Volume 2 Chapter 9 The Judgement

Chapter 9 The Judgement

I

Starsha and Yanni was taken to the detention centre, their hands shackled by iron cuffs.

They put them in a special cell because it was obvious that normal cell couldn’t hold them.

The wall of the cell was made of some kind of hard metal, perhaps machinite. Yanni and Starsha tried to punch and destroy the wall but they failed. Their fists were aching because the wall was too hard.

Yanni and Starsha exchanged glances and both sighed in frustration.

Some music boxes were playing and their flawless melodies filled the air of the cells. Clearly, the music was played to appease the detained, but for Starsha, it only had the opposite effect.

She sat down and lay on the ground, closing her eyes and panting in despair as well as fatigue.

Granted with the power of Sylvana, they always thought that they could fight to change this world, after all, they had beaten the Grey Factory, the most powerful organization in Normania.

However, science were rocketing forwards. Now they had witnessed the power of mechanics.

Their weapons were made of lunarite, which they thought was perhaps one of the hardest kinds of metal in this world, but now, they found out that the lunarite daggers of Starsha could only leave some meaningless scrape on the Mother Matrix of Macchina Gloriosa.

They had completely lost.

Starsha sat down and lay tiredly on Yanni’s shoulder. Yanni caressed her arm tenderly. He knew that she really needed reassurance right now.

It was at the midnight now. The music boxes stopped and other detained people commenced to sleep. Some of them were grunting heavily like elephants.

“Floria and Aislina will come here to save us. They are powerful. They will help us beat Macchina Gloriosa,” whispered Yanni soothingly.

“I wish so, but they dominate Desertia, like how Grey Factory used to dominate Normania, but I think Macchina Gloriosa may be even more powerful,” sighed Starsha.

“We will defeat them, even if … Even if we’re against the whole kingdom of Desertia,” promised Yanni.

“I’m sorry that I get all of you involved,” apologized Starsha.

“It’s not your battle, Starsha. It’s the battle of humanity. We’re searching an answer for the belief that humanity was something with real souls instead of digits and algorithms substantially. We’re not only fighting for music … We’re fighting for humanity, Starsha,” Yanni reassured her.

“You’ve grown up, Yanni. Do you remember that when you were about nine years old, you always followed me around all the time,” recalled Starsha.

“For sure I remember,” Yanni nodded.

“Those are our precious memories, Yanni …” purred Starsha.

“I’m thinking about your father, Starsha. He used to play with me in the past …” drawled Yanni.

“He’s an asshole …” complaint Starsha.

“Maybe he really had a reason to leave the tribe …” murmured Yanni.

“Perhaps he did have a reason … but … alas … ” sighed Starsha.

“Just like what your mother always says, life is full of uncertainty,” summarized Yanni.

“That’s true. I thought that I would live peacefully, get married, have a children, and spend my whole life in the tribe, but now, everything was different. I betrayed the Grey Factory, and set out on the journey to Infernal Mountain with you three … We’ve beaten the Grey Factory, but we’re not invincible. This kind of powerlessness is desperate…”expressed Starsha.

“Yeah, there are still some things we cannot change, Starsha …” consented Yanni.

“Let’s forget the Mother Matrix and Macchina Gloriosa, Yanni. After we finish this, let’s help Aislina find the Sanctum of Life …” proposed Starsha.

“Good idea …” agreed Yanni.

II

The next day. The sun had risen from the east and it was shining upon Desertia, the land of endless sands. Wind was blowing and there were some chocking dusts lingering in the air.

Aislina and Floria didn’t sleep last night. After searching for a whole night, they had found no clues concerning where Starsha was at all. What was worse, Yanni was lost too.

Sleepily, they were now eating a brief breakfast in the tavern. Although Aislina had magical power while Floria was blessed by the Spring of Sylvana so both of them were more vigorous than normal humans, they still felt tired and anxious.

Their heads were aching and when they were chewing food, their brains were buzzing along with their scraping teeth. The atmosphere inside the tavern was really hypnotic. Irresistible sleepiness was stirring in their minds, soon they would fall into the world of dreams.

When they were about to fall asleep, they were awakened by some noises. They heard someone yelling “גְייוֹרְנַאלִי” [newspapers] repetitively. It was a small boy selling newspapers. Observing the newspaper, Floria found something surprising.

Drawn on the newspapers were pictures of Yanni and Starsha. All the news were written in Desertish and they didn’t know what they were about, but they were pretty sure that Yanni and Starsha had gotten into trouble.

“Oh no …” feeling surprised, Floria covered her mouth with her hand. Starsha and Yanni were foreigners and it wasn’t a good sign that they had been involved in conflicts with the locals, let alone the government or even stronger organization.

Anyhow, at least Yanni and Starsha were with each other now so that they could look out for each other,”

They bought one of the newspapers and gave it to the bartender, asking him to help them translate it, since the bartender could speak both Normanish and Desertish.

The bartender was reading the newspaper now. When he finished, he frowned and looked at the girls worriedly.

“Your friends have big troubles now. They tried to destroy the Mother Matrix of Macchina Gloriosa and now they’ve been arrested. Soon they’ll be taken to the prison,” sighed the bartender.

“How can we get my friends out of the prison?” inquired Floria.

“It will be hellishly difficult. According to the law, they have to stay in the prison for at least one month,” answered the bartender.

“One month?! That is inacceptable! The foods in the prison are as disgusting as shit! It’s too long! Shall we save them out of the prison?” exclaimed Floria.

“You’re the one who makes decision in our team,” Aislina shrugged her shoulder, not knowing what they should do at all.

“We have already been criminals in Normania. If we risk to save them, we’d be criminals here in Desertia too, we have to act prudently anyway…” Floria pointed out.

When they were thinking about a plan to get Starsha and Yanni out of the prison, they heard two drinkers at the table next to theirs talking about the newspaper.

“וֵוידִי קְוֵייְ קְרִימִינַאלִי נֵילְ גְייוֹרְנִי? סִי דִיצֵי קֵי סַארַאנّוֹ קוֹנְّّדֵינַאטוֹ אַ מוֹרְטֵי. וֹרַה לוֹרוֹ סוֹנוֹ נֵילַّה קוֹרְטוֹ אֵי֫ לַה סוֹמַّאטְרִיצֵי דֵילַ֫ה לֵיגֵّיי לִי גְייוּדִיקַארַה.׃” [“You see those criminals on the newspaper? It’s said that they’re going to be sentenced to death. Now they’re in the court and the Submatrix of Law is going to judge them,”] revealed one of the drinkers.

“קוֹמֵי הַאנוֹ אוֹסַאטוֹ צֵרְקַארֵי לַא מַאטְרִיצֵי.׃” [“How dare they try to destroy the Mother Matrix …”] smirked the other drinker.

Floria and Aislina knew nearly nothing about Desertish so they didn’t know what they two were talking about.

“What’re they two talking about?” Floria asked the bartender.

“They said that you friends may be sentenced to death. That’s normal rumour which you can ignore,” replied the bartender.

“What if it is not rumour? They’re in danger!” yelled Floria in anxiety.

Without saying anything, the girls stormed out of the tavern, heading towards the court. No matter whether Starsha and Yanni were really going to be sentenced to death or not, they should break into the court and rescue them, after all, they couldn’t risk the lives of their friends.

III

Starsha and Yanni were taken to the judgement hall of the court.

“Good Morning, Normanians! I am Totanchinpys, the chancellor of this city,” the chancellor introduced herself in Normanish. She was a black-hair woman with a pair of aggressive eyes.

“What will happen to us according to the law?” queried Starsha.

“The Submatrix of Law will determine your punishment,” intoned Totanchinpys the chancellor.

“The Submatrix of Law? Is that some sort of machine?” pursued Yanni.

“Yes, it is. It is a machine which is better than any human judges in this world. Judges may not be able to recite every single detail of the laws but the machine can,” explained Totanchinpys.

“Wait, you cannot let a machine decide our fate!” accused Yanni.

“Machines are smarter than humans. Humans may error, but machines will not. They always compute precisely and they will never be influenced by unnecessary emotions,” argued Totanchinpys.

Slowly, Totanchinpys took out a small mechanical scale from a delicate dark golden chest. There was a weird feather at the right balance pan of the scale and there was a small octahedron at the centre of the scale, which must be that so-called Submatrix of Law.

Solemnly, Totanchinpys took out a glass jar of the shape of a human heart from the same chest and a sickle-sword. Carefully, she used the sickle-sword to collect some blood of Yanni and Starsha into that glass jar. Then, she put the jar onto the left balance pan of the scale.

“Great Submatrix of Law, tell me that what will happen to those two criminals! I have input what they’ve done to you. Judge their fate please!” pleaded Totanchinpys.

The instant her voice broke off, the feather began to vibrate and the Submatrix of Law was glowing, computing and thinking. Finally, the left balance pan sank and the right balance pan rose.

“Negative! You will be sentenced to death!” announced Totanchinpys.

“Death? It’s ridiculous? According to which law?” questioned Yanni.

“I don’t know, but the judgement of the Submatrix never errors. It always makes sense,” replied Totanchinpys.

“You cannot let the machines turn justice upside down!” yelled Starsha.

“Arguing with her is useless. Let’s get out of here!” proposed Yanni. Holding his breath, Yanni tightened his muscle. The handcuff shackling him was trembling and cracking. With a roar, Yanni broke free from the handcuff which was cracked into pieces.

He ran up to Starsha and helped her take off her cuff too.

“Enough!” growled Totanchinpys.

She clicked a button on her watch and summoned her power armour. Her power armour was as black as a dollop of shadow. Its helmet and mask looked like the head and face of a black jackal.

The power armour of Hetepasis looked golden and fancy, but the armour of Totanchinpys looked dark and fearsome. After all, the armour of Totanchinpys was designed to fight instead of self-defence and decoration.

Yanni and Starsha’s lunarite weapons had been confiscated and put into a box by the constables. Luckily, that box was on a table beside them. Quickly, Yanni and Starsha walked up to that box, opened it and retrieved their weapons.

With dexterous dancing steps, Starsha charged towards Totanchinpys. However, Totanchinpys was even more agile than her and her agility was powered by the Submatrix inside her power armour.

All the slashing and stabbing attacks of Starsha had been dodged by Totanchinpys easily and Starsha could not even touch her skin.

“Now, it’s my turn!” announced Totanchinpys, her sickle-sword starting to glow fluorescently as if there were some kind of energy surging inside it.

Holding up his lunarite shield with his left hand, Yanni put himself between Totanchinpys and Starsha. That glowing sickle-sword of Totanchinpys slashed against the lunarite shield of Yanni.

Totanchinpys kept attacking insanely, leaving Yanni no chance to fight back. Yanni’s hand was trembling because Totanchinpys was slashing his shield madly fast. Finally, Totanchinpys tore Yanni’s shield off his arm.

Since Totanchinpys’ attention had been drawn by Yanni, Starsha decided to attack her sneakily. However, Totanchinpys discovered her plan and kicked her to the ground with her feet.

Suddenly, fractures commenced to appear on the wall of their cell, out of which some vines started to grow. The fractures were becoming bigger and bigger. Finally, the wall completely collapsed, turning into a cloud of dust and smoke.

Standing behind the fallen wall were Floria and Aislina. They had come here to save them.

“קֵי” [What the … ] cursed Totanchinpys.

Before she finished her sentence, Aislina summoned a Venus flytrap which swallowed her whole.

“Floria!” exclaimed Yanni.

“Yanni! Thank heavens! You’re here!” Floria ran up to Yanni and hugged him tightly.

“Well, those people in Macchina Gloriosa are powerful. They have power armours! Those mechanical armours produced by Macchina Gloriosa are even much more powerful than Professor Fames’ exoskeleton. We’ve met two women with power armours. With their armours, they’re even stronger than Master Mortis,” blurted Yanni.

“Stronger than Master Mortis? Since that, we shall leave here quickly. My flytrap might not hold that chancellor long,” proposed Aislina.

“Yes,” consented Yanni.

While Totanchinpys was struggling with the flytrap conjured by Aislina, the four left the Hall of Judgement and decided to go back the same way Aislina and Floria came.

When running through the corridors, Floria sensed that some patrolmen were approaching them. Therefore, they dived into a small room and hid there. Inadvertently, Floria found a small notebook on the table in that room.

The cover of that notebook read “וֹפֵּירַאזְיְוֹנֵי דֵילַّה מֵיקַّאנִיזִّאזְיוֹנֵֵי” [Operation of Mechanization]

“What is this notebook?” questioned Floria, “that’s Desertish …”

“I’ll read it,” proposed Starsha.

Starsha began to read the notebook. Desertish was one of her two mother languages so she could read it pretty fast.

While reading, expression of fear began to appear on her face as if the end of the world were about to come. After five minutes, she closed the notebook, her eyes brimming with terror.

“What is in that notebook?” questioned Floria.

“Something … Something unimaginable … We have to stop them …” Starsha took a deep breath, her face pale and bloodless.

“Relax, Starsha. No matter what Macchina Gloriosa is up to, we will try to stop them,” Yanni reassured her.

“Macchina Gloriosa wants to mechanize this world,” summarized Starsha.

“Mechanize? What doe ‘mechanize’ mean?” inquired Yanni.

“They think that if we humans want to develop into a higher civilization, we need to strengthen ourselves. According to their theories, human brains are emotional, weak, and irrational. Therefore, they want to turn humans into automatons with some sort of virus,” explained Starsha.

“What will happen then?” pursued Yanni.

“In this way, Macchina Gloriosa could turn us humans into collective mind creature. The automaton virus could also change structures of human bodies and make them mechanical. After that, under the leadership of Mother Matrix, humans will rebuild the whole earth into a mechanical planet too …” continued Starsha.

“So Macchina Gloriosa wants to turn all of us humans into automatons and make us hive mind? That’s ridiculous! ” summarized Floria.

“Yes … The power of the Mother Matrix is always unbelievable. Even Achnosiris, the leader of Macchina Gloriosa, doesn’t know how Mother Matrix worked, because the Mother Matrix was beyond the comprehension of any human,” Starsha nodded.

“What the hell is the Mother Matrix actually?” queried Yanni.

“That Matrix seems to be the core of the whole pyramid of Macchina Gloriosa. Those music boxes are mass-produced by the Mother Matrix. It is a device, an upgraded version of calculator that can analyse and compute everything with mathematics and combination of numbers. Achnosiris believes that what Mother Matrix could do is beyond the wisdom of us humans,” answered Starsha.

“That Achnosiris worships a mechanical octahedron as a god? That’s hilarious,” commented Yanni.

“Perhaps if we really understand what the Mother Matrix is capable of, we will think that it is a god too,” muttered Starsha.

“How did they build this weird Matrix actually?” asked Floria.

“According to the notebook, the first version of Mother Matrix is pretty simple. It is only a advanced calculator. However, with the help of Mother Matrix 1.0, the mechanists soon build 2.0. Then, with the help of 2.0, they build 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 … Now, after several iterations, the matrix has become an extremely exquisite device which is beyond the comprehension of humans,” narrated Starsha.

“When will the operation of mechanization be carried out?” pursued Floria.

“I don’t know … The notebook says that the next evolution of the Mother Matrix will consume an unimaginable amount of energies, so that they need a source of energy to launch the procession of mechanization. Achnosiris believes that the greatest source of energy is a gemstone called Cuore Celeste which is hidden on Santo Cielo, a mysterious floating archipelago above Desertia,” revealed Starsha.

“They must be stopped. But to be honest, humans have already become some sort of machine. That so-called operation of mechanization is just a finale …” sighed Yanni.

“What can we do to stop them?” murmured Aislina.

“We need to attain Cuore Celeste before Macchina Gloriosa … Cuore Celeste is a floating archipelago high on the sky. Let’s leave here. We need to get a flying obelisk, so let’s rob one,” proposed Starsha.

Flying obelisks were a kind of aircraft in Desertia, similar to necroplanes in Normanian.

The four left the room and began to run towards the exit of the court until Floria sensed something.

“Wait, something was wrong!” she said, feeling a freezing chill running through her spine and nerves.

She turned back all of a sudden and loaded her bow, aiming at a shadowy figure coming towards them from the distance.

It was Totanchinpys, the chancellor in Power Armour.