by J.A. Marlow
What there was of it.
No hills or mountains around them. No trees or wide-open snowy plains. No forests predominated by pine or spruce trees. No wide sky with the dancing aurora.
Instead, they were surrounded by smooth metal walls. Half-way up the far wall a red light glowed. To his left the wall rose a short height before slanting into the room in regular segments, meeting up with a high ceiling.
Directly above him one segment had slid under another, allowing them a small glimpse of the Aurora above them through a narrow tunnel of snow. The mounds of snow and placement of the snow machine told his shocked mind that the opening had been their accidental entry into the room.
A metal room in the middle of nowhere?
And it was sliding closed.
"Grab it!" Sasha yelled, scrambling for the wall.
The boots twisted under him as Zach tried to get to his feet. He grabbed the edge of the segment, but despite both of them pulling on it, it continued to close.
Before it could close on their fingers they let go. It slid into place with a soft click, leaving them with no light except that of the red glow on the far side.
Sasha put her hands on her hips as she turned towards him, "Okay, this is a first."
Zach swallowed hard. "Where are we?"
"How should I know? The snow opened up beneath us, and boom, here we are. There isn't anyone up around these parts except old man Isley." Sasha stopped in her efforts to find an edge to the segment. "And this doesn't want to open again. I can't even find a handle."
He took off a mitten and touched the walls. He expected to feel cold metal, but instead found it warm. Just like the air.?
He quickly unzipped his coat as the warmth started making him sweat. "Do you see a door?"
"No. You take one side, I'll take another?"
"Sounds like a plan."
Zach stuffed both mittens into his pockets. With both hands on the wall, he walked the length of the wall, trying to find any indentation that might indicate a handle or a door. But all he found were smooth sides. He looked up at the ceiling. In the limited light it looked like an endless dark abyss.
He heard a snap. He turned towards it just as a beam of light pierced the gloom. In the new light he saw Sasha push the seat of the snow machine down.
"There, that's better." She swung the flashlight around, moving it along all the walls.
"I'm not seeing anything," Zach said, following the light and trying to discern any details in the smooth walls that he could. "And what are all the holes in the ceiling?"
Sasha turned the flashlight to the ceiling. "I have no idea. This is weird."
And Sasha was supposed to be the one who knew the area. He might think it was a joke on the new guy in the area, but Sasha's voice sounded as strained as he felt. He headed for the one light in the room. "You said someone lived up here?"
"Samson Isley. This land is his homestead, but his cabin isn't around here. I've heard it's up towards the high hills." She set the flashlight on the top of the dash of the snow machine so it pointed at the far wall and sat down on the seat while he clomped his way to the glowing red light. "He's an old hermit. Lives close to the land. I don't see how he could have anything to do with this place."
"Someone put this here. Whatever it is."
Zach froze at the sound of a zipper. A really long zipper.?
He looked around for the source. Sasha saw it first, jumping up to her feet and pointing to the wall next to him. Near the glowing red light.
Zach stepped back, away from the indented lines emerging in the wall. The lines conjoined, forming a tall rectangle. The rectangle shivered before swinging into the room.?The dark form of someone with wide shoulders moved through the opening.
Zach smiled, stepping forward to greet the person.
Only it wasn't a person.
Zach backed up quickly along the wall when harsh words echoed through the room. Words which he didn't understand at all.
It walked on two legs, but the torso of the body was made up of a flat cylinder made of the same dark metal of the walls of the room. On top of the torso a round head swiveled, showing several black diamond-shaped indents all around the circumference. Reflective circles filled the inside of the regularly spaced indents.
Each time the head swiveled, one of the indents would face exactly at him. Eyes, Zach thought to himself. At least, they looked like visual sensors.
But, the three arms sticking out at various heights along the trunk worried him the most. Each sported a different tip. One ended with a three-pronged jointed hand, another with a small black globe at the end. The third one was multi-jointed with a short tube extending out of an intricately imprinted bulb.
The arm with the bulb shifted, first pointing at Sasha, and then at him. He froze from trying to back away further. From the vicinity of the head came more garbled nonsense.?
"Hello, can you help us get home?" Sasha asked.
The bulb swiveled to aim at her. The arm with the globe twitched, shaking the entire arm and upper portion of the torso disappearing into a hatch on the lower part of the body. A moment later the arm with the hand disappeared, as well.
The garbled noises continued, but the sound changed to become punctuated.
"Maybe it's not working right. Like the Solar Express," Zach said quietly. He hoped that was right. He preferred the idea to what his mind really wanted to think. He suppressed the mental image of robots on a rampage.
The arm swiveled back at him.?In the harsh glare of the flashlight he?saw a violent twitch go through the entire body.
"Do you recognize what kind of robot it might be?" Sasha asked.
Zach swallowed hard. "No, I've never seen anything like it. Could it belong to Edwin Bardeaux?"
"He built a few to help with Solar Express maintenance, but they don't look anything like that."
With each sentence the arm swiveled to the speaker. The noise coming from the robot increased. Zach wanted to step away but he wasn't sure exactly what the bulbed arm was and he didn't like the tone of the robot.
The arm flexed, punctuated by nonsense words spoken forcefully in a voice that lowered in octaves.
"Zach?" Sasha said, her voice quivering.
"Yeah?"
"The tip of that arm is glowing."
Zach felt cold right down into the pit of his stomach. "Have an idea?"
"Yep. Say something to distract that arm."
Great, and have it aim right at him again. He took a deep breath and pasted a smile on his face. "Hello robot. Can you take us to your masters?"
The tip moved towards him, allowing him to see the tip. Oh yes, it was glowing bright, and getting brighter all the time. With each increase in brightness punctuated by the nonsense words the robot spoke.
Zach broke out into a cold sweat, his heart pounding. All the bad science fiction shows he'd watched on late night television came rushing back. Images he did not want to remember. Why couldn't he have watched the kinds of fluffy cartoons his female cousins preferred?
He kept his eyes on the robot while saying towards Sasha, "It's really bright now. I think it might be a weapon."
A snowball flew through the air and smacked against one of the eye indents. "Run!"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ZACH RUSHED FORWARD and shoved the robot to the side. It took all the strength in his arm, and impacting his hip against it to get it to move. Definitely heavier than it looked.
The robot staggered to the side, hitting the edge of the door. Something orange flashed followed by something sparking and sizzling against the ceiling.
Zach tripped over his boots, nearly falling out the other side of the doorway. "It fired at us?"
Sasha vaulted over him. "Just run!"
Zach scrambled to his feet, following her down the hall. He heard the angry garbled words of the robot as they rounded a corner into a much brighter hallway.
The dark metal of the room changed to off-white panels interspersed wi
th gray-blue doors. All without any handles. How did the doors open?
Zach told the nosy part of his brain to shut up. He didn't have time to figure out how anything worked. He needed to stay out of the way of the thing chasing them.
A blaze of orange flashed by and hit a wall. The impact sizzled with red and white sparks before petering out.
"See, I told you it was a weapon," Zach shouted.
"Shut up and run!" Sasha yelled back.
He grabbed a corner of a wall to help round a corner. What he would give to have his feet in a pair of sneakers.
The lights blinked, for the space of a breath casting them into pitch black. The robot's shouts hiccuped, ending with a high pitched squeal. With the lights back on, Zach chanced a look behind them as they turned another corner. Coming out of a stumble, the robot twitched, trying to bring the weapon arm back up.
Zach preferred the weapon aiming at the floor.
Sasha was well ahead of him, forcing him to high-tail it to catch up. Two more turns and the light blinked a second time. Zach slowed as the darkness lasted longer, putting his hands out in front of him, hoping he wasn't heading straight into a wall.
The noise from the robot sounded even fainter, but not faint enough for Zach's liking.
The light blinked back on. With it Zach picked up speed, flying by doors that slid open and closed, giving him fleeting glimpses into the rooms beyond. The interiors his head couldn't figure out. The one part of his brain not dedicated to a frantic terror-induced escape sharply catalogued the sights, demanding more information.
Zach ignored it, following Sasha as she stumbled around another corner. The lights in the corridor flickered out while the hall behind them remained bright. Sasha stopped, looking back before diving into one of the rooms.
Zach followed, whispering fiercely, "What are you doing?"
"We have to lose the robot." She searched along the door. "I can't find a way to close the door."
The room was as dark as the hall except for four dimly glowing tubes coming down from the ceiling to something suspended over two parallel long counters at the back of the room. Not enough light to allow him to see anything on the other side of the door.
His fingers found a raised box at about the height a lights switch should be. ?He pressed all along the surface of it, trying to find any button or mechanism. "I think I have, but I don't think it's going to work without any power."
Past the sound of his own heart thudding he heard a clang echo in from the hall.
Sasha grabbed his arm, pulling him further into the room. Zach left the door, searching in the dim light reflecting in from the distant bright hallway for anywhere to hide. Towards the back of the room behind the long counters was the obvious choice. As well as an obvious place for the robot to look for them if it searched the room.
A dark shape angled out from the wall to his left. His hands found the surface first, but it felt like only a table. His foot hit the edge of it, and he realized he was wrong. A big cabinet. Perfect.
He ducked down behind it, pulling his legs as close to his body as he could to tuck himself into the corner where the wall and the cabinet met.
He heard a soft rustle on the other side of the room, which he hoped would be Sasha finding a hiding place.
The room went silent. He tried to calm his breathing, straining his ears to make out the soft footsteps of the robot. How did a robot that big move so quietly, anyway?
A soft hum emanating from the tops of the two long cabinets didn't make it any easier. The longer the waiting went the louder the hum became.
Only a figment of his imagination, he told himself firmly, his traitorous mind replaying the sight of the shot that barely missed them. He made a vow to give up watching late night horror movies.
The glow coming in from the illuminated corridor blinked. The hum stayed the same, but odd noises came from outside the room.
Some of the glow came back, but not as much as before. ?A stream of garbled words told him the robot was closer than he realized. He held his breath, holding his legs tight and trying not to tremble.
Zach blinked, catching his breath. He raised his head. Did he just hear the word "patrol"?
Another sputter of gibberish accompanied a flicker of the lights in the room before they went dark again.
In the same octave voice as before, the robot said from the vicinity of the door of the room, "Continuing search pattern."
Zach's legs ached to move, but he gritted his teeth against the discomfort. So far no steps inside the room. Now, if he could just keep from sneezing, coughing, or bumping into something.
He definitely needed to stop watching the horror movies.
"Primitive native life-form intruders on level twelve. Neutralize. Control, respond." The last few words faded away along with the sound of soft footsteps.
He strained to hear if it might be coming back. The hum coming from the counters continued as the seconds, and then minutes passed.
He let out his pent up breath and eased his back to the wall, leaning his head against the cabinet.?
The lights flickered, but this time a few of the cabinet lights remained on. Zach took the chance to peer around the corner of the cabinet towards the door.
Good, no robot.
Sasha's head appeared from behind a tall closed metal closet. She whispered, "Neutralize?"
Zach let his legs straighten out, cringing as the muscles protested. "We need to get out of here."
"Any ideas on how to do that? Because I'm not sure I can retrace our steps." She shifted to all fours and crawled behind the first long counter.
He knew he wouldn't be able to, either. Keeping track of how many turns they took, and in what direction, hadn't been high on his list of priorities at the time.
With no movement in the direction of the door to worry about he crawled across the floor to join her. He leaned up against the metal cabinet, looking up at the glowing tubes coming out of the ceiling to the other long cabinet. "We couldn't get out of that room, anyway. We need to find another way out."
?"I didn't see any exit signs on the way here," Sasha said. "Did you notice the change?"
"That the place is having power problems?"
"No. That we could hear the words."
"One of the power glitches reset his processor?" He frowned, sitting up on his knees so he could look over the top of the counter towards the door. "Only, that thing isn't plugged in."
"Too much of a coincidence anyway," Sasha said, standing up, studying the items sitting on the counter.
Zach pulled himself up, disgusted to find his legs still shaking. "What do you mean by that?"
"Something in this room did it. We could understand the robot only once we came in here."
Zach considered the room. She was right. He'd understood the robot only once they'd hidden inside the room. "The hum is gone, too. When we first came in it was getting loud."
Sasha nodded, poking at a protuberance on the counter surface. "I don't remember when it stopped."
Zach gave a short laugh. "Because we were waiting for a deranged robot to fire on us."
But, he couldn't see anything at all extraordinary about the room except for the glowing small tubes coming down from the ceiling. Nothing to help explain why the robot's words suddenly made sense.
He moved slightly to the right where one ended in a metal wire basket. Or cradle? The dark object nestled inside didn't glow at all, making it hard to see any details in the dim light of the room.
His fingers traced the top rim of the metal basket, dipping down lower at the branching weaving wire strands below. A round ball on the inside of the wires felt warm, reminding him of the warm metal walls of the room they'd dropped into. Only it was flexible, giving way to a soft press, rebounding when he let go.
A knuckle brushed against the small mass held inside the cradle and he snatched his hand back. He fingered the knuckle, even though it hadn't hurt. But it had felt? odd.
He ben
t over to look at the thing inside. In the dim light he could see it had a rounded top and perhaps the inside was hollow.
"It's not dangerous," Sasha said. She reached over the top of the basket and touched the small round object in her cradle. "It feels really soft."
"I don't think you should be touching it," he whispered at her. "You don't know what it is."
"System re-alignment commencing. All sections stand by," a voice said over them.
Wait, not over them. Not completely. And the words weren't completely clear. It was as if his ears were picking up both the gibberish and the understandable words both at the same time.
He straightened up and pointed to the object in the basket. "That thing is translating the gibberish."
Sasha shook her head pointing to the one in front of her. "No, it's this one. It was very clear."
"I don't think so." How could she not tell where the words had come from? It was so obvious.
"You're afraid of it," she sang softly.
Zach glared at her. It was only a piece of soft plastic. Or something. Through a wide opening in the wires he let a finger touch it. Soft, a little bit warm. It was pretty small. That's probably why they were put in the protective wire baskets to keep them safe and unbroken.
"Oh, that's convenient. It goes around the wrist."
Zach looked over. Instead of touching the object while it still sat in the basket, Sasha was instead admiring it where it lay encircled around her left wrist.
"Are you crazy?" Touching it was one thing, but pulling it out and putting it on her wrist?
"It's a translator. We're going to need one if we're going to get out of here." She pointed towards the door. "Like understand what the robot is saying?"
At least she didn't start up with the 'afraid' stuff again. He was touching the other one, wasn't he? "I'm hoping we won't meet up with it again."
She rolled her eyes. "It knows its way around, we don't. We'll meet up again."
Zach opened up his mouth to argue when he felt a soft movement against the finger resting in the cradle.
He looked down just in time to see the hollow ball flowing across the back of his hand. It moved so quickly and fluidly that it was already in place around his wrist by the time he snatched his arm back.
A sense of happiness infused him, in direct odds to the alarm he felt at the thing. It was alive? No, that was crazy. Another robot of some sort, a kind that moved without regular joints.