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1: The meetings

“And so the body and mind of Ixial-faz

Shall protect you,

Shall feed you,

And shall guide you,

For it is its destiny to guard us,

Until the storm is over.”

-Fragment of an old book found in the archives

There was no storm, there had never been any storm for what we know, none at least since I had use of reason, none written down either, though I couldn’t say people stopped to write much these days, not people like us anyway, but who knows what the ones in the upper floors could be aware of. The archives were a lonely place, dark and cold, very poorly taken care of by one hell of a glitchy bot, nevertheless he, or it, I don’t really know if those things have a gender, was the only soul you could see there apart from me, well, I was the only soul, he surely doesn’t have one. This fact had always disturbed me, the upper ones let us full access to this potential source of knowledge, and no one even cared to take a look, it seemed like if it had been a place long forgotten, though I had already started to lose hope for this to be such a “potential source of knowledge”, I couldn’t make sense of anything this old, ancient I would dare to say, books had to say.

And so I closed the book with a fell swoop, and the dust it must have been carrying for decades, or maybe centuries, shot out into my nose making me sneeze. I heard it among the immense silence, the noise of that soulless machine’s neck turning to look at me, always so harsh and bold, demanding to remain in complete silence, like if there was anyone in there but us, always the two of us, him always complaining, me always apologizing, but I was tired, and well… mostly I was bored.

-I demand you to remain in s - I interrupted his deep mechanical voice before he finished his sentence with a rather poor imitation of itself, in my defense that damn thing had a quite inappropriate voice for its purpose, too intimidating for a librarian in my opinion.

-I will not ask you twice boy. Remain silent .Or leave immediately.

I surely didn’t expect him to play along, but that response seemed more threatening than any other I had listened from him before.

-C’mon droid, its just the two of us, its always been for the last few weeks, cool down on that programming of yours, I’m sure you are bored, at least I am- I couldn’t believe it, this was the first time he had let me say more than three words without “demanding my silence”.

-You are right. I AM bored, and tired, of YOU. I will call security to restrict your presence to this facility.

-Yeah well, good luck with that, but I doubt anyone cares about this place, you have but to look around to realize that.

I got up from the desk I was sitting in and approached the droid despite its useless threats, after all he was but and old droid, which did seem to need a deep reprogramming and some repairs. This model I had seen nowhere else but in him, obsolete, out of the market, at least that was my theory, He seemed much more of a civilian kind of droid than an army one. It seemed mostly broken on its down side, it moved thanks to a pair of little wheels which seemed to have been put at the bottom of its body as a last resource, its arms were really flexible made of something similar to rubber, and I had seen it before reducing and expanding their length provably to be able to reach the upper books on the shelves, but what had attracted my attention the most was its head, with the form of a long single-eyed oval, though more than an eye it was a lighty hole where its voice also seemed to come from, overall quite a disturbing model.

I sit in front of him, while observing its rather careless looks, if it is there was any way of interpreting the looks of a robot. Its movements had seem to change from threatening me to not giving a shit in a matter of seconds, and so I thought it was my opportunity to get some first had information.

-Since when have you been taking care of these archives?- a long silence followed, and the robot started to act like if I had never been there, it went to the shelves, then came back to its desk, while kept standing there feeling like a fool waiting for an answer I already knew he wasn’t about to give me, and so I got up- Stupid cable box...

Again, the immense silence, rather than a silence it seemed like some kind of… magic? No, more like a feeling, a dark and cold feeling that stupid droid transmitted me every time it was quiet, what was most of the time, and only it could interrupt it, the sound of my feet hitting on the floor as I walked felt like an echo from some distant scene, and the cold got bigger and bigger. I felt fear, where I never expected to, from what I never expected to, and so I turned my head around, to see it staring at me, with its wheels stuck into the ground, and suddenly the cold started to dissipate and eventually became warm, I was about to say something, anything, when that deep mechanical voice now interrupted me.

-Have a nice. Evening.

****

After weeks of research through old letters, ancient manuscripts and dusty plans which had resulted fruitless, the old man felt forced to leave the comfort zone of his refuge and head to one of the many lower markets, wrapped in his dark dingy worn habit and crankier than usual “I hoped it didn’t had to come to this” the man thought, though by “this” he meant having to rely on other people in order to learn the answers he sought, having to rely on strangers… Overall people wasn’t known for being especially nice and charming in this levels, in fact it was quite the opposite, this was a fame shared by everyplace on the underground floors but the xxxxx plaza market was one of those places people don’t advise you to go but advice you not to go instead.

He didn’t care about that at least, he’d have gone with the same pestering there than to the highest floor of the tower, well not really, he much rathered being among the shadows of the undergrounds than up there surrounded by that fat-cat people, the undergrounds felt safer to him, and in fact they were.

The “elevator”, if one was such daring to call it that, started to move slowly, very slowly as sparks flew and a terribly irritating noise warned everyone within five kilometers that it was stopping “So much for going unnoticed” he would have thought, luckily the elevator was jammed with other individuals, and when they got down no one seemed to care.

The market was awfully crowded, so much people for so much space. The place used to be some sort of commemorative plaza, maybe a memorial, to one long forgotten figure, who remained inert as a huge lifeless piece of stone around which the market was organized in several levels, it was vandalized with several graphitized signs, and with strings attached to its head and arms from which hung all sort of flags and sponsors and spred all across the market to reach several poles made of rotten wood coated with metal plates without which the poles would crumble, down in the bottom of the statue, layed several kids who played with dead bugs, using their corpses as some kind of dolls, and some more grown up children who gave to the vice. “Such disgrace” the old man thought as he roamed through the diverse stands looking for something, “Ah, there it is, as deplorable as I had thought”. In front of him some flashing neon letters came and went back and into the darkness of its building facade. The letters weren’t flashy on purpose, when some went dark others came to light in an eternal and rather ugly dance of neon, but he didn’t need to read it to know what that place was, neither was he afraid of walking into that dark place locals seemed to avoid as a void formed around its perimeter, an so he opened the door with a swift move and entered the “Burglar Bawl”

****

I came again the following day, I was afraid after that thing that happened with that stupid droid, he already gave me chills before that, and not the pleasant kind of chills. My mind was divided, that cold, that darkness, that silence, that immense silence… but my curiosity was bigger than any fear I could feel, it always had, since I was a little toddler wandering through all those many places, places where I shouldn’t have been, seeing things… things I shouldn’t have seen, not at that age, nothing had ever been alright for me, but enough, those things are in the past, and I can’t get lost in the past, besides I was talking about something else, yes that droid, that stupid droid, old Rah wouldn’t had sent me there if it was dangerous, would he?

Either way I thought I should watch my steps, better safe than sorry they say, and so I went in as stealthy as I could and poked my head from behind one of the thick mouldy pillars that stretched across the space of the wide and lonely chambers. There it was, as calmed as always, doing its own thing behind its desk, god knows what it was it was doing, I didn’t know what to do then, should I have said something, get sneaky and observe it from the distance? I didn’t know, and I didn’t need to, not when that cold sensation invaded me again and I froze as I saw the light on its head, looking right upon me, and then again as the last time, the cold dissipated, and I came to my knees as if there had been something squeezing my whole body that instantly disappeared.

On my knees I looked up just to see him on its own again, if he really did that, he had let me go, for the second time. I got up carefully and looked at it with doubt, I really didn’t want to try that for a third and I had the feeling that was but a portion of a whole experience of terror that droid, who was starting to look to me more as a demon, could do. But it did not react to my presence anymore, like if I had become invisible. I approached him steady until I was in front of him, stood quiet and looked at him firmly, eventually he looked me back.

-What is that?-I said, my voice sounded emotionless, fearless, but never threatening.- You do that, I know.

Then he got to his own again, but I stood there in front of him, I wasn’t going anywhere else now, not today, and I saw he thought, I could see him thinking, he had no face, no expressions, just a head of metal and light, but a saw him thinking and all ended suddenly with the noise of his neck moving and the light of his face blinding my sight.

-I see respect in you now. Good.

He got up and started walking toward the corridor of shelves without looking back while I remained still, kind of processing what was going on. His wheels stopped on the sudden and his neck made that sound again.

-Are you not coming?

That kind of made came around and so I followed him, who had started to move again right after haven spoken. We walked together while I restricted myself from asking further questions, what was becoming more and more absurdly hard to do, but there was something telling me I shouldn’t, maybe it was just fear, I don’t know, and I don’t think so, the silence was not immense and dark anymore, rather harmonic and complaisant, but if it was my curiosity had started to overwhelm it again and I broke the silence.

-You didn’t answer my question…-I hesitated- …sir?

-No sir. You have a lot to learn. Boy.

I didn’t like when he said me boy for the first time, and I sure didn’t like it now, thoughts came to me of kicking that stupid droid when it interrupted my imaginations.

-No boy then.- He knew it, that it bothered me, like if I had complained to him, He was indeed a mysterious droid , the first days I had it rough to keep up with him.- I saw you earlier, it wasn’t fear. It was a connection. Though I must say- and he turned his face toward me- Fear has proven useful to you.- He needed then no connection or fear to see me, a seed of mistrust was planted on me then, along with a thousand seeds of questions.-As I said you have much to learn.

-But learn what? Where are you even taking me?

I had never pictured the corridor so long even after weeks of visit after visit, in my head it was becoming huge, endless.

-You came with question. Did you not?- I foolishly nodded as if he needed my answer.- I happen to have answers.