The Red Elevators (Prologue)

I wrote a little prologue to the Red Elevators today, whilst taking a break from writing chapter 25 of That Hideous Slumber. It's a little rough, but I like it. Let me know what you think!

The Red Elevators

Prologue:
Only By the Night

"FIN!"

The diminutive butler android designated Fin-X3 put on an extra burst of speed as his master called him again. He raced through the higher levels of the skyscraper laden city known only as Zero Two, towards the only being of flesh on the entire planet.

A planet known only as Zero One.

"FIN!" The distant voice screamed a third time, then swore. Fin-X3 hadn't even been given time to finish the last task his fractious overlord had put him on, but the robot did not take it personally. Indeed, he could not, for his programming did not possess the capacity.

When Fin-X3 finally burst through the doorway into his master's bedchamber, he quickly took note of the disarray that had overtaken it. The bed was where it ought to be, and the bookcases. The desk still sat facing the massive picture window that occupied one wall. And the chair behind it still held Fin-X3's master, just as it had five minutes ago when he'd left.

But papers and books were strewn everywhere. Fin-X3 had never seen a tree, for there was no organic life on Zero One, but he had a picture of one in his memory logs, and he knew where paper came from them.

Paper was a frivolous human trapping, and even in his limited capacity to understand, Fin-X3 saw how trivial such a thing was on a world run by computers. Still, there was something in the way humans stared so raptly. Perhaps it was a glitch in his operating matrix, but Fin-X3 longed to look at those pointless sheets of pulp and see something that enthralled him.

But more pressing than the paper that distracted him so, Fin-X3 quickly noted the presence of a blue phantasm standing before his master. The ghostly creature was perfectly see through and without detail, save for its face. The face bore the features of a woman, a human woman.

And not just any sort of face either. According to some of the oldest recordings on Zero One, it was a face perfect of symmetry and line. Save for eyes perhaps a touch too large. Even so, a vision of beauty to any being born of living tissue. As Fin-X3 analyzed, he also noted that the phantasm's body had the shape of a female as well. There was a slight glimmer to her "skin", the faintest traces of light.

Fin-X3, neither rattled nor capable of true fear, dropped to one knee in the required show of obeisance. The blue woman, noting the android's presence, winked and walked away, apparently disappearing right through a wall.

"What do you require of me, milord?" Fin-X3 inquired, his tinny speaker box crackling over the words.

"Stop that nonsense and get over here," his master groused angrily. Fen-X3's servomotors whirred as he stood and approached. All this time the man in the chair had had his back to the robot, and this did not change now. Fen-X3 kept his distance, for his master had been known to backhand him in a fit of rage on more than one occasion, sending the hapless, four foot android flying backward.

Fin-X3's master was a human male. The robotic designation that had been given to him was Alpha. No one knew his true name. Alpha was a man of Riintus 3, a planet of heavy gravity that created a propensity towards a level of obesity considered unsightly among humans born under more standard conditions. His immense bulk caused the substandard chair beneath him to groan as he shifted to face his butler.

"Fin, I've just been visited again by the ghoul who has been troubling my sleep these past months. You must ready my starship at once. I shall return to the orphan world in a week's time."

"What did the ghoul tell you, sire?" Fin-X3 asked with a touch of curiosity that would have gotten some robots rebooted immediately. He didn't think most would have called the creature he'd seen a ghoul but he made no attempt to offer correction.

Alpha however, was eager for someone to talk to and did not take offense. "What did she tell me? We didn't have a conversation! What an odd thing to say. It's written in the way my things have been thrown about, in the cold sweat that has overtaken me. In the nightmare I had. I know the time has come."

In this way Fin-X3 surmised that his master could not see as he had seen, that somehow Fin-X3 was able to look upon what Alpha's eyes of flesh could not. The android ventured another question. "This ghoul has visited you often?" Fin-X3 had seen the room in collapse into various states of chaos, but he had assumed it was part of messy human nature.

"Often, yes, and only by the night I might add," Alpha waggled a finger at his butler as if to emphasize his words. "It is a curious thing. I don't suppose you know the agony that is troubled sleep. Even on nights where I experience no visitation, I lay awake, wondering if and when it is coming to haunt me. I tell you I can bear it no longer. This planet has always given me the creeps anyhow. One needs life to surround, not these endless miles of computers."

"Shall I accompany you, sire?" The android asked, hoping the speaker box did not betray the hope he felt. It was the curiosity. Once allowed to work at his programming, it moved like a virus, corrupting his processing capabilities.

"Well, yes, I suppose so. I will certainly need someone's assistance, and you're not the most useless of your kind." Fin-X3, not offended in the slightest, let his memory logs run a search for info about an "orphan world" but they came up blank.

After a moment Alpha shouted at him. "What are you still doing here, you useless rustbucket? See to my starship at once! Great and terrible things are afoot in the galaxy, and I don't want to be left behind, playing nursemaid to a bunch of overgrown number-crunchers!"

Fin-X3 scurried away at once, to the spaceport. He didn't know what the blue phantasm was, nor did he understand what his master meant by 'great and terrible things.' All he knew was he was about to visit the galaxy at large for the first time since his construction.

Soon his ever growing curiosity would be able to satisfy itself with the makings of an infinite universe.