[Chrono Trigger Novel - Episode 14] The Machine Given a Name
The machine's voice rasped like metal that had gone unused for too long.
Lucca kept one hand on the wire she had connected as she answered.
“I'm Lucca. That's Crono, and this is Marle.”
The blue eyes turned to each of them as their names were spoken. The machine tried to rise, but its right knee refused to bend and it struck the wall again. Crono braced its shoulder. A low grind came from the rusted joint.
“Assessing damage status.”
“I'm already doing that.”
Lucca opened the knee casing. As she cleaned away dust and hardened lubricant and straightened the bent shaft, Marle read the faded characters on its chest.
“R66-Y. Is that your name?”
“It is my unit designation.”
“That's too long to call out every time.”
Marle considered the machine's round face.
“How about Robo?”
“Robo.”
He repeated the new word slowly, as if turning it over somewhere inside himself.
“It can be registered as a form of address.”
“Does that mean you like it?” Lucca asked.
Robo's eyes blinked once.
“I have no criteria by which to determine whether I like it.”
Marle almost laughed, then stopped. Not because the answer was not funny, but because she wondered whether laughing would feel like making fun of him.
“Then you can start making those criteria now.”
When the repairs were finished, Robo stood. He was slightly taller than Crono, and each step sent a solid tremor through the floor. He surveyed the hall, taking in the fallen security machines and the collapsed sections of ceiling.
“No human maintenance personnel detected. Current date and facility status requested.”
Before answering, Lucca looked at Marle. Saying aloud what they had seen in the record of 1999 carried a different weight from watching it on a screen.
“It's the year 2300,” she said.
“This place was destroyed a long time ago. A few people are still alive, but most of the facilities have shut down.”
Robo did not contradict her. He placed a hand against a wall terminal and called up its internal records. The date of the last inspection flashed past, followed by error reports repeated across hundreds of years. At last the words `NO RESPONSE FROM HUMAN ADMINISTRATORS` appeared and did not change.
“What caused the destruction?”
“Something called Lavos emerged from the earth,” Marle said. “We've only seen the records. We still don't know what it is.”
Robo looked through the ruined wall at the gray world beyond.
“My mission records are damaged. If no administrator remains, I cannot identify a purpose to fulfill.”
There was no grief in the words. Yet the voice reporting the absence of purpose was so precise that the emptiness behind it became all the more distinct.
Lucca unfolded the map she had copied at the information center.
“We're looking for a Gate somewhere in this dome. We need it to return to our own time.”
Robo responded to Lucca's Gate Key before he did to the map. A narrow beam shone from his eyes and swept across the crystal plate.
“A similar fluctuation has been detected. A spatial anomaly is present in the northern isolation chamber.”
He led the way, and sealed doors opened one after another. Devices capable of recognizing his palm still survived. Only the innermost door refused to move. A faint blue pattern had been etched into the center of its thick alloy plate, and beyond it the needle on Lucca's device began to shudder.
“It's behind there,” Lucca said.
Robo checked the power status on the wall.
“Opening the isolation door requires external main power. The lock cannot be released on auxiliary power.”
“Where does the external power come from?”
“The production facility to the north.”
Black smokestacks rose beyond the gaps in the broken ceiling. They belonged to the factory ruins that had stood on the horizon since Arris Dome.
Marle laid a hand against the door. Beyond the cold metal, the low vibration of the Gate tickled the wound in her palm.
“If we start that factory, we can go home.”
“The possibility exists,” Robo said. “However, the security status of the production facility is unknown.”
“Meaning it's dangerous?”
“Yes would be the most accurate answer.”
Robo opened the northern exit.
The air outside was thin and cold. Wind-worn machine parts lay half buried along the road to the factory. After a few steps, Robo stopped and turned to the others.
“Is assisting your return to be my new mission?”
Lucca adjusted the strap of her tool bag.
“We can't order you. You have to choose.”
“Choose.”
“You can stay here if you want,” Marle added. “Waking you doesn't make you ours.”
Robo raised a hand to his chest, to the place where his designation had been written.
“My former mission cannot be recovered. My current functions are necessary to you. Therefore, I will accompany you.”
No one asked whether that was a choice or a calculation. Crono turned toward the factory first, and Robo matched his pace beside him.
The entrance to the production facility gaped like an enormous metal mouth.
The smell of heated iron and ancient oil drifted from within. The ruins outside had lost all motion. This place felt instead like something that had forgotten when it was supposed to stop and had gone on working alone.
The inner corridor divided in two. The left passage led to the control sector, the right to the transport systems. A diagram on the wall placed the main power controls at the deepest point of the facility. To open the isolation door, they would have to divert the factory's power to Proto Dome while someone remained behind to operate the lock.
“One of us has to go back,” Lucca said.
Marle immediately shook her head.
“I came all this way just to wait?”
“Not wait. Open the door. The power may not last long. Someone has to use the controls the instant the signal comes through.”
“You're the only one who can do that.”
“No.”
Lucca sketched Proto Dome's locking panel on a sheet of paper and marked a simple sequence.
“The circuitry is ancient. You can handle it. Inside the factory, we'll need Robo's records and my tools.”
Marle searched for another objection, then looked to Crono. Without speaking, he pointed to the map: three people inside the factory, one waiting in the dome. Neither position mattered less than the other.
“I'll open it as soon as the power comes through.”
Marle folded the paper and put it away.
“But all three of you come back. Don't make me wait beside an open door.”
Robo inclined his head.
“I will record that as a condition of our return.”
After Marle returned to Proto Dome, Crono, Lucca, and Robo entered the factory.
The entrance sensors glowed red. Three mechanical arms descended from ceiling rails and aimed at the intruders. Robo stepped in front of the others and inserted his hand into a wall terminal. Connector pins extended from his fingertips and fitted into rusted ports.
“Disabling Security System 00.”
The mechanical arms stopped above Crono's head. Their lights changed from red to white, and the first fire door opened.
Lucca studied Robo's hand.
“You have clearance here.”
“It is standard clearance shared by units in my series.”
“There are more like you?”
Robo searched his internal records before answering.
“Deployment information for the R-Series is damaged.”
The conveyors farther inside were still moving. Empty belts had turned in the same direction for hundreds of years, dripping black oil. Cargo handlers on the upper level picked up loads that did not exist. Whenever rusted containers collided, the sound rolled through the hollow building.
They entered the transport sector first. The access sequence for the main power room remained stored in its maintenance terminal.
Crono studied the intervals between the moving belts and compactors. His empty hand kept straying to his hip. Instead of a sword hilt, his fingers found only cold air.
Robo caught a falling container ahead of them. The floor sagged beneath its weight, but he did not waver. Once Crono and Lucca had passed underneath, he pushed the container aside and cleared the way.
“You're pretty strong,” Lucca said.
“For an industrial unit, this load is—”
“That was a compliment.”
Robo took several more steps before replying.
“Thank you.”
Two red cargo drums blocked the maintenance office. They would have to use the overhead crane, but the labels on the control panel had worn away. While Lucca traced the wiring, Robo calculated the crane's movements through the window. Crono pulled two different levers in sequence, and the claw descended to lift the first drum.
A narrow staircase appeared beneath the place where the second had stood.
The terminal below retained a four-step security sequence of colors and tones. Lucca copied it onto paper. When the final signal was entered, a heavy lock released somewhere in the direction of the main power room.
At the same moment, every conveyor stopped.
The factory's endless repetition vanished. The silence that replaced it felt more threatening than the noise.
Robo raised his head.
“External access detected.”
“From where?”
“Inside the factory. Multiple R-Series signals.”
Blue eyes began to light in the corridor ahead.
One. Two. Three. The number grew to six.
Machines of Robo's height, Robo's breadth, and Robo's heavy stride emerged in a line. Only the degree of rust distinguished them. Each bore a designation beginning with R on its chest.
The unit in front tilted its head toward Robo.
“R66-Y.”
Its voice sounded like Robo's had when he first awoke.
“Report why you are accompanying humans.”
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