Chapter CCCLVIII: Three Vectors ~Ark

A perfume of berries and cinnamon caressed Lich’s nostrils lightly, its sweet smell causing him to stir from his collapse. He gave a small groan as he slowly awoke. The scent decided that it had pleasured him enough, and gave him an odoriferous punch to the face.

Lich’s eyes shot open as he gasped. Before him stood Mister Invisible-face safari man pulling away a bottle containing the potent brew.

“Oh good, you’ve awoken,” he said. “I’m glad I did not have to resort to other measures.”

The Lord of the A’gul looked up at him, regathering his details, and then gave a quick glance to Naaro. The Karmali appeared to be at a tense ease. “Who, by Drepatos, are you, and why are you here?”

“By the Place of Eternal Suffering, I am Professor Alex Highland,” he replied casually. “And I come to offer my services.”

Lich raised a hand. “Whoa, back. Professor? Of what and where from?”

“I’ve noticed that there have been a lot of unusual occurrences around here lately,” the Professor answered quickly. “Among such, there’s been a large metal brute who’s made off with another being resembling yourself, and if you would like this being back, I may have an idea as to doing so.”

Lich raised both his hands and waved them as he shook his head. “Just…just…answer my question. Please.” How’d he know about Ark? Lich wondered.

“Would you like to hear my idea?”

“Well, yes, of course, but firs–”

“Theoretically, we could camp out in a place I know where we are likely to run into both of them at once.”

Lich remained silent. “And?”

“That is all.”

Lich tightened his lips. “I am very sceptical when people come out of the blue to me like a door-to-door salesman.”

“That is natural,” Highland agreed. “After all, if the KBT were always on my tail, too–”

“How do you know about the KBT?” Lich snarled as he jumped to his feet.

“I wouldn’t undertake that sort of behaviour in your current state of being,” the Professor frowned.

He sat back down, seething, as the blood returned to his head. After he had taken a deep breath, both to calm his nerves and his body, he looked to a far tenser Naaro.

“Your choice, Lich,” the Karmali said, unmoving.

Lich nodded and bowed his head in thought. Was this Highland trustworthy? Was this place he knew genuine, or a trap?

“I’m not someone who tends to trust people who don’t answer questions I ask them.”

“Then I shall go,” Alex said, turning.

“But,” Lich added hastily, “given the circumstances, I am prepared to ignore my prejudice.”

Alex turned back to him. “Then I am glad to be of service.”

“We start tomorrow.”

“Lich,” Markior’s voice came from the door.

Lich turned his head to him.

“And you must be Markior,” greeted Highland.

“Indeed,” he replied. “I heard everything, Alex Highland. Lich, Artanis has arrived on G’lirer–”

“He has?” Lich asked.

Markior nodded. “I have just received a mental signal from him. However, he has arrived in the wrong village, and the Yoshies there are a bit restless.”

“Then it’s time they realise the Spoken of Recugrian’s Blood has appeared,” Lich stated, standing up.

“No, no, don’t,” Markior said quickly, raising a hand.

Lich sat down, puzzled.

“I shall go myself. I am their Guardian, after all. Also, you are not well.”

Lich nodded, biting his lip. “I’ll see you soon, I guess.”

“Yes. Adun Toridas.”

Markior vanished.

“So, is there somewhere I can sleep tonight?” Highland asked.

“Er…”

“There are some beds in another room,” Naaro said.

“Thank you.” The Professor walked out.

Lich sighed. He was very vulnerable in his weak state, even to his friends. Could he really trust the Professor in bringing Ark back? He looked out the window at the setting sun.

I wonder what he’s doing, anyway…

* * *

The first light of dawn appeared over the horizon as Ark strode through the never-ending grasslands, the layer of paint protecting his skin from the stalks’ itchy stroking. His sweat had not started to wash it away: there had to be something in the paint that kept it bonded to him, almost as if it changed the colours of his skin. Perhaps it did, he thought, so what did the A’gul use to remove it?

His paint proclaimed that he was the Hunter; now he was hunting parts for a doomsday machine. His mind raced with the possibilities of how he could trick the robot; of how he could avoid the devastation.

Ark stopped walking and sighed as he bent slightly, putting his weight on the Spear. He did not want to be responsible for wiping out the population of an entire planet. But, could he stop it? He, who was nothing more than a reluctant servant, doing his job only by threats?

He was Dark’s pupil, which ultimately made him Havering’s, and now the robot’s mechanic. As for Eriuch…

Ark eyed the silent weapon, the silver noose around its neck. They were bound to each other by oath unwittingly. He had no idea of its true power until that dead planet, or of the story.

“So this is what Dyluck feels like,” he muttered to himself. “Trapped.”

He closed his eyes momentarily and felt for the eminence. He knew it was there before him, much like smoke over the horizon, but of its fire, he knew nothing so far, except that it seemed to be moving.

“Is it something that’s being carried?” he muttered again. “Or does it move of its own will? It’s something we have to find out.” Don’t talk to yourself, he chastised himself mentally for the thirtieth time since he left that robot. “Even though there’s no-one here…”

He yawned. He woke up early yesterday…though it was possibly the day before now. The walk was tiring, especially when the only company was his own voice. Morning to midnight, then an instant jump to afternoon to morning: it was the equivalent of two days without sleep.

A lone tree stood on a hill nearby, silhouetted against the pre-dawn turquoise. He turned and slowly marched up towards it. It wasn’t the sort of tree that would provide cover, as its collection of leaves were very scattered, but it had a saddle partway up that could act as a sort of cradle, and wasn’t easily accessible to anything beneath his height.
He reached the grey-white tree, the soil bare around it. He studied it, remembering his experience from the night before. Seeing that it didn’t have any cracks in its bark, he clenched the Spear between his teeth and hoisted himself up into the boughs.

He slid onto his stomach in the saddle, propped the Spear up against a bough, and tested it. The saddle was small, but if he positioned himself just right, he could partly sit, partly lie in it, his head in a hollow of the branch, his legs dangling around the other’s girth, a thigh trapping the Spear to it. It was surprisingly comfortable, and it was not long before he fell asleep.

A drop of water fell on Ark’s nose. He wrinkled it as it was followed by a rumble of thunder. The plains had brought about one of its typical afternoon rainstorms, and it dumped its load with a roar.

Ark slowly woke up and cursed. Something didn’t feel right. The rain quickly soaked his skin – still the paint would not budge.

“Looks like I’m going to be green and black and brown forever,” he sighed angrily, kicking the opposite bough.

The Spear clattered to the ground.

Ark rolled his eyes. “Idiot,” he growled.

There was movement in the corner of his eye. He turned his head.

A blue, Yoshi-like robot stood before the tree, looking up at him. “Self has detected that the target lifeform has woken up,” it toned.

Ark looked at the machine; more specifically, the set of long, sharp claws that made up its hands at the end of its gangly, silver arms. Red pupils stared at him out of black eyes in its head, its spikes elongated and fin-like. A large yellow turbine seemed to make up its torso, creating sprays of rainwater, while at the bottom of its legs, which were much like its arms except for the blue shin pads, were a pair of red shoes.

He jumped out of the tree and picked up the Spear, clenching it tightly.

“Self does not want to initiate attack program,” it replied. “Self seeks repairs.”

On closer inspection, the robot did appear to have a few parts that seemed out of kilter – the top of a shin pad was buckled, a pipe sticked out of a fin that formed red drops in the rain, a forearm section was twisted around into what appeared to be an unnatural position from its elbow. It moved its left leg so it stood at ease, its knee flexing awkwardly backwards.

Ark lowered the Spear cautiously. “How long have you been waiting?”

“Self has been waiting four hours, twenty-six minutes and forty-seven seconds,” it recited.

Ark wiped his hair out of his eyes and frowned, inwardly wincing. It had heard him talk to himself when he woke up, and who knew what he could have said while he was asleep!

It was obviously an attack robot – that couldn’t be right, it went against the Laws of Robotics! – and it had waited for him to wake up. Laws aside, it recognised the difference between a target to terminate and a target of assistance. Although it was designed to kill, it knew the basics of relatively peaceful confrontation and negotiation.

What had been bugging him hit him square in the face. It created a signature on the Mana Field: a living signature.

Ark closed his eyes and probed the Presence with his thoughts. Living things of flesh and blood, of the persuasion of the Life and Mana Elemental Dryad created a nice rounded hill on the Field. When he was back on the Spectrum, what had drawn him to Ratch was his pyramid-shaped Presence, a sign of something non-living, those aligned with Luna, Elemental of the Moon and Metal. Asked for inspection of his AI chip, Ark had been turned down. Now one had fallen straight into his lap, right in the middle of nowhere.

A smile spread across his face. Remove the AI chip, and he had exactly what he needed: a collection of parts. True, it was a rather dented collection, but a collection all the same.

He looked up at the robot again, and frowned. How was he going to trick the robot into giving him its AI chip? Would it know he was retrieving it? The first thing he would have to do is to not come across as hostile. He drove the Spear gently into the ground.

“Self asks what target lifeform is doing?”

“Analysing what I will do to help you, Robo…”

“Self is called Unit One Mecha Vector,” it replied.

Correct intuition and a search for knowledge expansion without prompt – a definite sign of AI, thought Ark. Hang on…Mecha Vector? Wasn’t there some other guy, one of Dy’s friends, by the same name, on the Spectrum?

Ark drew a breath and shut his eyes for a moment. Dyluck had told him about his friends, and their enemies, in case they wanted to take a potshot at their targets’ social network to unsettle them.

”Vector’s always being hounded by his older adopted human brother, Richter,” he remembered Dyluck saying. “Often he’ll use a robot version of Vec called, imaginatively, Mecha Vector. Watch out for him: he as fast as Vec, has claws as sharp as the Boomerang, and who knows what other surprises Richter will supply him with from time to time.”

“Self detects target is at unease,” said Mecha.

Ark’s eyes snapped open and looked at the death machine as best as he could, without showing his fear. “Yes…well, I get uneasy when I have to work on a robot I’ve never seen before,” he replied, half-truthfully, trying to keep his eyes naturally on Mecha’s horrible red pupils. He couldn’t pick up the Spear now: he had to have the robot’s trust. “I’m going to need to perform a full systems audit on you, Mecha, so that I know what I’m dealing with.”

“Self can inform you on systems.”

“Just let me see them, first,” said Ark, rounding behind him.

Ark’s eyes quickly looked up and down the robot’s back. Just at the base of the neck was a recessed button. He pressed it.

He blinked, and froze. Before his nose was a set of Mecha’s claws, just nicking his skin.

After a few seconds, he stepped backwards cautiously, and rubbed the wound. He pulled a finger away to check for blood. Finding none, he looked back up at Mecha.

Unit One had frozen in mid-attack. Mecha had seemed to put himself into some sort of standby mode; even the turbine was ejecting smaller sprays of water less often. A millisecond or two later, he would have had Mecha’s claws in his skull. Ark calmed himself down from this realisation, and then looked at the head.

A fin had slid away partially, and part of the top had popped open. Ark moved back towards the robot, and pulled the raised section up, feeling a watertight seal at the bottom of it. If he opened it fully now, in the rainstorm, the insides would be destroyed. He looked to the sky, then to its horizon. Where the rain came from showed no sign of a break in the clouds.

He needed some sort of umbrella, or forcefield. Drepio, he needed Dy’s Lucid Barrier right now. “Run away and reject him as much as you like,” he muttered to himself, “you still need him. Ironic.”

He tested Mecha’s limbs to see if they still moved – they did, so he put them down by his side, claws facing inwards; easy to do with the broken arm.

“I’m just gonna have to be creative,” he sighed.

Ark delved into his Storage and retrieved the black shirt. It was still waterlogged from being in the stream, and beadlets of sap still ran across it. It would not do. He put it back in Storage, and retrieved the Mandala t-shirt. He bundled it up and held it against him as he looked at the muddy ground.

“Needs dictate what needs must,” he muttered in a resolute sigh.

He knelt, stuffed the t-shirt in one of his armpits, and then reached that hand down behind Mecha’s knees. Gripping Mecha’s shoulder tightly, he smacked his arm into the joint.

The robot collapsed, its torso held up by Ark’s hand. A spray of water shot out from the turbine into his face, causing him to wince. Blinded, he walked around on his knees to Mecha’s front, his arm wrapping around the robot’s neck. Ark lowered his backside onto his feet, rubbed his face against his arm, and then started to ease Mecha to the ground, resting those horrible eyes, now blank, against a thigh. He let go of his shoulder, then pulled the t-shirt from under his arm, lifted his knee slightly, and spread it out underneath. Ark then gripped Mecha’s neck, removed his leg, and placed the machine’s face onto the fabric.

He paused to take a quick breather. Now came the fun part.

Ark put his hands on the ground to either side of Mecha’s head, then lifted his left leg over the robot’s body, and rested his knees against its shoulders. He bent over and rested his forehead on the t-shirt, now using his body as a shield against the rain. He rolled his head forward so that he could look back at Mecha, and down his body. A spray from the turbine shot water and mud against his tail, making him flinch; he bent it down as far as it could go comfortably.

Balancing his upper body on his elbows, he pulled his hands in before his face, reached into his Storage and retrieved an already opened box of rubber surgical gloves. He slipped a pair on, returned the box, gripped the top of Mecha’s head and pulled. It came away with a plastic sound as the seal was released.

And there it was, in all of its beauty: Mecha’s AI chip. He reached his hand in and detached it with a wiggle, before pulling it free. The turbine stopped with a quiet chopping noise.

The pyramid on the Mana Field was now in his hand: he had separated the soul from the body. He’d done it. He had an AI chip. All he had to do now was find out how it worked and replicate it, but that was for the future. His grin turned into a chuckle, his chuckle turned into a laugh. He didn’t need the Spear. Ark Beruga Yoshi von Kippo had the true purpose of his life clutched tightly in his hand.

“Hi, what’s so funny?”

Ark froze mid-laugh, and raised his head. A blue Yoshi wearing running shoes that seemed to redefine the mere term “running” as “slow” stood before him, his blond hair plastered to his skull. His clothes were torn and there were many cuts and bruises over him, some still bleeding.

“Hang on, you’re Ark, aren’t you? Lich’s brother?” he asked. “I’m Vector. Vector Sprint. I didn’t see much of you on board the Spectrum, you kept to yourself heaps.”

And to think that Ark had only given him some thought a few minutes ago! Dy had told Ark about him, particularly his running abilities. Ark grimaced. He’d stumbled right into the middle of some sort of macabre hunt. Mecha had wanted repairs so he could kill him. Where had Vector gone anyway? He wasn’t there when he came back from Fa’Diel…

“Can I ask a question?” said Vector, dispelling Ark’s thoughts.

“Yeah?” Ark muttered.

“What’s with the get-up?”

“Get-up?”

“The paint. And no clothes. Did you meet some sort of clothes-eating monster or something?”

“Oh,” Ark answered, cursing his slowness mentally. “I guess you could say that,” he sighed.

“Is it anywhere around here?”

Ark shrugged. “Where is here, anyway?”

“I dunno.”

Ark nodded resolutely.

“Why are you out here anyway?” Vector continued. “Where’s the train?”

“Somewhere in the multiverse,” Ark sighed. Vector was a technical kind of guy – he felt he could talk easily. “The space-time continuum went all weird, didn’t like what was going on, and threw all of us on the Spectrum, or near it, I guess, to various corners of the multiverse. Last I knew I was on some planet called G’lirer; you’re from the future, you know of it?”

“G’lirer…I never paid attention in history class,” said Vector. His smile seemed to lie – did he really know about it? Did he know what they had done? Did he know what was going to happen? “Anyway, you know something?”

“What?”

“It’s kinda funny talking to a guy when he’s on his hands and knees.”

“Sorry,” Ark apologised, closed Mecha’s head, and stood up, his feet either side of the robot.

Vector’s eyes widened. “You…that…that’s Mecha!”

“Er, not exactly,” Ark answered, and held up the AI chip. “This is.”

“Whoa,” Vector exclaimed, taking a step back. “You only have about four seconds for him to realise you’re trying to open his head.”

“Well, he nearly took my nose off trying to get it,” Ark said with a small chuckle. He rubbed it. “He seemed pretty beat up – you do it?”

Vector nodded.

“You look pretty beat up too.”

“Er, yes,” Vector smirked. “You von Kippos always seem to have curatives though, mind if I asked for some?”

“I’m out,” Ark sighed. “I’m sorry. There’s been a lot of fighting, and I haven’t been able to get home to get some more. I’m sorry. I do know a weak form of Cure Water, though, but I don’t think that’s going to do much.”

“I don’t hold much faith in magic,” said Vector sourly. “It’s some sort of scientific trick.”

“No it’s–”

There was a metallic wobble and a thud behind Ark.

“Must be some sort of weird planet if it rains metal parts,” Vector spoke.

“Metal…parts?” Ark asked, turning around.

A screw tinkled as it hit a metal sheet, followed by its washer. There was a definite hit as a nut struck soon afterwards, followed by a clang as another metal sheet fell. The colour of the metal was very familiar.

“Gulto!” Ark swore.

“What?”

Ark thrust the AI chip into Vector’s hands as a clang rang out again. “Get out of here! Quickly! Tell my brother this is alive, if you see him! He’ll know what I mean!”

“What’s going on?”

“Just go! Now!”

“Wh–”

“RUN!” Ark screamed at him.

Vector took off. The air distorted around him as he departed, then resettled with a sonic boom. Grass was ripped from the ground as he passed over it, into the distance.

Ark leapt to the Spear and tore it out of the soil.

I was going to tell you…

“No time!” yelled Ark, as he looked at the robot, starting to piece itself together. He gulped.