by James Porter
Moot stood at the edge of the forest looking in. He felt an evil presence looking back into the depths of his soul. He was a born and raised city kid and had never really felt comfortable in the wild. He started walking into the woods and then looked back to the dwindling forms of his other companions. He picked up a rock and scratched a huge X into the tree where he had seen Misty enter the woods, he would be back soon to get her. He turned and trotted in the direction that the rest them had headed and attempted to catch up.
The others paused as they came into the huge crash site. It was nearly a mile long. The most impressive part, however, was the gigantic piece of the ship’s hull that loomed into the air like a small metal mountain. It was more or less in the center of the metal maze of debris, and from the trail of robot parts and blue robot blood, this is the way Star’s people recently came.
Star picked up the pace, “I’m feeling their frequencies! They’re here and just up ahead!” She was dodging and weaving through the piles of metal and was soon just far enough ahead to be out of sight.
“Star, slow down!” Jake and Bud flew around a corner and about ran over Star who had come to an abrupt halt. “What the…” The words stopped forming in Jake’s mouth as he saw what had caused Star to stop in the first place. They had reached the clearing around the main piece of hull and saw a horde of large creatures circling the hull and pounding on it with large club-like arms.
“Oh my god…” Lori stood in shock at the sight in front of her, but her reporter side got her reacting again and snapping pictures.
“What the hell are those?” Bud gave a squinty eyed look of disgust at the orange creatures. They were as large as a human and had three stumpy legs and three big club arms. They each had one large mouth on the top with a multitude of tentacles coming out of it. The whole clearing was filled with them as they meandered about pounding on the hull. Movement on the hull caused Jake to look up.
“Up there! There’s your people, Star.” Jake pointed to the top part of the hull where it was crawling with robots. The beasts below were causing the hull to shake with the pounding and every now and then a robot would shake loose and fall part way before another robot could grab them.
“What do we do?” Star didn’t know how to help her people. There was no way for them to escape unless they could get rid of these club creatures. Jake reached to his belt, grabbed his pipe wrench and thumped it into his hand. Moot caught up with them and saw the gathering of beasts.
“How are we supposed to deal with that?” Moot looked at the wrench in Jakes hand and began looking around for something of his own to fight them with.
“I thought you were off rescuing Miss Nature…” Bud snapped at Moot.
Moot gave Bud a sharp look and then turned back to his search.
“You’re going to fight them? That’s suicide! They’ll kill us for sure!” Lori panicked. She wasn’t a fighter, she was a storyteller.
Jake grabbed her arm and looked her straight in the eyes. “Stay next to me and I’ll bring you through, Okay?” She just stood staring at the monstrosities. “Okay?” Jake shook her a little and she came out of her daze and looked into his deep blue pools of yummy.
“What? Yeah.fine.” Lori turned her head before he could see her blush.
“I only got six arrows, but I have my knife.” Bud pulled out his Bowie and checked the sharpness. “Looks good. Time to teach these bastards to hate humans.” Bud pulled the little tobacco plant/critter from his back pocket and bit a leaf off to the wiggling protests of the brown plant. He chewed the leaf into his mouth and spit out some juice while he jammed the little plant back into his pocket. “Yep, tastes like dip. These things will adapt quick so try and kill as many as we can before they get really nasty.” Bud grinned and strung an arrow. “Let’s go hunting.” Then they all prepared themselves to become death incarnate on some unsuspecting creatures and with a yell Bud led the charge into the fray.
Chapter 25
Misty couldn’t take any more of this freak show and was making a mad dash toward the woods. She was trying to reach the one spot that always brought her peace and calm, the forest. She burst through the underbrush and into the actual woods and never heard Moot calling for her. She kept running until the large furry columns that were the trees on this planet got so dense that they blocked out the sunlight. The red light and the purple grass with the red trees made for a red-tinged surrealistic landscape and suddenly Misty snapped out of her mindless flight. She slowed to a walk and then stopped.
“What have I done? Shit, Shit, shit…” She spun around looking for any sign of the way she had come in, but the plants themselves were slightly moving as if they had never been rooted to anything.
“STAR! Agent MOOT! ANYBODY!” She felt so alone and vulnerable, she sunk to her knees and started to cry. As her tears hit the ground the purple tendrils splashed with the salty liquid shuddered and became blue then started gently slowly moving in her direction. She didn’t notice until there was a large circle of blue tendrils waving in her direction.
“What…? What is this?“ She reached out and gently stroked the little blue tentacles and they vibrated as if purring and they gently hugged her fingers. She started to giggle. She ran her hands along them enjoying the purring sensation and how they seemed to like her.
“Aren’t you the sweetest little things?” She could always talk to the plants. These plants however, actively listened. They all turned and swayed toward the sound of her voice as if waiting for more of the magical tones to fall on their twitching tendrils. Even the larger trees seemed to have paused and leaned in slightly trying to soak up every vibration from her mouth.
“Wow, and attentive too.” She looked around at the forest. So different from back home, yet so familiar.
“I don’t understand. What is going on? How come they haven’t attacked? Why do they kill the robots but not me?” She kept stroking the blue tendrils as she thought on her question.
“You guys aren’t bad at all are you? I bet those aliens are some sort of plant killing devils for you gentle things to hate them so much.” As she sat there the tendrils were swaying giving the illusion that she was sitting in a large pond of rippling water. Such a beautiful place! Misty thought as she sat there with a subtle grin on her face. She stood and walked over to one of the trees and put her hand on it and gasped. “It’s warm!” She ran her fingers through the long soft fur that spiraled up the trunk.
“It’s as soft as Gwendolyn’s fur!” She continued to run her fingers through the luxurious hair that covered the tree. She leaned in close and realized that the fur was actually more of the little tendrils so small they felt like hair. As she stood there with her hand pressed against the tree she thought she felt a pulse in the tree. She closed her eyes to listen. There was a definite thumping, but it wasn’t the tree she was hearing it was the pulse of the whole forest, no, the planet! The thumping increased until it felt like it was actually coming from inside her head. She reached out to the pulse-point and felt she was one with the planet, she could feel the harsh metallic intrusion of the robots. Their bodies were interfering with the planet: hurting it, causing a burning itch that it couldn’t stop. Her forehead burned as she mingled minds with the planet, an ancient ability was awakening inside her. The planet was calling out, speaking, not to her, but aloud to itself. Create things to destroy them. Get. Rid. Of. The. Intruders. She could feel the primal rage surging through the beasts and plants, through the whole planet-body. It was all linked and she had tapped into that “person” and grew angry along with them. In the middle of her forehead a third eye opened, it blazed orange. Through that eye she saw everything. The birth of the planet, its evolution and turmoil as it matured. An asteroid crashed into it causing so much pain. Then healing and rebirth. Plant life and microbes formed, then animals. All of them worked together, coexisted peacefully. Then the aliens came, crashing, burning. Pain again. Then came the incessant bother of an itch the planet couldn’t scratch. The n
onliving life that were the robots. The planet reacts trying to satisfy the itch. Must destroy the invaders. The planet screamed its ultimatum snapping her out of her connection. She opened her eyes and returned to the normal senses humans have. The anger subsided, but she could still feel it. She looked at her own hand tangled in tiny tendrils and carefully drew it away from the tree, the little hairs stuck to her fingers like static and pulled away with a slight ripping sound. Blood oozed from the spot on her finger, and she looked at it as though she couldn’t believe what it was. “Were you sucking my blood?” She could see the change in the tree, where it had once been a pinkish red hue it now turned to a darker red, a blood red. She felt at her forehead where the eye had been, but now it was smooth flesh once again. She backed away from the vampiric tree and watched as the little hairs followed her movements, and the whole tree slowly started moving after her. She knew they had a purpose for her now, a dark and devious plan to end this war. She turned to run, but more trees had moved in behind her and they had her trapped. Dark red vines came streaming down from the tallest treetops. And she screamed as they dragged her down and deeper into the forest.
Chapter 26
The expected orange goo sprayed from the stalk of one of the huge tri-peds as Bud’s knife slid through the skin and body like the proverbial hot knife through butter. During the charge down the hill he had loosed his arrows into the mob of creatures doing slight damage to the jelly bodies. His knife was doing more damage as he sliced through the skin and the inner gel exploded out of the opening.
“These things aren’t very tough; the strongest part is that club!” Bud dodged the large club appendage as it slammed into the ground next to him. It wasn’t filled with the orange jelly, but was more of a hard shriveled callous of dried skin and goo. He moved to the left of the creature and ran his knife across the surface of its body spilling orange guts onto the ground. Jake was smashing through more of the thick club things with his wrench, it seemed to be rupturing the skin just as easily as Bud’s knife. Once the main trunk was destroyed the creatures were reduced to quivering piles of orange: a red viscera, incapable of doing anything hostile or otherwise. Lori kept close to Jake like she was told and took pictures periodically when the things weren’t trying to kill her. Soon the beasts were all smashed or cleaved into sticky messes and the group stood there covered in the orange splash of their victory. Star called to her people and had them climb down to the base of the huge piece of hull.
The robots all excitedly came around Star as they tried to hear about her trip to Earth and what led them all here to the rescue.
“Atlantis is gone? Then we could return to Earth!” Gorton excitement at the thought of going back to the world he once knew was showing in his blinking lights
“No. Earth is for the humans now. We must find a new home world.” Star was saddened at the thought but tried to be cheery as she spoke. “A world just for us. A world where we can truly be free!” She wasn’t sure how they were going to do it, but she knew that they could, if only they could get off of this planet.
“So did you bring another ship?” Gorton was hopeful, but she hadn’t mentioned it yet and that was the reason she had left in the first place.
“No.” She could feel the disappointment around her.
“What?” Gorton stood there stunned as the murmurs and whispers started to travel through the group.
“How are we going to get off this planet?”
“We’re doomed!”
“Why must we perish so?”
“Stop it! All of you! I did not bring a ship, but I have brought these humans who have agreed to help, and they have indeed helped me so far. I will not give up until my processor bursts into flames and my heart is crushed to cinders!” Star pounded her fist into her other hand so hard it gave off sparks.
“No ship? How are we going to do it? We can’t make another ship with everything on this planet trying to kill us. You can only fit 7 or 8 of us in the rocket we have….” Gorton wrung his hands together like an old lady who lost her cat.
“Gorton! Just relax. We’ve gotten this far, I’m not giving up yet.” Star looked around at the group of robots and then at the piles of junk scattered around them. “First thing though, we turn this hull on its side and get us a new headquarters.” She divided them up into work crews and had them carefully lower the huge metal frame onto its back. The piece was basically a huge triangle but bent into a concave shape. They turned it over and formed a makeshift structure out of it using the large hull as a domed roof bending down to the ground. Star directed one of the other crews to start piling scrap metal up along the front to form a wall. The second crew started welding the pieces together making it stronger. Within 40 minutes they had a good lean-to built complete with door and window slots. They all went inside to plan their escape.
“Sirs, I have tea or coffee and some food if you are hungry.” Gorton offered to Jake, Lori and Bud, Moot was in the corner fiddling with his CB radio device.
“Where did you get food, Gorton?” Jake took the plate which had what looked like chicken and rice with green beans.
“We always provide food; we don’t want to starve now, do we?”
“They sure are polite, aren’t they?” Lori poked at the food questioning its edibility.
“Thanks man.” Jake sat down on the improvised chair next to the improvised table and sat his plate down and tried the food. “Pretty close, wonder what they make it out of?” Bud sat down next to him and pulled his tobacco plant out of his pocket bit off a leaf and deposited the angry little bush onto the table. He had it leashed up with a length of paracord which he tied to a piece of metal jutting from the table. The plant tugged and pulled on the leash as he watched, then it sat down and seemed to go to sleep. Bud spat out a stream of brown juice and reached over to Jake’s plate and picked up some green beans and tossed them over to the little critter. It twitched a little and then moved over to the food and gulped it down then it returned to a semi-sleeping state. As the two men sat watching, two new leaves sprouted and grew from the plant.
“Well, now I know I won’t have to plant this when I get home, just feed it table scraps and it should be good.” Bud spit again and waved to a passing robot. “Hey buddy, bring me some coffee, will ya?” The robot nodded in obedience to the order and whisked off to fill his request.
“Why do you treat them like that?” Jake sounded a little annoyed with Bud’s superior attitude.
“Like what? They want to please us, we’re guest and such.” Bud turned to face Jake with a questioning look. “They’re just machines, I’m not hurting their feelings or anything. They’re just pretending to be alive”
The robot he had waved to had returned with some coffee and had overheard his last statement.
“We, sir, are alive! We think and process on levels beyond a human’s capability. We have choices, and we can reproduce. Not exactly like humans do, but we have the capability. And we eat and breathe just like you.”
“Wait, What? You eat and breathe? Are you kidding me?” Bud stood up and pointed at the robot. “You’re not alive! You’re a machine. You don’t need to breath and you don’t need to eat! Stop pretending!” He emphasized his last point by jabbing his finger into the robot’s chest. The robot just stood there shocked and unable to respond, a small crowd had gathered at the commotion and Star was trying to make it to them before things got out of hand.
“Bud, aren’t you being a little harsh?” Lori didn’t like seeing these poor robots harassed like this. “I mean, if they say they need to breathe who cares?”
“But...But I do need to breath…I need to …” The robot stuttered as its processor turned red with heat.
“Why do you think that?” Bud kept pressing the robot.
“I need….I need… I…I…I…………” The metal man shuddered and folded over into silence just as Star broke through the crowd.
“Bud! What have you done? You’re killing him! We aren’t allowed to
think on some things! You’ve caused him to shut down!” Star motioned to some other robots to take the unfortunate robot away from the crowd. “We don’t know why we have to have air and food, we just do! Don’t make us question it! Why don’t you go outside and help get the site ready for the next attack, we know it’s coming.” Bud snatched up his little tobacco pet, stuffed it into his pocket and walked out in a huff. She tried to control her emotions. Alan walked up behind her as she turned and she looked at him with such sadness that he couldn’t help but reach out and touch her arm. She fell against him and cried, a person feeling human compassion for the first time.
Jake, having sat through the whole episode in silence just walked out. He really wasn’t sure what to think anymore. Sure they were robots, but they seemed to have the same type of emotions as any human being. Can you program emotions? Jake wasn’t sure that was something that could just be simulated, it was either sincere or not. From what he had experienced with Star, she was being sincere. Jake watched Alan try and comfort Star and then he walked out, thinking to give Bud a piece of his mind. Lori was left alone with her food wondering what the hell had just happened.
Chapter 27
“So let me get this straight, you think you are real live humans?” Alan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The whole concept was mind blowing, robots designed by humans to think they are human but still know they are robots?
