Resonance

Chapter 4 - Delta

I grabbed Kalis to stop him from jumping to his death.

"Are you insane? Your human body will die if you try to go down there," Alpha laughed, "You said that yourself, remember?"

Kalis pounded the top of my head in frustration. "Come on! This is exciting!"

He sounded so much like a whining child when excited. "What? I want to see what's down there! Science knows no limits!"

I looked at Alpha for instructions and she nodded.

"We'll take you down. Hold on."
Picking up Epsilon, my counterpart jumped down into the darkness, and I watched as her light faded into the depths.

Already, I missed her.

Even though Kalis told me he never programmed me to have any relation with Alpha, I felt myself drawn to her.

Perhaps it was because we always worked together, or perhaps it was because we shared the same creator.

But then again, I felt nothing for that pathetic human-sized Epsilon robot.

"All good!" Alpha's voice echoed, and I enjoyed tracking the curves of the sound waves as they reached out from the hole. "Hey! Let's go already!" shouted Kalis.

I shrugged and, making sure that he had a secure grip, leapt down.

"WOoOOoOOOOOOOooooooo!"

The Creator's weird screeching and the wind were too much for my auditory sensors, so I turned them off for the time being.

We fell for 48 seconds and 59 milliseconds, until my reinforced legs slammed into the ground.

The floor around us fractured under my momentum. I turned the sensors back on.

"-it that was so awesome!" Kalis jumped off, landing with a soft whoosh of his cloak.

Alpha's floodlights turned on, and we gazed at our surroundings.

I logged the scene into my memory. A large circular chamber with 103 year old walls composed of 87% marble, 7% granite, and 6% gneiss contained us, with two ways leading out.

One was straight up - that hole above us.

One was before us - a long hallway with no ending in sight.

I registered the angle of elevation as 19.8 degrees, with a rough surface unexpected of such recent architecture.

Kalis skipped off in that direction immediately, so we followed after him.

Here, the age of the stones increased significantly to 500 or so, which corroborated my prior observations.

"Hey! Delta! Help me out here!" came a yell from down the hall.

As we approached, Kalis's human body was struggling pathetically against a large block.

I scanned it. "Huh? The edges have been sealed with metal, like they wanted to keep whatever was inside from getting out."

My sensors picked up a soft scraping noise on the other side.

"Move over, metalhead. Let me scan the inside. Now that we're closer, I should be able to get a detailed analysis of the interior"

As Alpha made to get in front of me, I knocked her into the rock. "Don't call me that! We're both machines."

She gave me a furious look and my vocal emulator emitted a laugh.

Alpha slapped me. "Shut up."

I made to get back at her, but Kalis grabbed me and glared. "Stop messing around. Go guard the entrance and let us know if anyone approaches."

She made a taunting face, but the Creator had spoken, so I had no choice but to leave.

Striding back down the hall, my heavy footsteps resonated throughout, and I rolled my eyes. 

My predecessor Alpha could be so annoying that I was almost embarrassed to call her my "sister". 

At least she wasn't as clueless as that Epsilon, who couldn't do anything unless given a direct command by Kalis. 

My light sputtered and went out.

I stopped and reached for the spare in my backpack, but my hand encountered resistance.

I ran a scan and sighed in frustration.

The container was still closed, and I didn't know how to open it.

Kalis would need to fix it later, then.

Continuing along the hall in darkness, I activated my sonar.

The path was relatively straight, but widened out as I proceeded; the walls were full of inscriptions and carvings that matched the older outdated version of Scorian runes. 

As I translated, I realized that there was an anomaly in my data. 

The chamber my Creator was attempting to get into was over 628 years old, the sloping hallway was built 500 or so years ago, yet the chamber was constructed only 103 years ago. 

Furthermore, the block had been sealed in place with molten metal, a technology that such primitive humans could not have had. 

Dating the metal was impossible, no matter which techniques were used, and the invention of furnaces capable of that heat was only created just under 300 years ago. 

The only way this was possible, I conjectured, was if the actual underground system had been created long before the renovation of the chamber, and the oldest part had been sealed off more recently. 

This explanation would definitely satisfy all the criteria, and the interesting composition of the entrance room's walls supported my analysis. 

What was inside, then, I did not know. 

Kalis would tell me later.

And Alpha.

She would know before me, I thought sadly. 

I continued along the path, and soon found myself outside in that circular chamber, the sun streaming in from above. 

Striding over to a wall, I grabbed ahold of it and began to climb. 

And climb.

And climb.

And wish I was doing something more interesting.

And climb.

After the 7:41:33 of repetitive ascension had occurred, I sat at the edge of the hole and made a call to Alpha. 

"Tell Kalis I'm in position now."

A few seconds later, I received the offending reply of "Got that, buckethead."

"Stop calling me buckethead." I snarled, annoyed. 

"Buckethead."