"I'm seeing a memory inside a dream inside a dream…" I murmured. My tired body and unmotivated spirit from before I fell asleep had returned. When I woke up, I had not expected a memory from my time as Arthur Vale to appear in my head.
Only a few hours had passed in the real world, but I had been in the mind tunnel for almost months. Because of that, my mind felt truly clouded. My brain seemed to have trouble sending signals to move my arms and legs. Saliva was drooling onto the console where I laid my head, and I had trouble closing my mouth. Maybe I would never get up from the console I was lying on and would continue a vegetative life here. If so, why had Rose put me in such a situation?
At some point, my ears could hear. My tongue could taste, and a disgusting taste of rust filled my open mouth. The sounds my ears heard were of bullets fired from triggers pulled one after another, the sounds of suffering mutants. "I have to help." I tried to say, but all I did was lick the console a little more. I wondered how Rose had become so capable of fighting as soon as she returned from the mind tunnel.
My finger… When I felt my finger move, my eyes filled with tears. No, a vegetative life was not what awaited me. My mind had finally started to remember it had a body. For a very long time, while moving in my subconscious, my mind hadn't needed muscles to move me. Now, maybe because I wanted to escape the disgusting taste of rust that filled my mouth; my muscles were preparing to move.
As I slowly sat up, I noticed something. What I noticed was a mutant entering through the open door. Looking with the corner of my blurry eyes, I could see the mutant's gigantic mouth opening with great power. Its flesh hand had been severed, and a metal blade was attached in its place… As the creature came toward me to stab me with its gigantic metal blade, I pushed myself back with my hand. The chair leaned against the wall behind me as the blade struck the console in front of me. I couldn't even remember how I had grabbed the creature's blade arm and stabbed it in the throat amidst the electricity gushing from the console… So… So the training was working. The reflex my body gave when death approached surprised even me.
"So your playing dead only lasts until you see a knife…" Rose said, standing at the door with her hand on her hip. "You seemed to be having trouble waking up until your life was at risk…"
"Was it you who put the mutant in the room? I could have died…"
"If your body hadn't come to itself, you would have been considered dead anyway."
I looked at my hands; they were smeared with the brownish-red blood of the mutant. It felt like, for the first time, I had free will. I had saved my own life with my own hands. I could feel my hands trembling with excitement, the adrenaline flowing through my veins invigorating my muscles. My heart was beating like a motor that had been filled with gasoline, one beat after another.
"How do you feel now?" Rose asked.
"What do you mean?" I said, straightening up. The mutant's corpse fell from the console to my feet. "Am I supposed to feel something?"
"You think you've learned how to lie, but lies don't work against even a half-mind-weaver. You can thank me…"
"I'm grateful…" I said and held out my hand to Rose.
"Then let's make our deal." Rose said. "If you can become a hero in the way you described, I will apologize to you."
"Ah…" I said, scratching the back of my head. "…I almost forgot that all of this was for a promise."
"I'm glad you didn't forget." The red-haired woman put on her clothes that were thrown around the room. She tightened her boots and put her rifle on her back. "We should leave here before other mutants come. Jose and Diana have probably already hidden their security. It's time to find them."
"Jose will faint when he sees this new me!"
"Don't I know it…"
***
We walked along the gigantic sewer. The nausea from before I fell asleep felt like it belonged to ages ago. I had already eaten and dozed off, so I was quite rested. I made a promise to myself at that moment… I would not put any alcohol in my mouth until I was out of trouble. Sorry, Hulk…
At the end of the sewer, we threw ourselves out through the iron bars. Once again, we were in that abandoned mutant village. In front of us, there was a path created by continuously flowing water. The inside of the path was damp and painted green. As I descended from the iron bars of the sewer, I didn't use the stairs; I just threw myself directly onto the ground. It was as if there was a surge of confidence building up inside me.
When I landed on the ground from the stairs, my hands touched the soil. The soil felt too firm. These were things I hadn't noticed before, but the training I received from Rose seemed to have opened my third eye, allowing me to notice so many more things.
For example, I could now see that the doors of the buildings in this abandoned village always faced the same direction, that there were iron thorns among the wooden fences, that there were dried bloodstains on the stone streets, and that in some places on the ground, there were rotting bone fragments.
"The soil is way too hard…" I said to Rose. "…for a wet, damp ground."
"Someone has passed over this ground, but there are no footprints."
"And the soil is too flat… Wait a minute… Probably while Rose and Diana were passing through here, Jose swept the path they walked with the broom he had to hide the footprints."
"Yes…" Rose said and punched me on the shoulder. "…good job. You're truly making me proud."
"Proud?" I said while walking on the dirt ground. We were advancing, hoping to find Jose and Diana in any building in the city. "Those are not the words I would expect from you."
"I don't know…" she said. "…maybe I need to add some new words to my dictionary."
"What happened? Did a rock fall on your head or something?"
"No… This mind tunnel adventure taught me some things, just as it taught you."
"What kind of things?"
"I… How should I say it? I want to have a child."
"Holy sh*t!" I shouted and looked at Rose. Rose was looking at me with a very serious expression. "You're serious! But why? If it's to make them work like a slave and torture them, my conscience won't allow that."
"If the child I make turns out to be useless, then why not? But, no… That's not the real reason. As I realized when I was in your mind, a child means the future. I couldn't find answers to some questions in my own life." We entered a side street, passed by an abandoned park. Then we walked toward another street. "I hope maybe they can find them. Master Raiden was more than a hero to me, and my whole life was spent looking for him. The reason was simple, CLAUDIS IX had always needed a hero like him and always would. I knew my own potential, so I knew I couldn't be just any hero. Maybe I thought no one could have such a potential. While I was in your mind, I had the opportunity to think: "Maybe the child with that potential hasn't been born yet." If that child still hasn't been born, I might want to try my luck."
"I see you want to give a child a responsibility they can't handle and make them lose their mind because of the burden on their shoulders. I thought a maternal instinct had blossomed in you or something…"
"Maternal instinct? What's that?"
"Never mind…"
Rose suddenly grabbed my arm tightly and stopped me.
"I'm serious… What is it?" I felt once again how strong this woman was at that moment. Yes, maybe the difference in physical strength wasn't so obvious inside the mind, but outside of dreams, my body was quite frail compared to a mind-weaver's body.
"Ah… You're going to break my arm!"
"Are you going to talk?"
"Maternal instinct… How should I put it? It was something my mother told me. According to what ancient people believed, when a woman wants to become a mother, this instinct would suddenly appear inside her. And then the woman with a maternal instinct would become a more compassionate and mature woman… Or something like that, I don't know exactly."
"Is it possible…" She said and looked at her own body. "…that such an instinct might be blossoming inside me too?"
"I don't think so."
"Why?" Rose said, frowning angrily.
"Maybe it is blossoming." I said, brushing her off.
***
What was strange was that not only was there no trace of Jose and Diana, there wasn't even a trace of the mutants we expected to be after them. As we walked through the empty streets, Rose kept telling me to keep my eyes open.
"Are you sure they came to this town?" I asked.
Rose and I were sitting on one of the stalls in an abandoned market. I was swinging my aching legs down from the stall, and it seemed to be helping the pain in my legs.
"What else would they have done?" Rose said, lying on a stall. She had made herself a hat from the plants wrapped around the stall. It was a really good idea on this planet where the sky never darkened. Think about it, we had been wandering around that city for so long until Rose made herself a hat from plants. It was very normal for my legs to feel sore. "The sewer doesn't open up anywhere else…"
"Okay…" I said, wiping the sweat from the back of my neck with my hand. The sweat had made many parts of my body itch, and I was sure I was leaving marks when I scratched. "…then where are they?"
"Ah…" She let out a deep sigh. "How many questions do you ask? I guess you still don't get the situation, Mehmet. Diana is a mind-weaver, and Jose is not only a smart drone assistant but also a fully equipped death machine… Do you think these two can't take care of themselves?"
"If they can take care of themselves, then where are they? Or rather, where are the mutants?"
Diana spread out and yawned on the stall she was sitting on. "You ask very simple questions, my student Mehmet. Yes, maybe I was able to teach you how to fight, but I'm realizing that there's not much I can do for your intelligence…"
"I don't understand why my intelligence is being insulted now."
"Look… The mutants were an army. An army in a chain of command… If an army is going to fight guerrillas, they don't usually wear themselves out by chasing after them. They try to make a plan and deliver a single powerful blow because they know that guerrillas love chaos and guerrilla warfare is by its very nature a never-ending war. We, as four fugitives, can be considered the guerrillas of this place. They tried to attack us unprepared, but we even escaped that… Whoever is at the head of the chain of command must think that if they come after us, we might get scared and run away. Because of that, they must be making a plan to do the unexpected."
"So…"
"What I mean is this…" she said and put her hand inside the belt of her pants. She pulled out something that looked like a long, wired headset, but this thing was smeared with blood and flesh. "…I pulled this out of a mutant's head. Mutants are not very intelligent creatures and their free will is negligible. This microphone constantly goes into their minds and reminds them what they need to do, second by second. I guess the thing we were fighting wasn't an army. Yes, they had swarmed us like an army, but the purpose of these mutants' creation can't be to be an army. The army can't be this stupid… Look… Come closer… Listen to the sound coming from the headset… You will realize that the headset is always saying the same thing: 'Find the owner of the helmet! To do this, destroy everything that stands in your way.'"
Indeed, a phlegmy robotic voice was constantly saying this.
"If they weren't produced for an army, what were they produced for?"
"I don't know… But maybe you do. You said that your memories sometimes come back to you like a sudden idea, didn't you? Could this be related to Arthur Vale?"
"Even if it is, such a memory hasn't appeared in my head yet."
"What do we need to do for it to appear?"
"I can say that some memories appear in my head when I sleep. It doesn't happen every time I sleep, but it happens from time to time."
"Actually, Diana might want to go into your mind one more time to clear up the confusion in your mind. I'm not that strong, but maybe she can succeed in something like that without crippling you."
"I prefer to stay away from things that have a chance of crippling me."
"As you wish… I think it would be a risk worth taking."
***
Being in the middle of a dead city gave a person more restriction than freedom. I didn't really want to leave the old market where Rose and I were sitting and wander around, because Rose's side felt like the only living place.
Rose was very relaxed, as if nothing mattered. She was even more relaxed than she normally was. She had her rifle in her lap, had made a bed from sacks behind her head, and was sleeping in a cool spot with her hat on. Her red hair was falling over her shoulders, and the shadow from her hat ended just above her lips. Her lips were pale, and it seemed she was sucking on her lips from time to time to soothe the pain of her dried lips. This showed that she was not so much sleeping under her hat as she was just resting her eyes.
Rose rubbed her feet together, took off her boots, and threw them down from the stall she was lying on.
"Are you going to keep standing like this?" she asked.
"What do you expect me to do?"
"I don't know… Weren't you the one who was miserable from throwing up just a few hours ago? Don't you want to rest a little under the sun?"
I raised my head and looked at the tear in the covering above me. It was still very strange to me that there was no sun in the sky. It felt as if the chemical warmth left by this artificial light was constantly filling my lungs.
"Rest? I'm always resting anyway…"
Rose sat up, took off her jacket, and threw it aside. "Then even my knives…" Then she took off her bra and threw it to me. I had involuntarily caught the bra that Rose threw; then, realizing that what I caught was a sweaty bra, I threw it from my hand. I had instantly turned my back so as not to see Rose's naked body. Seeing my bright red face, Rose was even more surprised.
"What are you doing, you idiot?" Rose shouted. "Those knives are very valuable…"
"What are you doing, you idiot? You're naked! I've had enough of seeing nudity! In a few days, I've seen more breasts than I've seen in many years. Wait a minute… Knives?"
I glanced at the bra on the ground. Yes, there were countless knives on the strap. I had seen her sharpen those knives before.
"I don't understand…" Rose said. She was stretching out, putting her arms behind her head. "…I can't understand people from 400 years ago. Nudity has no importance in CLAUDIS IX. A good piece of clothing only indicates status. Maybe clothes protect you from filth and injuries. You can see many dismembered, ruined naked bodies on the street. Nobody cares…"
"In my time…" I said and got down from the stall I was sitting on and took the bra in my hand again. Some of the knives on it had scattered on the ground. I also picked up the knives. "…in my time, such things were still considered very strange. So, can you stop judging me?"
"No… I'm not judging… In fact, it's very interesting. You old people used to be very different. This seems very strange to me. Especially your hopes for the future. The thing you call family… It's not really a thing like it used to be."
"Having a family is a beautiful thing."
"I don't know if it's beautiful, but from what I saw of your family, it's a truly fascinating thing. I'm honestly curious… I wonder what it feels like to have a child. After all, I didn't grow up in a family like most CLAUDIS IX citizens… I was born as a fetish object of a man, and I would have existed if I hadn't escaped. I'm truly curious about what a mind-weaver raised with love, honor, and wisdom would be like. That's why I want you to help me…"
"With what?"
"To have a child, of course…"
I glanced at Rose's naked body. Her pectoral muscles were visible as she leaned back. Scars on her body were showing as her red hair fell over her breasts. With a moment of embarrassment, I turned my face to the other side.
"Don't say such things, woman!"
"You and my sister were making out. Did the subject change when it came to me, huh?"
"It's not like that!"
"What is it then?"
"Please… Let's discuss this another time. And put something on!"
***
While she was naked, Rose took off her clothes and washed them in a well. I did the same with my clothes. I also prepared a bucket of water to take a shower, but the dirt coming off me was so much that the bucket kept getting dirty, and after a while, I gave up on washing. I was content with pouring a few buckets of water over my head. Of course, we both complied with the clothing rule. We had cut pieces from the coverings of the market stalls and wrapped them around many parts of our bodies. We both looked like ancient desert Arabs.
"Do you want me to teach you weapon maintenance?" Rose asked.
"What do you mean?" At that moment, I realized that Rose wanted to spend time with me. For Rose, who had only talked to her sister in the dead galaxy for a long time, I was the only person she could talk to after a long time. The best part was that she didn't even have to trust me; I was truly harmless.
"I think you'll need it in the future."
"Are you going to teach me in the Mind Tunnel?"
"Ah… I might have forgotten to mention this. It's quite difficult for a human to wake up from the mind tunnel. The first one is the simplest among them because the body doesn't quite comprehend where the mind is and lets things happen a little. Now, your body knows that your mind can move and live in it. The next time we go to the mind tunnel, your body might not be as asleep and calm as before. Or rather, let me put it this way, you can accept the mind tunnel as your real world and get stuck there. The reason we could easily bring you back to the real world was that your body belonged to this world. If your body gets used to the Mind Tunnel, if the Mind Tunnel becomes the real world for your body, there will be nothing to tie you to this side. In short, you'll become like a crazy person whose body moves but whose mind is in another realm."
"We also entered the Mind Tunnel with your sister, didn't we? Actually, didn't it become two when we entered with you?"
"No… Not exactly. My sister played with your mind and showed you hallucinations. You weren't in the Mind Tunnel with her. You were in your mind together. There's a difference. If it had been like that, we might not have been able to wake you up."
"Thank you for giving me these lengthy details now."
"You're welcome. So, what do you say? Do you want training?"
I felt that she wouldn't leave me alone if I said no, so narrowing my eyes, I felt I had to say: "Yes…"
***
As I was putting the trigger spring of the rifle in my hand, I felt as if Rose was waiting right next to my ear. I could feel her breath constantly on my ears.
"Be careful… That spring is a special spring. I had it forged by hand in CLAUDIS V specifically for my rifle. When you put the spring in, you have to use all your strength constantly, otherwise…"
Without being able to say "otherwise," the spring in my hand had sprung out of the place I was putting it. As I watched the spring glide through the air, Rose had lightly slapped the back of my head. At least it was a light slap for her because my head almost slammed into the table we had taken from a house.
"Stupid!" she shouted. "Didn't I tell you to be careful?"
"Calm down! I'll find the spring and bring it back right away."
I got up from the table and started walking toward where the spring had bounced. Since the village had been abandoned for a very long time, each of the weeds around were almost up to my knees. I ran my hand through the weeds, pushed away the insects that came onto my hand with the back of my hand, and silently screamed. Why? Rose was watching me, and because of that, I didn't want to scream like a scared little girl. I finally found the spring while walking among the weeds. As I reached for the spring, I noticed a very beautiful thing with my eyes.
Ever since I landed on this planet, I couldn't make sense of the rocks, the buildings, or the plants on the planet in any way. But the thing I found in front of me now was something I was familiar with. A yellow, serrated-leaved flower, the size of my palm… I got closer to the flower and smelled it. I didn't get the smell of the flower, but the overpowering smell of the soil, but I was so happy to find a flower. Even in the time I lived on the old world, there weren't many natural flowers. I could only see a flower in the Guardian Park my father took me to… I suddenly took the thing I found in my hand and returned to Rose with the spring.
I was showing the flower to Rose with great enthusiasm: "Look what I found…"
Rose took the flower from my hand and examined it. "What is this?"
"A flower…"
"Yes… Is it edible?" she said, and Rose took the head of the flower to her mouth and swallowed it in one bite. Then, with disgust, she spat the flower in her mouth onto the ground. "Ew… This tastes very disgusting!"
"Why did you eat it!"
"What was I supposed to do then?"
"At least you could have smelled it!"
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? It's a flower…"
"So what if it's a flower?"
"I don't know… A flower smells nice. You give it to patients, you give it to people you love, you give it to a woman you have a crush on. It's a nice thing, you know…"
"Oh… Then I'm sorry. I didn't know that. Did I disrespect your gift? Is this something related to having a child? What should a woman do when she gets a flower?"
"No, it's not like that! I gave it to you to look at and smell, but what would you understand? What am I even trying to explain anymore. Just forget it… Here, this is the spring for your rifle. I'm leaving. I'm going to doze off a little over there."
***
I opened my eyes with a sound. A robotic voice was making an announcement. The sound was coming from very far away, but it was very strong. It was chilling. At the end of each sentence, a horn blared, and with the blare of the horn, that sentence would appear once again.
"Citizens of the Wall, your President is speaking! This is an emergency! There are terrorists from CLAUDIS IX in the city. You are required to execute those terrorists on sight. A robot and a human are on the run. Capture them on sight and bring them to the President!"
The sound of the horn was heard once again.
"Citizens of the Wall, your President is speaking! This is an emergency! There are terrorists from CLAUDIS IX in the city. You are required to execute those terrorists on sight. A robot and a human are on the run. Capture them on sight and bring them to the President!"
When I opened my eyes, I saw Rose standing and watching the view. While in her warrior clothes, her loose hair was swaying in the wind. She had put her rifle back in its old place on her back.
In the sky, there was a gigantic object. It was a massive flying zeppelin, connected by mechanical links and covered in a bright red rust color. The zeppelin had a constantly red-glowing engine, and this was what moved the propellers at the back. Flying around the zeppelin like flies, constantly flapping their wings, were mutants. The mutants were flying so erratically that they would sometimes crash into each other; they would push each other aside and continue flying next to the zeppelin. In the cabin under the zeppelin, there were hundreds of automatic machine guns, and the guns were so big that they were visible on the zeppelin on the horizon. A few lamps on the zeppelin were constantly flashing a red light, which must have indicated an "alarm." A banner with a slogan was hung under the zeppelin's engine. The banner read, "The President is Speaking!"
The horn blared once more. The voice from the zeppelin began speaking again. At that moment, Rose turned to me. Seeing that I had woken up made her happy.
"Are our friends in trouble?" I asked.
"They were making a plan…" Then she pointed to the zeppelin flying in the sky with her hand. "But that thing in the air looks like a very big plan breaker."
"What you mean is…"
"We have to do something!"