Chapter 2
[edited by PN]
Alex falls out of a strange doorway that is floating on top of a pile of parts. There is nothing under his feet when he steps through. He tumbles along the pile until he hits the ground. Alex holds his head trying to comfort the pain. The door closes behind him, and the banging on the other side fades with the portal until both are gone. Alex peers at it as it faded. baffled, he looked around to gain his bearings. The place is littered with piles of old machine parts; some are arms and legs of old robots.
Alex decides to walk around and find out where he is.
[Finding out that he is not where he thought he was?!]
[Journal narrative]
The first time I saw him, he was sitting in a dirty storage house. The whole place was filled with broken parts of machines. The roof of the warehouse was badly damaged, with many large holes in it. Sunlight poured through the holes, striking every piece of dust in the air and leaving sharp edged trails of light. He was sitting backwards on a rotten chair with his hands on his arms, resting on top of the back of the chair. He looked like he was sleeping in the sunlight. His clothes were outdated, dirty, and covered with dust. He looked as if he were asleep. Well, anyone could tell this person had been here for a while. A very long while; in fact, I would not have been surprised to see a skeleton covered by the dust and clothes.
I don't know what made me walk over to him and put my hand on his shoulder, wakening him up gently, as if he were alive. To my surprise, he asked who was there without lifting his face. I answered, and he looked up at me. His face was youthful like a teenager. A beautiful work of old style android; made by engineers who lived ages ago. He straightened up his back and stood up from the chair in a fluent movement. He was taller than I had suspected, as I was looking at him face to face as best as my height allowed.
"I am Andrew, nice to meet you." He held out his right hand. His voice was made to match his looks: the teenager voice, soft and sweet.
"Nice to meet you, too. My name is Alex," I took his hand; it was colder than mine, but soft and comfortable to the touch.
His face animated to a bright smile. His blue eyes filled with happiness and trust. He was too human-like. Even though I knew what he was, I was fighting with myself about it. His eyes seemed to see through me and understand me more than anyone who had lived around me all my life.
"What can I do for you..?"
I was somewhat taken back to reality, for that was a standard response programmed into all android and robots in the old times; a sign of submission and prompting for data input from the owner.
"No, nothing, I was...kinda hoping to find someone who can help me ..." my voice trailed off, looking away from his mesmerizing eyes... well he is only an android...
"I can try to help you." He tilted his head to the side trying to meet my eye.
"What?" I was surprised, staring at him bug-eyed.
"I can try to help you, but could you please help me as well?" He smiled again.
"..Can..?.. Could ..?" I went through all my knowledge of androids in my head. For all I know, androids were just mimics of human beings; they did not provide options like what he just did. "You are an android, right?" I blurted out.
A sad frown showed up on his face. He turned his head. He looked hurt.
"Ah...sorry... I didn't mean... umm... sorry..." I struggled for words.
He looked at me again, surprised, and then the smile came back. "It is alright, you are not the only one who is confused; I too am confused. About what I am and why my creator made me the way that I am." The sadness came back for a short moment, and then in an effort to break away from the sadness, he started talking again, letting go of my hand, "you see, I am lost here. I could not get a GPS signal for my coordinates in this area."
"GPS?.. That stuff is way out of date. I think the last one of them was shot down over 200 years ago." I replied, somewhat surprised.
"Oh? I see, that is strange; I thought the GPS had just got upgraded some months ago." He looked puzzled.
"What? What year did you come from?" I asked as a joke.
"July 25th, 2985 is the last registered date in my system"
"...? in the old calendar, then? Umm.. it is only year 305 of the new world calendar which started on.. umm.. year 3203 of the old calendar.. that makes you.."
"523 years before your current time.." His expression was... very funny .
"~~~ ha haha ~~~ I am sorry, just your face..~~ hahaha" I could not help it, he looked very bewildered and very lively, I was truly surprised that an android could look that way.
"That is very rude." He replied somewhat offended but, I think he understand what I meant, because he too smiled.
"..ha ha sorry.. really.. ha,.." I had not laughed that hard for years, and my stomach hurt. It took me a long time to recover. "I am really sorry, hehe."
"It is ok.." He was very understanding. "What is it that you wanted help with?"
"Oh yea, I need to find my way to Crystal 002." That was the address for Luna's complex.
"Crystal 002?"
"Yea, it should be somewhere south of mine."
" Crystals are a gem stone that people use as decorations..." He said, very lost.
Alex was taken aback just a little before realizing the miscommutation on his part. "Oh, no no, that is not what I am talking about. We call our glass domed complexes 'Crystals'. They were named that because in the old times, when the first complex was built, it looked like a crystal ball from the space station."
"Ah, I see. Your people must have made a lot of improvements over the years."
"Well, some are improvements, others are just a pain." Alex replied.
"Oh, .. Well, if you can give me some kind of coordinate I should be able to find south easy enough."
"Right." Alex opened his portable computer and pulled up the global map that he had tried to make with the old dates he had gathered form different sources. "This is just a mock-up of a possible global map. I can only do so much with the little information I gathered. I think we are here." The globe is covered with little bits of map; some are larger, others are just a dot with coordinate and a name. Andrew touched the input pad on the portable, and an old global map is added to the computer's database. With the two maps Alex is able to get a basic layout of the actual globe and the location of where they are. Alex pointed at a blinking dot on an area that stretched on the southern hemisphere. "That is where we are, I am assuming. Which means Crystal 002 is..umm.." he looked around "that way," pointing toward a wall to the far side. Alex is now feeling very stupid.
[game section, a maze like area with piles of parts and first boss]
[getting lost..]