call them trash slides..."
"I must be one of them," Jess agreed. "But I don't remember anything."
A new hope was blooming in him. He had whiled away a useless existence on this desolate world he had once called Planet Nera. Always he thought he might one day do something to set things right. But deep down, he wasn't sure he believed that day would come.
But now it was here. He saw a way.
Zhang Wei narrowed his eyes in a fashion that made his middle-aged face appear ruggedly handsome. He looked Jess over, paying particular attention to the bionic arm that, even now, pulsed with green light.
"You look familiar," said the human. "And that arm is Nerian technology. But..." He stopped talking, and his expression changed. But it was easy to tell that the change in expression only came as the result of a great effort on the commander's part to hide his true feelings. "We have to get you onto the station as soon as possible. You can ride with me; there's enough room in the pilot hull, but you will have to strap yourself in tight."
The Commander reached out, seizing Jess's living arm in a tight grip. It was a grip that could not be denied.
"Right now?" Jess asked.
"Yes. Is there any reason to wait?"
Jess fought the urge to look behind him. Deep in his heart, he finally poured the last shovel load of dirt over the coffin of his past. He was going to leave Nera. The trash dumps, the scavenging for parts, the worthless hope of distant redemption, was all behind him.
But so was home. He didn't want to leave. But his best chance of seeing his people returned to their former glory demanded it.
***
For Zhang, the ride back up was a breeze. As pleasant and familiar as rolling out of bed in the morning. But the young man they had found on the planet obviously didn't enjoy it as much. The panic and fear he exhibited went far beyond the normal range. It was as though he had some type of post-traumatic stress. At one point he passed out, and woke screaming about someone called Steven.
Zhang would have known something was fishy, if he had cared enough about the race called the Nerians. But the planet now belonged to humanity. The Nerians were gone. And if the two races ever met again, and fought, humans would be victorious a second tim
e. Nothing could stand against the Starframes. Not time, space, or even God.
There was no room in Zhang's brain for useless trivia about dead races. He was thinking about the Green Seed. And why it had chosen the bionic arm of this amnesiac for its nesting place.
One thing was for sure; it was lucky that the Seed had chosen a human. Because it was the only weapon in the universe that could possibly match a Starframe. But it wasn't just a weapon. It was so much more. And he didn't even know the half of it.
The mechs reentered the space station hangar. The opening in the floor slid shut beneath them and they set down with a gentle bump. The young amnesiac turned green.
A peculiar lightness settled over Zhang as the artificial gravity in the hangar switched off. This made it much easier to remove himself from the Vitality Replicator and to make his way over to the guest seat, where his new friend trembled with fear. Or maybe it was anger.
"Easy," said Zhang. "Whatever you felt or saw, it wasn't real. Even in a Starframe, the act of attaining escape velocity isn't easy. If you aren't used to it, your mind is quick to run away from you."
The amnesiac nodded along.
Zhang had thought he knew who this young man might be. But he was having doubts, now. There was something beyond simple amnesia happening here. Perhaps the Nerian technology of the bionic arm had poisoned the young man, erasing something of the sharp mind and justifiable arrogance that had been there before.
But the Green Seed had chosen. That could not be ignored or taken lightly. The Seed would not have made a mistake or done anything it didn't mean to do. Wherever it went, humanity had no choice but to follow.
***
I learned that it was possible to hate and to love at once.
This new piece of knowledge came to me once I first set eyes on the woman who had piloted the black and red Starframe. I learned later on that the Starframe's title was Galgaran, AKA the Demon Mech. And that its pilot's name was Sheya Stanford.
It pains me to say it, even more than it pained me to pull that piece of glass out of my foot and to leave my home behind, but she was beautiful. She made up for her desirable exterior appearance by being entirely overbearing. She clung to Commander Zhang like a barnacle, constantly fishing for compliments or new orders. I did not know whether she was just trying to get a promotion, or whether she really had a crush on the man.
Either way, I was disgusted by the behavior of these humans. Every time I found myself warming to them, I thought back to the destruction of my home, the loss of my arm, the dreadful moment when I was ejected from the wormhole. In a new place, overwhelmed by new stimuli, it was shockingly easy to lose sight of where I came from and what I wanted to accomplish. It became a routine to remember, to bow my head and let the horrific images of human violence fill the empty theater of my mind. It never failed to refresh my convictions.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, now.
When we first arrived on the space station, Zhang personally escorted me out of the hangar and through the gloomy industrial corridors. He brought me all the way to an office, the door of which bore his name and rank. His own private space. It had a good view of the planet, of the stars, of the distant shimmering pools of the jumpgates; like puddles of oil on the face of dark matter.
Zhang sat me in a chair and ordered me not to move. I did just as he said. He left the room and I stayed right where I was, letting my eyes wander. But there wasn't much to see. His screens were all switched off, so I couldn't snoop at his personal comm-logs or figure out what sort of work he did here.
A long time later, perhaps about twenty minutes, he came back. He had four other people with him. I got to know them all later on, through various means.
One of them was a scary looking fellow, a mini-Starframe in his own right. He was almost seven feet tall, with spiky hair and arms as big around as my head. His name was Yuri Black.
One was another woman, not as beautiful as Lady Stanford. She was plump and looked like she had to be someone's mother. She treated Zhang like her own flesh and blood, constantly checking him for wounds and asking him if he was feeling well. But she couldn't be his mother, because there was no resemblance. She had hair that resembled a cascade of lava, bright red in the white lights of Zhang's office. I learned that she was the head nurse on the space station. Her name was Talia Barrett.
And then there was a man who was easy to miss. He was thin and dark, and seemed to blend in with whatever background he was standing in front of. He had a habit of standing perfectly still, so still you forgot he was there, and when he finally spoke his voice startled you. He was some kind of scientist. A physicist. His name was Rama Ishmael.
The fourth was Lady Stanford. She had changed her clothes, from the pilot's jumpsuit to a casual sweat suit.
All of them leaned in, staring at me. Without fail, they wore expressions of concern, disbelief, sorrow.
"We're going to figure out if you are who we think you are," said Commander Zhang.
I sat still and swallowed hard.
Chapter 5: Recovery and Remembrance
Space Station 0025 - asset recovery
Green Seed artifact recovered
Status: To be determined
Skyway University - personnel recovery
Professor Edwin Caldwell, Starframe combat maneuverability
Status: Identity dubious
Zhang stroked his beard absentmindedly as he considered the readout on his screen. All around him, electronics ticked and tocked as their internal cycles ran, as data flowed in and out and was distributed through the vastness of the human network.
He swiveled in his chair, regarding the seat where the amnesiac had sat earlier in the day.
He waited for some time, silently considering the problem. Finally, there was a knock at his door. Without waiting for verbal confirmation, nurse Barrett walked in.
"We have some news," she said. "But you had better come and see for yourself. It's quite strange."
Zhang rose from his chair with an exhausted grunt that only middle-aged men are capable of, especially those with long and storied careers. He could no longer stay in one spot for too long, or his joints would hurt the next time he tried to move. This was part of the reason he still welcomed his occasional flights in Leonel, his Starframe. Moving around in the Vitality Replicator kept him fit and limber, relative to his peers.
He followed Talia out of his office. They followed a familiar path through the station, crossing the huge space which the station's denizens called the Fulcrum. It was a vast, circular room which gave access to every level. Standing at the railing in the middle, one could gaze down a hole which led all the way to the sub-basements, and see all the levels of the station stacked up on each other like wafers. When Zhang needed to think, he often came here just to listen and observe, to see the workers moving to and fro, to hear distant conversation echoing up from lower levels. To just lose himself in the atmosphere of it all.
Today, he had no time to stop and smell the roses. Talia led him down the winding, corkscrew ramp which led past each level. They exited onto level C, the third from the top. Most of the huge station was taken up by so-called dead space. Machinery, automated equipment that rarely needed human intervention. As such, level C consisted of only a few easily accessible areas. One of these was the medical room. The dozen seats in the lobby were unoccupied and the place was as quiet as a graveyard.
In a back room, they found a few other doctors gathered around a screen. Nearby, the amnesiac lay sleeping on a table. Zhang approached the young man, snapping fingers over his face. The young man didn't move.
"You've induced unconsciousness?" Zhang asked.
Talia shook her head. "No. That's part of what is so strange. He just fell asleep of his own accord. It coincided with a change in the light from his bionic arm. It dimmed to a soft glow and began pulsing slowly. Just like it's doing now. But come look at this."
She brought him to the screen. On it was a bunch of medical inf
ormation that Zhang's eyes could not translate. None of it made sense to him. But the doctors all seemed surprised, even awed and stunned, by what they saw.
"What is it?" Zhang asked impatiently. "What's the big deal?"
"It's his brain," said Talia, pointing at some information on the screen. "When we sleep, Commander, our minds organize, collate, store away the new memories of the day. And we dream. No one knows why we dream, but there are theories which state it's a part of the problem-solving and creative processes. Our brains present us with extreme scenarios and we see ourselves working through them... But what we are seeing here, in the brain of this young man, is unprecedented."
"Explain," Zhang replied.
"He is storing new memories at a ridiculous speed. At a rate a hundred times faster than a normal human. We assume it has something to do with his arm... with the, you know, the Seed... but the result is that he is remembering."
"Remembering? You mean, his amnesia is reversing?"
"That seems to be the case, yes. The way these memories easily take root in his brain, and the speed of their generation, suggest they are merely being reformed from shattered data. They are not brand new, not conjured up. So it seems his memory is healing itself, now. When he wakes up, he could be able to tell us a lot more about his past."
Zhang nodded. "Excellent. And how long will it be before he wakes? This is obviously not a normal sleep."
"We have no idea," Talia said. "But soon we'll have to hook him up to an IV. And get him some ice packs. The metabolic processes entailed by his brain activity are astonishing. He is burning through energy and generating heat. It is the amount of energy and heat your brain would generate over the course of a month, but packed into a single period of rest."
Zhang nodded along, as if he understood everything. "Good," he said. "Take good care of him. When he wakes, I want to be the first one who knows about it."
Clairvoyance Page 3
