The waking was unceremonious – I felt the cool metal beneath my back.
I’m… alive?..
I remembered exactly how my chase with the iron monster ended – but it took off my foot! Surely, I would have bled out at this point?
By the way… that probably wasn’t a very smart maneuver, huh? Even if I got away from that that I would have died anyway.
…Oh, well. It was the only decision at the time. Stupid to regret it now, isn’t it? Considering that I survived.
By the way – how did I survive?
I tried to move - in vain. My arms and legs were pinned to the freezing surface beneath me with what felt like manacles…
Wait… my legs?!?
My brain hurriedly sends the neuron command to my right foot toes to wriggle – and they did!
Only… they felt kind of weird…
I tried to open my eyes, but eyelids only budged on my third attempt.
Bright light assaulted my pupils and forced me to screw up my eyes.
Wasn’t the whole place incredibly dark?
The second time I opened my eyes was painful too, but at least this time they managed to stay open, and I managed to look around.
I was in a glass tube. And my arms were certainly in manacles – but hey, at least they were white this time!
I was getting tired of black…
My hands were pinned on the level of my head, and shackles hugged my wrists extremely tight, leaving no room for movement.
I couldn’t see my feet, though, no matter how I craned my neck. But they were certainly there!
Okay, what’s around me?
The room, in the center of which my capsule stood, was spacious and subscribed to the same principles as the rest of this place – gigantism, and minimalism.
The ceiling was high, and the walls far apart. The circular hatch was just right before, on the other side of the room.
What set this room apart from the one I… “spawned” at, were the wires, coming out of my capsule onto the walls.
Oh and spider bots the size of beach balls, resting in their respective deepening on the either side of the door.
Wait, what was that last part?
The spheres were completely white, save for the dull blue of the huge eye-lens in the center of their torso, their obvious legs folded into the body of the robot.
The lens lighted up with bright blue. The robot stood up on its thick but long and three jointed legs. It rapidly descended from the deepening to the floor, and hastily approached me, its clutches travelling the floor with the exact sound you would expect from a robot spider.
I tried to break free from my bindings, but quickly gave up that idea. There was no breaking free, and I would only waste my energy, that I could later spend on running.
As the spider bot came ever closer to my tube, my heart rate kept increasing, the sweat on my brow kept pouring down my eyes, and my whole body was slightly shaking with the surge of adrenalin.
The robot came up to my capsule, pressed one of its clutches to glass. Strange glyphs and runes appeared on the glass, surrounding the critters paw.
Wait… is that interface?
The spider moved it claw and pressed on one of the glyphs.
My manacles slid open.
It moved it claw again.
The glass wall surrounding me did, too, slid open.
We stared at each other for a few seconds.
”Uh… thank you---“
“Master!!! You’re awake!!!” the robot responded in an utterly jubilant, but sexless, voice and bounced on the spot.
“M-master?” I was little put off by a loud celebration of my return to consciousness… but at least this one looked friendly? That’s a huge improvement from the last time.
“Yes!!! Oh, you don’t know!” its glee was cut short, and for a moment it looked distraught (if a spider bot is truly capable of such a thing), but it came back to the previous ecstatic mood immediately after. “Well, nevermind that! I’ll explain everything later! First of – how do you feel?”
“I…” I was at a loss words – I mean, it’s not everyday that you talk to a seemingly sapient robot, is it?
Then again… it’s not everyday that you get transported from your doorstep to god-knows-where, is it?
“I… Look,” I took a step outside of my temporary containment “I have no idea what’s going on and---“the ting of metal on metal.
I blinked and frowned.
“Oh, riiight…” the spider took a few embarrassed steps back, and its voice sounded nervous. “Ummm… master, what’s you stance on prosthetics?” the question ringed in my suddenly empty mind.
I looked down.
My right leg, just below my knee, was no longer flesh.
It was white and black metal.
I crouched and touched the corrugated surface of my new foot. It reminded me somewhat of a Winter’s Soldier hand, just… you know, black and white instead of silvery, and also a leg, instead of an arm.
The metal was smooth and, surprisingly, not cold. Actually, I’d say its temperature was on par with that of the rest of my body.
What’s more – I felt the touch, and not just with my fingers. The metal felt my caress, and send according signal up my nervous system. It did fell different. Not muted, my sense of touch was the same, just… it felt different. Not sure how to describe…
I stared at my new appendage.
“Well… Beats being a cripple,” my brain wondered for a moment, what it meant for my sanity if I was willing to accept the loss of my limb so easily, but I forcefully shut down that train of thought. Now is not the time.
“Oh!” the little robot perked up. “Do you like it?” the blue eye shone with extreme attention, never leaving my face, it body slightly bouncing with anticipation.
Huh, weird how much a robot body gives of so many emotions.
“Yes,” I stood up and dared to smile at the little guy. It was so desperate to please. “I think it’s rather cool, actually.”
The spider jumped up and down, babbling something unintelligible, but obviously happy.
…Huh. Well, that’s a stark contrast from the first one, isn’t it?
“Okay, okay – yes, thank you” the robot noticed me waving and calmed down. It almost stood at attention. “Thank you. Could you please explain what’s going on?”
“Of course!” it beamed. “Or, well, only slightly…” the bot drooped.
“Right…” awkward silence reigned in the room for an uncomfortable ten seconds…
“Could you, well, tell me what you do know?”
“O-oh! Right! Okay, sure!” the spider straightened itself, and turned to the door. “Master, please follow me.” The hatch slid open by itself, when it…
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Okay, that’s too rude, even in thought!
“Hey! What is your name?” I hurried after the robot.
It stopped for a moment, and then moved on.
“It’s Absoli, master.”
“Huh… Nice to meet you, Absoli.” brain helpfully pointed out that I was talking to a robot, that was fully self aware and had a name.
If I ever come back home, I’m going to write a book about it.
Absoli lead me down the corridor, the one that looked almost identical to that one in which I almost died, the only difference was the steady illumination of it. A nice change.
“So… Absoli… where am I?” looking around, perhaps there was another difference between this hallway and the last one – this one was very clean, and was actually pretty warm… I moved the hands over my torso and sighed, relieved – the hoodie was still on me.
“Oh! If the data I have received from your memory is correct then…”
“Wait-wait-wait!” I stopped in my tracks. The Absoli turned to me “From my memory?! You… you are capable of reading people’s memory?!?”
“Well, yes” the spider innocently replied. “Though it requires certain equipment, it is quite simple once you get past that hurdle!”
“Certain… equipment…” I genuinely tried to stifle my anger, at the thoughts of someone rummaging in my memory.
“Yes! Though I have not much of it left, but what I do have lets---“
“Absoli.” The sphere immediately went still and silent. It squirmed, trying to look smaller. My eyes burned for some reason. “You will not read my memory again without my permission, if we are to stay on good terms. Understood?” the cold in my voice rivaled that of the metal beneath my feet.
“Y-yes, master!” they managed to squeak out.
“And you will not talk about… private information, which you received from my memory, yes?” my silky tone hid barbed wire beneath it.
“Yes, master! No private information! I promise!”
They looked genuine enough…
I breathed out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
Damn! While it was very rude of him, the little guy didn’t deserve that tone!
“Look, Absoli… I’m not mad at you, not really…”
“You… aren’t?” the sphere slightly reared itself.
“No, just…” I wiped my face with my hand. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”
“Okay!” Absoli happily repeated after me.
“So… lead the way,” I waved my hand in a general direction of where they led me a minute ago.
“Right!” the robot scuttled on.
“So… where am I exactly?”
“I’m not quite sure where we are exactly,” Absoli embarrassingly admitted. “My space-navigation sensors mostly went offline a… “They paused. “…very long time ago, but I do have archived logs on my last known position in the universe!”
“Right… so I’m not on Earth then?” I wasn’t really hoping on that one since I got here, but it won’t hurt… too much just to make sure.
“I’m sorry master, but you are very far away from home!” I did hear regret in Absoli’s voice.
“Very well… how far away am I?”
I was not prepared for the answer.
“About fifty thousand light years”
+++
“Where are we going?” it has been quite some time since Absoli and I left that room with a glass capsule, and we have been making seemingly random turns in this… maze of black metal.
Sometimes other spider bots would come and go around us, once I saw a sphere cleaning the wall with a sponge… or something that looked like sponge.
“The commands centre… as much as it has a right to that name anymore…” quietly answered my newfound… friend?
I suppose.
My mind was still trying its best to grasp the distance between me and my home.
Fifty thousand… Holy shit.
The deep, primordial terror of that thought, however, was a bit overshadowed by another one. One of pure childlike excitement and glee.
Holy shit… I’m in space! On an adventure!
Hm, it would seem I haven’t lost all my innocence. That does inspire hope.
We made another turn, and I had to do a double take.
Wow. Well, I mean – I have figured out, that the builders of this place really like things to be big, very big, but this…
This is, perhaps, a bit too much. What is the practical use of this?
The gate was huge. And make no mistake – this was a medieval-like gate in futuristic wrapping.
The gate itself rivaled the height of a 10 story building, forcing me to crane my neck to see where it touched the ceiling.
A long bridge led to that gate, not of metal but of rock as dark as a night, and surrounding the bridge was a great abysm, of which I couldn’t see the bottom.
But the gate itself was made of white iron, trimmed with bright blue light contrasted with abyssal black that surrounded it, as if a beacon of light, in a shining darkness.
It was… magnificent.
“There used to be sculptures,” Absoli added, with great pain in their voice “Sculptures, runes, glyphs and engravings of unparalleled beauty… Oh, how grand it was!”
“What happened?” I absent-mindedly asked, while still taking in the grandeur of this place.
“Time” answered Absoli somberly. “Time and change… Even the greatest of Titans’ works are nothing to the fundamental mechanisms of creation…”
“Titan?”
“Titans. I will explain, master, I promise. Just wait a little longer.”
Several dozen spider spheres were waiting for us at the other side of the bridge, and, as we approached, they began to climb the gate.
Then, they reached specific spots, seemingly at random, on the structure, and glowed with blue.
The iron gate lights up. The lines criss-cross from one sphere to the next, forming an elaborate pattern.
I squinted.
The lines formed some kind of symbol… It looked like a rhombus with a spiral coming out of its center.
A great sound erupted from the gates, and they began to move: slowly, scraping the floor with just enough sound to seem monumental, but not enough to annoy the ear.
Huh… these titans guys really like their theatrics, don’t they?
The great slabs of metal revealed the room behind them, and the light from the gate gradually illuminated it, creating a beautiful effect.
A shame it was undercut by the state of the… commands center.
The commands center was just as huge as everything else here, and just as grandiose, even in its state of disrepair.
The rows of silver seats were missing whole swaths of their furniture, the screens before cracked and, sometimes, missing too. The same emblem that lighted up the gate, the rhombus with spiral in the center, was painted in the floor, but parts of it were scrubbed off with time.
In the center of the room, on the elevated position with stairs leading up to it, was a crystal throne. The chair was huge, its back reaching up to the ceiling, the armrests were as big as half my body, and the mass of the throne would just swallow me, if I ever dared to sit on it.
But that wasn’t the most superb thing about this room. No.
It was the window.
The window, beyond which, stretched the infinite expanse of space.
I walked up to the window, crossing the whole room, which took me a minute, and Absoli did not follow me, perhaps out of courtesy.
I pressed my whole body against the window.
The stars shone in the seemingly unreachable distance: the clouds of nebula formed mysterious shapes.
And oh how many of them were there. The stars – uncountable, the nebulas – without number. They together formed a grander-than-life painting. Painting that scholars back on Earth dreamed of seeing with their own eyes for endless generations – and here I am. Achieving their dream.
The frontier which my civilization craved for a century now, the frontier which only the lucky few had the fortune to see just a little bit closer than the rest of us.
And yet here I am.
I had to take in the gulp of air, since I forgot to breathe, and blink moist to my eyes.
I would remember my first view of space for the rest of my life; I felt it in my very soul.
+++
“Why did you take me here, Absoli?” I had to take a little break after seeing the excellence of the universe for the first time.
You know – collect my thoughts, take in a few lungfuls of air, squash the quickly developing sense of scale?
Yeah, that.
“I will explain why you are here, master, I promised you that” the AI sounded very ceremonious and solemn, it’s body’s eye looking straight into mine. I saw my grey eyes reflect in it. “Master… you are” Absoli raised their two upper… limbs? (do robots have limbs?)” …a demi-titan!”
…
…
…
“…Cool…” I blinked. “And?...”
“DARN IT!” the metallic spider rammed itself headfirst into one of the broken seats that were on the command center. “FUCK! SHIT! HELL!!!” it started tearing into the piece of furniture with its… limbs.
“Uhhh, Absoli? Is something wrong?”
“Oh, nothing, master!” happily replied the AI. “I was just HOPING!!!” it screamed the last word. “That this piece of junk we call “commands center” is still capable of something!..” it was shaking on its spot, in a very human way. “But apparently..!” they didn’t finish and just slumped to the floor in defeat.
“Wow, hey are you okay?” I always cringed at that question being asked in the movies, or books, because the person to whom this question is addressed is obviously not okay.
Well, how the turntables.
I crouched down next to the robot and awkwardly pet its metallic shell. It was smooth.
“I’m sorry master…” the spider sounded and looked completely spent. “ I thought that the command center would… I don’t know… download the knowledge into your brain? This was one of the places to initiate young titans but…” his leg weakly twitched. “It would seem it is beyond repair with my current capabilities… I’m sorry…”
“Why can’t you tell me yourself?” I kept petting the sphere, hoping that it would make it feel better.
“Because…” the voice broke. “Because I don’t know!”
The bot abruptly changed its position and started pacing around me in a circle.
“My databanks are incomplete! I don’t even know whether they were destroyed or wiped!” it stopped for a brief moment. “Though I am, personally, leaning towards destruction theory, since the giant hole in my side couldn’t come from nowhere…”
“Wait, what?”
“But I can’t be certain!” it started pacing again, at twice the speed. “I only have the very basic knowledge: I only know what titans are – in broad terms – and what you are – also in broad terms!”
“Well, let’s start with that” I melancholically shrugged my shoulders.
My feet aren’t hairy, but I’m afraid that the adventure awaits me anyway…
The bot stopped scuttling, and turned to me.
“R-really? I mean – certainly!” they ruffled up. “Alright, let’s start with the Titans…”
“The Titans are… well, they’re gods.”
“The Titans were at the start of all things. They were the first beings to ever exist. They saw the stars spark into existence, the coalescence of galaxies, and the division of universes…”
“Wait! There are multiple universes?”
“Of course! Countless!”
“Uh-huh…” welp, I sure hope the existential crisis will hold itself until after I’m back on Earth.
“Then the Titans…” they stopped, as if to consider. “Well… then they created me, and others like me and… vanished”
“Not too detailed,” I agreed. “What is a demi-titan then?”
“Well… it’s you.”
“Yes, I got that, but are there any specifics?”
“Some,” Absoli sounded exceptionally annoyed at nothing in particular. “The demi-titans are, well… the far removed relatives of Titans. They are their children, for a lack of a better word.”
I frowned with thought.
“But why is my family isn’t full of demi-titans then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Right. What are the demi-titans are capable of?”
“…”
“Uh-huh. Is there any way for me to get back to Earth?”
“Not that I know of…” Absoli uncomfortably fidgeted with his robo-limbs.
“Sure…” I massaged my temples and closed my eyes, trying really hard to stifle the anger and despair slowly mounting in my gut.
I opened my eyes and looked into the robots blue lens.
I had the impression that Absoli gulped, then the sphere took a few steps back.
“How can we find out?” I barely recognized my own voice.
My eyes were burning again.
A bright blue and blood red reflected in the spider’s glass eye.
But it was probably just my imagination.
Probably.