Gratitude is something that must be learned. We are not grateful by design and nature makes no mistakes to benefit those who say 'thank you'. There is no natural reason to feel thankful and appreciate what we have. In fact it is avarice that is the root of human ambitions, not contentment or satisfaction. But to such a fact we must question, what is avarice, except a corruption of a more noble and worthy aspect of humanity?
Looking over the ruins of a despoiled world the survivors returned home. They had taken GAIA for granted and now it seemed that it was gone. A battlefield lay in fiery wreckage of the race of giants that were humankind's greatest creation. The architects and caretakers of GAIA lay fallen. It was strange that the symbol of this destruction stood like a great statue, unwilling to move from its final pose. This was the legacy of ruin, a world left in utter abandonment to the last of its kind. The world now mourned and needed no hero. They needed something to look at to remind them of what had happened.
This was Silver Swordsman.
For no good deed goes unpunished after-all. The time and place that was GAIA was at an end as Silver Swordsman stood there. Not as a monument of survival and triumph, but as a reminder of all that was lost and destroyed. Not only what was built, but the luxury of a machine species that did everything for the humans. Treachery and shame became the memory of its people, the empathicals. As the last of its kind and standing there at the edge of battle, frozen in posture, like a statue, Silver Swordsman now symbolized all that had fallen from grace.
Time went on and the world kept turning. The humans rode their sleds and carpets and sedans back to the ruins of their homes all across the tiny earth. They had gathered by the hundreds of thousands in retreat from the rampaging giant robot army and Silver Swordsman had won the day. But victory came at a terrible cost. They went home and the many more survivors that had fled on foot and hid from the destruction returned one by one to the ruins. Days went by and these became greater measurements of time.
Soon there was no food and the humans began to plunder the last storehouses.
The empathicals were the ones to keep and harvest the colossal reptilian birds known as Fowl Ones. The poultry were initially kept in a state of yellow immaturity, never allowed to grow to their full size and kept docile and well fed with recycled protein from a single massive facility called Cryonicle. Fowl Ones were a creation of the empathicals and only the giant robots had the strength and tenacity to be the masters of such creatures. They had reached into space and time to create all of their great wonders and these first beings they had made to feed all of the humans. No matter how lazy and careless the anima of humankind had become, hunger had always existed and driven the emotitronic workforce to tend and harvest the meat of the Fowl Ones.
Hunger had brought the humans to the pens of the Fowl Ones; after so many years had depleted every other food source except the barren crops of the Bloom Fruit fields. Without the giant robots farming, the fields had become fallow. The gates stood in strong iron testimony to the safeguards and precautions of the old caretakers. This place was dangerous. But silent.
"When we first came here we could hear them in there making all sorts of drumming clucks and screeching. We were frightened and left." Kaira told the two men that had come to this place with her.
"You and Sarah and Jake and Desmond?" Ronald asked for clarification. The other three had stayed far behind, unwilling to complete the task of opening the first gate of the creatures inside the aviary.
"Yes. We all came here before, but we were too frightened." Kaira admitted.
"The world is starving. We must see if we can harvest these creatures for food." Cabana reminded the other two.
"What about the silence? We took their recycled protein away for ourselves long ago. That is where the source for the protein-bars came from. We took it away from these things so very long ago. They must be silent because they starved to death." said the very smart Desmond from behind them.
They all turned and saw that Desmond and Sarah had gotten out of the mega-tractor and walked to where the others stood contemplating the massive doors of the facility.
"We will need to find a way to open it. The empathicals used an emotitronic locking mechanism to get in and out. This gate existed so they could enter the aviary and bring out the carcass each day for harvest." Cabana spoke up, also a very intelligent man.
This group were the scouts of an organization that had formed in an effort to distribute what little food remained to a gradually more desperate world. A world which now hungered.
"Can't we just want it to open for us, then?" Ronald looked puzzled.
"It takes a lot of anima and that must be sincere and overwhelming to create such an effect." Kaira explained. She was a scientist that specialized in emotitronics.
"What about the tractor then?" Sarah spoke up and pointed back some quarter of a mile away where Jake sat in the mega-tractor. The huge machine had great strength and was powered by antique fuel in its engine. It wasn't dependent on the mood of its operators to function at full capacity. It was built by humans after the Downfall in order to harvest the Bloom Fruit and had one great arm for picking vegetable-matter off the vine. Before the fields had gone fallow and barren, that is. Without the efforts of the empathicals and their knowledge and powers to reach into time and space, that harvest had eventually failed.
"We must try to use the tractor." Kaira agreed. "We might even get help from the emotitronics in the door's mechanism if we are sincerely attempting to open it."
The group of humans at the aviary began to try to pry open the door with the fingers and arm of the mega-tractor. It gave a little and then they got a grip on it, Jake operating the controls expertly. Finally he had opened it enough that they could walk inside.
"I am staying out here." he told the others.
"Let's take the carbines and torches." Sarah climbed out of the sedan with some lightweight firearms and flashlights. She offered them to her companions, who armed themselves with one of each.
With their equipment ready the expedition of five humans went inside. If they found something in there they could use as a food source, their efforts would be rewarded with their own sense of determination satisfied. Each of them had led the efforts across the world to feed the hungry human race.
The doors inside were already opening, their emotironics activated now that the external door was open. A warning light flashed red and a klaxon blared at them as they opened the final gate into the pen-yards of the aviary. This was because the external door was supposed to be closed before opening internal ones. Instead they had left a path of opened doors all the way inside. The beams of their flashlights cut into the gloom as they entered. The main power was out and there was only light from a great skylight at the very top of the massive enclosure.
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All around were the picked-clean bones and broken skeletons of the dead birds. It seemed that they had grown to full size and killed and eaten each other. That was the idea the humans had as they looked around.
"They are all dead." Desmond assessed.
"We must search for eggs. They may have left eggs up in the roost." Kaira determined.
Then they heard the sound of something moving above them along the roost. It moved stealthily, hunting them. The shadow of the creature darkened the bone-littered grounds they walked on as it suddenly flew overhead and glided into the the darkness between them and the door.
They shone their lights on it and saw different parts of the creature. This wasn't a Fowl One anymore but rather something else. Something that had mutated and bred in the darkness as this unstable species had devoured itself into extinction. But there was one left and its proportions were monstrous.
To Desmond it looked like an archaeopteryx in its general appearance. It was reptilian as much as it was avian and it was incomprehensibly massive. Desmond said what he thought it looked like to the others while they were gripped in terror.
"We have to get out of here!" Kaira said to everyone.
They were trapped inside by the monster bird and it was hunting them. It had long back legs that ended in ferocious claws and its wings folded in front of it and also had huge finger-like claws on them and it walked on all fours with its wings folded as front limbs. It had a plumed tail and a plume of feathers on its scaly head and behind its legs were a spread of feathers so that its legs acted as a second set of wings of some kind. Its head had a set of thick bristly feathers on the sides to support its long neck in flight and guide its aerial acrobatics, allowing the creature to fly in any direction with speed and cunning. On the ground it moved very quickly and its long neck was serpentine in its attacks as it darted for its prey and tried to snap them up in its toothy beak.
The humans fired their carbines at it as they ran from it and Kaira and Ronald and Cabana made it to the door and escaped outside with the creature chasing them. Desmond and Sarah were still trapped inside, having ran deeper into the aviary.
"Close the door, close the door!" Kaira was shouting to Jake. He used the mega-tractor to attempt to close the outer door just as it burst out into the daylight. With a resounding and shrill cry it pierced the stillness of the air as it burst out. It saw the mega-tractor and attacked it. The claws and beak worked it over until it had found Jake at the controls. With a spray of blood and bits of the man, the creature chewed him up and swallowed him. Then it spread its wings and lifted the massive mega-tractor with effort, into the air from the ground. Then, once it had reached a height above the aviary it dropped the vehicle and let it land in a burning heap upon the rocks.
It left the survivors standing there in horrified shock and flew away, searching for more prey.
"It left us here." Cabana said.
"We let it out, that thing is evil and we let it out." Ronald spoke, stammering.
"It just didn't notice us, it is just as excited as we are and it fought the mega-tractor." Kaira tried to rationalize their survival.
"What did Desmond call it? Archaeon?" Cabana named the thing. "Archaeon."
"We must warn the world of this thing. It will start attacking people and eating them." Kaira worried.
They had sleds and a carpet and quickly separated to try and warn people and activate some kind of defense. The sedan sat silently near the entrance to be found later by their lost companions, Desmond and Sarah.
Ronald went to the news bureau and Cabana went to his own project, the Overlords. There were three Overlords already built near major cities and each one had built a series of Robo-Tanks that were intended for defense, in case anything else happened after the attacks on the cities by giant robots. People needed to feel safe and the sight of Silver Swordsman was a kind of loathing and reminder of a time not-so-long-ago when GAIA had ended in a cataclysm.
As Archaeon arrived at the first city it began to lay waste to buildings and attack people as they fled. It ate some more people as it rampaged through the first city it attacked. The news bureau had already sent drones to witness this destruction. The whole world watched in horror as Archaeon continued its attack. When it was done it simply flew away, leaving carnage and columns of smoke and blood everywhere.
Everyone was afraid, not knowing where or when Archaeon would strike next as it soared the skies leaving a terrifying shadow below.
Beneath the great soaring doom casting darkness beneath it, the glimmering being stood in absent vigil. This was Silver Swordsman, asleep as a robot could be, standing exactly where the battle had ended when it had destroyed all the others of its own giant race. The remains of the fallen giants lay scattered all around it forming a blasted and spoiled landscape. A battlefield memorial with the sole survivor as a statue of silver amid all of the carnage.
And here the robot dreamed.
By the still waters the giant empathical sat with its friend, the boy. They skipped the white stones and talked of things that the boy was curious about. In the dreams the robot simply lived in its memory of Raanu.
Raanu was dead now, but the machine kept his memory alive inside of its own mind. Here Unit Three Sixteen would have remained forever, shunned by the rest of the world as a reminder of the betrayal of the machine race. An unwanted relic of GAIA, a time that was gone now, in a world called Ruin after the moment known as the Downfall. The race of giants that had served humankind had become the enemy. Although the other empathicals had called it Apostate and assaulted their comrade, Silver Swordsman was still seen as the enemy and nobody wanted it around. So it just stood there and slept like that.
The sound of battle awoke the sleeping giant.
Robo-Tanks, of the Overlords built by wary humans, were fighting the monstrous creature known as Archaeon. Sleepily and stiffly the robot began to move and then it brought around the mighty blade that was its namesake: Silver Swordsman.
Archaeon was an abomination. A creature evolved rapidly in the darkness and horror of the abandoned aviary that had eaten the rest of its kin. Now it was preying on humans and the Robo-Tanks were trying to fight it. The machines galloped into battle on four legs and their turrets swiveled and they fired their cannons at the monster. The beastly thing let out a nightmarish shriek and squawk and batted its tremendous wingspan. It stood nearly ten times the height of Silver Swordsman and the wind of its beating wings staggered all the machines and Silver Swordsman had to lean upon the wind to stand and could not advance against it.
Then it struck the machine warriors with its beak and with its claws and began to damage and destroy them one by one. Soon it had defeated its attackers leaving only one: Silver Swordsman. Alone the giant robot stood against the monster and then it charged with its blade ready for battle.
Archaeon was much faster and stronger and lashed at Silver Swordsman, toppling it to the ground. Then it brought its claw down upon the robot and drove it into the ground. The nerves of the metallic flesh were searing in pain. Archaeon lifted its enemy skyward straight off of the ground and flew ever higher. Then with a triumphant shriek it dropped the empathical from a dive-bomb and with precision, to the rocks of the Pool of Time.
The white stones were blasted into the air all around and a shockwave rippled across the water from the impact on the shore. Silver Swordsman lay there for a while, stunned by the brutal attack. Archaeon saw that its enemy was not moving and came to peck at it to be sure it had killed the last of its machine adversaries.
Silver Swordsman thought about Raanu and could feel powerful energy from the terror this creature had brought. Instinctively it knew what the humans called it and said the name of the monster as the beak came crashing down to finish it.
"Archaeon!" Silver Swordsman said and rolled away from the attack. It rose to its feet and as the next strike came the sword was there to meet the hardened spike of the beak. A clash rang out and Archaeon recoiled and made another attack and another and then with its claws. Each powerful blow, met by the blade, drove Silver Swordsman backwards into the waters of the Pool Of Time and splashed with the violence wrought.
The humans wanted both of these oppressive symbols to disappear and they all watched the battle with relief. Suddenly both combatants toppled into the thrashed waters. Archaeon struggled as it was pulled into the depths of some other dimension where it would be a prisoner. Silver Swordsman sank with more dignity.
Unit Three Sixteen could see that where it was going, Raanu already was there. The machine looked at the monster as it struggled, sinking into the Pool Of Time. Then it looked back at the reflection beneath the churned waves and saw that Raanu waited.
Then they were both gone and the waters became quite silent and still.