[Chrono Trigger Novel - Episode 13] What Is Planted in Dead Earth
The climb back to Arris Dome felt longer than the descent.
The three of them hauled themselves up the underground stairwell, clinging to broken pipes for support. Marle went first and checked the iron bar they had wedged into the upper door. Crono brought up the rear, watching the darkness behind them until the last possible moment. The sword wrapped in cloth knocked dully against his pack with every step. The blade was still there, but it was no longer something he could trust enough to swing.
When the door opened, every waiting face in the hall lifted at once.
Doan first made sure that all three of them had returned. Only then did he notice their empty hands. The fragile hope in the hall sank. One person closed his eyes. Another turned toward the brazier as though he had never expected anything in the first place.
The boy tore free of his mother's hand and ran to them.
“Where's my dad?”
Marle knelt. She gave the boy's mother the metal bracelet and stained sheet of paper they had recovered below. While she searched for the words that might hurt the least, the woman recognized the bracelet and covered her mouth with both hands.
“He made it all the way to the food stores,” Marle said.
“He was still looking for something to bring back to everyone. Right to the end.”
She did not have to say that he had not made it back. The boy watched his mother sink to the floor, then placed one small hand on the bracelet. His tears came only much later. No one in the dome tried to stop them. In a place that had starved for so long, people barely had the strength to give grief a voice. That did not make the grief any less real.
Crono held out the pouch of seeds to Doan.
The old man stared for a long time at the few grains that fell into his palm.
“Not food, then.”
Lucca lowered her head.
“Everything in the storehouse had rotted. These were all that survived.”
Doan rolled one seed beneath his fingertip. It was so light, so small, that it could almost have been mistaken for the dust on the floor.
“We have too little water. You can see what passes for sunlight here. Even the soil is sick.”
“We can still try,” Marle said. “Don't plant them all at once. Divide the soil between the places where water leaks through the ceiling. If even one seed sprouts, we can decide what to do next.”
Doan looked at the blood on her palm.
“Have you found a way home?”
Lucca unfolded the map she had copied at the information center. East of Arris Dome, at a place marked Proto Dome, the scanners had recorded a fluctuation resembling a Gate.
“We won't know for certain until we reach it.”
“Then you could have taken the seeds with you.”
Marle did not answer at once. In their own time, with clean water and healthy earth, they might have had a better chance of keeping the seeds alive. But there, people could imagine tomorrow without needing these few grains to do it.
“They were found here,” she said.
“So this is where they should grow.”
Doan's bent shoulders straightened, if only slightly. He called the people in the hall together and showed them the seeds. At first, no one moved. There was nothing before them they could eat. Then the boy's mother rose and began gathering the dark soil beside a water-catching basin with her bare hands. Someone else brought over a cracked metal dish. Still clutching the bracelet in one hand, the boy picked out the smallest stones.
They did not move because they believed in the future. They moved because there was finally something their hands could do, and the doing slowly made room for belief.
Doan retrieved an old key from a storeroom.
“You'll have to cross Lab 32 to reach Proto Dome. There should be an old transport bike near the entrance. If it still functions, this key may wake it.”
Lucca wiped grime from the key's contact surface.
“And if it doesn't?”
“Not many have crossed that place on foot.”
Doan left the reason unsaid. Far outside, the wind scraped against the dome's outer shell.
In one corner of the hall, people were already debating in low voices where the seeds ought to be planted. Only moments ago, they had barely looked at one another. The seeds had not yet sprouted, but words had begun to grow around them.
As the three prepared to leave, the boy ran up to Crono. A single seed lay in his little palm.
“Take this one.”
Crono shook his head, but the boy did not lower his hand.
“My dad found them. You should keep one safe.”
Crono blinked at being addressed like a grown man. The faintest smile touched Marle's lips. At last he accepted the seed and tucked it into a small pouch beneath his bandages.
At the entrance to Lab 32, the vehicle Doan had described lay half buried in sand.
Its long, low chassis had barely enough room for three people pressed close together, and rust mottled the rear drive unit. When Lucca opened the casing, the storage cell gave a faint response. Working with her swollen wrist, she dropped her tool twice while reconnecting the wires.
Marle sat beside her and steadied the handle.
“Tell me what to do.”
“Don't touch the red wire. No—the other red wire, either.”
“Why are there two red wires?”
“Ask whoever built it.”
After two broken metallic coughs, blue fire came alive in the drive unit. A narrow, straight course appeared between the ruins scattered across the desertlike expanse.
Just as the bike began to move, booming laughter rang out from the barrier ahead.
A machine with a bright red body rolled down the ramp. A single enormous wheel supported a torso modeled after a human's. With his arms spread wide and his eyes flashing, he looked like someone utterly convinced the ruins were his private stage.
“You think you can just ride through my road?”
The machine introduced himself as Johnny. His voice was far too loud, and he revved his engine at the end of every sentence.
“There's only one rule in this sector. Only those faster than me get to see the other side.”
Lucca examined the barrier's locking assembly.
“I think we could force it aside.”
“And those sentry machines would reach us while we tried.” Marle pointed to the black shapes moving in the distance.
Crono settled into the front seat. His left hand closed around the steering bar; his bandaged right hand rested on the accelerator.
Johnny laughed.
“I like the quiet one. When you lose, at least your excuses will be short.”
Their starting signal was not a gunshot but the detonation of two engines.
The bike leapt forward. Marle wrapped both arms around Crono's waist, while Lucca threw her weight over the rear casing to keep it from flying open. The supposedly straight road rose and split in a dozen places. Crono threaded through gaps between collapsed signs and the wreckage of old vehicles.
Johnny relied on speed. Whenever the red wheel pulled alongside them, he slammed his body against the bike and sent all three riders lurching to one side.
“Sinkhole ahead—left side!”
At Lucca's warning, Crono wrenched the steering bar around. The bike rode at an angle along the edge of a severed stretch of road. Johnny tried to block the same route, but Marle watched behind them and read the timing.
“Straighten out—now!”
Crono snapped the bike upright. Johnny alone hit the tilted slab of debris. The red machine spun through the air, spilling curses and laughter in equal measure. When he landed, he came after them even faster.
As the final barrier drew close, the whine of the bike's drive unit dropped.
“The cell's almost dead!” Lucca reached inside the open casing. “I can give it one more surge. But once we use it, this thing stops for good.”
Crono stared ahead. Johnny was half a wheel in front. If they wanted to pass him, they had to use the power now—but then they might not have enough momentum to carry them beyond the barrier.
He left the accelerator untouched.
Marle understood first. “You're saving it for the very end, aren't you?”
Just before the finish, Johnny turned his body sideways. He wanted to cross while facing them, to make certain they saw him win.
That was when Crono released everything they had left.
Blue flame streamed behind them. The bike shot past Johnny's red body and through the barrier. His laughter stopped for a single beat, then returned loud enough to shake the ruins.
“Next time, learn my road before you come!”
He left the barrier open and rolled back to the far side. He never said that he had lost, but the closed road remained open behind him.
Proto Dome was quieter than Arris Dome.
Almost no trace of human habitation remained in its inner hall. Small security machines crawled across the floor and rushed the three intruders as soon as they were detected. Crono tore a broken length of railing free and held the machines back while Marle tangled loose wiring around their wheels. Lucca opened a wall panel and cut the current. One by one, their eyes went dark.
Another machine sat propped against the wall at the center of the hall.
It was roughly the size of a man. It had a round head, broad shoulders, and a body plated in green metal. Rust marked it in places, but there was no sign that it had been destroyed. The faded characters `R66-Y` remained on its chest.
Lucca crouched in front of it, forgetting the pain in her wrist.
“It's not broken. It's dormant. If I reconnect a few power circuits, I may be able to wake it.”
Marle peered into the machine's face.
“What if it attacks us?”
“It might.”
Lucca gave the honest answer and took out her tools.
Crono stood beside the machine with the metal bar ready. Yet his posture seemed meant less for destroying it than for giving both sides time to look at each other once it woke.
Lucca connected the final wire.
Deep in the machine's chest, a gear that had not moved in centuries turned once. Dust spilled from its joints. Its fingers slowly curled.
Blue light entered its dark eyes.
It passed over the three of them in turn, then settled on Lucca, who sat nearest.
“Who... are you?”
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