Unfiltered Smoke

by Matthew Payne

Read part 4

They traded sword-blows, blocking and slicing and stabbing. Ruxto made contact, slicing into the tin of the robot’s chest. Then he pulled his sword out with a wrenching sound and started shooting it in the head with his laser. The robot’s head melted and smoked and it stumbled backwards against the black metal of the fan-building, clanking metal on metal as it slumped to the ground. It was so easy that Ruxto wished there were three more.

There was a door in the wall, and Ruxto went to it. There was a handle, and he pulled it open.

On the inside the fan-building was a factory, even though the air tasted extra-fresh and pleasantly cool. Grinding noises were overpowered by an ear-numbing humming-sound. There was also a regular smashing sound, like rocks getting crushed with a giant hammer. Ruxto stood on a red-clay floor and looked up at the black machinery. Giant gears turned slowly, some connected by the ruts in the gears, others by the axles running between them. There were conveyor belts carrying rocks and dirt across the giant room. Far back and up above, Ruxto saw a giant funnel which was dropping rocks onto one conveyor belt into a machine that seemed to be smashing them up into dirt. Even higher, in the center of the room, there was the machine the crushed-dirt was fed into. This machine had a huge compartment, and steam billowed out through a hole in the top. That steam quickly turned small turbines, which were connected to gears that slowly turned the giant fan. The only light was from between those blades, so shadows and visibility were in constant shift, making the factory look more alive than it really was. The fan-blades were half as long as football fields.

Ruxto could see the giant fan all the way up at the top and front of the building. The arms of the fan turned slowly, and giant slots of dying daylight turned around between them.

“It’s converting rocks into air,” Ruxto mumbled.

Because of the density, he assumed it would only take a little bit of rocks to make a lot of air, but it would take a gigantic amount of air to fill a planet.

Where was it getting the rocks? And where was the water he’d been promised? He started wandering around the automated factory, keeping his eyes open for more danger. In the sketchy-moving light and the overpowering noise, it would be easy for someone or something to sneak up on Ruxto and make him restart his mission again.

He wandered between mechanisms that moved, but which he didn’t understand. He didn’t touch anything.

Near the back of the building Ruxto learned how the factory got its rocks and dirt.

There was a small door in the back and Ruxto saw a little yellow robot drive drive in from the desert. It was a simple robot, just a platform on four black wheels with a small bucket on top. The bucket was on hinges and was full of dirt and pebbles and sand. It drove into the building and went over to a hole in the floor (the hole was lined with a metal frame), then it turned its bucket on its hinges and dropped the dirt-load into the hole. Less than a meter away, the dirt emerged from beneath the ground in another bucket which was attached to a conveyor belt. The new bucket dropped the dirt onto another conveyor belt, and the load was on its way to getting converted into air.

The robot drove away but already there was another one coming in with more dirt.

Ruxto spoke to himself. “This is genius. Little worker-robots bringing materials to the factory. But how do they load themselves up with new dirt? They don’t have hands or a shovel.”

Then he realized that there must be another type of robot outside somewhere which filled up these little robots. It was a functioning robot-society, and it wasn’t even built by humans. Thousands of years ago humans built the seed-robots to terraform other planets, but the humans also programmed the seeds to experiment with their own new children-seed-prototypes. This factory was part of a functioning robot-society, working apparently without consciousness in a slightly misguided attempt to benefit the human race. He was amazed. The robots had learned to convert things to their basic atomic structures and then rebuild them into whatever material they wanted (air, water, human flesh). They had learned to make new types of robots which could work independently or as part of a team. They had built a planet-sized game which seemed to be relatively safe against objective dangers… though it was a huge inconvenience and it had unwittingly murdered Ruxto’s ship-mates.

More little robots came in until finally Ruxto grabbed one on its way out. The wheels kept spinning in the air for a while, then they stopped. They must have registered a lack of friction. More amazing programming. Ruxto had always enoyed beautiful creations and the genius of subtleties, but when he came to this universe and discovered computers and technology his mind had stretched in its definitions of creation and building.

There was a blue light at the front of the robot, and Ruxto stared into it. Was this light the robot’s eye? As he looked right into it, he felt awe and wonder, and a silly feeling of companionship and almost affection.

On the back of the robot there was a switch. There were six options for the switch to be turned to: Mining Site One; Mining Site Two; Mining Site Three; Bio-Dome/Animals; Bio-Dome/Shuttle; Mysterious Destination. These must be where the robot was programmed to go, so whichever option was selected was where the robot would go… and Ruxto could follow.

Ruxto set his eyes intently on the one that said, “Bio-Dome/Shuttle.” Would this lead him to escape? Clearly this was part of the game. This must be Unit Twelve’s intended path for a player to win the game. Ruxto switched the toggle over to ¨Bio-Dome/Shuttle,¨ then went to find the water he’d been promised.

He found the water dripping in individual drops from the giant center-machine, where steam billowed from the top to turn the turbines. As steam plumed from the top, condensation dripped down the sides. The ground underneath was wet, but only mildly. This was a naturally dry planet, and water evaporated quickly. He had to sit there for almost an hour, patiently letting drops fall slowly into his empty flask. He sat and meditated, resting while holding the bottle until it was full. In his other hand he still held the robot. And he wondered about the robot´s other toggles… the one that said, ¨Bio-Dome/Animals,¨ and the one that said, ¨Mysterious Destination.¨ Ruxto assumed that ¨Mysterious Destination¨ was some kind of trick to fool unfocused players, since the curiosity was almost too strong for him to resist. But he was even more intrigued by the ¨Bio-Dome/Animals¨ option. Where would that take him? Did Unit Twelve create animals? Ruxto longed to explore the rest of this planet, but that would be foolish in his current situation. He was not in control of his surroundings right now. He was trapped in a game, and he couldn’t afford to see what mysteries these advanced automated robots had created. He had to get off this planet, get a ship that he could control, and get a good supply of weapons and food. Then he would be safe and strong enough to explore interplanetary mysteries. Right now he was nearly powerless.

Crouching low, he followed the robot out of its hatch and into the yellow desert under the dark sky. There were several little robots moving around in the area behind the fan-building. Some were coming into the building, and Ruxto could see many more at varying intervals coming from the desert towards the fan, bringing their dirt-loads. There were also several empty ones driving away, apparently going to the three mines to get more dirt.

Ruxto’s robot took him in a different direction, following its new altered path. It drove much slower than Ruxto’s comfortable walking space, and this tested his patience. As an experiment, he picked it up and jogged for a little while, going in the same direction it had been moving. Then he set it down again and followed for a while. Moving like this, they kept going until the sunlight was all gone and the black fan was a quiet speck in the background, barely visible in the new darkness.

The air got cooler, and Ruxto considered resting for the night. Then he saw a row of steel blades emerge smoothly and silently from the desert a few hundred feet ahead. Sticking up like towers, they started moving towards Ruxto through the dirt, and moving fast.

He pulled out his laser first and shot some of the blades away, then took out his sword. When the wall of blades was close, he sliced through them with his own blade, placing his feet so the blade-stumps went safely between them. He cut them away cleanly, but sent one spinning so that it sliced through his right shoulder. The slice caused no pain right away, but the arm was mostly cut off and it dangled uselessly as blood gushed out. The blades disappeared back into the dirt behind him.

Ruxto fell to his knees, feeling no worry but working to stop the blood from gushing out. The bone was severed and most of the muscle. His arm was useless. He quickly undid some metal straps and took off his left sleeve, then bundled up the cloth and stuck it in his wound, between the arm and the shoulder. Then he took off his right pant-leg and tore it into a long strip. Using his teeth and his left hand, he tied the strip around both shoulders to hold his limp arm in place. At this point, he would almost rather die and be re-cloned than continue without his right arm.

Then he saw something else bad. His little guide-robot had been sliced in half by one of the moving blades.

“I should have put it in my pack,”” he said to himself.

He knew what direction the robot had been heading, and he could just follow that course until he came to the bio-dome. But that seemed risky… what if the robot was eventually going to change direction? That might be part of the game… Ruxto needed the guide-robots. That was obviously how the game was constructed. He wondered if he would have time to go get a new robot and come back before he bled to death.

Ruxto turned around and headed back towards the fan. He wanted to get there while it was still dark, then rest in the darkness of the black building. He took the ruined steel-blades that he had cut down and stuck them up into the dirt, marking the dangerous place for when he returned.

Focusing on the dark and thinking about nothing, he trudged back to the fan with his limp arm dangling. It tingled with barely-feeling at first, but soon went dead.

When he got back to the fan, the hum of the machinery was much too loud for him to get serious rest. He finished severing his right arm and wrapped the wound better. He filled up his flask again, then stole another worker-robot and put it in his pack. Ruxto walked back out into the night air, seeing the stars plus a moon which he hadn’t seen yet on this planet. It was a gray moon, dull in features but radiant in light-reflection.

He did not try to sleep, because he was so tired now that if he slept he was afraid he’d die. He walked slowly, and when the sun came up he ate the rest of his clone-meat, then took the new robot out of his pack and switched it to “Bio-Dome/Shuttle,” then followed it once again out into the desert.

The sun was high but not yet at its peak when Ruxto saw the gleam of yesterday’s blades sticking out of the sand ahead. Actually, he saw the gleam over an hour earlier but it was only now when he was close that he could see their shapes. So he put the robot in his pack again, took a swig of warm flask-water and gripped his laser. There would be no time for the sword, since he only had one hand. He kept walking towards the blades he had left as markers.

Before he got to the severed blades, another row of sharp metal prongs thrust up from the desert sands and began to move fast towards Ruxto. The ones he cut down had been replaced, and he started shooting with his laser. He shot down several of them before they reached him, so Ruxto didn´t have to use his sword. He jumped over the stumps and kept on walking.

Ruxto let the robot lead him again. He could still feel the energy he got from the last of his meat, but he could also feel it waning with his blood-loss. He hoped the Bio-Dome was close, but he still could not see it on the horizon.

Twice more that day Ruxto encountered a wall of blades. The first time he was quick enough to grab the robot and shoot down some blades before they could do any damage. The second time, he shot them down but one of the moving blade-stumps sliced through his left foot. He muttered an insult to Satan and wrapped up the wound. When he saw a glint at the edge of the horizon, he thought it would be more blades. But as he got closer, he thought it might be glass.

As darkness once more took over Ruxto saw that this new glint was from the giant Bio-Dome. His vision was getting blurry and his thoughts were simple, so he was glad the game seemed to be almost at an end. Pain poked at his mind from his foot and his shoulder. As he sat to rest he knew he could make it before sunrise, but he wanted to have the energy to face any obstacles that he might meet there.

The sun rose and Ruxto reached his destination without any of the expected obstacles. “Maybe this is it,” he said to himself. “Maybe the game is over and I won.” But he still kept his eyes peeled for danger.

The bio-dome seemed to be one massive glass-dome, a single-piece half circle that was hundreds of meters high and many kilometers across at the base. From his vantage point on the ground Ruxto could not see inside because the whole bottom of the bio-dome was framed in a bronze belt ten meters high. The glass above him reflected the sunlight and the black moon, refusing to give away its contents.

There was a double-door facing Ruxto as he approached, and a smaller door beside it. The little robot-guide went into the small door, which hissed with an air-lock as it opened. Above the double-door were white letters which read, “Welcome Human Number 1.” This was Ruxto’s greeting as the first person to ever play this planet-wide game.

There was a button on one of the doors, and Ruxto pressed it. Again he heard an air-lock hiss, louder this time, and the doors opened into a small room with more double-doors on the other side. The walls, ceiling and floor were all bronze. Ruxto hesitated before entering the small room, anticipating more debilitating adventures.

At this point his mental faculties were a dim light, barely lit, and it took everything he had just to limp through the door. He was in no shape to fight. He knew he could not out-think anybody or anything right now, and he resigned himself to whatever fate this room held for him. He went in and slumped to the metal floor, feeling cold metal as a refreshing variation from the hot desert. He sucked in cool air and felt instantly revitalized. His right shoulder pounded with pain as his heart began to beat a little stronger.

His dismal faith was rewarded as the opposite door opened, surprising him with an image of trees, foliage, grass and dark soil. He closed his eyes and breathed in the forset-smell. The tree-trunks were tall, and their leaves were all high up out of reach, so the forest was an open area with a shady canopy. He could feel a breeze, certainly artificially created but bearing the sweet smells of plant-life. He didn´t hear insects or animals, and he expected that there were none. Although, he remembered the other options on the little robot-guide, including “Bio-Dome/Animals.”

Still limping but now filled with a new energy, Ruxto stepped onto the soil with his good foot. The door closed behind him and he looked around at the trees. A happy guest in this strange home, he closed his eyes to take in the breeze, and a smile of relief pulled at his face. This was truly beautiful. An artificial forest on a far-off planet, and he was the first to see it. The pain of his broken body was a satisfying juxtapose to this gorgeous place.

He touched the brown bark of a tree. It was rough and rutty. He smelled it, then he bit it and tore off some bark. He chewed on it, not caring whether it was safe or not. He didn’t realize how much he had missed plant-life. What a strange thing, he thought, that plants are so naturally comforting.

Above him he could see the glass ceiling. There was no glare, but the shape of the sun was slightly distorted by the curved glass. He could barely see it through the canopy of leaves.

He walked through the trees, running his hand through green foliage and eating random stems and leaves. There were no thoughts in his head, just peace and relief.

Soon his tiredness came back even stronger and he knew he needed to rest. He lost enough blood that he would probably die, and he didn’t know how he could pilot a ship with only one arm. But maybe if he died then Unit Twelve would re-clone him here.

Either way, he wanted to find the shuttle before he sat to rest. Even more, he wanted to find another computer terminal that would answer more questions for him, or maybe even help him take care of his injuries.

After a couple kilometers he saw something white through the trees. Soon he came to the shuttle, a white arrow pointing upwards. It was trapped inside a glass cylinder which extended all the way up to the top of the dome. It stood on a glass pedestal, and there was a computer terminal beside it. Behind the shuttle-in-glass, there was a small white one-story building with a regular door and a doorknob. Ruxto didn’t even go up to them. When he saw they were there, he allowed himself to collapse on the ground, and he instantly fell asleep.

He woke up on a black slab.

Ruxto stared up at a canopy of green leaves, swaying in the artificial breeze. He took a deep breath. His body felt healthy, and his mind was instantly sharp and revitalized. He considered the many implications of these beautiful trees, and he stared at them with peace and a love of the universe.

His left arm had been replaced, and all his injuries were fixed. After he passed out, Unit Twelve must have fixed him or re-cloned him.

Sitting up on the slab he saw that he was right beside the white building and the glass cylinder. He walked on the soft soil and pulled at the door to the building, but it wouldn’t open. That must be where the machine worked on him.

Ruxto went over to the terminal, looking into the cylinder as he walked. The computer was identical to the one in the cave, and Ruxto spoke to it.

““Is the game over now?” he said. “Did I win?””

The machine printed, “the game is over and you can use the shuttle to leave the planet when you choose. You are also welcome to enjoy this bio-dome or one of the other bio-domes on Pledvi-L-5.”

““You should change the game,” Ruxto said. “Other humans might get really angry if you destroy their bodies and keep them on your planet for hundreds of years. You could offer different difficulty options, or develop a faster cloning system.”

The computer printed, “your input will affect future games. Any new input will also be considered.”

“How much food is in that ship?”” Ruxto said.

The computer told him that the ship could make food and water out of rocks, and it also had a miniature herb-garden and meat-garden.

He kept chatting with the computer, finding out whatever information he could get from it. He knew it wasn’t alive or self-conscious, but somehow it was still a stimulating conversation. The only problem was that all its information was thousands of years old. It didn’t know anything about Araquadigio Anastasio.

The breeze brought a momentary chill to Ruxto’s skin, even under his black suit. This game made him realize how fragile his body was out here in space. Back in Ruxto’s world his human body was stronger and faster than most, and he had an advantage. But if Ruxto was going to find Jimmothy Knack or Araquadigio Anastasio then he would need a body that was strong enough to travel across the vacuum of space, survive on desolate planets, and maybe fight ruthless robots. Unit Twelve on this planet had easily killed his body more than once. There was no way to know how other robot-seeds had evolved, and some of them might be genuinely hostile.

““What kinds of upgrades can you design for my body?”” Ruxto asked.

The machine printed, “that depends on time-constraints. Unit Twelve was built to experiment.”

Ruxto asked it to build him a new clone with strong synthetic bones and high-powered muslces. He also wanted to be able to breathe in space, plus withstand extreme heat and extreme cold, but those were advanced enhancements that he would worry about at a later time.

He said, ““can you also make books? Print me literature on chemistry, biology, genetics, physics, space travel, biotechnology and genetic-manipulation technology. See if you can find anything about complex synthetic genetics.””

Ruxto was only partially dismayed, and not at all surprised, that the machine took another three-thousand years to make his new body. He chose to be dead for the whole time, asking the computer to destroy his body and only wake him up when his new body was ready.

There was strength in this new body, and Ruxto tested it by climbing tall trees and jumping out of them. He didn’t break any bones or even twist an ankle. In this new body he could still feel pain, but it required a lot more damage to really make him suffer.

He took his books into the ship. He also brought some branches and soil, and he collected seeds and fruit and acorns. This was very pleasant and peaceful, and his violent past seemed like a distant memory.

Then he flew away in the space shuttle, going into outer space to find Jimmothy Knack, who would lead him to Araquadigio Anastasio, if either of them were still alive.

The End