Zeta 13 -- From Ruin to Ruin (unfinished)

If writing as Zeta would write weren't so painfully boring, I'd probably have half the Freehaven story arc written by now. So much for my original idea of writing the whole arc this way... As it is, I think I'll try to see this one through and then switch back to my usual third person view. I hope this isn't too terrible so far... -- Pteryx

Dear students of mechanics:

I realize this letter may surprise you. It has been a mere three days since we saw each other, yet in my day and a half here in Freehaven, so much has happened that I felt the need to relate it to all of you. Undoubtedly, another surprising factor is the fact that this letter appeared instantly on the counter of the Jered Wallace coffee shop at precicely noontime in College Town. The fact that this looks like no handwriting or ink you have ever seen would only add to your curiosity. These things I will explain as I come to them; I feel the best way to relate my experiences here would be to describe them in the order that they occurred.

After a day and a half of travel, though the sun appeared to indicate that it had been longer due to our steady eastward movement, Bleak and I found ourselves above the city of Freehaven. Reports that it had been destroyed turned out to have been exaggerated; approximately seven-eighths of the town was still intact, but neglected and deserted; in addition, some buildings were inoperative. A large portion of the northern quarter of the town, however, had been destroyed by a very powerful force of some kind, as had a wide line through the forest. Bleak was disturbed somewhat by the scene; it reminded him of his own accident -- when the world went dark for a moment, his powers surged, accidentally killing a friend of his -- on a much larger scale. He and I can only hope that he will never again have such a problem.

A moment later, I happened to notice a large, immobile form that was nearly obscured in the shadows the trees cast in the setting sun. At first I thought that I had seen two such forms, but I quickly realized in horror that it was a single being severed in half. When we landed Tomtom and Flitter, the black chocobos we rented, as near to the body as we could coax them to, Bleak identified the rotting, black-scaled corpse as belonging to a type of dragon; beyond that, however, he could say little about it.

Bleak seemed simultaneously surprised and relieved when I suggested that we bury what was left of the poor creature. I explained to him that I felt that not only it was tragic that the dragon had been neglected for so long, but it honestly looked and smelled terrible after all of this time. I wonder if perhaps sanitary concerns were the initial impetus that led people to develop the first burial rituals to begin with. The fact that not leaving a relative's body to rot in the open air affords said relative's soul with some dignity may have been thought of only later.

After that difficult and lengthy endeavor, we proceeded to enter the deserted town. The first things that caught our attention were the building materials; not only were there metals and alloys that my sensors recognized but Bleak didn't, but there were also materials that are probably completely unique to Freehaven in this world such as plastics and nanoforms.

Since in all likelihood you don't know what either of those material types are, I'll explain briefly. Plastics are a class of chemically created artificial materials that can easily be molded into useful forms. Most plastics are rather durable once they've settled into their final forms, though some are hard like wood and some soft and flexible. Nanoforms are more complicated; they're a still broader class of materials that, while stable, can only be constructed through the use of nanites -- immensely small machines built directly from very small building blocks of the world. My auto-repair system is composed primarily of a colony of nanites, in fact. Incidentally, I'm amazed that they adapted as well to the situation they were put in as they did.

It became clear to me as Bleak and I toured the place that this colony was designed primarily as a center for research. Among the facilities we saw were a room with a miniature particle accelerator, meant for the purpose of studying the behavior of bits of matter even smaller than those that nanites are made from; a biochemistry laboratory, used to find out more about how the bodies of creatures work; and a genetics laboratory, a place to find out more about the nature of life-forms and the variations present in them. Bleak asked why the Technorgs would study so much and build so few weapons when their end was to conquer the world, so I surmised aloud that they probably needed a lot of information for their war effort.

However, as we continued to explore, I came to realize that most of this research was indeed being directed towards the end of war. The hypotheses being tested in the particle physics lab at the time of Freehaven's demise were related to the goal of making controllable, powerful weapons based on the disruption of the most basic forms of matter. In the biochemistry lab, data about the effects of experimental viruses -- tiny, disease-causing creatures -- upon human beings had been gathered. The genetic lab was dedicated not only to designing the aforementioned viruses, but to finding weaknesses in the natural blueprints of various species to exploit. The apparently complete dedication to the cause of forcing all sentient beings to become Technorgs was truly horrifying.

In time, Bleak and I came upon a laboratory whose most prominent feature was a very large telescope. Displayed on those few computer screens that were active were star charts; clearly, this particular facility was intended as an astronomy lab. Delight overcame me; I have always been interested in the stars. Indeed, they were the first specific objects I asked about after I was activated by the Ilaamans. It was upon the discovory of this room that I knew I would find myself spending much of my time in this ruin in the future.

At this point, Bleak made a pessimistic yet justified query as to what purpose studying the stars could serve to a society obsessed with conquest. With a frown, I replied that I didn't know and that although I didn't care to be unsettled by thoughts of how such study could be turned towards evil, I could attempt to discern such information if he was truly curious.

However, upon attempting to find out more, I discovered that this information was not available on the computers that were active (a computer, I realize I have neglected to mention, is a device that stores and processes data in nearly any imaginable way). We had encountered many such deactivated computers, but had found no need to activate them; however, in this case my desire to get the facility in full working order again coupled with Bleak's perhaps morbid curiosity as to why the Technorgs would engage in astronomy demanded it. As such, I worked to attempt to determine why some of the computers weren't working.

While the computers that were operative were easy enough to operate as they took spoken requests, at first I found myself at a loss to diagnose the problems of those that were not. However, realization on my part of the strong similarity between computers and robots such as myself quickly gave me a frame of reference from which to work. Still, it took perhaps much more time than it should have for me to discover that the problem was simply a lack of power. Bleak agreed that we should investigate and rectify this.