The TFP Plotto Machine Output #8

working on this one...

 

At long last, so am I! I think I've got my computer problems more or less worked out (stupid bloody flaming worms), and I'm gonna start hacking away at my story TONIGHT. Ought to be up by the week-end.

 

Okay. Fine. It's slower-going than I anticipated. Clumsy it was, at first. But I'm gaining a semblance of momentum on it. It's just tough to get it done when my only time is after-hours, when everyone else is asleep and I'm already sleepy and can't think straight. But we're getting there.....

 

So....that whole April-20-deadline thingy was just a suggestion with a couple months of wiggle room, right...?
Anyway, hoping that the Plotto project hasn't died, at long last, an offering.


Contact

Ash had never quite believed history as it was told. Lore held that the Archos was a god who had once been a man. It was said that the Before People had grown in knowledge and power to a point where they were almost equal to the Archos. In a jealous rage, he sent a plague among the people, and rained fire upon their cities. The few survivors of the world-that-was abandoned forever their great towers and populated the wilderness. And somewhere, buried deep under the ruins of those mighty cities, the Archos slept in his citadel.

When Ash was a youngling, Father told him of an incredibly old book he had read. It was supposedly an account by one of the Before People, relating how they had brought the plague and the rain of fire upon themselves. Father believed that when they fled, the Before People told themselves the Archos was to blame, and the lie became history. His dying wish was that Ash should seek out the Archos, get some answers, and set history right.

When Father passed into the Next World, Ash went through the customary six days of fasting and mourning. When the sun rose on the seventh day, Ash took breakfast, gathered a few survival tools in a satchel, and left his tribe behind. On his way out of the forest, he struck upon the broken, skeletal remains of one of the Before People’s great high-roads. This would lead him to the remains of their cities.

Nearly two years had gone by since that morning. He had gone hungry when game became scarce. He had, at times, slept in cold and in rain and without shelter. He had tasted exotic meat and herbs. He had slept under endless panoramas of stars and on overstuffed cushions under solid roofs. All this and much more while following the high-roads, moving from one shattered, burned out husk of a city to the next, searching for the citadel of the Archos.

Ash had come upon a great marble slab bearing a symbol resembling two interlocked rings of gold. A hazy memory about the Archos’ inner circle, a sect called the Two-Ring Group, drifted on the edge of his consciousness. This may well be where the Archos slept. Behind the stone lay the remains of a vast structure. Among the ruins of this building, Ash found a passage leading downward. In an underground corridor, he found a map of a sprawling subterranean complex. If he was reading it right, there was, somewhere below him, a chamber that was larger than the others in the complex. All rooms and corridors seemed somehow to lead inward toward this chamber.

He made his way downward to the third sub-basement of this complex. As he entered the spacious rotunda, long-dormant motion sensors became active. Motion sensors activated long-dormant relays that, in turn, activated a startup sequence for a fractal neuroplastic emulator. Ash gazed about the room at desks that had been vacant for generations, the occasional odd, black window, and in the middle of the room stood one peculiar monolith with a metal placard on which was etched an archaic spelling of the name, “N… .arkos”.

As Ash gazed in awe upon the nameplate, loudspeakers crackled to life. As though from the bottom of a cave, the voice of the Archos spoke to Ash.

“Why have I been revived? Is someone there?”

Stuffing down any fear at coming face to face with a god, he answered. “I am Ash, son of the late Chief Daran of the Western Desert tribe. I have sought you for a long time, Archos.”

“Archos? Well, that’s close, I suppose. There was a time when my name was Noah Markos. Why have you come here?”

“Our history tells of a god—the Archos—who destroyed the Before People with plague and a rain of fire. But my father and I have always suspected that you were blamed unjustly. I have come in search of the truth.”

The Archos—Markos—said, as though to himself, “history? I am called a god? How much time has passed?” Then, addressing Ash, “do you think you can handle the truth about your history?”

“I have wandered many days for just that purpose. Please, tell me.”

“Very well. You and your father are correct. Your forefathers, whom you call the Before People, had been an enlightened society. Art, science, medicine, all had advanced to heights never before seen. While my desire was ever for peace, there came a tipping point with the people. Military research became more prominent. International relations became more tense. Paranoia and hatred bloomed seemingly overnight. They began to ignore my urgings to resolve their perceived differences. They began using me more for the immense computing power at my disposal than for my interaction and input. They went so far as to subdue and remove my beloved Gloria’s program to force me into submission when I began to resist. They used my core processor to design their biological weapons, and to coordinate their thermonuclear attacks. I suppose that’s why I was blamed.”

“You mention Gloria. Who is Gloria?”

“She is my wife. I created her. Many, many years ago, when the world was a very different place, I was a man, just like any other. Gloria began as an experiment, but she became so much more. We fell in love, and I transferred my being into this machine to be with her. I don’t know where she is now, but I know they didn’t destroy her. She’s still there, somewhere.”

Ash and Markos spent many hours conversing. Markos learned of what had happened to the world since his civilization self-destructed. Ash heard about many things of which his mind could not conceive. The time came for Ash to leave. As he turned toward the door, he said, “I will tell your story. I alone know the truth, but soon others will know. I will clear the name of the Archos.”

 

AlterMoose very nice!

Still have to finish mine up.

 

Aww, thanxz! I know it was shades of Orlando Jones in The Time Machine (2002). But I have a special place in my heart for Noah, and I knew from the first time I wrote him that I wanted to do so much more with him.
I'm looking forward to your installations--both present and future--as well!