(This will be the last of the teaser chapters I'll be posting for awhile. Hopefully, this will give everyone an idea of the direction I intend to take with this reimagining of the events of the year 2300. Please enjoy and leave some feedback if you have any questions or thoughts.)
Chapter 26 - Legacy of Fire
“The ice is in the cup. Time to get up,” Lucca said.
The eyelids of Mary Limova fluttered open from where she was resting inside the enertron. “Oh? You're done already?” the little girl asked. “That seemed fast.”
“I told you it would take twenty minutes to complete the scan, and that's all it took. Well, technically it took 22 minutes, but I don't think that makes a liar out of me.”
Mary smiled mischievously. “I'd charge you for the extra two minutes, but Marle might stop giving me ice if she found out. It's okay.”
Lucca gave a flourishing bow. “Your generosity knows no bounds. Mary the Munificent. That's how my diary will immortalize you.”
“'Munificent'? I don't know what that word means.”
“Tsk, tsk, Mary,” Lucca said, shaking her finger. “You should study on the computers more. Munificent means very generous. That word goes with your name better. That's why I used it.”
“There's so many different words! I thought I knew every word I'd ever need to know as a Maker, but I guess I really don't.”
“You never know how useful words can be. There are quite a few words I didn't know before I came to Bangor. Since I learned them I've become a lot more useful to the enclave. For you it might actually translate into money.”
“Which I would have to give away if I wanted to keep your name,” Mary countered. “Saving money's better.”
Lucca and Mary both laughed. For Lucca, that levity was worth more than all the credits little Mary could hope to save in this life.
“Okay, well, I think that does it for today,” Lucca said, reaching down to collect the gift, or rather the “payment”, Marle had left behind. She handed the cup of ice water to Mary. “Marle left plenty of ice this time so it wouldn't all melt before you were done. I wish she would give me that much.”
“I still don't know how she does it,” Mary complained with a grimace. “She told me she was using magic, but I think she was just making fun of me. Magic's the stuff of fairy tales.”
“So I hear,” Lucca evaded.
Mary took a long swig from the cup of ice water and closed her eyes with pleasure. Lucca marveled at how the simplest things could be turned into a priceless treasure under the right circumstances.
“Well, I better go,” the youthful Maker said. “Marle always needs new crossbow bolts, and she lost three on her last run. I should make as many as I can before she gets back. Thanks, Lucca!”
Lucca waved goodbye as the youngest resident of the Bangor enclave scampered out of the private room at the back of Dormitory 7, a room that Lucca had converted into her own personal laboratory to carry out the assignment Director Doan had given her. Her heart began beating faster involuntarily when Mary disappeared from sight.
Nineteen days had passed since Lucca had left her cousin's helmet behind in the Shrine of the Protector. Seventeen had passed since Lucca had begun testing her desired focus group of enclave residents for a new set of fitness data, using her own criteria instead of the standard benchmark for annual screenings. And eight had passed since she had started testing everyone again and refining her research further. Mary's was the last scheduled test for the second set of data Lucca needed to make a definitive conclusion on what was causing the continual decline in the health of enertron users, and how badly that decline was accelerating.
Her heart already knew what that last test would show, barring a miracle. Lucca put both hands over her sternum and tried to keep her breathing steady. Keeping her anxiety hidden while speaking to Mary had taken every ounce of self-control she possessed, helped only marginally by the welcome banter and the young Maker's fine spirits.
Please let me be wrong, Lucca thought. By Creation, let me be wrong this time!
Mary Limova and Amelia Evans were twelve years apart in age. That, combined with the fact that Mary had put in much less capsule time over the course of her life on average than Amelia had, gave at least a sliver of hope that the worst case scenario could be averted. An irony, seeing as it was that very age difference that had led Lucca down this dark road to begin with. A single misplaced figure might open a window large enough for...
It was a forlorn hope. The numbers gazed out of Lucca's computer screen coldly.
* * *
It only took one stone.
The scavenging run had been going incredibly well up to this point. Crono's full squad of nine men and three women, one of them Marle, had bagged no less than eighteen rats, sent six bold and unlucky glassers to the great beyond, and collected nearly 70,000 credits-worth of high quality steel scrap, about as much as the squad could carry without encumbering themselves beyond their ability to fight. What had once been called the Geshar District of old Bangor turned out to be every bit as profitable as Director Doan predicted. No scouting parties had been out this far in over twenty years, and it showed in the relative density of the rat population and how much of their collected scrap was obtained without the need for heavy cutters. Easy.
Now everyone was reminded why it wasn't so easy to actually get to Geshar.
“Lights!” Crono cried.
There was no need to contemplate any other action. Once the slightest sound was made in this section of the sewers, nine miles distant from the enclave, there was only one thing that could happen next.
The nereids didn't disappoint. Three of them leaped out of the water far below as soon as the accidentally kicked piece of rubble splashed down. The mutants landed on the upper level next to the party with a single bound and were immediately cut to pieces by plasma fire and a single well placed crossbow bolt thanks to Crono's quick command to go lights on. Four more of the aquatic mutants leaped to the party's level about fifty feet behind them and rushed ahead with ravenous purpose. Marle, Terrance, and Andrews opened up on the creatures as soon as the flashlights spied them, while everyone else smartly spread out on the platform to look for any more enemies attempting to flank their position. Two nereids tried, and were suitably rewarded by lightning-quick strikes from Crono's sword and a couple of expert plasma hits from Menda's rifle. Other squad members began firing into the dark.
“Ugh, I'd rather have my gums scraped than have to fight these fiends!” Menda remarked.
Crono called the fiends “nereids” after the aquatic Mystic tribe of the same name due to their remarkably similar appearance above the waistline. They had smooth scaly bodies of ultramarine hue, webbed hands with five wickedly clawed fingers, and, very unlike a Mystic Nereid, potent muscular legs in place of a tail-fin. The Protectors preferred calling them “A Pain”. Encounters with nereids were always quick and brutal, and rarely without casualties due to their speed and propensity to attack all at once. And, like other mutated creatures in this devastated future, they couldn't be spoken to or at all reasoned with. Their hunger was absolute. The only good thing about facing a mutant nereid was their inability to use the aquatic magic of their now ancient Mystic cousins. No one had seen a true Mystic in centuries.
“Well, at least we didn't get their attention our first time through here,” Crono said. “That would have ended our run right there. We can fall back with a full load instead of going home with a pittance.”
“If we can break through to the Arcs checkpoint without getting swarmed,” Menda said grimly. “We still got about ten blocks to go.”
“These slimy things aren't stopping us here!” Marle called out over her shoulder after she speared another target with her crossbow. “This is the enclave's biggest haul in how many years? We're bringing it back no matter what!”
The Arcs checkpoint, named after a giant apartment building that had collapsed nearby during the Day of Fire, represented the beginning of a sewer passage that scavenging parties never braved anymore due to the seeming throng of mutant fish-people that made this distant part of the sewer their home. It was appropriately called “The Gauntlet”, and it extended about fifteen city blocks under the surface. It was now the only way to get to the Geshar District of old Bangor due to impassable rubble on the surface. Most every attempt to get through The Gauntlet in living memory had either ended in failure and retreat, or outright disaster and death. More than a few priceless plasma weapons had joined their luckless owners at the bottom of the sewer never to be seen again, and the water's considerable depth here made a search and recovery impractical in the extreme even without a slew of nereids to deal with. The loss of so much blood and treasure had convinced Director Doan to label the Arcs checkpoint a “red zone” boundary, much like the lethal radiation fields deep in the wastelands leading towards Quintadis. Nobody passed into a red zone unless they desired a very quick and foolish end to their life.
That had changed with the coming of Crono and Marle to the enclave. The last nineteen days had seen such a dramatic rise in the effectiveness of Protector scavenging runs under the two outsiders that Director Doan had finally performed a review of established scavenging boundaries and authorized an excursion into long-neglected Geshar, under the condition that Crono lead the squad himself. Crono had become a Protector in all but name, and his skillful training of dozens of caste members in the ways of fighting (without ever touching a plasma weapon) had garnered him considerable respect and admiration from everyone. Marle's enthusiastic support of Doan's decision only put an exclamation point on the matter. Everyone had departed the enclave for today's run with high spirits.
Crono wasn't about to let them down, he resolved.
“What Marle said! Group one, go to steel! Group two, cover your zones! Marle and Menda's the center. Just like we practiced. We go Bullseye for as long as we can and switch out as needed. I'll call 'full guns' if things get tense. Let's go!”
Marle and Menda quickly moved to the center of the group during the nereid respite and stood back-to-back, while the other ten members of the squad formed up into two five-pointed stars, with the first star taking a surrounding position from the center while the second star took a slightly wider position outside of the first, each member standing in staggered positions roughly six feet apart from one another. The inner ring pointed their rifles outward in the direction each member was facing, covering the zones in between the members of the outer ring. Crono took his place in the outer ring, and the other four members of his group quickly slung their plasma rifles behind their backs and drew their new swords.
The swords were crude even by the most generous definition of the term, the forged weapons of scrap metal being of a quality well below that of even a middle-ages blade since swordsmithing was a discipline completely unknown to the Makers, but they were good enough in the right circumstances, such as facing unarmored opponents who weren't employing opposing blades. The swords were a necessary component in a formation Crono had developed to address a glaring weakness in the powerful plasma weapons of the enclave. Plasma weapons could either fire multiple light bursts in quick succession with a single pull of the trigger, or they could be set to fire more powerful single shots like what Marle had unwittingly unleashed in her first Protectors trial. In either case, the available energy for the weapon – which basically amounted to its ammunition supply – was very quickly exhausted. The energy would reload, or rather “recharge”, according to Lucca's explanation, over a long period of time, with a component called the “capacitor” taking energy from the weapon's tiny but powerful battery and storing it in a way which could be employed safely by the weapon's user at need. The recharging process was very slow, and the more energy that was expended during a fight, the longer the recharging process would take. In a long drawn-out battle of any intensity, the typical result for a Protector squad was a party that could only fire intermittently or not at all near the end of the engagement. Crono's observation was that squad members often wasted fire putting down the same opponents, which led to less energy being available to deal with later threats and leaving the whole squad defenseless.
“Bullseye” formation was Crono's answer to this problem. The inner of the two rings were the primary attackers, each member using their plasma weapons freely against targets in their assigned zone, while the sword-armed members of the outer ring, standing to the sides and slightly in front of the shooters, covered them from opponents who got too close. The “bullseye” of the formation were the two members who would reinforce the inner ring with layered fire in zones that got too hot, and these positions were reserved for the best marksmen of the squad so as to not risk hitting friendlies. But the real point behind this formation, besides efficiency, was to prevent the squad's plasma weapons from getting too low in charge all at once, so when the shooter's ring began running low on energy it would switch out with the outer ring on command and draw its own swords while the original outer ring stepped back and brought its own guns to bear on the enemy.
The formation wasn't foolproof, as it was dependent on the bullseye not wasting too much of its own energy (or crossbow bolts) supporting everyone else, and Crono himself was useless in a shooter's position since he didn't employ a plasma weapon. He didn't have the expertise to be anything but a liability shooting any type of gun. But the tactic was still ideal for the situation Crono and his squad were now facing.
The Gauntlet was about as straight-forward of a path as any that existed under Bangor's ruins. There was no danger of getting lost even with lights off, and now that there was no need to be stealthy, the squad could simply move ahead as quickly as they could manage while maintaining the bullseye formation. They trotted ahead at a brisk pace, Menda and the inner ring shooters throwing their flashlight beams in all directions looking for targets. Deep canals of dark water flanked either side of the upper-level platform leading to the Arcs checkpoint and relative safety.
The respite ended in seconds.
Azure bolts of light flew, and swords connected with scaly flesh as nereids leaped out of the water in staggered clusters and rushed the party. It might have gone ill for the squad if the nereids had waited to attack as an organized group, but the mutants were more ravenous than they were intelligent, and the raging mob fell one after the other. Crono's fellow swordsmen did a respectable job in performing the basic sword forms he had taught them over the past couple of weeks, and none received more than minor scratches or abrasions in return; superficial injuries that could be easily treated by enertrons back at the enclave. The party traveled about four city blocks before the next assorted groups of nereids challenged the spelunkers of their sewer.
“Switch out, switch out!” Crono commanded. “One, two, three, go!”
The two rings of the formation, save for Crono himself and Andrews who stood behind and to his left, switched positions and braced for the next wave. Andrews immediately traded his rifle for Menda's, which had a higher remaining charge due to Menda's more measured and accurate fire. The slaughter then began anew.
And a slaughter it was. Wave after wave of mutant fish-men threw themselves at the party from all angles, including a couple who dared to attempt jumping into the middle of the squad and shattering the formation, which was the only intelligent thing they had tried to do thus far, but Marle and Menda put each of those enlightened fish down with a single shot in mid-air. Terrance was nearly knocked into the drink by one of these falling bodies, but he quickly recovered and downed two nereids in front of him with searing sapphire fury before they could take advantage. The party advanced three more city blocks as scales were slashed and burned beyond count.
“Switch out, switch out!” Crono commanded. “One, two, three, go!”
The bullseye shifted once again, and the first group of shooters resumed their murderous business with slightly recharged rifles. The original swordsman girded themselves to meet the next threat with cold steel.
More nereids kept coming.
The Gauntlet indeed, Crono thought darkly. He himself had cut down at least eight of these blasted sewer fiends, and he had no idea how many Marle had skewered with her crossbow. Ammunition would become an issue for her if this madness continued for much longer. She couldn't very well recover her spent bolts in this run and gun situation. More mutants fell. Another block, maybe a block-and-a-half remained to the ladder leading up to the Arcs checkpoint.
A massed group of nereids then appeared out of the darkness directly in front of the party, at least fifteen, while the unmistakable splashing of more somewhere below and to either side of the platform promised the celebration of carnage about to ensue would be quickly joined.
It was too many for bullseye, Crono knew. The front group was too strong, and they had to dispatch it quickly before the surrounding nereids joined in and ripped them all to pieces. No need to conserve energy now. Bullseye had managed to get them this far.
“Full guns, full guns!” Crono cried. “Light 'em up! Get to the checkpoint now!”
The sewers erupted with the sounds of full-scale war. The bullseye formation broke with everyone firing on the run directly ahead. Crono held back and saved his sword for the one fish-man who broke through and made to swipe viciously at Marle. It went flying into the black canal to his right trailing blood. Marle spared him a wink of gratitude as they all rushed for the ladder of the Arcs checkpoint.
“Terrance, Andrews, and Marle go first,” Crono ordered. “Everyone but Menda and me follow them in alphabetical order. I'm the last one out. Get going!”
Crono's instincts took over as his squad climbed one by one out of the horrific Gauntlet. He spun and twisted, utilizing the form of wind to slash and strike in all directions without focusing on any one vector. Nereids practically ran into the blade as it blindly lashed out for scales to cut, but Crono maintained his balance while Menda's expert shooting kept the odds from becoming unmanageable. Plasma fire was then heard from somewhere above the ladder, implying the arrival of glassers to join in the fun. Crono could only hope that Marle and the others could deal with this latest threat while he focused on the more immediate one. Adrenaline kept his arms moving, and his lungs burned from the exertion.
“Look! More rats!” came Terrance's voice from above.
“I got those little thieves!” Marle replied with evident glee. “Just keep the hourglass scum off me!”
When it was all over, six more rats had been added to the tally of loot, four more glassers had been added to the tally of kills, and no less than a hundred nereids wouldn't be harassing sewer travelers ever again. And all without a single casualty in exchange.
It was the single greatest scavenging run in over fifty years.
* * *
Crono, Marle, and their companions returned to the enclave in a celebratory mood, and their demeanor did not go unnoticed by the residents who awaited their return at the main entrance. Several people ran off to inform their respective dormitories of how great the party's haul was today, and Crono suspected that many would be writing petitions via computer to Director Doan to request that some of the food in the granary be broken out to celebrate the momentous result of the run. Not only did they bring a lot of treasure back to the enclave, but they had put down so many mutants in The Gauntlet that future excursions to the Geshar District of the ruins promised to be far less hazardous. This would only be the first of several runs into Geshar in the coming weeks, most likely, and if they wouldn't be quite as profitable as today's run, they would surely be profitable enough to be worth the trip. It was the happiest Crono had ever seen the enclave's citizens.
“We did so great today, Crono!” Marle said, beaming. “And it was all because you were leading us! The nereids didn't stand a chance against that formation! I'll bet they're all cowering under the murk wondering what in Creation hit them!”
Crono shrugged and couldn't resist a silly grin. “Those that are still alive. We didn't leave many.”
“I guess you'd know better than anyone since you were the last one out of the sewer. Seriously, if we keep having results like today's, we just might make Bangor safe enough that we could find somewhere to plant those seeds Director Doan keeps stored in the granary. Wouldn't that be something?”
“Yeah, but mutants or not, the world's still in a drought that won't quit,” Crono pointed out. “Starting an actual crop is going to remain a distant dream for awhile. Best to not get too far ahead of ourselves.”
“Oh, no you don't!” Marle chided. “I'm not letting a little thing like reality spoil my good mood today. We can worry about that stuff tomorrow. There's always a tomorrow, right?”
Crono nodded, feeling satisfied. Thanks to them, the enclave would have a lot more tomorrows, or at least tomorrows a little more free of worry.
“Let's get to the armory and drop off our stuff,” Marle said. “I'm sure everyone's waiting to take stock of our haul. Then it's off to the lavatories. A shower is going to feel so good after today I can already feel the spray on my face.”
“You and me both.”
Marle directed a mischievous smile at him. “In the same shower? Really?”
Crono looked at her with a start. What did she say?
“I'm joking, silly!” Marle laughed. “But you should have seen the look on your face just now!”
“Now that's just evil!” Crono chuckled with growing heat on his cheeks. “Are you trying to turn me into a puddle of goo or something? I'll have to get you back for that one.”
“Uh, oh. I'm in trouble now.” Marle's brittle poise degenerated into an endless titter.
It's almost like we're back at the Millennial Fair again, Crono reflected. It had felt like such a long time ago, now.
The two shared heartfelt laughs all the way to the armory. Several Protectors were there to congratulate the returning party and were waiting to inspect and put away their equipment. The scavenged steel scrap and the collected rat corpses were laid out on the floor, and a few Makers were standing by to take the loot to their assigned stations to be processed. One person was making use of one of the shooting lanes, firing a plasma pistol repeatedly at a distant glasser target on practice range power. Crono did a double-take when he saw the bare legs, green shirt, and purple hair that belonged to the shooter.
Lucca? What was she doing in the armory? Lucca hadn't been in here, or much of anywhere except her laboratory, since the morning she had joined Crono and Marle for their very first scavenging run nearly three weeks ago. Did that mean her research was finished, or that she was just taking a break? It wasn't like her to stop an important job before it was finished, so Crono dismissed the latter thought almost at once. What had Lucca found out about the enertrons? Had she come to the armory to wait for Crono and Marle to get back from their scavenging run and just decided to have some target practice in the meantime? The Protectors generally took a very dim view of outsiders using their weapons even in here, but her impassioned speech at the Shrine of the Protector gave her a certain amount of capital with the caste that she had apparently decided to make use of.
The bullseye was being hit repeatedly, and Crono raised his brows at the sight. Lucca had landed a few hits against glassers during the second half of their run from three weeks ago, but the unique “ballistic” properties of her weapon had thrown off her aim enough to land only about one shot for every three pulls of the trigger. Now she was hitting a much smaller target about four times in five. It was a remarkable accomplishment from someone who said it would probably take months for her to break the habits she had developed from using her old gun. Her proficiency was approaching that of a Protector. Had she been secretly sneaking in practice time without Crono or Marle knowing?
The shots from Lucca began to slow, and she placed her weapon on the floor almost dismissively and picked up another identical pistol from a table next to her. She started firing again immediately and seemed oblivious to everything around her, including a Protector who directed an unmistakably disapproving glare the moment Lucca switched weapons. Crono then saw that five other presumably depleted plasma pistols were resting next to the one Lucca had just discarded, and there were three more pistols lying on the table she had just rearmed herself from. Crono blanched. On training power that represented a lot of shots. To use that much energy she would have had to have been practicing at the same brisk pace since mid-morning. Even a training fanatic like Assistant Director Morris didn't put that much time on the range.
“Hey, Lu, I think you've made your point,” Crono said with a chuckle as he strode up to her. “How about you leave some imaginary glassers for the Protectors to shoot? Or some pistols, for that matter?”
That Lucca didn't even crack a smile at that jab put a lump of ice in Crono's heart. Something was very wrong.
“Oh, hey,” Lucca said in a near monotone. “You guys were out for awhile.”
“And you've been in here for awhile, by all indications,” Crono countered, gesturing at all of the discarded plasma pistols on the floor. “What's going on?”
Lucca shrugged. “I'm done. Obviously.” She then fired a few more shots at her target.
“With your research?”
“Yeah, definitely.” Ten out of ten on that set.
“Well, now that we're back...” Marle began with concern.
“I'm going to need a few minutes,” Lucca said flatly. “How about you guys take a moment and put all these pistols back in their recharging stations for me? I... need to collect my thoughts.”
Crono tried locking gazes with his childhood friend, but Lucca wouldn't even look at him. She just stared straight ahead at her target and started firing again. The stiffness of her expression was similar to her demeanor back at the Shrine of the Protector when she was arranging the skulls of Krawlie's many victims. But this was different. Lucca's behavior three weeks ago had been a screen to keep her emotions from boiling to the surface. What she was showing right now was a full-blown wall of forged steel. That meant Lucca was just barely holding herself together. Somewhere behind those intently focused blue eyes was an inferno of searing rage, or a crushing river of despair, Crono couldn't tell which.
She looks lost, like her whole world is falling apart around her, Crono thought. What could she have discovered in her research to put her in such a state? It had to be about the enertrons.
Crono gestured at Marle to begin picking up the used and unused pistols, and the two busied themselves securing the weapons while Lucca continued firing on her target. Her aim was beginning to waver, Crono noticed. They completed their task quickly and then waited patiently by the chargers while Lucca finished “collecting her thoughts”. The glasser target was scorched almost beyond recognition from the hundreds of plasma bolts that had struck it. Lucca then abruptly ceased firing and brought the remaining pistol to the recharging station herself.
“All right,” Lucca said curtly. “My lab, our old room, you know the drill.”
The three time-travelers left the armory, and Crono let Lucca take the lead in heading back to Dormitory 7. He didn't want Lucca to see in his expression anything that could set her off or cause her to break down. If that happened, it was better for it to happen in private. Marle put her arm around Crono's the whole way there, looking extremely tense.
They sat silently in their old room, now Lucca's laboratory, for several long moments until Crono decided to break the quiet.
“It's bad, isn't it?”
“Well, it's certainly not good,” Lucca replied morosely.
“There is something wrong with the enertrons!” Marle said, leaning forward with purpose. “You figured out what it is!”
“No.”
Crono frowned in confusion. Both at the answer and at the air of finality with which Lucca had stated it. “No? What do you mean, 'no'? You didn't figure it out?”
“There's nothing wrong with the enertrons,” Lucca said simply. “Nothing at all. That's what my research found. The enertrons are working exactly the way they were designed to.” Her expression then turned very dark. “That's the problem.”
The silence lingered for several seconds. Crono and Marle looked at each other with bewilderment.
“You're going to have to explain that to us, Lu,” Crono said.
Lucca shrugged without humor. “In a way, our bodies are already doing the explaining. You know how we always feel hungry after using the enertron? Our bodies are telling us something. Normally, that sensation would indicate serious malnourishment or outright starvation, but there's a bit more to it than that. It tells us that our energy producing organs aren't doing anything. It's abnormal in the extreme for our stomachs, livers, kidneys and such to not have anything to do. In the human body, energy production is a continual process that endures throughout our lives, as is the process that cleanses our bodies of impurities from what we ingest to fuel ourselves. It is the foundation of health itself.”
“I follow you. Go on.”
“What the enertrons are doing is replacing that foundation with something that is completely different. Instead of providing nourishment to the body's energy production centers, which then transforms that nourishment into energy for the rest of the body, the enertron energizes all of our cells directly. Our bodies don't actually have to do anything to keep us alive in terms of providing energy. The enertron does it all. In short, the enertrons keep us alive through an external process, while sustaining ourselves with regular food is an internal process. That internal process is how our bodies were designed, or evolved, depending on how you view matters of Creation. Going too far outside that norm for too long creates... side effects.
“With our energy production and purification centers having nothing to do, those organs get steadily weaker over time, even though the cells making up those organs are directly energized through the external process of the enertron. Because the enertrons are so efficient in providing energy to the body, this degradation happens very slowly, but the effect is nonetheless cumulative, especially across multiple generations of people. And if that cumulative degradation is allowed to continue for too long, eventually a breaking point is reached, and people's bodies begin to break down.
“Since the enertrons were designed to heal injuries as well as provide sustenance, the body's breakdown is mostly prevented, but this has the effect of making the enertron work harder to achieve the same result, and so the process that caused the organs' degradation in the first place is accelerated and made stronger. This creates what I call an exponential feedback loop. The weaker the body gets, the harder the enertron has to work, and the harder the enertron has to work, the weaker the body becomes through this very process, necessitating a still stronger external process of enervation to compensate. The human body simply can't endure an exponential decline in its base health for very long, even with an external factor like the enertron keeping a person going. Eventually things reach a point where a complete system collapse can't be prevented no matter how hard the enertron works, and the enertron user dies.”
Crono felt his blood run cold. Was this the reason why enertron users always looked so gaunt? Was this why everyone's health was continually declining over generations, as Lucca had first explained weeks ago? And how far had that decline now progressed?
“Lucca, where would you say this 'exponential feedback loop' is right now?” Crono asked. “How is it going to affect the enclave?”
Lucca turned away.
“Lucca, please tell us!” Marle pleaded, her voice beginning to crack.
“It's... in its final stage,” Lucca said without looking at them. “It crossed that threshold over ten years ago.”
* * *
Marle felt like her heart had been hit with a sledgehammer. This couldn't be real. It couldn't!
“The evidence lies with two people,” Lucca continued. “Mary Limova and Amelia Evans. Mary's the only child in the whole enclave. In a community of 1,500 people that's statistically way out of proportion, especially considering that 70% of the enclave's population is of child-bearing age. There should be dozens of children here. Then there's Amelia. At twenty-two, she's the next youngest resident, but she was actually the last child to be born in the Bangor enclave. Mary was born in the Trann enclave and came here eight years ago. Twenty-two years without anyone being born here? That just can't happen. So in the course of my research, I discovered why it did. Everyone is infertile. Men. Women. Everyone. Even Amelia. That's how I know the exponential feedback loop has reached its final stage. Everyone's reproductive organs have shut down, and the damage is irreversible. We are the only people who are still okay.”
Breaths came to Marle in fits and starts. Irreversible. Even if the three of them revealed their time-traveling origins and made it all the way back to the temporal gate with everyone, a goal she continued to harbor despite recent successes in the field, terrible damage had already been done. No one would ever be able to have children!
“And... Mary?” she managed.
Lucca shook her head. “Her, too. If she hits child-bearing age, she'll be just as infertile as everyone else.”
Marle's breath caught, and she found herself coughing with denial. Everyone! All because of a stupid machine! And what did Lucca mean by...?
“If?” Marle asked unsteadily. “What do you mean, 'if?'”
Lucca took a long deep breath and put her face into her hands for a moment.
“Marle,” Lucca said with a shaky tone. “Everyone is dying. They just don't know it yet. It's an exponential decline. Things will only get worse from here. Before too much longer, people will begin displaying symptoms of illness that the enertrons will no longer be able to fully suppress. Colds, fevers, respiratory diseases. The body will no longer be able to fight these things off with or without the enertrons, and that will begin a fatal downward spiral. It will be like dying of old age long before one's time.”
Marle slumped over and started shaking. It was an unspeakable calamity, all of it! How could this have been allowed to happen? A strong and gentle arm wrapped itself around her shoulders, but Marle barely even noticed Crono's gesture.
“How long?” Crono asked.
“Assuming the rate of enertron usage remains constant? Four years. That's how long the enclave has. As for Mary, if she stops using the enertron now and subsists on food from here on, she might live another six years. Possibly seven.”
Tears freely came to Marle's eyes, and she wracked with bitter sobs. Six years! Little Mary would live only to be as old as Marle was now. And when she finally did reach that exalted age, she would be both very sick and very alone, having only a music box to keep her company in an empty and lifeless enclave. And would her food even hold out that long? What if she had to go out and hunt for food by herself? How long could she survive against glassers and nereids and who knew what other kinds of mutated freaks she might run into?
“What about the other enclaves?” Crono asked. “Proto? Trann? Keepers? Geno? They're all so spread out though the world that this madness can't be affecting all of them, too, could it?”
“I'm afraid it is,” Lucca said soberly. “Even without having recent health and demographic data on them, all of the enclaves use the same enertron technology as Bangor. They always have.”
“And there's no way to fix it? No way to... change the enertrons to reverse all this?”
Lucca shook her head. “No one has ever been able to modify enertron tech successfully, and it is far too late for it to matter at this point. The degradation of people's organs is too pronounced. And before you ask, no, I'm not wrong about any of this. I wish I were. I've double and triple-checked my work too many times throughout my research for my conclusion to be off. The sample size of Bangor residents was more than high enough to confirm the hypothesis, which would translate just as well to other enclaves. And confirming Mary's data pretty much sealed everything.” She sighed bitterly. “Nothing we or anyone else can do will stop what's coming. Nothing.”
“To blazes with that!” Marle barked viciously through her tears. “There's nothing my magic won't fix if I concentrate hard enough! I'll use it to heal every person in the world if I have to, even if it kills me! All I have to do is reverse the damage one time, and then everyone can jump into these stupid enertrons again so they don't starve to death! I don't care if I'm exposed as a magic user, I will not accept this!”
“Marle, that won't work!” Lucca said emphatically. “I already considered your magic, and it won't have the desired effect.”
“How can you know that?” Marle challenged.
“Because it basically does the same thing an enertron does. It energizes and restores people through an external process. It won't do anything to solve the core problem. Anything you do would be a short-term solution at best, and it's possible it might actually do more damage in the long-term. It could accelerate the body's existing degradation of the organs to an even more lethal degree, possibly even killing the person you're trying to heal.”
Marle shuddered as her last hope plummeted into the abyss. Every person. Every enclave. All of humanity. Doomed. All of their history. All of their accomplishments. All of their sacrifices and dreams for a better tomorrow. Thousands upon thousands of years of memory. What had it all been for?
She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs at the injustice of it all. Lambast Creation for sending her to this place only to witness history's last gasp. But all Marle could manage was a shivering whimper as she fell crying into Crono's arms. He embraced her tenderly, stepping back to the wall and then letting them both slide to the hard floor.
“This can't be how the world ends...” she wept.
* * *
There was nothing he could do.
Crono had barely moved a muscle in the hour since he had heard Lucca's tragic, and terminal, news. Had barely braved a thought for what they would do next. What could they do, really? The fate facing the human enclave of Bangor was not something that could be stayed by sword, or magic, or ingenious fortitude. Crono, Marle, and Lucca had given the best that their respective talents could deliver for the enclave in the short time they had been here. It just wasn't enough. Nor would it ever be.
Marle had finally fallen asleep in his arms in the exact same position she had fallen into them. Crono could tell from her more relaxed breathing, but also from the heat that was slowly returning to Lucca's lab. Marle's anguish had been so profound that the temperature in the room had dropped by a good thirty degrees without her intending to channel any magic, which was evidence enough that her elemental powers were directly connected to the sadness she was feeling. It was probably a small miracle that she hadn't accidentally encased them all in giant ice cubes the way she had dispatched those nine glassers from a few weeks ago. For her part, Lucca also appeared to be asleep, but Crono knew that she wasn't. She was simply resting on her side inside one of the open enertrons turned away from where Crono could see, trying her best not to reveal any emotion that could potentially open the floodgates and leave her weeping the way she had ten years ago when Crono first met her. Crono himself was also trying not to feel anything, and not entirely succeeding. His thoughts were going back to his doomed father trapped in the mines of Lorian. He couldn't do anything for him then, just as he couldn't do anything for the people of Bangor now, and through no fault of his own. He gently stroked Marle's hair with his fingertips, willing himself to remember happier times and avoid the pit of despair that was yawning just on the other side of that emotional screen.
The door to Lucca's lab then suddenly slid open, breaking Crono out of his silent reflections, and he turned to see who the unexpected visitor was. For a split second he struggled to think of some excuse to send the visitor away, not wanting to reveal why the three of them looked so despondent after working so hard on the enclave's behalf. Then that thought evaporated into mist. Standing just inside the door was Director Doan. The look his wizened eyes gave him mingled complete understanding at what Crono was feeling along with a grimness of purpose. Crono didn't even have to ask why he was here at this moment, unannounced. The Director lightly touched the control on the wall and the door slid shut behind him, giving the room's now four occupants complete privacy. Doan leaned on his cane with both hands, regarding them all.
“Frank!” Lucca said from within the enertron capsule, turning to face him. She looked pained and at a complete loss what to say. She opened her mouth several times, but no more words were forthcoming.
“The expression on your innocent face tells the tale, Miss Lucca,” Doan said somberly. “You know. You now know.”
“And so did you, I'm guessing,” Crono said. It wasn't an accusation.
Doan nodded. “I have known the truth of the enertron situation for quite some time. Data properly collected does not lie when looked at objectively. There is no other conclusion you could have reached. The enclave is dying. They all are.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Lucca asked him, sounding very tired. “You knew this entire time. You asked me to investigate the enertrons knowing what I would find. You could have just told me, Frank. I trust you completely. I can accept unpleasant scientific conclusions, even if it's hard.”
“I am pleased to hear you say so, my young friend,” Doan said with a slight smile. “I apologize if this manner of discovery caused you anguish. Yours is a sadness I have experienced in my own fashion, at one time or another. But there are some tales, some truths, that cannot be easily accepted just from the hearing. You must experience and discover them through your own labors. Now you have seen. Now you know.”
Marle abruptly came to, hearing the voices in the room. She looked at Doan looking like she would burst into tears again, but she had already cried herself dry. “Director Doan!”
“Again, for Miss Marle's benefit, please accept my sincerest apologies for the manner in which the truth of our situation was revealed. There was no other way. It was important for you all to experience our enclave in your own ways, and then to know what fate awaits it should nothing change.”
Crono's brow furrowed at this last. “Change?”
“Yes, given what you now know, the changing of the enclave's fate is a door that has been forever closed. And it is indeed such for all those who have been cursed to be born in an era of ash and ruin.” Doan then took on a very curious look. “But not, perhaps, for those who have been born in a very different place. And in a very different moment in time.”
Crono found himself gaping. Could he possibly...?
Marle quickly scrambled to her feet and placed both of her hands over Doan's on his cane. “Do you...? Do you know about us? About... where we're really from? I mean...” Marle looked at Lucca and Crono, looking very uncertain and conflicted.
Doan gave Marle's hand a grasp of apparent understanding. “You have, all three of you, been on a very long journey. A journey across space and time, over many more years than any human has yet lived. A most remarkable tale I have known to be true almost from the first moment you set foot in our enclave. You are time-travelers.”
It took a long time for any of them to find their voice, but Lucca finally broke the silence. “How...?”
“The truth was not all that difficult to discern, Miss Lucca, once all the pieces of the puzzle were laid out. One piece was your exceptional health, which is far in excess of what anyone in this era has known for centuries. Then there is the matter of the route you took through the wastes to come here, a thing that would have been quite impossible for any human not born with exceptional gifts of the like not seen since before the Day of Fire; a gift that Miss Marle has in some abundance, by all accounts. A third factor is your unaccountable ignorance of technical aspects known even to children of the enclaves, though Miss Lucca has overcome this deficiency with a speed I can only marvel at, such is her natural intellect and dedication to the path of reason and science. I can say truthfully that you are the most gifted student I have ever had the pleasure of teaching over my many years.”
Lucca's blush would have made a rose weep. “Uh... thanks,” she said.
“A fourth piece in this puzzle is simply my own due diligence,” Doan continued. “You may recall me saying that I make it my business to know everything that happens in this enclave. I have many eyes and ears of a sort which you would not be familiar with. There is little you have said that has not come to my ears. I know of your philosophical disagreements on the subject of time-travel, for example. A deep matter which is well beyond the scope of your worldly experience, but approached with great empathy and logic that is admirable for people of your age. Allow me to say that Miss Marle and Miss Lucca are both correct in their approach to this problem from their own point of view, but the matter is, of course, a moot one now, given your fullness of understanding. Our coming to your era would not change our fate. It would only serve to undermine yours.”
Crono started. “You've been... spying on us?”
“It is not a thing I take pleasure in, I assure you, but you must understand my position. The conclusions I reached early on the subject of your origins are not outside the scope of what others may also conclude, my own surveillance notwithstanding. It was a matter I had to monitor very carefully to ensure no undue chaos came about in the enclave through your presence and actions. The enclave as it stands has several years of life remaining to it, and I would not see those years squandered on useless strife. Through my efforts I can say that no such damage has occurred, and that no one outside of this room has yet guessed entirely the truth of your origins.
“Getting back to the matter of my own knowledge, my surveillance was not even strictly necessary to know the truth of your time-traveling origins. The fifth puzzle piece to appear was in fact the very first, and one that long preceded your own arrival. You see, you three are not the first to have visited this era originating from another.”
Crono's astonishment was absolute, and Marle and Lucca regarded Director Doan with open mouths. “What?!”
“Some other time-traveler came to this era before us?!” Lucca exclaimed. “Who? How do you know this?”
Doan's eyes twinkled. “Ah, that is a matter the fullness of which would take many days to explain, but I can relate the tale in a more abbreviated fashion that will answer your question well enough. I was not always so well versed in the matters of contemporary science. I was far from a stupid man even in my youth, but my knowledge came to blossom more fully following one singular moment, with the arrival of one man from the temporal ether over forty years ago. His name was Belthazar. And through his understanding, I, Frank Doan, became his apprentice.
“He was a man who possessed a great intelligence, not unlike what Miss Lucca is blessed to have, though without the many years of Belthazar's experience. He was already old at the time of his coming. Through his experience I learned much. And in exchange for his teachings, I resolved to assist him in achieving his greatest wish.”
All was silent at Doan's pause.
“What was his wish?” Marle asked after a few beats.
“The same as yours, Miss Marle,” the Director replied. “He wished to return home. You see, Belthazar did not come here through his own free will. He came to this era of ruin through a cruel twist of fate that he didn't consider in his darkest thoughts, or so he told me. He knew of time-travel in theory, but had never exercised it himself, nor did he know how to do so through the knowledge he possessed. Belthazar would spend many years searching for an answer, and in the fullness of time he resolved to build himself a vessel capable of breaking the temporal divide. He called it the Epoch. He and I began constructing it together, using whatever resources we could find to make this great machine work.”
This was the answer! Crono thought excitedly. The way home was essentially right under their noses the entire time they had been in Bangor. Except...
“But... you didn't finish it, did you?” Lucca said right as Crono's elation deflated at what hadn't been said, and what had.
“We did not,” Doan said with a tone of genuine regret. “Fate is a cruel mistress. Events transpired that were not anticipated. We accomplished much, yet not nearly enough. And then Belthazar ran out of time. He passed on, leaving me to continue the great work without his guidance. The task proved impossible. To my everlasting regret, I sealed our old workshop and then made my way to the Arris enclave to share the knowledge I had gained through my apprenticeship with Belthazar. I wished only to benefit the cause of humanity as well as I was able, though I kept Belthazar's origins and our work on time-travel a closely guarded secret. Sadly, my work in Arris proved to be all too brief.”
“You're talking about the rebellion of the robots, aren't you?” Lucca said, looking even more morose than Doan in the relating of his tale. “They started malfunctioning and killing everybody.”
Doan nodded. “A most unfortunate turn of events in an age where humanity had already lost so much. It was thought the robots would be key to rebuilding civilization to the way it had been before the Day of Fire. Instead they had to be purged to salvage what little remained to us. Through the benefit of my expanded knowledge through Belthazar's teachings, I found a way to disable most of the robots in Arris, though far too late to save the residents of the enclave. I believe you know this part of my tale already. I then came to Bangor and was appointed Director not long after, again through benefit of Belthazar. I must say my motives in this whole affair were not always altruistic. I wanted more than anything to complete the Epoch and then travel with Belthazar to his time of origin; a time far far before ours, and a place of unaccountable wonders to hear him tell of it.”
Marle could hardly keep herself still. “Before this time? Before the Day of Fire? Before the nuclear war, even? He couldn't have been talking about Guardia, if he was half as knowledgeable as you say. You don't mean... Is it Zeal? The empire of Zeal? That was where Belthazar was from?”
“I cannot say. He resolved never to speak of his home in its entirety until he was able to return. I know little of the ancient lore as it was recorded before the coming of the Fire. He might have been referring to Zeal, or perhaps somewhere completely different. Human civilization is far older than any of us suspect. There may have been a civilization before Zeal, even, wondrous as that is to contemplate. Alas, I must again reiterate, it is a moot point. All of humanity's history has now come to this present moment of ash and inescapable decline to oblivion. The only ones who yet live who can escape this fate are the three of you. Belthazar never accomplished his dream. Perhaps you could do what he could not. Your means of coming to this time were not the same as my old mentor's, unless I miss my guess.”
Lucca stepped up next to Doan, seemingly bubbling with the desire to relate their own tale, now that there was no more reason to hide it. “I don't know what happened with this Belthazar,” she said eagerly. “But I know what happened with us. We came across time travel completely by accident. There are these 'gates' that connect different points of space-time. I then developed a way to harness the latent energy of these gates and travel back and forth to wherever the gates led. I didn't have to create a giant machine to do that, just something not much bigger than your standard pistol. I call it a 'Chrono Trigger'. The problem is that it needs an existing gate in order to work, and we have only found two of those. The one that brought us here is now buried under several hundred tons of collapsed rubble on the other side of Quintadis, and we wandered our way towards Bangor in hopes of getting help to clear out all the debris. If we could just accomplish that, we could return to our own time no problem, assuming the underground room the gate's found in hasn't been completely destroyed.”
Director Doan considered Lucca's information at great length, gazing at the floor in front of his cane. “I think your return to this 'gate' that you arrived from is perhaps too great an errand. Miss Marle's strange talents were barely enough to get you across the wastes. To send a party large enough to be of any aid would extend Marle's burden far beyond her capacity to endure, I fear. Given enough time the enclave could perhaps arrive at a workable alternative, but this would be the work of many months at the very least, or perhaps years. And you all must consider Miss Lucca's warning about exposing the miracle of time travel to those without hope, and who cannot survive long in any event. The enclave would tear itself apart seeking to gain this false hope, and many would throw their lives away to no purpose in the pursuit of it, bringing all to despair before their time.”
Crono was feeling despair begin to well up in him again. Knowing the eventual fate of the enclave and everyone in it was bad enough, but now he had to contend with the possibility that Marle, Lucca, and himself might be equally doomed. He had feared that digging their way back into the ZDF facility where the gate was found might be too hard even for the enclave to manage, and now he knew it was so. What could they do if the only known way back home was closed to them for good?
“The Epoch,” Crono said. “You spoke about building a time-machine called the Epoch to get Belthazar back to his own time. Maybe... Well, with you and Lucca working together, maybe it's possible...?”
“While I have the utmost respect for Miss Lucca's talents, her knowledge of the necessary skills would be no greater than mine, and my skill is far less than what Belthazar enjoyed. Such an errand would be almost as useless as journeying past Quintadis to carry off fallen stone and metal, and I would have to leave the enclave for an extended period to even entertain the notion of success. As things stand, I cannot in good conscience abandon the enclave for a task that is almost certain to fail in any event, and just getting to the old workshop is no small matter, as it is quite far from Bangor.”
“Then... what can we possibly do?” Marle asked, wilting at their increasingly grim fortunes.
“I cannot tell you that,” Doan said after a moment's consideration. “But in my experience, fate often leaves an alternative that can be discerned if one is perceptive enough. If only it were so with the enertrons! There may yet be a way for you. Miss Lucca has demonstrated enough knowledge on the operation of our computer systems that I can grant a privilege that is afforded to very few. On the lowest level of this enclave is a chamber in which our most advanced computer systems, dating from before the Day of Fire, are housed, along with our most sensitive data. There may be information there that will be of aid to you, perhaps a means of finding another of these 'gates' you speak of. It may be too much to hope, but that is as much as I can do for you now. Go to the classified archive with my blessing. I will make arrangements to have the guards allow you entry and then leave you to privacy. My own 'eyes and ears' that I mentioned earlier tracking your conversations are not present in that place. None will know what you say or do. On this you have my word.”
The classified archive, Crono mused. It didn't sound like that promising of a lead, but they really had no other options.
“You're not coming with us?” Lucca asked. “I'd feel a bit more comfortable if you were there, since there aren't really any secrets between us now. You might find something we don't.”
“This is a task for the three of you alone,” Doan insisted. “My fate in this place is sealed. Yours is not. The choice on how to proceed must therefore be yours. It is rare, but the young sometimes make wiser decisions than the old, and ours is a world that has suffered through many mistakes on account of ones who should have known better than to make them. Be the change you want to see, and perhaps hidden doors will reveal themselves at the appointed hour. I can say little else. Treat yourselves to a pack of food rations, I will also make those arrangements, and then come to the archive when you are reasonably rested. I will leave you to your business, then.”
Director Doan then hit the switch on the wall opening the sliding door and exited the makeshift lab, leaving everyone to ponder all that had been said. It was all so much more than any of them had expected. Another time-traveler! An unfinished machine that could apparently travel through time, and without benefit of an existing temporal gate! Neither of those revelations really mattered to them at this moment though, so Crono elected to focus on the present. Thoughts of the past were too painful to contemplate right now. Maybe thoughts of the future could be braved after learning what they could from the classified archive.
“Well,” Lucca said after a long silence. “Anyone hungry?”
* * *
Marle felt vaguely unclean as she took another ravenous bite out of the strip of rat-meat jerky, and found herself wanting more and more of it despite it being one of the most limited and precious resources the enclave had. The price was far too steep, knowing what she now knew of the enclave's inevitable fate. She wanted nothing more than to give it all to Mary right now and give the little girl some extra days on her tragically short expected lifespan, but doing that would invite hard questions from the inquisitive ten-year-old, and Marle couldn't trust herself not to break down when that happened. In this situation ignorance was bliss. Mary couldn't be allowed to find out the truth. No child should have to live with the burden that they wouldn't live to see their seventeenth birthday. Marle couldn't really live with it either, and she wasn't even dying.
She took another bite, then another, Marle's hands seemingly moving on their own without any conscious thought to devour everything in front of her. If her mind felt unclean, her body was simply desperate. She hadn't had any real food in weeks, and she couldn't honestly say if this stuff even tasted good. Objectivity regarding cuisine was wholly impossible when your body thought it was starving.
“Can we stop doing this, somehow?” Marle asked her dinner companions. “This really isn't right, but my willpower has taken a nap.”
“Just let it happen, Marle,” Crono told her. “Getting these rations is the highest possible vote of confidence from Director Doan. He wouldn't want you to squander this, and I think we're going to need to be strong to deal with what's coming. Call it a hunch, but there may be more in this computer archive than a possible way for us to get home. There are things in it that hardly anyone ever gets to see. There has to be a reason for that.”
“It's the Day of Fire,” Lucca said between bites of her own jerky. “Everything known about it is apparently stored in those computers, and you know how taboo it is to talk about. Whatever we find on that, if we care to look, we're going to have to keep to ourselves so we don't upset people. Might be better if most folks never found out Frank even allowed us in there, to be honest.”
“Or in here,” Marle remarked, gesturing at their surroundings. They were all in the granary, sitting on the floor of the freezing cold room with beige garments of the enclave worn over their regular clothes to keep warm. Two dozen strips of rat jerky of varying size were spread out in front of them; a veritable feast. A single Protector regarded the time-travelers silently from across the room, far enough distant that Marle couldn't make out his expression, but he had been given orders to let the three of them eat a full pack of rations in relative privacy, and he had allowed them to without any audible complaint. Whether the man would tell anyone else of this unexpected indulgence later was an open question. They were no doubt spending a lot of the capital they had earned over the past three weeks. Many more days-worth of scavenging runs that actually bagged rats already lay arrayed before them.
“We'll be all right,” Crono said. “We've been circumspect enough to avoid real trouble since coming here. It's just Doan we couldn't fool.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Lucca said ruefully. “Not that we should really be surprised. We've all been in his office, and we saw those real-time images displayed on the computer monitors on his wall. Never occurred to me to think our room in the dormitory was being monitored the same way.” She sighed. “Another painfully obvious thing I missed while focusing on other matters. You'd think I'd learn.”
“Don't beat yourself up over it. Being this Belthazar guy's apprentice he probably would have figured it out anyway. And it's just as well. At least this way we're making some progress. At least I hope it's progress.”
Marle slumped. “To save ourselves, maybe. I really wanted to help. I wanted to... make a difference here.”
Crono put a hand on her shoulder. “We have. It's not what we wanted, I know, but we made our mark. We conquered the infamous Gauntlet. With a whole new area of the surface ruins to scavenge, the Protectors will replace everything we're eating here before you know it. They can do that with or without us. They're a lot better than they were three weeks ago. We gave them hope for the future.”
Without giving them one, Marle thought. Hope was well and good, but what was that worth when people started dying all around you and there were no children – or precious few – to carry on your legacy? The Day of Fire. Everything had changed for humanity on that day. Yes, the generation preceding the era of the domes had made terrible mistakes, but their successors had redeemed humanity with their vision and industriousness. What had reduced their dream of peace to ash? Marle resolved to know the answer to this question before she gave any serious thought to returning home.
A dream of peace. A thought born from the heart that came to reside in the mind to create something real. Marle had had many such heart-born thoughts in her life. On occasion those thoughts transcended hope and became reality. Trivial, almost all of them, even her wish to go to the Millennial Fair, since she had only really been thinking about herself. Now, a thought was conceived in her heart that was anything but trivial. Something dangerous. Something that her mind might reject once it was fully examined, and she hesitated to look at this thought at all, but Marle couldn't deny that something had been born. What was it? What had Cedric Guardia been thinking when the grand ambition of uniting the fractious human countries of North Zenan and South Zenan into a single kingdom blossomed in his heart? Was ambition always like this? How many grand ambitions never came to fruition simply because the mind wouldn't accept the heart? How many dreams had died in the womb?
I wish... we could just change it.
Marle turned away from the memory. It was too soon. She dared not look.
A few more minutes were spent gobbling up dried rat, then when Marle was reasonably sure she had eaten enough, she placed both hands on her tummy and channeled to fight off the beginnings of a stomach-ache. Her body had become unaccustomed to food, after all. Then the nausea was banished and she came to her feet and surreptitiously did the same with Crono and Lucca, who seemed to be suffering similar pains and trying not to show it. The guard on the other side of the granary said nothing.
“Come on, guys. There's no time like the present,” Marle said with renewed vigor, stowing a portion of their allotted feast into her belt satchel. “We can take the rest of these rations with us and snack on them in the archive if we get hungry again.”
“Eat inside the archive?” Lucca asked with a frown. “Not that they need to enforce it much, but there are strict rules about eating or drinking anywhere close to a computer. Or were you nodding off when Amelia told us that?”
“Oh, who cares about her? She's never allowed in the classified archive, anyway. Besides, I'm sure you can fix anything that gets messed up in there.”
Lucca glared. “I'd rather not have to.”
“Don't worry about it,” Crono chuckled. “I think we're good for a few hours. Let's go see what that archive has to show us.”
