Code Lightfall and the Robot King (8 page)

13
Fomorian Sea

The Great Disassembly:
T–Minus Twenty-four Hours

Code smashed into the surface of the water like a cannonball, though he was safely cocooned inside the exoskeleton. The rugged machine crumpled and buckled on impact, but it protected Code as he sank rapidly into an underwater chasm in the Fomorian Sea. Up on the surface, the water strider skated over the waves, oblivious.

At this point, Code had lost his enthusiasm for wearing a mechanized power suit. The heavy metal armor was dragging him into the depths of the sea, no matter how hard he tried to swim for the surface. Code rolled over onto his stomach and put his arms out. He looked straight down through the impact-resistant battle visor and saw nothing except the faint clouds of his own breath. The targeting sensors picked out occasional streaks of floating dirt and drew blue circles around them before they passed by. The exoskeleton, which had seemed like so much fun, had now in all likelihood become his coffin.

After everything I've been through, this is how it ends?
thought Code. Somewhere high above, the Robonomicon was waiting at the end of the Beamstalk. All the answers Code needed to free his grandfather were up there, on the other side of a million tons of crushing water. If he could just get his hands on that book, Code thought, he could order Immortalis to slap itself with its own tentacles, set his grandpa free, and be the hero of this entire world.
Why didn't I
think
before I jumped?

As they sank, Peep flashed green lights through the helmet visor and into the murky water. Each burst of light illuminated some new wonder: thick, chain-linked seaweed, a startled metallic puffer fish, and a glowing electric eel. Soon, however, the water grew darker.

Fear crept into Code's belly as he was swallowed deeper into the watery chasm. Peep climbed onto Code's collar and pressed her cool metal face against his cheek. Peering out of the visor, she shivered and glowed a sad blue.

The water faded to black. As the pressure increased, the exoskeleton began to make tortured groaning noises. Code could sense the thousands of tons of water compressing the exoskeleton, about to crush it and flood it. His breathing came out heavy and loud inside the helmet.

Suddenly, the incredible pressure splintered his battle visor and a spiderweb of ominous cracks raced across his vision. Code squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the helmet to shatter and for frigid water and razor-sharp glass to come flooding in.

It didn't happen.

“Peep,” whispered Code. “Any ideas?”

Peep fired a thin beam of light at one of the glowing buttons. The external helmet visor lights snapped on. Outside, Code saw tiny flecks of metal twisting in the black ocean currents. As the helmet lights shimmered against the swirling motes, Code recalled the first time he met Gary—in the sunlight-filled fabrication room. He remembered how Gary had loomed there in the shaft of light, and wondered now how Gary's low chuckle could have ever seemed frightening. He hoped that his friend was okay on the water strider—and not too upset.

Red warning lights blinked silently, cautioning that the suit integrity would be compromised at any second. The inside of the helmet was now completely fogged with Code's breathing. A cold finger of water slipped into one of Code's boots, but the suit automatically sealed the breach. Peep chirped sadly and fluttered her wings against Code's cheeks.

“Sorry, Peep,” whispered Code.

Code squeezed his eyes shut and waited for impending doom. And then, with a jarring thud, he stopped sinking.

Code lay still for a moment, incredulous. Looking around, he stood up unsteadily. He was on some kind of spongy ground. It didn't feel the way he imagined the ocean floor would feel. But who knew—this was Mekhos, where weird was normal and normal didn't exist.

The external helmet lights illuminated an odd gray surface covered by thick slabs of metal riveted together and connected by enormous links of chain. To one side, he saw a majestic crest painted on an armored plate. It was embedded with a series of blinking lights.

And at his feet, Code spotted a gigantic eyeball.

Abruptly, he realized that he was standing on the nose of a whale.

The armor-plated monster was floating with its tail pointed straight down, balancing Code on its nose and peering up at him. A thick crestplate of armor protected the whale's forehead, studded with gleaming lights that began to blink in a complicated pattern. Afraid to move, Code stared at the colorful light show, vivid in the dark waters.

He jumped, startled, when a deep, slow voice came from the speakers inside Code's helmet: “Attention. Stand down. You are in violation of this wake space. Attention …”

The coded light pattern from the armor lights must have been intercepted and translated by the communications computer of his exoskeleton.

“Hello? Are you going to eat me?” Code breathed.

The crestplate burst into a beautiful flurry of light pulses. “It can't be! A human?”

Code waved one gauntleted hand at the huge eyeball. “Hi,” he said. “Please don't eat me.”

“Pardon our surprise. We have not seen a human since we came from Earth, millennia ago.”

“Wait, you've been to Earth?” asked Code.

“Long ago, we were whale. We knew the warm waters of Earth, but men attacked us with wooden spears. We dove, swimming deep into a strange current that passed over a drowned city. The waters led to a
tear
in the ocean. The deep rift, a passageway to here—the Fomorian Sea.”

“You're a whale?” asked Code.

“No. Organic creatures cannot survive these waters. When we arrived, a tiny creature waited near the rift, a deep symbiot. It courted us, and we agreed to join together. This small thing grew with us, around us, and inside us. Over time, it became our armor, our voice, and our survival. We are not whale; we have become a part of Mekhos. We are Lodestar.”

Code whispered the name, trying it out. He decided it was very fitting for a gigantic armored sea creature. “Nice to meet you, Lodestar. I'm Code. Thank you for stopping my fall.”

“You are welcome. But you are still in danger. Even something as small as you is highly visible to our sonar. Ours and Others'.”

“Who do you mean …
Others
?”

“Just outside the deep rift, clouds of nanobiters feed on the trash that flows in from the other world. We cannot leave, but others can come in. The rift has been open for long ages. Monsters from ancient Earth came in long ago and joined with their own symbiots. They drift above us in the warm waters, old and powerful.”

“Dinosaurs …,” whispered Code, suddenly afraid of what could be lurking just out of sight. Peep stalked around the rim of the helmet. She glowed a wary reddish purple color and flexed her wings at the darkness outside.

“We must return you to the deep rift so you can cross back to your world, where it is safe. Prepare, human,” it said.

“You mean, home?”

“If that is how you think of it, yes.”

Code thought about going home. A return to all the old familiar sights and sounds. Somewhere out there, Mr. Mefford was watching the class. Tyler was terrorizing the other kids. Hazel was probably— Code stopped. Hazel was out there, too. She was shy and pretty and maybe, just maybe, wondering where he was. At home, Code could go back to hiding in his room and reading books, return to his imagination. Wasn't it safest to do nothing at all? He would be protected and warm and … alone. Instantly, Code's thoughts returned to Gary.

“Gary must be so worried,” said Code, talking to Peep. She still trundled about the helmet, sending occasional pulses of light through the visor and out to the whale.

“Organics do not belong here,” replied Lodestar. “If you do not return now, know that you will become a part of Mekhos. It will creep into your body until it is a part of your bones and flesh and brain. You will become one of us. And then you may never leave. The rifts are designed to reject mechanicals, to keep the great and dangerous experiment of Mekhos from spreading to Earth.”

“But I've got to save my grandfather. He's John Lightfall, the king. Immortalis has trapped him and is using him to destroy Mekhos.”

“Yes,” flashed Lodestar. “I am sorry, Code. But King John Lightfall has been here much too long. He is no longer human. You cannot save him. The machine, Immortalis, was designed to keep him alive. It has done its job too well.”

“I don't understand,” said Code. “I can still save him; I can still bring him home.”

“If you stop the Great Disassembly and defeat Immortalis, your grandfather will die. He cannot survive without Immortalis. Only by leaving now can you save your grandfather.”

Code was stunned. He could hardly comprehend this devastating news. He felt a surge of anger. Every risk he had taken, every sacrifice he had made—it was all for nothing! This stupid mechanical world had seeped into his grandfather's bones and stolen him away.
Why didn't I choose to do nothing?

Peep chirped sadly, her sorrowful bluish glow reflecting from the inside of the helmet. At that moment, Code knew it was true—his grandfather was lost forever.

But what about the rest of Mekhos? Without Code's help, Gary would perish in the Disassembly along with all the other robots. In his entire life, Code had never met anyone more loyal, more trusting, or more friendly than the huge slaughterbot.

Even though he knew Gary would beg him to go home, Code could not. He didn't care that he couldn't win, or whether it was all for nothing.
I may not be able to save my grandfather
, thought Code,
but I will not let down my best friend!

The problem was how to explain this to Lodestar, an impossibly huge robotic whale.

“I'm sorry, Lodestar,” said Code delicately. “But I can't go home. You may not believe it, but Mekhos needs me. Will you take me to the surface?”

“Impossible. The Other beasts swim the upper waters. Before, you sank too fast for them to notice. But rising takes longer. They will find you and chew your bones. Even in your little seashell you are but a mouthful of food to them.”

Code mustered his courage. “You have an allegiance to humankind. My ancestors built this world. I'm commanding you. Take me to the surface right now … or leave me here.”

Lodestar was silent for a long moment. Then, with a swoop of its great tail, the gargantuan beast pushed away into the deep. Dislodged from the whale's snout, Code tumbled wildly and began to sink once again into the blackness, abandoned.

“No!” pleaded Code as the massive form disappeared. He had gambled and lost. Darkness swallowed Code.

Then, silently, the dark waters below lit up with a soft luminescence. The glowing crestplate of the whale reappeared and pressed roughly into Code's feet. With a few thrusts of its tail, Lodestar accelerated to ramming speed. The plates of its deep armor shone with thousands of beautiful, hypnotic shifting lights. The lights danced off the surface of Code's white exoskeleton as Lodestar heaved upward through the empty blackness.

“Hold on to my armor!” thundered Lodestar. “And don't let go, no matter what happens!”

Code looped one sturdy arm of his exoskeleton through a link of chain and primed the electrocannons on the other arm. Lodestar churned the waters in tremendous strokes and they began a terrifying elevator ride straight up. Soon the water temperature rose—along with the danger of attack. Defensive patterns of light glittered and sparkled around him as Code clung to the great glowing crestplate.

Code thanked goodness that the unknown designers of the exoskeleton had created a machine that could withstand the pressure of the deep ocean
and
a ride on an armored whale. He only hoped that the engineering would stand up to whatever horrors waited in the warm waters above.

Just then, a mossy shape darted in to snatch Code from Lodestar's back. Code flinched away from a long mouth filled with a chaotic explosion of steel teeth. Lodestar began a slow roll to spin Code away from the danger; pulses of electricity burst from Code's arm cannons into the water, shocking the monster's toughened snout and sending the thing fleeing into the darkness.

Just as Code breathed a sigh of relief, Peep twittered in fear. A small, snarling metallic head flashed past his face and clamped its mouthful of jagged teeth onto his cannon arm. The vicious head was attached to a long neck that trailed away into darkness. Code struggled, but was helpless with his cannon arm trapped.

“Lodestar!” shouted Code. Another even bigger shadow loomed out of the darkness. It was Lodestar, smashing its mighty tail into the unseen body of the attacker. Surprised, the creature released Code's arm from its grip, leaving behind dented metal and broken shards of teeth. In the visor, Peep hopped up and down and shot victorious golden lights out into the blue black waters.

But their relief faded when, only seconds later, the long, chain-linked tentacles of a squidlike robot suddenly engulfed Code's entire body. Code fought valiantly to push the mechanical tentacles away, but there were far too many. Then he realized the tentacles weren't attacking.

“A quick snack!” boomed Lodestar, swallowing chunks of metal. “Calamari! Yum!”

Finally, light wavered through the water above. As they surfaced, Lodestar shot a triumphant spray of air from its blowhole. Code stood on the flat slab of back armor, battered but alive. Outside, the Fomorian Sea swelled and dropped. Code opened the back casing of the broken exoskeleton and slid out, cupping Peep in one hand. The smashed-up power suit fell over, splashed into the ocean, and sank. Dark shapes converged on it, deep below.

Standing on unsteady legs, Code gratefully inhaled the clean, salty air. Peep perched lightly on Code's shoulder. The setting sun glinted from her insectile wings and the sea breeze blew Code's sweaty hair over his forehead. They were safe at last.