Lost Friends, Chapter Three

Even as Kumiko spoke, those she referred to stepped into the main room together. One was an alien with a white and dark-blue humanlike form, and the other a short schoolboy whose body was shaped exactly like a rubber ball. If, as Kumiko said, they were happy to see The Four Heroes, the emotion was more than reciprocal. Neetra ran to the boy at once and joyously swept his rotund form up in her arms.

“Jeffrey!” she cried. “Oh, you’re alive, Carrie and the others were so worried!”

“Proteus,” Bret grinned, shaking the alien’s hand. “Great to see you! So all three of you guys were in this neighbourhood when Dimension Borg’s robots left you stranded here? Talk about your lousy luck!”

It was only then The Four Heroes noticed that Jeffrey and Proteus, though their spirits were clearly raised to see their old allies, carried a certain sombreness about them too. Kumiko had also started to look sadder than before. Jeffrey spoke.

“Ill fortune indeed, Mr. Stevens, but something more than that had thrown we three together at the time this accursed region became the Circle of Flames,” he said to Bret. “Come, and in the adjoining chamber you shall understand all.”

The Four Heroes and Phoenix parted from the crowds and followed Jeffrey, Proteus and Kumiko through to the bare side-room next door. There they beheld a final pair of their lost friends. It was Noctes and Diem, the last survivors of a distant planet called Luxumbria whose people had apparently existed in duos of light and shadow. Diem was a man-sized silhouette of purest luminescence while his twin Noctes was composed of featureless black, but as our heroes laid eyes on the former their hearts quailed, for they had never seen Diem glow so dimly. He was lying prone on a metal-framed bed while his brother knelt on the floor by his side. Noctes seemed deep in concentration or effort, and his body was somehow even darker than The Four Heroes remembered, so much so that it pained the eyes to look at him for too long.

“Diem was hurt bad in the attack,” Proteus explained. “They were like this when I found them. Kumiko and Jeffrey were fighting close by, so together we managed to get them into this place and out of harm’s way. I stayed with them, but they’ve not budged an inch since then, so neither have I.”

“You stayed with them?” Neetra repeated gently.

“Sure I did,” was the unpretentious reply. “The twins and I go way back, even before we worked for your parents. With that, and jungle world and everything after, there was no way I was leaving their side until this was over one way or another.”

“If Proteus was staying, Jeff and I were too,” Kumiko continued. “So that’s what we did, and once the gas refineries blew we didn’t have much choice anyway. We brought together all the other people we could, and did everything in our power to keep them safe…but none of us had any clue how to help Noctes and Diem.”

“We don’t even know what Noctes is doing,” Proteus said bleakly. “If they could only talk, or somehow communicate to us what it is they need…”

Dylan took out his medical scanner. “I’m onto it,” said he.

A short time later, Dylan emerged from the improvised sick-bay and rejoined his comrades. The expression on his face was not optimistic.

“What have you discovered, Dylan?” asked Joe.

“If there’s an expert on Luxumbrian physiology anywhere in the universe, I’m not it,” Dylan began. “But even I know enough to tell you Diem’s not going to get better. His injuries are too severe, and it’s only a matter of time. For some reason though, Noctes is channelling all his life-force into him in some sort of attempt to delay his death for as long as possible. As to why he’s doing it, I’ve no idea.”

“Maybe he doesn’t realise it’s hopeless?” Kumiko suggested quietly.

“Or perhaps, for we have ever assumed the pair are symbiotically linked, Noctes is striving for his own survival?” Jeffrey added. “It is a fair assumption that if one dies, the other will too. Could some primal instinct of self-preservation be at work here?”

Phoenix shook her head. “Ze Luxumbrians are a very different life-form to ours, but even so, we ’ave evidence zey are more intelligent zan eithair of zose theories would give zem credit for,” said she. “Zere is more to zis, some final piece of ze puzzle zat we are not seeing, but unless Noctes or Diem can give us some sign as to what it is, I cannot tell ’ow we are to know it.”

Dylan sighed.

“Tell me something we can do,” he said plainly to Kumiko and the others. “It looks like we’ll just have to let this thing with the twins run its course and wait to see if they let us in, like Phoenix says. What can The Four Heroes do to help, right now, with the hundred other problems we’re up against?”

“There is one matter that urgently requires The Four Heroes’ assistance, if ever a matter did,” Jeffrey replied in dark tones. “Mekanikron.”

“Once we’d started gathering up survivors, we learned quickly enough that someone else was doing the same,” Proteus explained. “It seems the scientists at Mekanikron died in the invasion, but the robots they were working on didn’t see that as any reason to quit. They took over, and started running things themselves.”

“Same old story,” Dylan declared with a rueful shake of his head. “When will robotics corporations ever learn?”

“Those things, like the one you rescued me from today, capture any human they find and drag them back to the Mekanikron lab,” Kumiko went on. “Sometimes they come here at night in a raiding party – we fight them off, but they get a few people each time. What they do to them in that horrible place, I don’t even like to think about! Why would robots want a powerless, half-starved lot like us?”

“Doctor Mendelssohn told us zat Mekanikron was experimenting on fuelling its creations with ze organic energy,” said Phoenix. “Human life would serve zem as well as anything else for zat purpose.”

“Right,” Dylan continued, “which would explain the second large group of humans I detected. The robots will be keeping them alive because they’re running themselves off their bio-energy, and the more prisoners they have, the more of their own kind they can build and bring to life. That sure sounds to me like the way a war machine would think!”

“We must rescue those innocent victims at once!” cried Joe. Proteus leapt to his feet.

“Now you’re talking! With The Four Heroes on our side, we’ll…whoa,” he groaned, and promptly fell back down again.

“No offence, Proteus, but I’ve seen the amount you need to eat for your shape-changing powers to be at full strength,” said Bret. “On survival rations there’s no way you can be equal to a full-on rumble with those robots, right?”

“I am absolutely ravenous,” Proteus agreed solemnly.

“Neetra, you’re still weakened from that teleportational jump too,” Bret went on. “Stay behind here with Proteus and keep an eye on Noctes and Diem – contact us telepathically if there’s any change in their condition. Kumiko, Jeffrey, you kids want to come along and lend a hand?”

Kumiko grinned fiercely. “Been itching for an old-school robotic butt-kicking with you guys since the day I landed up in the Circle!” said she.

“I most wholeheartedly concur, my dear girl,” Jeffrey pronounced. “To the Mekanikron facility!”

END OF CHAPTER THREE