Quickly activating the tool again he brought it up to the lock that linked the chain around his neck, feeling the dangerous cutter so close to his head gave him chills, but the loop of hardened metal melted free and the links fell to the ground at his feet.
His would be captor flinched at the noise, turning, hands out to blindly defend herself.
Gritting his teeth he wanted to punish her for what she had done. He wanted to recycle her into the bits and pieces she would have carved him into.
But he was alive. He was alive and relatively safe again. Silently, he stepped towards her shed, looking inside he could see in the daylight pieces. Pieces and scraps of others like him. Arms and legs neatly piled and organized in pairs. Broken and crushed heads all lined up on a shelf. He stepped inwards, knocking a stack of torso over onto the ground. Their inner electronics missing or roughly cut out.
“You can see them, can't you? The parts?” her voice was wavered, but built in confidence as she talked.
He reached up, touching the male and female faces of those who had fallen into this trap. Spear wondered how many of them had begged for their life like he had. How many of them would have given anything to go back to where they had escaped from.
“I can fix your voice box. I have spares,” she stood taller as she considered her usefulness.
Anger welled up in him again. Forgiveness was a quality for the redeemable, he wanted to speak again, but he didn’t want her touching him.
“I can get it for you if you let me live. Please let me help,” her outstretched hands reached out in front of her, scanning for anything to grab on to, something to orient herself to the scrap shed.
Spear tried to tell her that she was crazy, but no sound came out. Opting to let her show him the treasure he tapped his hand against the metal grimacing that he would need her again. As she closed in near to him, he sidestepped silently, watching her crash into the shelves. They collapsed under the weight, spilling the bodies of her dead onto her.
“Wait, wait! I can help! I can fix this!” she pleaded, thinking he was attacking her. She rolled onto her front, and got her bearings, “It’s here. I promise you. It’s right here,” A hand felt along the shelf for a small box.
He could see next to the shed a pile of scrap metal she had been salvaging. Poles. Poles like the one he had used to core plants with. His hands pulled a length as tall as he was from the pile. The sliding metal was sending her into a feverish whine, “Here! Here it is!”
The cutter activated with the pull of the trigger and sliced a steep angle in the metal, fashioning a sharp tip.
“Take it!” she screamed.
Spear could hear the silence of the forest around them. He felt the wind on his face. He wanted to tell her that he was trying to save them all, but somehow he knew that she would have just tried to recycle him.
“Where are you!” she stood, her hand reaching onto the shelf, feeling for something out of her memory.
Spear watched her calmly. He watched her latch on to a small curved piece of metal. Her face turned from fear to a vindictive scowl.
“I’m going to kill you. I don’t care about your parts. I just want to use your eyes!” she cackled, dropping the box. It opened up, and voice components rolled out onto the dirt. She swung wide with the sharp metal, missing Spear’s face by a hands width. Her feet danced and stepped on one of the pieces, crushing it.
A smile crossed her face, “Oh? What was that? Your voice! I think I stepped on them.”
Her foot danced to the side, crushing more, and kicking the box over. Her stomping motion was snapping and popping the components as she kicked at the box.
Spear’s heart sank, and his arm thrust forward. The hollow pike found its mark as it passed through her burned out eyes. The point cored her soft brain before passing out of her skull and the back of her head. A small hiss of energy and a splash of clear fluid was all that noted the end of her existence.
Shaking his head, he lowered her body to the ground amid the arms and legs of the cannibalized travelers she had lured in for the kill.
Sadness filled him as he wondered if it needed to end like this.
He placed a foot on her face and pulled the spear out. The bent metal of the skull screeched against the makeshift spear, lubricated by the blue gel of the brain.
Such a loss. A monumental waste of life. He was not proud of his actions like the day he had killed the beast, but he was not ashamed either. It was a strange feeling.
Looking at the crushed components, he picked at them, emptying the box into the dust hoping for anything that looked workable. Only a few remained, and those were corroded and ruined. He knew that they were from some other bot, who likely had died asking for mercy and the idea of it left a bitter feeling in his soul. Disappointed, he stood empty handed.
Looking around, he dug through the tools and parts to find anything useful. With some reservation, he kept the cutting tool but wanted none of the other things.
Stringing the cutter along a length of wire, he looped it over his shoulder.
The stringing the wire made him think of the tooth. Had his attacker taken it while he slept? Was it still there?
Opening his abdomen, he fished for it in the darkness of his hollow body. There was no fluid or nutrient. There was nothing. His fingers felt the emptiness, and his heart dropped.
Sighing, he began retracting his hand, and it hooked on the familiar loop of wire pressed flat against the side of his digester. The loop had bent out of the way from all of the movement.
He smiled, lifting it out. The white bone and silver wire were like an old friend. Hanging it around his neck, he realized he would never need to hide it away again.
Turning back, he looked around the small clearing centered on the smoldering fire pit and turned to walk back down the hill from where he had come.
Chapter 16
Spear was satisfied with putting distance between himself and horrible memory of what had just happened that morning. His hand still came up to touch the hole under his jaw, but after most of the day walking, he was still dismayed with the idea he may never speak again.
The smooth flat path had become rocky and overgrown, but the plateau he walked on still followed the river. Occasionally he would stop and stare across the chasm and wonder if he was on the wrong side.
Looking back from where he came, the dark plumes of smoke continued to rise. His absence likely had been noted only for a moment before the Masters quest for clearing the forest renewed.
For a moment he felt the pull to return and beg forgiveness. He imagined the reunion would be followed at best by re-enslavement. Spear looked down and his bent arm. He was defective, and broken, and the Master would not likely be so kind. Even the idea that the Master would, at the very least, clasp another collar around his neck made him turn away from the black smoke.
Exhaustion was starting to set in as he realized he had not put anything in his digester in almost two days. It was dangerous to run this low on energy or water for that matter.
He continued, eyeing the green vegetation on the side of the path, but shirked away from the idea of pulling it and stuffing inside of him. The memory of the gray material still clung to him.
Satisfied to plod on, he listened to the noise the flying animals made, swooping low and occasionally eyed him from their perches on the low hanging branches he passed. They were tiny, smaller than his hand, and he had never seen these kinds of beast attack in groups. The noise was repetitive and consistent. His ears seemed to pick up the differences between the types if he focused.
The path elevated over time, and he began to worry, peering over the edge of the trail to see how far the river was. With each forward movement, the river seemed to dive deeper and deeper, and the trail rose higher and higher. His mind seemed to worry perpetually at the idea he would become trapped by some threat above or below him. Frequently he found himself looking backward or pausing to peer ahead in an attempt to find an invisible
threat he may have missed.
Any effort to descent over the side would not be possible, and he decided that it was only forward or back, as the left side of the trail was becoming far too steep to climb.
He paused mid-afternoon, feeling his body losing strength. His head swam with weak ideas of just laying down and sleeping in the middle of the trail.
Shaking his head, Spear blinked hard and doubled his efforts to focus. The starvation was on him, and the world around him was getting darker. He had to stop. He had to find some form of the nutrient. He wondered if the green around him would suffice.
Spear had only ever known the nutrient cubes, but Three-One’s paranoid story about them being a method of mind control might have been a legitimate possibility, but at least it provided a way to avoid starving to death.
He sat down, letting his arms rest at his sides in the loose black stones. Tall blades of green pushed up around him, almost to his head. A few thicker plants had pushed up through the black gravel. He curled his hands around them, and pulled them up by the roots, inspecting them.
Spear considered that these things once in his digester would affect his mind like before, or worse yet, kill him. He tossed them to the side. There had to be a better way, some place where there might be nutrient. Maybe some supply he missed.
Maybe he had missed something at his attacker’s workshop. Maybe he should have dug harder, looking through her things for what nutrient she may have been using.
Rolling onto his side he felt the world spin, and his body kept turning to balance on all fours. It was evident he was going to die if he didn’t find something soon. Forcing himself to stand, he staggered forward. Each foot was extended, carrying him, then dragging forward only to be placed again.
How far had he come, he wondered?
The last bit of warmth was leaving the air with the sunlight. It pulled back from around him, as though only a borrowed idea. As he plodded on, the light began to die down. The flying beasts were replaced with sharp chirping noises from unknown locations around him. Each time he wandered close, they would stop, only to appear further away.
Stumbling he dropped to a knee, and extended his hands, barely avoiding collapsing on his face against the dark stones and sparse vegetation.
Grasping at the green ribbons, he pulled it up, rolling onto his back; he opened his digester. Looking at the fibrous material in his hands, he hesitated. The green strands fluttered in the breeze.
He twisted them with both hands, breaking the material up, and shoved it inside himself. Grabbing more, Spear tore and packed the lengths inside himself. Anxious desperation filled him with each moment. He gave himself over to the idea that this might bring him some energy.
His arms felt like lead as they pushed the compartment closed. It was stuffed full of the green. It was life itself, he considered, maybe it would sustain him, or kill him in his sleep.
Spear’s vision dimmed as he lay on his back, watching the stars begin to poke through the shaded blue veil above him. He tried to wait to see the moon, but his working eye slid closed. He wondered if they would ever wake again.
Chapter 17
Spear woke for a moment in the night. Dew covered his body, and the aching cold burrowed into him, but he was alive. Evidently, the green matter he had pulled from the earth had not killed him, but he still felt barely alive.
In the sky, he could see a sliver of the moon against a dark sky. It had not been there two nights ago when Spear had needed a guide. Now it seemed to tease him with enough light to see the top of the grass that he was laying in.
Testing his strength, he lifted his arms. They seemed less weighted than before. Not light like they had been, and less than quick, but his energy level seemed to be climbing.
Spear wondered how long he had been laying in the middle of the trail. His mind considered the fact that another would be captor could have come along and captured him again in his weakened state.
This thought spurred him to climb to his feet. The world seemed unsteady as he stood, but he was able to continue moving. Using his metal pole as a crutch, he forged on along the dark path.
The subtle light cast dark shadows in the tall grass covering of his chosen route. Each step forward seemed to take more energy than he wanted to spend.
Occasionally he would stop to reach out the sharp end of the pole and probe the dark shadows on the path. He attempted to squelch the fear that there may be more of the beasts with eyes and teeth hiding among the tall grass.
Eventually, he encountered a large pile of rubble at least as tall as he was. Debris and fallen trees were blocking the path, making any forward motion in the blackness of the night prohibitively dangerous. Opting not to find new ways to kill himself in the dark, he gave into the exhaustion and chose to stop.
Sitting down, Spear leaned against a large cold boulder and listened for the rustle or movement of the forest around him. Soon his eyes closed and indifference to the world around him took hold.
Chapter 18
Spear woke to the distinct sensation of being watched. His hand tensed on his metal spear as he opened his eyes. Sure enough, one of the flying beasts, a black creature half of the size of his head sat perched on a nearby branch. Its long dark mouth tilted to the side as its head assessing him. It stared at Spear with its black glass like eye.
Spear gained his bearings and realized that the beast was more dissatisfied that a meal from a dead animal would not present itself. He flicked his hand in its direction, dismissing it with the quick movement. Curiosity satisfied, the small beast hopped a few feet, cawed at him, then took wing to catch an updraft from the canyon far below.
Spear watched it float on the wind, spiraling upwards into the air before beating its wings to a destination out of sight.
Feeling more alert, Spear opened his abdomen and was satisfied that the material inside had been broken down sufficiently and had indeed accounted for some increase in energy. At least enough to keep him alive.
He had half expected to the anxiety of another color changing vision, or an alteration to his perception strange enough to cause permanent damage.
Still reclined against the rock he reached out for the green carpet of plants around him. His hands clutched the nearest stalks and twisted them before packing each inside his body. Satisfied that he would have enough energy for a bit of travel, he stood to assess his location in the morning light.
The boulder he had been leaning against the entire night was part of a massive rock slide. Looking up the steep face, he could see the trees and greenery had slid down long ago to cover the path. The incline covered the trail and ran over the edge towards the river far below. Spear looked over the edge and realized that there was nowhere to go but forward or where he had already been.
He considered the fact that he was indeed following the river as Three-One had told him, but the mythos of anything resembling a benevolent presence in this wilderness was beginning to wear thin.
Climbing over the rubble, he crested the top to see the path buried underfoot curve to the left following the vertical wall of the canyon. He looked back for a moment from where he had come before, stepping over and down to continue.
Save for the flying beast he had seen after he woke; he did not hear or see any others. Even the river was far out of earshot, and the wind had become almost still. The empty silence was a cold as a companion as the high altitude air.
Stepping quickly, he mused over the fact that the river was his guide, and if he wanted to find its end he would have to continue following it. The distinct lack of direction in his newly free life was appealing yet frightening at the same time.
Spear’s head dipped as he walked, watching each foot forward, mesmerized by the idea he was, with each step traveling further than he ever had. For a while, he wondered if any of the others had ever come this way?
He was so caught up in thoughts about what he would do in his new exiled life, that as Spear rounded the curve, he was surprise
d by the change in the sound of his footsteps. Looking up, a wall of darkness lay before him. A massive cave, at least five times as tall as he was, arced high over the entire trail. The face of it seemed formed from the smoothed graystone he had seen in the ruins of the forest, rather than carved from the rock. Looking at the ground inside, Spear could see that the green carpet of life he had been walking on was unable to grow beyond a few feet of the entrance. Inside the floor was made from more of the pitted graystone, but seemed to be held together better and more uniformly flat.
A strong breeze blew through from somewhere beyond, and if he listened he could hear running water in its depths. Spear looked for a way around, not relishing the idea that going through seemed to be the only option at the moment. A stony cliff presented itself to his left, and an even steeper drop to the river was well beyond what he could ever hope to climb.
The breeze indicated that there was some opening far beyond. Perhaps it was a tunnel rather than a cave. Pacing back and forth at its entrance Spear considered his options. He could return from where he had come or move forward into the darkness. The idea that he might make any movement in the direction of the Master seemed to worry him more than whatever dangers the concealing gloom held.
With little choice, he worked through the problem. He needed fire. The fire produced light, and that is what he needed to guide his way through the unknown.
Looking around, he picked through the dead material on the side of the trail, looking for a solution. He had seen the Master set the trees ablaze, and a few of them burned very well, but when the loose bark burned away, they took forever to go out. It had been a disadvantage when clearing a forest of green life, but in this case, it seemed like it could work in his favor.
Spear touched a nearby tree. It was young and only as thick as his arm. The tree's thin bark was saturated with sticky resin which it secreted this time of year. The pitch stuck to his hands like a weak glue.
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