Levelling the staff, Yuba lined it up then shoved the end firmly into it's intended socket. He was suddenly struck by the phallic symbolism of the moment, but quickly put that out of mind. He could feel the electric tingle of circuits meshing, systems synchronizing with each other, but nothing more. Then it occurred to him why the staff's handle was shaped the way it was; it was a turn key!
Firmly grasping it in both hands, Yuba turned the handle a full 180 degrees. The orbs mounted on the shaft crackled with internal electrical discharges, and he could feel that same energy filling the body of the statue. At first he thought she was yet another link to a some greater piece of machinery, but this evidently wasn't the case; she was the final piece of this strange puzzle.
Continuing to turn the oversized key, he could sense movement now, a subtle impression that quickly became increasingly obvious. The body spasmed, limbs twitching at the end of each rotation. Finally, the handle could be turned no more. Clear blue eyes flashing open, it stepped forward, breaking contact with the staff.
Yuba stared in astonishment as it turned to face him. Her expression was as cold as it'd been in sleep, but it's eyes betrayed a certain intelligence.
"I don't believe it," Yuba gasped, "an autonomous machine. Incredible! Do you have a name? Can you communicate?"
It blinked at him, then answered, "I am called Ifurita, greatest of the DemonGods ever constructed." It's voice was deep and lacking in intonation, but otherwise sounded surprisingly human. "I am commanded to obey he who possesses the PowerKey Staff."
"The 'PowerKey Staff'," Yuba repeated, looking at the device in his hands, "you mean..."
"However." Ifurita suddenly lunged forward, stealing the staff from his grasp. "My primary function is to guard the Trigger of Destruction, and eliminate anyone who would enter the garden that holds it. Awakening me is the first stage to activating the Trigger of Destruction; and so, now, I must destroy you."
"Wha..."
Turning the staff over, she levelled the tip at his chest as if aiming a rifle, the end glowing with naked white energy. Yuba might not have had the time to assimilate everything she'd just said, but he knew well enough to know his life was at stake. Diving to the right, he narrowly escaped the blast which exploded an impressively large hole in the far wall. Blearily looking up from the floor, he watched Ifurita turn to him, her expression completely impassive, levelling the staff yet again. Yuba quickly scrambled to his feet, making it past the door into the control room.
This was insane! Not only did he have to wrap his mind around the idea of an autonomous mechanical woman, but one who blatantly intended to see him dead for the mere act of activating her!
In the short gap of time before she stepped forward from the doorway, he recalled an obscure legend about a 'DemonGod Ifurita'. In the era of the war that ended the civilization of the ancients, this demon laid waste to entire nations before being sealed on an island beyond the Holy River. He'd never guessed that the DemonGods were machines like the Eye of God; but, surely, this was entirely the wrong resting place for that Ifurita. And he'd never heard of any mention of a Trigger of Destruction before.
The mechanical woman stepped past the door, less than a meter from where Yuba was crouched against the wall. Whatever she was, there wasn't much time to think. He only knew he had to get that staff out of her hands.
She turned her head in time to see him lunge at her, arms outstretched. Successfully grabbing the staff's length, he believed the element of speed and surprise would enable him to wrench it away from her, but her innate strength stopped him cold. Even though he was brought up short, frozen in his tracks, he felt himself continuing to lurch forward. There was a deeply sickening sensation in the pit of his stomach as he lost his sense of time and place. His vision blanked out, narrowing to a small bright point.
Still falling forward, that bright point gradually grew in size, as if he were travelling through a dark tunnel towards the inevitable exit. The feeling of speed increased, and suddenly he was engulfed in bright light.
"It looks like she's active."
Testing each iris in turn, the figure to the right now switched off the penlight. He was joined by another, taller man, who frowned in obvious distaste. Both were dressed in a manner completely alien to Yuba, though the insignia each wore on their lapels strongly resembled glyphs he'd seen during his ruin explorations.
"If we found out where they hid the key, we wouldn't have had to put this monstrosity together."
"Be glad we still had the parts," the first said soberly. "Making her part of the activation mechanism means they can't use the Trigger without going through her first."
Picking up a slender black cable, he affixed it somewhere behind Yuba's field of view.
"Can you hear me, Ifurita?"
"Yes."
"I'm going to download your orders, which will reside in your latent memory. Then I'm putting you into stasis. With any luck, you'll never need be awakened. Ever. Goodnight, Ifurita."
Everything suddenly went black again.
Yuba let go of the staff, finding himself back in the here and now. Ifurita stepped back as well, her previously emotionless face now etched with confusion.
"How is it possible," she said. "My memory is closed to access."
"Your memory," Yuba repeated with some awe. "That's what that was. I was seeing through your eyes. Amazing."
Then the realization hit him with a sudden flash.
"Your memory... that was it," he said, "I couldn't sense any more. That was the entirety of your memory. You've existed for thousands of years, yet you've only been alive for a mere handful of minutes."
Ifurita's frown hardened, levelling the staff once more.
"Explain your connection and access to my memory," she demanded.
"I don't know where to begin," Yuba admitted, "I can only tell you that those people who built you, the civilization that made your technology possible, has been extinct for millennia. We don't even know the name of the countries they fought for when they wiped
themselves out with the Eye of God."
Ifurita gave no indication of whether she believed him or not.
"You can see for yourself," Yuba said, motioning towards the corridor. "Except for this garden, everything around here is desert. The Eye of God still hangs in the sky, the only intact relic of what you once knew as your world; well, so much as you knew it at all. Sorry, guess I'm not very good at explaining. I'll show you. Whether you kill me now or later can make no difference, and you certainly have nothing to lose."
Much to Yuba's relief, she nodded her assent.
* * *
Standing side by side, they looked out over the barren wastes from the well defined edge of the garden.
"It's like that for miles. In fact, much of El-Hazard consists of desert, at least from the parts I've travelled .But there are some beautiful countries out there, if you want to see. You're a very unique person, Ifurita. It's like your a visitor from the past. No, more like a new born child, with an entire world to discover."
Ifurita shook her head.
"No, you're wrong," she said solemnly, pointing up towards the faint image of the Eye of God over the daytime horizon. "I'm more like that satellite. I'm a machine, a weapon of war. I am not a person. My design and purpose are clearly defined; to guard this garden and the Trigger of Destruction. I will not travel from this spot.""In other words, you feel you belong here." Yuba scratched at his beard in thought. "I dont' suppose I can argue with that. It's been a long time since I felt that way myself. But, you do realize that the war you were built for is long over? The people who fought it destroyed themselves and everything they knew. Do you really choose to retain your allegiance to them?"
"You still don't understand," Ifurita replied with an audible note of irritation. "It's not a matter of choice or feeling. I obey he who holds the PowerKey Staff, and the dictates of my latent programming."
Yuba gave her a sidelong glance.
"'H
e who holds the PowerKey Staff', eh? I guess, technically, that would be me," he remarked lightly. "Listen, it's obvious I'm not a threat. I don't have any intention of tempering with the Trigger, and I don't have the key necessary to activate it anyway. I only ask to be allowed to stay. The machinery here is the only chance I have that might enable me to return home. If you don't believe me, I could share my memory with you, just as I saw into yours."
Yuba reached out to touch Ifurita's staff, but she quickly withdrew.
"Do as you wish," she said tersely, lifting off the ground in a blast of hot air. With mute amazement, Yuba watched her rise several feet before flying further back into the garden.
* * *
The best Yuba could describe the situation was an undeclared truce. For the first few days, he barely saw her at all, and then only at a distance. Staking his claim in a couple of rooms inside the shrine, he set up a temporary home. Having learned to survive in much harsher environments than this, the garden was a virtual paradise. He could gather fruit and capture small animals for food, and the deeper regions of the shrine offered up more material goods. In a short space of time, he figured he could even create a rough working lab. After having lived as a nomad for the last few years, it felt very strange to be tying himself to this one place.
As for Ifurita, Yuba could only assume she had no need for rest or shelter, and remained wandering the garden day and night. He got the impression she was watching him, and it was inevitable that whenever he ventured outside he would catch sight of her through the trees. Of course, though he wasn't consciously aware of it at first, he was always watching out for her too. It was impossible not to be curious. Yuba would have loved to have the chance to talk to her again, to find out more about her and how she worked. But, that was simply out of the question. She remained distant and aloof.
Roughly a month and a half later, things changed.
The early evening hour found Yuba in his self appointed lab, making notes as he poured over his sketched maps of the shrine's underground areas. It had proven to be far larger than he originally thought, and he was excited by the possibilities. All the machinery and conduits he'd discovered so far were essentially dead, no doubt part of this inert Trigger of Destruction. But surely there must be some power source keeping the garden alive and shielded from view; a power source that had run for thousands of years without exhaustion or failure. A dimensional engine must be at work, a Spring of Life that would enable him to return home.
Ruminating on all these things, he was suddenly jolted by the realization he wasn't alone. Whirling around in his chair, he found Ifurita standing in the doorway, watching him with her usual inscrutable expression.
"You gave me a start, " Yuba said nervously. "I didn't hear you come in. What can I do for you, Ifurita?"
She paused before stepping into the room, a trace of a
frown on her lips. This apparent reticence only intrigued Yuba all the more.
"Ifurita?" he prompted, rising from his seat.
"I.. I need you to do something for me."
"Yes?"
Ifurita extended her arm, holding out the PowerKey Staff towards him.
"I need you... to wind me."
"What, really?" Yuba gingerly took hold of the offered staff, looking into Ifurita's clear blue eyes. She appeared to be entirely in earnest. It never occurred to him that she would need to be rewound after activation. "Certainly, I'll do it."
Ifurita lowered her head as Yuba walked around to her backside. He wondered what could be going through her mind at this moment. It might be a false impression, since she was a machine after all, but he thought of her as being such a proud and independent person. To come to him like this, head bowed in humility...
Yuba laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder, then stepped back, PowerKey Staff raised high. Carefully lining it up with the discreet opening of her keyhole, he jammed the tip firmly insider her lower back. He could feel her flinch from the sudden contact.
"You're alright?"
"I'm fine," Ifurita said, "please, continue."
With that, Yuba began to turn the key.
An electric tingle ran up his arms as he restored Ifurita's power. In his minds eye, he had a vision of the tightly meshed network of systems that lay beneath her skin. The metallic gold framework centered around a sphere, from which a truncated shaft extended to connect with the keyhole, and that to the staff. And within that sphere...
"Don't," Ifurita said, asking rather than demanding.
"Sorry." Yuba was hardly conscious that he'd been slipping back 'inside' her.
When the key could no longer be turned, Yuba breathed a sigh of relief, pulling it free of it's mooring.
"Thank you," Ifurita said, taking back her staff.
"Anytime. Really."
A look of anxiety flashed across Yuba's face as Ifurita made for the exit, obviously intending to leave without a further word. After all this time, he couldn't let things remain as they were before.
"Wait!"
As if on cue, Ifurita froze in her tracks in the doorway.
"Stay and talk," he pleaded. "You can have a seat over here."
He waved towards the bed on the other side of the room. To Yuba's mild surprise, Ifurita quietly followed his suggestion and seated herself primly on the bedside, staff across her knees.
"I'm glad you decided to stay. I..." Yuba paused, glancing from the doorway back to Ifurita. "Um, can I ask you something? Just now, did you stop because you decided to, or because I told you to?"
"I already explained," she replied flatly, "I am bound to obey he...."
"Ok, ok, I got it."
Yuba frowned, scratching the back of his head. The implications of this somewhat disturbed him. The people who built her had basically made her a slave. It made a certain sense; if one was to build an immensely powerful war machine, you'd want to retain as much control over it as possible. Even the notion of her 'winding down' seemed like an intentional flaw, designed to keep her dependent on the staff.
Pulling up his chair, Yuba sat across from the DemonGod, who watched him with those clear blue eyes of hers. He tried putting on a smile, but the whole situation felt too awkward.
"Listen, I didn't mean to order you to stay," he told her, "I really wish it was something you'd decided of your own free will."
"Why should it matter?"
"Well..." This was tricky. Now that he thought about it, he could probably make her do anything he wanted to. As long as she was convinced he was no threat to activate the Trigger, he was in effect her master. He could order her to gather his food every morning, clean the shrine, cook his meals, strip naked...
Yuba mentally shook his head. He didn't think he could really abuse the situation like that. In Creteria, he was more used to taking orders than giving them. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel the same sort of resentment he felt back then. But how could he best express that to her?
"Is there nothing else you wanted to discuss," she said, rising to leave.
"Sit!"
She responded immediately, the bed creaking with the sudden impact of her weight.
"There, see." Yuba gave her an apologetic smile. "I can't imagine that could be very much fun for you. That's why it matters to me. Given the choice, I'd rather see you free and happy than obedient and sullen."
"I don't understand you," Ifurita murmured, averting her eyes.
"Sorry," Yuba laughed nervously. "Guess I'm not very good when it comes to tackling the 'big' issues. Always been more of a hands-on, tinker and cuss sort of person. That's how I got into engineering in the first place. Listen, I only wanted to chat for a bit, no big deal. I've been alone for an awfully long time, it's nice just to see another face. Don't you ever feel lonely wandering around out there as you do?"
"I... I don't know how to answer that," she shrugged. "I know of no other mode of existence. My 'wandering', as you call it, is only part of my duty to oversee the garden."
"Yeah, you'r
e out there all the time," Yuba nodded. "It gets so cold at nights sometimes I'm surprised you don't freeze over. You really should come inside -hell., this place is more yours than mine. I'm the stranger here. This is your home."
Ifurita's expression was as inscrutable as ever, but he had the feeling he'd gotten through to her a little bit. If nothing else, the ice had broken.
"Well, I won't keep you any longer," Yuba said, "but, I did want to make you an offer first. One similarity I noticed between the customs here in El-Hazard and Creteria, is the evening meal. Back in the caravans, we'd all gather 'round the fire and share our meals together. I realize you probably don't or can't eat, but I'd like you to come by anyway. It will all be very friendly, I promise, and you have nothing to lose."
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Erotica: Volume 3 (Sci-Fi & Fantasy Erotica Series) Page 8