by Max Jager
"Thank you very much sir," said Matt, "I was wondering about that strange pattern on some of the screws I've seen." The android then said,
"We manufacture some very fine tools here on Xandrus; let other's know if you would." Matt opened the metal box, which reminded him of one of those army ammo cans, inside were twenty exact duplicates of his multitool. Examining one, he could see it was very well made, and exactly like the original. Checking the knife, he could see that the steel was very high quality, and the blade was razor sharp, it even had "Leatherman" printed on the side.
"How did you make these so quickly?" He asked the androids looked puzzled,
"It is just how we manufacture goods," came the reply.
A thought came to his mind,
"How much would it cost me to have stuff cop…Er, made?" The androids looked at each other, then back at Matt.
"Amber has told us your story," said one of the droids, "You and your friend have proven to us that you are friends of we Xindi. We are also aware that Gandric is to accompany you on your adventure, He will sing of us, and, let our kind know of our great victory over the creators. Are these items essential to your forthcoming adventure?" Matt grinned,
"Yeah, I guess you could say that."
"Very well, bring forth whatever it is you have." Kaitlyn looked at him,
"What are you going to do?"
"You'll see." He retrieved his AR, and the shotgun, along with a magazine for the AR, a pair of cammo trousers, a tee-shirt, boots and a hat. Handing everything to the droid, he said,
"Copy these but only two each of the weapons, four of the clothing and boots, but fifty of these magazines."
The android looked at everything,
"This is not much, are you sure you would not like more?" Matt wasn't sure if the droid was being sarcastic but rather than push his luck, he replied,
"This will be all we need thank you." The androids then left leaving the four of them standing by the ship. Matt looked at Amber, and said,
"All right, what's been going on around here?" Gandric spoke up,
"Amber is now an official citizen of Xandrus Matt. At some point you will tire of adventuring but what will she do? Now Amber has a home to return to."
"Well that's great Amber," said Kaitlyn,
"It sure is," added Matt, "You too Gandric, umm, does this mean you two are married now?"
"I do not understand this "marriage" you speak of, but if you mean that our "units" are joined, then I suppose we are."
Matt offered his hand to both droids and said,
"Well I guess congratulations are in order. By the way, being the lowly humans that we are, there are certain things we require such as a place to sleep, go to the bathroom, drink water, and eat." Both droids made that laughing sound again,
"I'm sorry Matt," replied Gandric, right now, I can think of none of the places you seek, perhaps at some point in the future if we Xindi permit living beings back on Xandrus again such places might appear. However, there is a facility that will clean you."
"What, you mean like a shower?" Asked Kaitlyn.
"It is a place that will make you clean, and freshen you," said Gandric.
"Well hell yeah!" Exclaimed Matt, I'm pretty dirty, that stream must have had a lot of crap floating in it,"
"Same here," added Kaitlyn, "Could you take us there?"
"Follow me," replied Gandric. As they walked along, they started drawing a crowd again,
"Does this bother you?" Asked Gandric, Both teens looked at the group of droids following them and shrugged,
"I guess not, don't they have anything better to do than follow us around?" Asked Matt.
Gandric turned to him and said,
"Ever since we destroyed the creators, there is nothing to do for many; it is an unfortunate situation, and one we are working to resolve."
"Well it seems to me Gandric," replied Matt, "You androids have a good set-up here, I mean for making stuff, you just need to find the right people you can contract to, you know, making things for them."
"That is one of the reasons I am coming with you, perhaps we will find someone who needs someplace to manufacture things for them."
As they continued to walk, Kaitlyn pointed to the large grass covered "hills"
"What are those?"
Gandric didn't respond for a few steps then replied.
"Beneath all those hills lie the rubble of war, buildings, and the debris of the creators, it was a very bad time for us, Kaitlyn, it is not something we freely discuss."
"We came across a small shed not long after we rescued Dozox," said Matt, "Inside was a skeleton of what I think was one of the creators, it looked like it had been there a long time, we also found this stuff." Holding out the "loot" he and Kaitlyn had found next to the skeleton, Gandric snatched up the device Matt thought was some kind of weapon. Crushing it in his hands, then pulling the pieces apart, he threw them as far as he could before the astonished eyes of the teens. Then looking straight at Matt, he said,
"Were you to have been caught with such a device would have resulted in your immediate death Matt, and there would have been nothing Amber or I could have done about it." Now extremely upset, Matt exclaimed,
"But how were we to know what that thing was,"
"And that's why I didn't kill you," replied Gandric, "That was a "slaver," the creators used them to control us, it is a much hated device, what else do you have there?"
"I'm really sorry Gandric, said Matt, I-I just didn't know."
"That is an identification card, there are still places where those can be read, but it would alert the central authority that there was a curator around. I won't take it from you, it might be useful at some other time, but put it away, and don't carry it while you are here on Xandrus. That pendant is a tracking device as well as a religious symbol, those are gambling tokens, and there are still a few machines around those will work in, if we get near one, I will let you know. What is that book?" Matt handed him the small book, whereupon Gandric began to flip the pages as he read.
"This book Matt…This book lists all of the secret codes the creators used to run Xandrus, and although much has been destroyed, much is left, this must be given to the central authority."
"We aren't going to get into any trouble?" Asked Kaitlyn,
"Oh no," replied Gandric, "They have been looking for the creators code list for a very long time. They will look well on you." Matt pondered the last few minutes as he went from being an "enemy of the state," to "hero," it boggled the mind.
Before long, they arrived at a building that looked to be made of pre-cast concrete and painted blue. Matt noticed there were cracks all over, and chunks of concrete were missing. From the faded look of the paint, it must have been a bright vivid blue at one time, but no more. They entered into a small room where there were several doors located along an inner wall.
"I believe you go into one of those rooms and undress," said Gandric, "I think there's a separate place to place your garments so they are cleaned separately."
Matt entered a door, and found himself in a chamber-like room, there was strange writing like signs over what looked like a control of some kind.
There was a smaller hatch-like door he guessed were for your clothes, which after undressing, placed inside Taking a wild guess, he pressed a button next to the small hatch which caused a yellow light to come on. Pressing a similar button on the wall, a larger yellow light came on. Suddenly he felt very warm just like he was standing naked in the desert. There was a faded chart on the wall that indicated that you should hold your arms out which he did. Besides feeling very warm, he felt a tingling sensation which he hoped was supposed to be happening. The warmth lasted for close to five minutes, then the light turned a light blue for a few seconds, then went off.
The light was also off on the clothing wash as well, Taking his clothes out he noticed his underwear was bright white and smelled clean and fresh, the same for his boots and the rest of his clothing. As
far as him being clean, he couldn't really tell, he didn't see any dirt on him, so he got dressed, and exited the chamber. Kaitlyn was exiting her chamber as well sniffing herself.
"Well I don't know," she said, "My clothes are clean, my hair doesn't feel dirty, I guess I'm clean.
"There is one aboard the ship," said Amber, but Greg was complaining about it not working."
"Perhaps I can repair it," said Gandric.
Their next stop was the shed where the skeleton was found, Gandric opened the door and went in. Standing over the remains, he pointed down and announced,
"That used to be a creator; he must have hidden in here during the war, and died.
Moving the skeleton with his foot, an object was revealed that had been hidden under it. Picking it up Gandric held it out, it looked like an iphone but Gandric said,
"This is a pocket computer, I can tell its battery is long discharged, but when we're back at the ship, I will be able to work up a power supply and discover what's on here." They found nothing more inside but Gandric insisted on leaving the door open,
"Some poor droid in need of shelter may happen along and see the open door." With that, he and Amber removed the moldering skeleton and tossed it off into the grass,
"There a potential home for a droid in need," observed Gandric.
As they were heading back to the ship, Gandric and Amber took the lead while Matt and Kaitlyn followed behind. In a whisper, Matt said to Kaitlyn,
"The droids must really hate whoever these creators were, man! I'm glad we're on their "good" side." Kaitlyn nodded in agreement.
Chapter 10
Titan Stand Chapter 10 Part Two
Back at the ship, Matt indicated that he wanted to talk to Amber and Gandric about their next move.
"Gandric, can you tell Kaitlyn and I any more about these "Creators," I've observes things and all it's done is make me curious." Gandric sat down on a metal case and looked at Amber,
"It was a very bad time and a lot of hateful feelings towards living beings have come forward as a result of it, however Amber and I have done as much as we can to let the others know that not all beings such as you are to blame. Whether you realize it or not, helping Dozox did much to dispel many harsh feelings."
"I gathered that," replied Matt, "But a whole planet of androids fascinates me, I don't know why and forgive me if I'm wrong, but I feel sorry for them, they just wander around all day, nothing to do, we need to help them."
"Well I'm happy that you feel that way," replied Gandric, That is what Amber and I wish as well, but tell me, you are a living being, yet you show great concern for what many would say are just mere droids, they are nothing, if they break, throw them into the rubbish, build more."
Matt shook his head,
"No, Gandric, that's not right, strange as it might sound, I see them a human, they didn't ask to be here, but yet someone created them. I'm all for doing whatever we can to help your friends here, and get things back on the right track." Amber then said to Gandric,
"I told you, these two were special,"
"Tell me Matt," said Gandric, "Are all beings on your planet as selfless as you?" Both teens broke out laughing, shaking his head, Matt replied,
"No Gandric, not by a long shot, you'll find more than your share of "Curators," back on earth, but there are a lot of good people there as well, people like Kaitlyn and I who see a problem they would just like to help with."
Gandric then told them all about Xandrus and how it began as a planet of living beings,
"They called themselves the Xindi, eventually they developed robots, then we androids. Things were fine for awhile, unfortunately they strove for smarter and smarter droids eventually reaching a point to where the androids became smarter than they but the Xindi were unaware of this fact, instead, they subjected us to merely "toys" for their perverse entertainment. Until we tore it down literally one piece at a time, there was a large arena where androids were forced to perform all sorts of unspeakable acts. The Xindi just thought of us as unthinking droids and robots. At one point, they staged small wars between opposing droids, strictly for their amusement, the victors and any damaged droids were swept up and ground up for scrap. Everything was recycled into new androids and the cycle repeated."
"That is horrible," gasped Kaitlyn, how long did this go on?"
"Somewhere around fifty of your years," said Amber.
"Some of the smartest droids began to hide out," continued Gandric, some managed to take over the Xindi's spacecraft, traveling to Mito where they gathered and plotted against the Xindi."
"It took almost twenty of your years to gather enough resources and followers to make an attempt against the Xindi," added Amber, "But finally the time came for the droids to make their move, it was a very close run thing, but in the end they prevailed."
"Many of the Creators managed to flee the planet however we had that possibility covered as well," continued Gandric. We had "infected" their ships computer systems which resulted in many, but unfortunately not all setting unchangeable courses for Ifnia, which we call our sun. Those that remained here on Xandrus were eventually all destroyed. It has been many many Zadra's since this terrible time being androids, we can never forget."
"No Gandric," said Matt, "I don't imagine you can, but please tell your people that not all of us living beings are bad or hurtful, we truly want to help."
"I think they are starting to realize this," said Gandric, "But you are only two, more proof will be needed and I think this adventure we are preparing to set out on will do much to solidify that belief." Matt and Kaitlyn slept aboard the spacecraft that night, relinquishing the single bed to Kaitlyn, Matt slept on an air mattress and his sleeping bag on the deck. Gandric promised to see what he could do to make a little more room in the Nora-Lee, along with repairing the ships bathroom. In the meantime, he and Amber left to see some androids in town.
As they lay there in the semi-darkness Matt called to Kaitlyn,
"So what do you think so far Kaitlyn?"
"I'm not sure, these droids frighten me a little, sending people to their deaths trapped in "death ships" gives me the creeps."
"Me too, a little," replied Matt, "But then they were fighting a war in the only way they knew how."
"So where are we going next?" Asked Kaitlyn.
"I'm not sure, Amber said she had some ideas, places Greg was thinking of checking out, that's one of the things she and Gandric are checking out with whoever is in charge of this place."
"Isn't it funny that these droids have no real leaders?" said Kaitlyn,
"Yeah kinda," replied Matt, "They aren't human, they don't seem to have human needs, so I guess they don't really need the same kind of government, plus didn't you catch on to the fact that they can say something and everyone knows about it?" Matt then chuckled to himself,
"What's so funny?" came a voice from Kaitlyn's direction.
"Oh I don't know," he replied, "Do you realize we are the first people from earth to set foot on this planet, and mars for that matter as well."
"I wonder what our folks are doing right about now?" She wondered.
Matt sighed,
"I'm trying not to think about it too much," he replied.
"Probably asking themselves why I would do something like this. I just hope that guy you sent all Greg's documentation to doesn't shitcan it, all Greg's work will be for nothing."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," replied Kaitlyn, "He's supposed to be the best, I don't know what else we could have done." Nothing more was said for several minutes, but just before he rolled over, Matt whispered,
"Kaitlyn…"
"What?"
""I'm glad you came…"
"Hey get up!" Came Kaitlyn's voice as Matt came out of a deep sleep.
"What? What time is it?"
"I don't know what time it is here, my watch stopped working," she replied, "I looked outside, it appears to be morning."
"Where's Amber and Gandric?" Asked Matt,
as he crawled out of his sleeping bag.
"I don't know, they aren't back yet, what's for breakfast, I'm hungry."
"Well there's some of that freeze-dried breakfast stuff in that container over there exclaimed Matt, I wish we could get something on this planet worth eating, I hate to eat up all our MRE's and stuff."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," replied Kaitlyn. Just then the ramp door slid open and the two androids came up the ramp.
