Chapter 7: Fireless Campfire
In a dried out but deep forest, 6 feet walked in confusion and caution.
" You sure they aren't following us?" Ares remarked.
"It won't be a great problem, they won't find out the place we are going to. But still, we cannot let them know our way." Ethan replied.
"Where are we going?" Ares questioned as he looked back to the place they came from. The fog still covered the place and only a certain distance was visible. They had walked all day. The night was arriving slowly. The walls of the castle had long disappeared in the white fog. And he Didn't feel or notice any other person than Ethan and Luka.
They remained silent.
"We still need to be very careful." Ethan finally spoke, " The spy robot sent on us could be anything, from a large fighting robot, to a random reptile, or a small rodent, or even any insect." he slapped one of the few mosquitos that had been teasing him from dusk. He looked at it. "Luckily, this one was not. But there maybe some in the others. We can't even rule out the trees."
"I can't figure anyway out." Ares felt puzzled, "How are we even gonna get rid of them??"
"I wish I had gunpowder... I would blast the whole forest. No trees, no insects, nothing to trouble us..." Luka wondered with his hands behind his head.
"Have some respect for the nature!" Ethan wanted to raise his voice, but he couldn't with his empty stomach.
'Gunpowder... I know what it means, and I feel a great familiarity to it too.' Ares tried remembering his past again, but to no vain.
"Nature you say? What's left of it? Just a bunch of dried twigs sprouting from the ground. I don't even know if these are alive or dead." Luka said.
They walked for some more time. After a while, Ares found something interesting. It was yet another stick, just like his previous one, but more broad, more straight and more strong. The master of sticks Ares, found himself smiling again.
"We are being followed by dangerous robots and you are smiling on a stick?." Ethan said, " Come on brother, you aren't a kid to play with sticks"
"Am I not? You don't consider a ten year old to be a kid?" Ares complained, while he also denied the statement in his mind, ' Though it's true that I am not.'
" Offcource we don't consider a ten year old to be a kid." Luka wondered and said, " Was it any different in where you come from?"
"Maybe," he thought, "so how is it here?"
" Ten years is enough time to mature. That's what is accepted in the whole world."
Ares: (confused) That's weird...
Ethan: "Maybe not the whole world. So what if.... if you actually came from another world?"
He had a concise idea of Ares's backstory.
Luka interrupted, " Let it be for now. We are here."
The trio stopped on their way. It was an ordinary looking place like the rest of the forest. The only difference was that the path they were moving on was diverging in front of them, and between the paths was a tall black lamppost without any light. They looked around, the stars hanging in the sky were clearly visible by now.
...
In the crowded city of Nuoro,
The lights from the shops, apartments, offices, advertisement boards, street lamps, lit the night time. The crowded city was brimming with robots. They lived just like normal people, went to work, came home in evening, had families and enjoyed their time when free.
Most of the robots were made in human characteristics, they had a face similar to people, hair of different colours, etc. Except for their skin, which was way harder than any person.
They had their own tight clothing trends and even their own accessories. Young robots joined wheels under their feet and raced for fun around a park. Similarly a few others used similar accessories on them for their own reasons.
Restaurants provided with drinks which energised them and reacted so as to give a mouth watering taste. They drove vehicles on the road and walked on the paths.
Between the robots was Ivan, who went in a small apartment, to the 2nd floor and knocked the door. A robot with rusty hands opened the door with a creak. (If the creak was from the door or his old, rusty hands, nobody knows.) His hard skin was scratched in many places, had short white hair, and his vocal cords seem to have damaged as he spoke in a rough tone, "Come in."
As he entered the house, the old robot closed the door and moved slowly.
" You really are persistant. I told you that you have no problem!" he said.
" You are getting your money so just start with the routine checkup already." Ivan went inside a horizontal cylindrical vessel with a transparent glass sliding door. He closed his eyes and the doors shut themselves back again.
The old robot walked to a large and broad monitor. He clicked on the start button on the keyboard below. A series of lazers scanned Ivan inside the vessel. At the same time, the results of the scanning appeared on the large monitor. The old robot started to conduct his checkup as he typed and searched with his rusty hands.
Just in a few seconds, the door opened and a female robot entered. She was wearing white clothes with yellow patterns on it.
" Is that Ivan? Oh, by the way, I got some stuffs which may be useful to you."
She put down the leather bag from her shoulders and opened it to reveal heavy machine parts and complex working tools. She arranged them accordingly and kept them at their respective places for later use.
Meanwhile, Ivan's checkup finished and he sat straight on the cylindrical vessel.
" Hello Sonya. How are you doing?" He greeted her.
Sonya was a clever engineer, who worked under Dmitry, the old robot who is a former researcher from the Alchemists, but now he tends to robots' injuries and faults.
"I've learnt quite a lot till now. So much so I can transfer your brain in your knee without switching you off." She laughed.
" That might be a bit painful." He exclaimed.
"A bit?" She laughed again, "If it was a human, he would shriek to the heavens until he is sealed back up.
"And anyways, from when did you start feeling pain?" she joked without expecting a reply.
" Ahh right, As a robot, I cannot feel pain, that's one better thing."
The print machine printed Ivan's report. Old Dmitry took it and gave it to Ivan.
" Ivan, tell me, what is it that you're hiding from me?" Dmitry asked.
" Me? Oh, nothing at all. I always tell you everything I do at the castle. I'm still just a survellience robot."
" Is that so... Well, I did find something new today, your internal muscle fibres are slowly tearing apart, like a rope thrusted against the walls of a well. Sign of intense physical work. And I still cannot do anything about your mind processor and I guess I can do nothing. That's just the way you were built."
"How much time am I left with?" Ivan's heartbeat tensed up.
Old Dmitry laughed in his rough voice. "Don't worry. It isn't that serious. It won't affect you much, looking at your lifestyle if you are telling me the whole truth. And if something does go wrong, I can always mend those fibres for you. Don't let it jam your mind."
Ivan was relieved. "Thank you." He placed two steel ingots in front of him. The ones he won from the bet.
...
in the dead forest,
" This one fruit tastes good!" Ares exclaimed happily as he ate one after the other, " I had them when i came here, what are they called?"
" It's called a marget." Luka explained, "Kids as well as adults love to eat it. It is seasonal so its arrival is greatly waited by everyone." He took a bite, "It's taste gives me a memento of my childhood." he smiled.
" Can you tell me more about this place, this kingdom, this planet? I'd like to hear the story from Ethan this time." Ares still wanted to know about his origin and guessed he may find something if he belonged to this place.
"I'm not that bad at story telling." Luka argued.
Ethan looked at the surroundings, "I guess I can. We should've had a campfire for such things. So bad we can't get fire somehow. Anyways, to start with, the kingdom you are in is the Bergen Kingdom. A land full of mountains and hills. Then there are 5 more kingdoms- the Swalbard, the Oaxaca, the Rotorua, the Socotova and the Ushuaia Kingdom. All are aligned horizontally above the equator. The equator on the other hand is a wide dessert where not a single living organism can survive. Don't ever dare to go there. Many criminals tried to flee, but its just another punishment to death for them."
"And what is below the equator?"
"It's a dense forest. Because all our evolution, the pollution rose so high we even needed oxygen cylinders for everyday use. I mean, not we, but the people from a thousand years ago. To counter that, the people sacrificed their curiousity for the world and only focused to preserve the planet for the next 400 years. They emptied the southern region from all people and infrastructure, and covered the whole place with natural forests and ecosystems. Then, they left it completely in order to not harm it. Nobody talks about it now, but its the main reason for our survival. Say, do you find this information familiar?"
*Yawn*
" I'm feeling sleepy..." Luka said with dull eyes, "Let's continue the story tomorrow."
"Oh ok, then let's have a person on watch for any danger. We can take turns." Ethan suggested.
And so, for the first shift, Ares stayed awake while the other two slept. He saw the clear sky which today, was filled with a few stars here and there. His thoughts appeared boldly in this silence.
'Do I really not belong to this place?'
WN: Why am I so lazy... I doubt i can even finish half of the story in this life at this rate.