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Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

Cover image from Unsplash

Chapter 3.6

We weren’t quite certain what the effect of Marc being present would have, so both he and Paula were asked to remain out of sight.

We started our trip down the wall of the pit. On our way down, my husband, ever the engineer, examined the walls. “These were molten once. It's like they were super-heated, then cooled into an alloy.”

“Do you think Kari did it?” Daddy asked.

“Well, if Freddi’s telling the truth, I don't see how.”

“Freddi said she can control the bots,” Mamma said. “It would be beneficial to have the bots mimic fire. If they could have the same effect, I mean.”

“Freddi,” John asked. “What’s the deal with these walls?”

The pixie flew down and hovered in between the walls and John. “Whaddya mean?” she asked.

“They’re some kind of alloy. It’s been melted to create it. You said Kari didn’t produce real fire.”

“No, she doesn’t.” She flew to the ground and picked up a handful of dirt. She held out her hand and asked, “What’s this?”

“It’s dirt,” he replied.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Pretty sure.”

“Well, you’re right. It is.” She held up the hand and dribbled the dirt into the other. Then she held the first hand up, over the other. “Watch,” she commanded.

She sprinkled a bit of ‘pixie dust’ over the handful, and everyone watched, transfixed as the dirt flattened out into a bit of glowing molten metal, then cooled.

“You can handle molten metal against your skin?” Daddy asked.

“It was never hot,” she explained. “As the bots multiply, they give off that glow as if it was.” John reached out, but Freddi quickly pulled her hand away. “Don’t touch it!” she exclaimed. “Even though it’s not hot, the bots will attack you until it ‘cools’.”

John pulled his hand back, and nodded. “So, Kari can do this too?”

Freddi nodded. “It’s all she can do with her bots. She can’t control them like I can.”

“What can you do?” Mamma asked.

“Well, I am limited. I can make certain things grow. I can shrink a person to my size too. What I basically did to Rachel, was turn her into a pixie. Just without shrinking her.” She sighed heavily. “I shouldn’t have done that, but I thought...” She shook her head. “No, I guess I didn’t think. I’ve locked Rachel here. She can’t leave the forest now.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

We were almost to the bottom of the last switchback, and we heard some shuffling in the cave. “I’ll explain when we’re done meeting Kari. Now’s not the time.”

Suddenly, she zipped ahead of us at amazing speed. I gasped as I watched, and then I gasped again as I saw Kari exit the cave.

The friend that I saw now, appeared to be a Pterodactyl, except she had a toothy mouth and Stegosaurus spines along her back. She had enormous leathery wings that appeared nearly four meters each, when she spread them, and her body was about the color of chocolate.

It seemed as though she wanted to intimidate us, as she flapped her wings several times, presumably in a show of power.. When that didn’t work, she rushed toward us and turned her head upwards, blowing ‘fire’ from her throat. Then she stopped to face us and screamed in a terrifying screechy voice, “Go away! I don’t want to fight you! I used to be like you, and I don’t want to kill you! Leave!”

Kari started to run at us again but Freddi went forward until she was hovering right in front of us. Kari skidded to a stop with her snout almost touching the pixie’s face. Freddi spread her tiny arms across the dragon’s nose and lay her head against it as well. I couldn’t hear anything from either of them until Kari moved her gaze from the pixie to us.

Slowly, the dragon approached us. “Where’s Marc?” she asked in the same, high-pitched screech.

I glanced at John, unsure what to say. “He’s not here,” my husband told her.

Kari slowly approached us, then slowly started to circle us. Daddy and Mamma were a little ways behind us, and Rachel had disappeared during our descent. She had simply flown off after the revelation she was now a giant pixie.

We stood our ground, not moving as the dragon circled us. I kept wanting to turn to face her, but we both stood still, our heads resolutely facing ahead. When she got behind us, she gave a screeching roar, not unlike the supposed sound of a Tyrannosaurus. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, willing my body not to move.

John, too stood still, although I don’t think he was shaking like I was. “You and Marc are like two peas in a pod, John,” Kari whispered, her snout right behind us. I gripped his hand so tight, I’m surprised I didn’t crush his fingers. “If one of you is around, so’s the other.”

“What do you want with Marc?” I asked.

“He’s my husband,” she answered.

“Not…” I covered my mouth, but I’d said the beginning, and Kari wasn’t stupid.

“Not anymore?” she asked. “That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

“You were dead!” I exclaimed. “He needs a bond!”

“Who’d he marry?” She finished her circle around us, and glanced at Freddi. “Oh, I see. You thought I was dead, and that Fred was dead. They married, didn’t they? Paula and Marc. They were both needing a bond.”

I gritted my teeth together, vowing not to say anything else. She sighed and pointed to the top of the cliff. I couldn’t see either of the two, but Kari could.

“I suppose the two people up there are them. Paula wouldn’t let you come down here on your own, and Marc would never let Paula or John. That is, if Marc treats Paula anything like he treated me.”

“I don’t see anyone up there,” John said.

“I see can their bots. They’re all over. They light up the world.” Somehow, the screeches she produced sounded like a laugh. “I know they’re there. There’s no use denying it.”

“What do you plan on doing to Marc and Paula?” I asked.

“Maybe I’ll treat them to my fire,” she said, almost conversationally.

As I listened to her speak, I thought to myself, This is not Kari. There’s no way she would have this type of attitude about things. She understands what has happened, but she seems to feel wronged by them!

Suddenly, there was a sound like a helicopter, and I spun to my right to look. There, an oversized pixie was landing. Rachel stepped up to the dragon with her hands on her hips. She was somehow wearing a dress very much like Freddi’s. now. Strangely, it seemed as though it was part of her. I could see the change in color, but no seam where her dress started at her neck. Everything was skin-tight, except for the skirt of the dress.

“Is that really what you want to do?” she asked Kari.

“With every fiber of my being,” the dragon replied. “However,” she continued before the pixie could react, “I won’t. I am very much aware of how I’ve changed. For some reason, Amos must have wanted me to know what I used to be, and how he changed me to a killer.”

“If I could give you back your personality from before, would you accept that?”

“I don’t know,” Kari replied. “How can I accept being this horrible creature if my mind is returned to normal?”

Rachel chuckled. “Do you think I want to be this?” She indicated her new form. “The fact is, Freddi didn’t intend to help me. In fact, I suppose she acted completely out of her own programming. But, in giving me the ability to control bots like she can, she’s helped my mission immeasurably.”

She held up her hand over the dragon’s muzzle and said, “Choose. I can give you your old personality back, or I can take away your fire. You won’t like that outcome either.”

“Oh? Take away the fire. I can’t hurt people then, even if I’m so inclined.”

The giant Pixie laughed. “You have to produce fire. Without it, the bots that feed you will have to find another way out of your body. Are you sure you want that?”

The dragon laughed, then told her, “If you can control the bots, then give me back my old self.”

Rachel nodded, then snapped her fingers. Some of the glowing pixie dust appeared and drifted down to the dragon, and where it landed, I watched her start to change. Her skin took on a look less like leather, and more like skin. The glowing quickly encompassed her entire head, and continued down her neck.

Suddenly, liquid started to spill out of the dragon, and as it hit the ground, it became moss. Moss, I was certain, that was built of nanobots, and would happily rip a person’s body apart if they were foolish enough to touch it.

In all the time I had been subject to the changes made by the bots, I had rarely observed them firsthand, and when I did, it made me sick to watch. Seeing Kari change was horrible! But watch I did.

In a few minutes, however, I stopped being horrified because I was too shocked! Standing in front of me was Kari as I’d always known her! Nothing like the dragon at all!

Rachel turned toward me then. “Kari’s DNA records were kept in a secure computer, because she was in charge of security. I was able to have the bots in my ‘pixie dust’ use those records to reform her to herself.”

Freddi was still hovering near her and suddenly called out, “Catch her!” A moment later, John darted forward, into the moss and caught Kari as she stumbled.

Daddy hurried forward too. “You know a change that fast isn’t safe!” he shouted at Rachel as he knelt beside Kari.

John stood up as Daddy, and now Mamma, helped the still prone Kari. “You fixed Kari, but at what price?”

I stared at him standing in the moss. “The moss,” I barely squeaked out.

Rachel cycled between looking at the former dragon, John, Freddi, and me. I was furious and would have happily torn the wings from her back and force fed them to her. Staring at her face, I saw when she seemed to realize she hadn’t endeared herself to us. She extended her wings and with a quick movement, shot into the sky, arcing over the trees and out of sight.

-=#=-

We exited the pit and found that it was night. During our exit the moss remained inactive, for which I was very grateful. Marc and Paula had descended the cliff, and Mamma and Daddy had moved Kari away from the moss that had grown during her transition.

John wouldn’t allow me to touch him for quite some time, but we finally decided that there didn’t seem to be any negative effects from the moss.

I was sitting beside John, leaning against his shoulder, and I was exhausted. I was beginning to drop off, but woke up when I heard footsteps coming down the path.

John must have heard them too, as his arm around me tensed. There was a full moon, and I could just make out a person coming down the hill. When he reached the bottom, I could see that it was Ralph, but he had wings like Rachel did!

He came over to where all of us were grouped. “Ralph?” Mamma asked, staring inquisitively.

“No,” came the unmistakable voice of Arby, Ralph’s bots.

“You have wings,” John said, stating the obvious.

“Yes,” Arby said simply.

John waited, and when it seemed as though Arby wasn’t going to elaborate, he said, “Care to explain why?”

“Certainly. In the situation Amos has created, no-one will truly die. As long as their crystals are intact, that is. The soul and memories are both stored in the crystals. Ralph can be re-constructed any time you wish.”

Arby got a very somber look on their face. “Rachel, however, has taken the change in her personality very badly.” Arby turned toward Freddi and said, “It is not your fault, Freddi. You have the compulsion to utilize the powers Amos bestowed on you as well. And in actuality, you have pointed the way to a mechanism of repairing the people in a very easy way.”

“How’s that?” Daddy wondered.

“Rachel was able to control the bots she used for Kari. Granted, she neglected to regulate the speed with which they worked. It shouldn’t have been so quick, but because of her link to her own bots, she was able to use the pixie bots’ full potential.”

“So where is Rachel now?” John asked. He still wasn’t terribly impressed with her ‘neglect’, as Arby put it.

“She has had a very hard day. Watching Ralph ‘die’ was very hard,” Arby explained.

“But you’re still here. So obviously, Ralph isn’t dead,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but he’s… Not in working order until we find a receptacle for his consciousness.”

“You mean make him a body,” John said, translating the euphemistic language.

“That’s what we said,” Arby said.

“No,” John argued. “You used some kind of high-brow language that doesn’t make any sense.”

Daddy decided to stop John’s tirade and asked, “How come none of us were affected by the moss?”

“That was something that Rachel did remember to do. The moss that formed from Kari’s unnecessary matter is harmless. It is not programmed to consume a person.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” John said, sarcastically.

I put my hand on his arm, hoping that he’d take the hint. I was afraid he was going to take anything said by Arby in a negative way. “So will Rachel be able to help us when we get back upstairs?” I asked.

“She should be able to. She is still not able to leave this area, but I am working with her bots to change that situation.”

“What about Kari?” asked Freddi. “Will she be alright?”

“Physically, she appears alright on the outside, but there are some repairs needed because of the rapid transformation.” Arby stared at nothing for a moment, then fixed his eyes on Freddi. “Her bots have informed me that she should be in working order in a couple of hours.”

“Good!” Freddi enthused, settling down beside Kari’s still unconscious form.

We talked for a bit more, then decided to try to rest until it was light. We didn’t want to run the risk any dryads or any unfriendly bots in the dark.

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--Rosemary