Author's Note: I apologize for this being so long, but I couldn't see any way to make this two separate chapters. I hope the length doesn't scare anyone off. Please enjoy.
Chapter 1: The Dream Arrives
The world was quiet once. Before that it was loud and violent, and certainly it was peaceful before that. It went in cycles. Peace couldn’t last, and something ended every war. Sometimes it was hard to tell exactly when one ended and the next began. Or at least that was how it used to be.
Then the world came together, grew bigger. Everyone who had always known only their homeland became aware that there was an entire planet of people, all of them experiencing their own war, their own peace. On a perfectly calm day on one side of the world, somewhere else a President may have just been assassinated. As the death squads in one country murder children, a couple conceives their first child after a romantic picnic in another.
These events from other sides of the globe often never impact one another. The death squads don’t care about a newborn baby, only the they are ordered to kill. The new parents are too happy to even know that elsewhere families are being destroyed. Simultaneous violence and calm became the new balance. The old equilibrium of peace followed by war followed by peace was dead and buried.
That was all Toby could think about as he watched the news from his living room. The newscaster had just told him that somewhere in Africa, a bomb had gone off in a shopping mall, killing fifty three people. Terrorists were supposedly responsible, the same group that had killed seven hundred so far in that little country’s newest conflict, both civilians and combatants.
Lying next to Toby on the couch was the invitation they had received yesterday to his cousin’s wedding. She was marrying her longtime sweetheart, and she was pregnant. Toby imagined his cousin had never been happier in her life.
Enough of that thinking, though. Toby checked the clock on the Blu-ray player. It was time for him to go to school. Rising from the couch, he turned off the television, shouted a goodbye to his parents, and left.
Outside it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, and the scent of freshly cut grass could be smelled as small children played in their yards. The lucky ones, Toby often thought. Lucky to still be that young.
The walk to school is the same everyday, Toby thought. It’s been like this since I was little. I just have to accept that it’s never going to change, that’s all. It’s so hard, though.
So he went to school. As soon as he sat down in first period English, he knew it was going to be a boring day. His best friend, Jared, was absent, which meant he had to listen to a lecture about the pages he had already read the night before without any of Jared’s antics to keep him entertained.
The teacher droned on in that same voice he always used. First period didn’t end fast enough, but after that it wasn’t much better. Five more subjects, some interesting, some not. Toby took three tests over the course of the day, but he didn’t even need to wait until they were graded, he already knew that there were all A’s. Probably perfects, the same as always.
School was let out at the same time it always was, and Toby took that same walk back. It never ceased to be boring, not even once. It was as if the world had hit a giant brick wall a few years back, and no amount of creativity or good grades was going to break through the reality that the wall wasn’t going anywhere.
Back at his house, the mailbox flag was up. Since Toby always got home before either of his parents, he usually got the mail each day. Opening the box, he reached inside and drew out the thin stack of letters. A few bills, a few offers for stuff that no one would ever care about, and the next issue of Sports Illustrated for his father. Same mail as always.
As Toby closed the mailbox, one of the letters slipped out of his hand. Groaning, he bent over to pick it up. It was one of the junk letters, and a pretty elaborate one at that. The envelope was bright red, with silver trim running around the edges and the mailing address written in silver. If it had been another time of year, Toby would have mistaken it for a Christmas card.
It was the mailing address that caught his eye. It was addressed directly to him, Toby Meyers, and what was more, it wasn’t from some obscure company no one had ever heard of. It from a specific person, someone called C. Jibril Ark. No one that Toby had ever heard of, but it was a little interesting for him to receive his first piece of junk mail that was all his own.
Heading inside the house, he dropped his backpack to its allotted spot by the door, kicked his shoes off next to them, and went into the living room to flop down onto the couch. Setting the mail on the couch with his sister’s invitation, Toby grabbed the remote and turned the television on.
“–ploded and killed thirty people this morning, the second attack for the war torn nation today. Members of the Kalgayan Revolution Order have claimed responsibility for the attack, as well as the bombing of a mall earlier this morning, and the Kalgayan government has confirmed that they were indeed the perpetrators of both attacks. The Kalgayan Revolution Order, considered a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, began the conflict in Kalgaya six months ago when members of the group, then unknown at the time, fired a rocket at Vice-President Echo Honuras’s limo, killing him. Days later they declared war on the government, and near-constant battle has ravaged the country ever since. With at least ninety people dead as a result of attacks or combat in the country today, it has been the bloodiest day of fighting in a war that has claimed the lives of nearly a thousand so far. The United Nations is currently convening regarding what course of action to take in regards to the conflict. President–”
Toby shut off the television, grabbed his red junk letter, and headed upstairs for his room. Even the news, no, especially the news, never changed.
Inside his room he sat down on the bed, pushing his brother’s comic books off of it. As they flopped to the floor, he sighed and rose back to his feet, picking the books up and setting them neatly on his bedside drawer.
“Simon ” he called out. He head the muffled sound of feet hitting the carpet, pounding closer and closer to his door. It burst open, stopped from smashing into the wall only by Simon’s skinny arms grasping onto the doorknob.
“Yeah?” he asked, that excited look in his eye that always seemed to be there after he ran anywhere.
“You left these in here,” Toby said, pointing to the stack of comic books. Simon chuckled and picked up the stack.
“Ah, sorry bro,” he said. “Your room’s cooler than mine this time of year, so I like to read in here.”
“I know,” said Toby. He was used to Simon’s comic books littering his bed once the warmer weather sprung around, so he usually had to clear them off. Still, as much as he hated the way his little brother always left his comics there, it wouldn’t be fair at all for them to get bent or damaged because of it. If Toby had something he cherished as much as Simon did, he wouldn’t want it getting damaged because of something as dumb as sibling negligence.
“Well, I’ll just leave you to whatever you do,” Simon said, slipping out the door and closing it much more gently than he had opened it.
With no further distractions, Toby sat back down on the bed and took another look at his letter. The silver handwriting was neat and curvy, and definitely hadn’t been printed onto the envelope, but looked as if it had been written on with a marker. Who took the time to personalize junk mail?
Just a bit more than curious now, Toby stuck his finger into the little gap at the corner where the flap wasn’t sealed and drew his finger across. The paper tore easily, but when he stuck his fingers inside to grasp the contents, all he felt was air. The envelope was empty.
Then a bright blue flash burst from the torn opening, and Toby dropped the envelope to the carpet, stifling back a shout. The blue light flashed over and over, so powerful that Toby had to turn his eyes away. There was a high noise, like wind howling through a narrow paper tube, and then the light disappeared. The room fell silent, and Toby looked back at the envelope in amazement.
Standing there, holding the letter in her hand, was a woman.
“Greetings,” she said, looking down at the envelope, “Toby Meyers!"
Toby nearly let out that shout. Scrambling off his bed, he ran right into his wall, almost bumping his head. Pushing his back against the wall as if it would help him burst through and escape, Toby pointed his finger at the woman, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“Who are you?” he asked frantically. “How did you get in here?”
The woman smiled, as if she was about to explain something simple to a small child.
“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching up and straightening her long blonde hair, which looked quite ruffled even after her attempt, “I keep forgetting that most people have no idea about our letters. It says who I am on the envelope, dear.”
She held up the letter for him to see again.
“You?” Toby asked, still trying to see if his wall would give. “You’re C. Jibril Ark?”
“You can just call me Jibril, if you’d like.”
The wall wasn’t going anywhere. Toby gave up, but he didn’t take his eyes off the person who had materialized from nowhere right before him. She looked about thirty years old, with a maternal face and a tall figure. Toby had no idea what she was dressed in, but it sort of looked like a blue business suit with a violet shroud wrapped around it.
“Now then,” Jibril said, putting the envelope somewhere inside her shroud, “so you’ll calm down, I’ll tell you that you’re absolutely safe, and that I only bring good things for you. I promise.”
“How the hell am I supposed to believe that?” Toby shouted. “How did you even get in here? You just appeared out of nowhere!”
“It was the letter that summoned me,” explained Jibril. “The way I got here could best be described as magic, at least so you’ll understand it.” She moved forward, walking around the bed. Toby backed off into the nearest corner, feeling even more trapped as Jibril sat down on his bed.
“Magic?” he asked, his mind racing. “And an envelope? Don’t tell me I’m a wizard or something?”
“No,” she said with a smile. “These last couple of years you’d be surprised how many of our recipients believed that at first. I suppose we should try something a bit less reminiscent of Harry Potter, but we haven’t exactly figured out how to make it work with e-mail yet, you see.”
“Make what work?”
“Teleportation, of course. How I got here.” She said it like it was obvious, but if Toby wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating, the very fact that this woman was here meant she was probably telling the truth, which meant that there were likely a great deal of things in the world that Toby would find far from obvious, to him or any other normal human being.
“Teleportation,” Toby repeated back to her. She nodded. “And you’re saying it’s magic?”
“Something like it.”
“Great. Great. Well then, if you aren’t going to kill me or anything like that, why are you here?”
“Simple, Toby,” Jibril said with a laugh. “I’m here to deliver to you a Dream.”
“A dream?” Toby asked.
“Yes. That’s with a capital D dear, it’s a proper noun you see.”
“Oh. Okay, thanks, look, what does that mean? Are you like, the Sandwoman or something?”
“Oh, heavens no,” laughed Jibril, “I’m, well, I’m not allowed to say what I am or who I work for. But that’s okay, because that’s all irrelevant to you. All you should care about is that Dream.”
The woman’s manner was putting Toby at ease. He slowly moved out of the corner, but he didn’t sit down, and he wasn’t quite sure whether it was safe to look away from Jibril yet.
“So what is a Dream?” Toby asked.
“The best way I can describe it is...it’s like a Wish that someone else sends you.”
“A wish?” Toby said, thinking about the possibilities. “So, I get to make one wish?”
“I’m sorry dear, but a Wish and a Dream are two different things, and we’re not allowed to just give out Wishes. If we granted people whatever they wanted, the world would probably fall into chaos, you understand.”
Toby supposed she was right. World domination had to be high up on the personal wish lists of a couple people out there.
“As I said, a Dream is just a Wish that someone sends you. After the details and stipulations of the Dream have been finalized by the Dreamer, we send out a letter to the recipient, and when they open it, I show up to explain everything. It’s a rather outdated system, don’t you think?”
“Uh, sure,” Toby said, not wanting to disagree.
“It’s so hard to get it changed, you know,” Jibril complained. “It’s a bureaucracy that keeps it like this, really, and you’d think I’d get more of a say, what with my seniority and all, but as it stands I’m always on call.” She messed with her hair again, as it refused to stay down no matter how much she messed with it. “I was just sleeping before you opened your letter.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Toby said, trying to think of a way to politely remind her about the Dream. “Can’t you just use magic on your hair?”
“I’m only allowed so much magic though, and it’s all for work, you see. I’ll just have to deal with it like anyone else. Oh, but none of that’s the point, now is it? I’m sorry.”
Jibril stood up so quickly that Toby backed off for a second, but he felt bad about it when he saw the frown on her face.
“You really shouldn’t be afraid of me,” she said. “I’m here to make your life better. I truly am. Although it’s really all thanks to someone else.”
“The person who sent me the Dream, right? Why wasn’t their name on the envelope?”
“Safety policy,” Jibril said simply. “I can’t say why, sorry, but we don’t disclose the identities of any Dreamers to the recipients. But, as I seem to keep saying, it’s all irrelevant, dear.”
“I don’t suppose you can tell me who the ‘we’ you keep mentioning is either?” Toby asked.
Jibril shook her head.
“All right then,” Toby said, rubbing his forehead. “So what’s the Dream?”
Jibril smiled wider than she ever had before. “In your case dear, the Dream is a gift.”
“A gift that couldn’t just fit in an envelope?” Toby asked, his mind awash with guesses. It had to be something supernatural or amazing. There was no way anyone would go out of their way to hire this glorified magical post officer just to give him a sweater.
By the time he finished that thought, they were no longer in his room.
“Woah ” he screamed, falling backwards and whirling his arms. He landed softly on grass, but he was still disoriented. Staring up at the blue sky, he could see spindly, naked tree branches high above him. A pleasant watery sound indicating a brook floated into his ears.
Sitting up, Toby stared in astonishment at the forest around them. It was still too early in the spring for there to be much green besides the grass of the clearing they were in, but it was a beautiful place all the same. The brook Toby heard circled around the clearing to the left and behind him, and following it with his eyes, Toby saw that the clearing was about the only flat part of land in sight. Hills rose up on all sides around him, and apart from him the small valley where the clearing was, the entire forest seemed to grow on this uneven, morphing terrain.
As soon as he finished taking in the sights, Tony remembered that he was supposed to be in his room.
“Where are we?” he asked Jibril, who was calmly standing before him as if nothing had happened, watching the brook.
“It’s just a small forest about ten miles outside of the town where you live. There was no way I could give you your Dream in your room, and certainly not in a place where anyone else could see it.”
“Why can’t anyone else see it?” Toby asked, getting to his feet and trying to rationalize the fact that he had just teleported somewhere miles away.
“Because the Dreamer specified that in the Dream, and what the Dreamer says goes, excluding nuclear apocalypse, of course.”
She laughed, a bit too cheerily, but Toby chuckled with her anyway. It was hard not to laugh, because by now Toby was ready to accept anything. None of this could ever be said to be same old same old, not in the least.
“Okay, okay,” he said with impatience, feeling a tingling he hadn’t felt since childhood in his stomach, “where’s my gift?”
Jibril just grinned and pointed behind him. Excitement pulsing through him, Toby turned around.
He screamed, backpedaling away, terror rushing through him. He nearly collided with Jibril, who moved out of the way just in time for him to trip over her feet and fall on his back for the second time in that clearing. Toby stared at the thing before him, his mouth open, his breathing heavy. There was no way that what he was seeing was real.
At first he had thought it was some kind of giant. That was what had scared him, and if teleportation and magic were real, who was to say giants didn’t exist? But this giant wasn’t moving at all, and as he got a good look at it, Toby saw that it didn’t even have a head. It was humanoid, and a metallic white in color. The thing had a large, blocky torso, with two long rectangular legs that were the same width up and down and ended in large square feet. It also had two arms, which were nearly as long as the legs, giving it a vague resemblance to an orangutan. A decapitated orangutan, anyway.
“This is my gift?” Toby asked breathlessly.
“Glad you like it,” Jibril said, joining him in admiring the thing. Watching the way the sunlight reflected off it, Toby saw that it was more than metallic white in color. The entire giant was made of metal.
“It’s a giant robot,” said Toby.
“Mmm, I don’t know about giant,” Jibril said, walking up to the thing and standing next to it. “It’s only about twenty feet tall.”
“Looks pretty giant to me,” Toby said, rising to his feet. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the robot. Even with its awkward appearance, the only word that Toby could think of to describe it was majestic.
Speaking of awkward appearances, as Toby approached his gift with a hungry eye, he was able to see something more clearly.
“How the heck does this thing support its own weight?” he asked, joining Jibril near the robot’s leg. “It’s too top heavy, and these legs aren’t even shaped the right way to take the stress off of them.”
Jibril shrugged. “Magic,” she said.
“But it’s a robot,” Toby argued.
Jibril shrugged again. “Can’t it be a magic robot?”
Toby didn’t feel like pressing it any further. He circled around the entire robot, observing it from all sides. After a few minutes, he stared up at it with a frown.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jibril.
“Well,” Toby said, “does it actually do anything?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, does it move or talk or anything? Where’s the on-switch?”
Jibril snapped her fingers and laughed.
“Oh, silly me, I forgot. Check the back again.”
Toby did, even though he hadn’t found anything special there already. This time, however, there were ladder rungs on the back leading up to the top. Cautiously, Toby grabbed onto them and began to climb, worried that the robot would begin to move and throw him off or something. But nothing of the sort happened, and he was soon at the top. What he saw there was no on-switch, but it multiplied his excitement countless times over.
Set neatly into the top of the robot was a circular open cockpit, with a leather seat and something that sort of resembled a dashboard, except that there were no dials or buttons of any kind. In fact, apart from two horizontal black sticks coming out of the sides, the cockpit was almost featureless.
Frowning, Toby lowered himself into the seat. It was comfortable, and the moment he sat down he could feel a strange sense of belonging rush through him, as if the robot was where he was meant to be. Maybe it was the excitement getting to him, but everything suddenly felt right in a way that it hadn’t for years.
From his seated position, Toby could get a closer look at the sticks. They were just within a comfortable arm’s reach, pointed towards him at slight angles, and sort of resembled arcade joysticks, but if the military made them. They also lacked buttons on the tips where his thumbs went.
Toby felt around with his feet, but there didn’t appear to be any pedals he could use. It looked like the two sticks were it. Gulping back his apprehension, wiping the sweat off his palms onto his jeans, he reached out and firmly grasped the sticks.
A sound like a surge of energy from one of those cheesy old sci-fi films hummed through the entire robot. Toby let go of the sticks in surprise, and the sound stopped. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the sticks again, and the sound hummed throughout the metal frame once more.
“Activated by touch, huh?” he said, and surprised himself because it felt as if he was speaking to the robot. Not like it could talk back, of course.
“Having fun?”
Toby jumped as Jibril appeared next to him, standing on the robot’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” he said after he calmed down, looking down at the sticks. They were set into grooves on each side of the cockpit, which looked as if they allowed the sticks to move in all directions. If these were the only method of control, how much could this robot do anyway?
Might as well find out, Toby thought. Chuckling to offset his nerves, he pushed both of the sticks forward.
That low vibration of electricity came back, rising higher in pitch as the entire robot lurched forward. Toby’s stomach tickled with the robot’s movement, but he held down his lunch and kept pushing the sticks. A whirring noise came from somewhere beneath the cockpit, and then something hit the ground with enough force to shake the forest. Then all of that happened again, and again, and Toby’s robot was walking.
He drew the sticks back to their neutral position, and the robot halted. Toby’s inertia didn’t seem to affect him as much as he thought it would. More confident now, he pulled both of the sticks towards himself. The robot began to walk backwards, each step causing the cockpit to rise up and then fall down again, in sudden but satisfying motions that were almost like a carnival ride.
Laughing, Toby suddenly remembered Jibril, standing on the robot’s shoulder with nothing to secure her. He turned to her with worry, only to see her standing in the same spot, looking around with a smile on her face, as if the robot wasn’t moving at all.
As his robot kept walking backwards, Toby took a look behind him and gasped. He tried to push the sticks forward, but the robot already stepped out over the brook, a three foot drop. All Toby could think about was how the robot was about to lose its balance and topple over, taking him with it.
That never happened. The robot’s arms rose up, wobbling for balance, its fingers extending outward like a person’s. A second later, the arms dropped back to the side as the robot became stable.
“I didn’t do that,” Toby said, looking at Jibril for answers.
“Well you can’t expect those sticks to do everything, can you dear?” she said. “Those are just for general purpose movements. Forward, backward, turning, stuff like that. Everything else is controlled by your will.”
“My will?”
“Exactly. Here, for example, try turning to the sides. Use the sticks, dear.”
Nodding, Toby thought about what it would take. He pushed the right stick forward, and pulled the left stick back. The robot hummed and began to pivot to the left, as he expected. Reversing the order of the sticks, the robot turned back to its starting direction.
“Now, do the same thing, but just will it to go faster. Try doing a 180.”
Will it to go faster? Toby wondered if that meant he had to actually picture it in his mind, or think the exact words.
He moved the sticks so that the robot would turn, but this time, he thought about the robot spinning all the way around. It began to move, but there wasn’t any real difference from the last time. Frowning, Toby tried again, thinking, Turn completely around. Still nothing new.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, jerking the sticks. “I just want it to–”
At that, the robot lifted just a bit off the ground, a massive whirling of air and noise spinning around him as the robot turned in the air and came crashing back down, facing the exact opposite direction of where it had been before.
“Holy crap!” Toby shouted.
“You understand now?” Jibril asked, completely unaffected by the spin. “Willing something isn’t the same as thinking it. The robot is like a second body. You don’t think about moving your legs, do you?”
“I get it,” Toby said, taking his hands off the control sticks to think for a second. The robot seemed to power down, that hum growing lower and lower and finally dying out.
“It really is a magic robot,” said Toby, looking at Jibril.
“Well, a robot made by magic,” she said, scratching her cheek in contemplation. “I can’t say too much else. The Dreamer has requested that you must learn about the robot on your own, I’m just allowed to get you started.”
The Dreamer, the person who had sent him this amazing gift. Who did he know that would somehow be aware of a magic wish sending service? Part of him thought it could be one of his grandparents. It was always those older family members in books and movies who knew magic secrets that they shared one day with their grandchildren, right?
Whoever it was, he couldn’t ask.
“Now then,” Jibril said, drawing a piece of paper out of her shroud and looking it over, “it’s time to discuss the particulars of the Dream’s contract.”
“Contract?” Toby said, not liking the sound of the word at all. “This is the first time you’ve mentioned a contract.”
“Well, I did say there were stipulations, didn’t I? Now then, here it is, first off, the only rule we impose on you ourselves is that if you break anything in the contract, we will be required to rescind your Dream from you immediately.”
“You mean I lose the robot?” said Tommy.
Jibril nodded. “Now then, here are the exact details of the contract as requested by the Dreamer.” She cleared her throat, squinted her eyes, and began. “The, um, recipient of my Dream is to use the robot however they...they see fit. They are...allowed to choose the robot’s name and, uh, color, as well as add any custom...custom, uh, modifications that they wish.”
“What’s wrong?” Toby asked.
“Nothing, dear. It’s just that the Dreamer only writes in his native language, and I’m not especially good at it, that’s all.”
Native language? Toby didn’t know anyone who didn’t speak English as their first language.
“My requirements for these...privileges to be enjoyed,” Jibril continued, “is that the recipient has sixty, wait, seventy-two hours within receiving the robot in which to do something that will, let’s see, place the robot on the international news, without the recipient’s identity being discovered by the world, or the robot being captured by any, any...any government or military.”
“You’re kidding me,” Toby said, staring down at the control sticks. “The international news? I mean, that wouldn’t be very hard, anything I do with this wouldn’t show up just on local news, that’s for sure. But then I have to not get caught by the military?”
“No one can know who you are, either. Tough, I know, but that’s what the Dreamer wants. Either that, or you lose the robot. Actually, you’d lose the robot if the military got a hold of it anyway, so that’s kind of redundant, isn’t it? Oh well, you’ll think of something, I’m sure.”
Groaning, Toby sank lower into his seat. He should have known that it wouldn’t be this easy.
“Oh, there’s one last requirement,” Jibril said, putting the paper away, “and the Dreamer dictated this to me directly. He said that you have to name the robot and pilot it in the spirit of ‘The Great Tradition of the Japanese Super Robot Anime’.”
There was a bit of a silence as Toby thought about that.
The Great Tradition of the Japanese Super Robot Anime, huh?
“Um, I have no idea what that means,” he said after a moment.
“Yeah, he said you might not,” Jibril said, “so I recommend you start research on it soon. He expects the robot’s name to be included in the news reports.”
“Without getting caught? That’s going to be impossible!”
Jibril shrugged, leaping down from the robot. She landed on the ground gracefully, and looked back up at Toby.
“So, you want to give it a color?” she asked.
Toby wanted to ask for advice on how to fulfill the contract, but knew that probably wasn’t allowed. Instead, he pushed it into the back of his brain, telling himself he’d figure it out later.
“Can I pick a color later?” he asked. “I want to do as much research on this super Japanese robot thing before I make any decisions about what it looks like.”
“That’s fine,” said Jibril, taking the red envelope out of her shroud. A second later it disappeared from her hand, and was lying in Toby’s lap. “Just open it up again if you ever need my help. I’m obligated to provide assistance until you feel you’re completely satisfied with your Dream.”
Toby picked the envelope up and saw that it had been resealed. Magic again. Amazing that it was real.
“Thanks Jibril,” he said, “thanks a lot.”
“Don’t mention it dear. Just don’t forget the contract. I’d hate to have to come back in three days and take this thing away from you.” On that note, she disappeared, leaving Toby alone with the robot.
The moment she was gone, Toby realized he had to get back home.
Jibril said we’re ten miles outside of town, so if I get out of the woods and take a look around, I should be able to figure out where I am.
Grabbing the control sticks, Toby remembered what Jibril said as the robot surged to life.
“It’s like another body,” he repeated aloud. Not just to himself, but to the robot too. Then, he pushed the sticks forward. He wanted to run.
The robot bounded forward, so much that Toby could see it’s legs moving beneath it, each step a great stride. It was going fast, he could tell by the trees moving past him, but it just didn’t feel like it. There was no wind in his face, and each rocking gallop didn’t shake him up. It had to be more of the magic, of course.
He was so lost in amazement that he almost didn’t see the large tree he was about to run into. In a panic, he jerked the sticks backward and up, and the next thing Toby knew, he was in the air.
It was so quick he barely realized it, but unlike with the running, he completely felt it. His stomach dropped out of his body as the trees fell around him, and then he was above and beyond them all. There was still no wind, thank God, and the sight of the naked forest below was enough to make him forget for a second how scared he was.
Then the robot obeyed another law of physics. It sank quickly, Toby’s stomach shooting back up past its appointed place and into his throat as the trees returned, stabbing past him, the ground racing towards him.
At the last second, the robot’s legs planted themselves on the ground. A massive quake seemed to erupt from the contact as Toby felt himself smashed down into the seat, the trees around him shaking as he screamed in anticipation of the pain that didn’t come. After that, all was still.
His breathing ragged, Toby let go of the sticks again, wiping his palms off and shaking, both from fear and ecstasy. The robot must have had some kind of spell on it to prevent any unpleasantness in the cockpit. Toby could feel just enough to orient himself and understand what was happening to him, but now that he was on the ground and could think about it, even the churning of his stomach in the air had been produced more by surprise than the feeling of being shot into the sky and dropped back down.
As his breathing slowed down, he heard another sound. The robot was still humming, still on even though he had released the sticks. Why was that?
Jibril’s words kept echoing in his head. Was his will keeping the robot on? After everything he had experienced in the last fifteen minutes, it was easy to swallow.
Once he calmed down, Toby took control of the sticks again and looked at the big tree that had caused him to go flying. It towered above even the robot, and at the base of it’s trunk it was massive. There was something Toby still had to try.
There were no controls for this, but he had an idea of what to do. Pushing the sticks forward, he took one great step towards the tree, building up momentum.
The robot’s arm shot out, and he punched the tree with such force that the shock vibrated, just a bit, back through the robot. A cacophonous crack split the air as long bits of splintered bark exploded out from the impact zone, and the tree tipped, falling over and smashing into others on its way down. It hit the ground with another massive rumble, leaving Toby standing there with the robot’s, no, his fist held out in the air where the tree had once been.
He couldn’t help it. He laughed, laughed like he hadn’t in so long, because he had never been this happy, not at any point in his life that he could remember. This was not the same at all, this was so new and different and wonderful. It was exactly what Toby had wanted and needed for so long.
Taking off at full speed through the forest, Toby bounded and crashed over the hills and between the trees. When gaps got in his way, he leaped over them. When trees blocked his path, he plowed through them with his great metal fist. The entire time he didn’t stop laughing, lost in more fun and joy than he had ever thought possible, because it was all real.
He didn’t fall silent until he cleared the forest, and found himself in a familiar tract of farmland. Getting home from here would be easy, although not being spotted would be a bit harder, and hiding the robot somewhere nearly impossible.
The impossible didn’t seem like it was so much anymore, though. Retreating back into the woods, he decided to wait until dark, when it would be easier to move through the countryside without being seen. He could distract himself until then, no problem. But he didn’t forget that as soon as he got home, he would have to sit down and get to work.
He had research to do.
