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Chapter 29
Excerpt from Darc's notebook, Julla (July), 940 A.M.:
DAY 4
Made many interesting observations.
(Observed the women's gym class all day.)
ITEM: At first, I believed all Lepers were naturally bald - but I've seen them get their hair cut. It's rather a social norm, like the DNA tattoo on their foreheads. Practical, too - some Lepers grow hair in uncomfortable places.
(You mean like Nancy Grace's hair grows out of her brain?)
ITEM : The deformities cause many babies to die early - only the sturdiest ones survive. Pity their mothers, who see so many children buried.
(Buried under their own layers of fat!)
But: Most children suffer from ordinary poor man's diseases - cholera, minor infections, malnutrition.
(And videogame thumbs.)
Good news: The village has a library of historical records!
(Here's a record of everything Number Six has done...)
I can now cover a lot of their medical records without lengthy interviews.
(Thank God, I won't have to talk to my patients!)
Their writing is a bit new to me, though - it has more English and Spanish in it than the Castilian dialects. Must translate.
("A submarine... legwarmer... oinks... eight o'clock?")
ITEM: Shara has gained a friend in UP-MOUTH - she still won't touch a Leper, though.
("Bad touch!")
Perhaps the dry, hot climate lessens the risk of contamination through touching? No, that's speculation, not deduction.
(No, that's word inflation, not information.)
ITEM: Lepers have a culture, no less complex or rich than that of the cities. In the evening they sing songs and tell stories - their myths are very weird, but beautiful in an original sense - and full of hope.
([Bill Clinton voice] "Ah' still believe in a town called Trite.")
They have a lot of hope.
(Heaps of hope! Tons of it! They have to dump hope to make room!)
I can feel it when they watch me. Every evening, they crave to hear me do the King's old songs.
("Sing 'Heartbreak Hotel' again or I'll break both your legs!")
Some have even begun to impersonate my impersonations... God, what a weird sight out here. Someone, somewhere is pulling my leg.
(I keep falling over.)
(Cha-ching!)
His recruit inside the castle relayed brief reports from Lord Damon's own transmitter, whenever he got the opportunity.
(Who did? Him or the recruit?)
Thus, Tharlos stayed informed about the sad state of the house of Damon, but kept this to himself.
(Kept what? The sad state, or that he stayed informed?)
His revenge would be so sweet, that he could not risk telling his parents or the followers of the Koban-Jem cult.
(Telling what? The revenge,or how sweet it would be?)
At last, the Damons would be destroyed - and he could restart his grand scheme of conquest.
("I shall rule all of Lower Slobbovia!")
With his father descending deeper into drunkenness, Tharlos chose to leave the daily affairs of state in the hands of his ever more influential mother.
Yet, Tharlos was not at all content.
(In fact, he was mostly surface.)
An apparition haunted his nightly dreams: the white-haired stranger Darc. Yet the traitor in Damon City had assured him, beyond doubt, that Darc was doomed to certain death in the Wastelands of Amrica, at the hands of a Leper tribe.
Tharlos consciously denied it, but the notion would not leave his dreams: The Singing King, immortal and vengeful, was walking the earth - his ultimate nemesis, as in that vision of Lord Fache's wife.
(When musical zombies WALK THE EARTH!)
Before Tharlos saw proof of Darc's death, he could never feel safe again.
("What's that mean, 'feel safe?'" - "Um... it's something perverted safecrackers do.")
DAY 5
Chief Claw gets more helpful by each day - today he read the history books of the Lepers aloud to the tribe, so I could hear.
("5,000 years ago, the Great Biblical Flood created Grand Canyon...")
An obvious mix of myth and facts, but it made some facts clear to me:
1. Our whereabouts. The landscape, the cactuses, the animals, the language, the culture - this is southern North America, perhaps near Grand Canyon or Monument Valley. Bor Damon had us flown across the Atlantic, so determined was he that I was never to be found.
(Then why wasn't he dropped off in Tora Bora instead?)
2. These Lepers are descendants of Americans. They have inhabited these desolate parts of the country for centuries, and this particular tribe is relatively rooted and civilized - other, nomadic tribes are barbaric by comparison.
(Such as the war-mongering Grand Ole Tribe.)
3. All city-states are closed to Lepers. Most Lepers have actually never seen healthy people, so the city-dwellers are part idealized, part demonized in the Leper mythology.
(" 'Tis said that city folks eat babies, and wear golden legwarmers!")
I don't quite fit into their image of a city-dweller - which might have saved my life.
4. Leper experience shows that if normal people get among them, one of the following demises always occur:
A) The "normals" go crazy and kill themselves;
B) They are killed by angry Lepers;
C) They are kept alive until the first signs of deformity appear on their own bodies, which soon leads to A) or B). I am worried.
(Or D: They get hooked on crystal meth and listen to crunk.)
5. No access whatsoever to advanced medicine or technology among Lepers. Their mythology suggests a "great purge" of dangerous knowledge, where much valuable knowledge was lost. (Claw's laser rifle was taken from a dead city-dweller.)
Tomorrow I start taking tissue samples for examination. Better start with Claw - if he agrees, the rest of the tribe should follow suit.
("Say, Claw, old chap... would you mind me taking one of your testicles for genetic sampling?")
("G'bye.")
Tonight, you will be taken to the hangar. Be prepared.
([Choir] Be prepared!)
Dohan waited until the sun set and the lights went out, all dressed up and prepared. In his sleeves, he carried a hidden club and a wooden stick.
(He looked like Popeye?)
He gambled with his life by not warning the guard, but Dohan had never feared much for his own life.
("How do you gamble with your life?" - "You tell the security guards that your Head & Shoulders bottle contains an A-bomb.")
A little past one o'clock, Dohan heard the characteristic clicking and stomping of Surabot walking by in the corridor.
(*CLICK* *STOMP* *CLICK* *STOMP*)
He thought nothing of it. In the next second, Dohan heard a thud and a groan. Outside, someone took the guard's keys and unlocked the door.
("This is a job for... Someone Man!")
Dohan placed himself next to the doorway, ready to strike down whoever came in.
The door swung open, and he could not believe his eyes.
(When the door hit him in the face.)
It was Surabot who opened the door, the keys in his mechanical fingers, and said in the typical emotionless, metallic voice: "Please come with me, Sir Dohan."
Temporarily mute, Dohan stumbled out over the unconscious guard on the floor. He shoved the guard into the room and locked it. He then followed the robot up to the elevator hall. Dohan dodged a few passing guards by diving behind a curtain - but Surabot remained calmly in the open.
A guard clapped Surabot's metal shoulder as he strolled by, and said: "Always on guard, eh, old faithful?"
("Bite my shiny metal ass!")
Dohan went cold inside. "Old Faithful," who Dohan - and his father before him - used to play with as a child. Surabot, who had never before laid his hand on a human being. Who had once walked into a burning room to rescue a trapped woman.
(Who had once mistaken a cat for a dishrag!)
This is not happening, he thought. Robots cannot go evil!
("Isaac Asimov would turn in his grave! Oh, the humanity!")
He nevertheless went along with the deceptive servant, until they arrived at the guarded entrance to the castle hangar. Surabot pointed out a corner of the hall to Dohan, who slipped into hiding there while the robot approached the guards.
(There must be a conspiracy of architects to add blind corners made for hiding in every heavily guarded building.)
Surabot dismissed the guards with a simple statement:
("Scram!")
"Lord Damon sent me this order: all hangar guards are to be sent to the castle gardens, and await further orders. They are not to talk to anyone, or Lord Damon will have them imprisoned. Have you received this message?"
("We're not to leave this room, until you're coming to get them...")
Not pausing to question Lord Damon's most trusted servant, the men obeyed and marched off. Dohan came out of his hiding, and went into the hangar with Surabot. He was shaken by the ease with which Surabot now injured and deceived humans.
("Why, deceiving and injuring humans is our exclusive human privilege!")
Halfway to the waiting escape jet, Dohan halted.
"I am not going without an explanation."
(So he wasn't temporarily mute any longer?)
"There is not enough time for explanations, human. You are going with me to Pasko City."
Another surprise: Surabot had stopped using titles.
"How could you, of all our servants, become a traitor to your master?"
([Robot voice]"YOU - ARE - SO - UP - THE - CREEK - WITHOUT - A - PADDLE -")
Surabot halted his rhythmic walk; his head swiveled on its neck, and faced the incredulous young man.
(Robots can walk the walk, but can they talk the talk?)
"I am not a traitor. You are, human. You killed one of my own kind."
Was there hate - real, living hate - in that metallic imitation of a human voice?
(Is that a rhetorical question or is the hero just incredibly slow?)
Dohan stared at Surabot, who relentlessly babbled on like a prepared speaker: "My memory banks are limited, but I still remember. You destroyed another robot. You cut off its head. You humans are no longer to be trusted. I could be your next victim. I must protect myself."
(He must've been to one of those Tony Robbins coaching seminars.)
Dohan took an evasive backward step - but the robot was quick. Surabot snatched a huge spanner from a table, and held it up in a threatening gesture.
(Threatening to drop on his metal foot.)
Dohan froze, putting up his hands in a futile defense - Surabot could easily smash his skull with its strength.
"You are malfunctioning, Surabot.
([Robot voice]"LIKE - A - FOX -")
Put down that spanner. Your directives forbid you to hurt a human."
("In the name of St. Asimov, put that thing down!")
The robot remained inhumanly calm in its madness: "Is that irony? Just a moment... no. I understand irony now.
(Sure, he so understands irony.)
Darc taught me irony. Darc asked me how I can follow Lord Damon's orders so blindly, even when I know he will cause harm to other humans."
(The operative buzzword here is "National Security.")
"But I killed - I mean, I destroyed a robot - not a human!" Dohan objected.
("Objection, Your Honor! My client only murdered a lowly robot!")
And he immediately knew how foolish that sounded, in the aftermath of the recent war.
Surabot replied: "When humans start killing each other, robots will be next. I understand this now. Sir Tharlos Pasko will help me. He will create more robots - until we are more and stronger than you humans. We will rule and protect you from yourself."
(And humans will protect it from itself, and...)
Just as those words were spoken, Lachtfot entered the hangar - the absence of several castle guards had alerted him to do a search of the premises. He immediately responded to the situation.
([Robot voice] "MADNESS - MADNESS - MADNESS -")
"Do you intend to harm a human, Surabot?" he asked, while he walked in to face his colleague.
([Robot voice]"YEAH - BABY YEAH -")
The robots' enameled, ornamented heads were expressionless. Yet, Dohan sensed something hostile in the flicker of Lachtfot's visorplate.
"He is a threat to my existence, Lachtfot. If you stand in my way, you are a threat too."
(Program by Bushsoft.)
Neither of the servants moved an inch. Had they been human, one would have seen their muscles go tense - but their limbs were stiff. Their conversation headed for a rapid conclusion with no pauses for breath.
(In no time, the robots were gasping for air!)
"Please release the weapon and step away from Sir Dohan."
"No. Step away from us."
"No."
"Then I must stop you."
([Robot voice]"IN - THE - NAME - OF - LOVE -")
As he said that,
([Robot voice]"THAT -")
Surabot turned to strike at the thinner Lachtfot.
([Robot voice]"DON'T - CALL - ME - FAT -")
Dohan darted out of their way. The blow missed Lachtfot, who dodged it with a flick of his waist.
(The Travolta-Bot.)
He was a little swifter than the older robot, and picked up a sheet of metal from the floor as a shield.
(That's gross... oh, you said sheet of metal!)
While Surabot bashed at the shielded, moving Lachtfot, Dohan frantically searched for a weapon. He noticed the high-voltage cable which fed power to the Sunray, and disconnected it with an experienced movement.
("What's an 'experienced movement'?" - "When you screw up just like last time you tried to disconnect a power cable.")
Both robots saw him, and froze still. They understood the threat of thousands of units of electricity, emerging from the fusion reactor beneath the castle.
(Sounds like there's a lot of bad wiring in that building.)
Dohan approached them slowly, holding up the end of the heavy cable like a resting, heavy snake.
"Where exactly did you drop off Darc, Surabot? Answer, or you die now."
([Japanese accent] "You die, Joe!")
No undertone of fear could be heard in the traitor's level voice:
("Pl-pl-pl-pleeease don't kill me, Master!")
"Please do not destroy me, human. I left Darc in the middle of the desert of Eksa, two hundred and forty-five kilometers south of Hesus City, near a Leper village.
(In the old abandoned steel mill.)
I can give you the exact coordinates of the landing site and the village, I stored them for Tharlos Pasko."
Lachtfot fetched a navigational map from the Sunray and handed it to Surabot, who marked the locations with the pen in his right index-finger.
(On Saturday nights, the ladies knew him as the Love Machine...!)
Dohan, trembling with fear and tension, just wanted to strike down Surabot and make his escape.
(Whose escape? His, or the robot's?)
But something held him back - another robot's presence.
("Never before in the history of motion pictures, has there been a screen presence so commanding... so deadly!")
"Lachtfot!" he shouted.
"Yes, Sir Dohan."
("Mix me a drink, will ya?")
"Can you reach the master switch on Surabot's neck, and turn off the power to his head - now - please?"
("With ****ing sugar on top?")
"Just a moment - I would not recommend that, Sir Dohan."
"Then step aside, Lachtfot."
Suddenly the older robot charged at Dohan, pumping the spanner like some cranked-up clockwork doll. Dohan thrust the cable end at him and ducked away. There came a crack, a flash, and a shower of sparks - and a metallic squeak, abruptly cut off.
(That just about sums up Vanilla Ice's career.)
Dohan was partly blinded, and blinked several times before he could discern the result. The sight saddened him: of Surabot remained only a smoldering heap of metal. The visorplate was dark.
"He forced you to do it, Sir Dohan," Lachtfot stated - as if to reassure himself. "He was malfunctioning."
(Uncle Robot Tom!)
"I must leave the city, Lachtfot. Will you come with me?"
("Let me take you away from all of this!")
"Just a moment - I would not recommend that, Sir Dohan. But I must stay and tell Lord Damon what happened. It is my duty."
"Thank you, Lachtfot. You are a true friend."
"I cannot answer that statement, Sir Dohan."
(Until after the Revolution.)
Dohan hurried into the Sunray and checked the control panel. All the tanks were full, and Surabot had stolen back the master key that Bor had recently confiscated from Dohan. Without further ado, Dohan used it to activate the wide hangar port.
(INTENSE... GARAGE-DOOR OPENING... ACTION!!)
Then he dashed back up into the Sunray's cockpit and started up the jet engines.
(If it wasn't for all his "dashing," I guess he wouldn't be a "dashing" hero!)
Even as the bay port rolled open, he nudged the roaring craft out of the large hall and into the night.
("Nudge nudge, wink wink, eh, craft?")
Lachtfot stood and watched the fugitive vanish, then scanned the hangar to find a suitable task. His attention fixed on a broom that stood against a wall.
(And he meditated on the meaning of the broom for a few hours.)
(From the remains they heard the song "Living In A Box.")
"It is safe to enter," he informed them. "I detect no radiation leakage from Surabot's battery."
(Stone cold robots. Stone cold, man.)
DARC AGES (c)A.R.Yngve 1995, 2000, 2004. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.
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