Spider-Bots Rising

Chapter Fourteen: Into The Canyon

The Dreamseeker and the others pushed back from the edge of the canyon.

"This is as close to it as I've ever been," said Nigel. "I've never gone any further than this."

"I can see why not," Chuck said. "It's not exactly an inviting sight."

"They. Are. All. Here," Abby said. Her sensors flitted quickly back and forth. "Ev-every spider-bot in the Dreamscape is here. My scans show it clearly. Every. One." She paused. "Even. Me."

The rest of them stared at her, but she went quiet again.

The Dreamseeker was scared. She knew the others were too. Seeing the sheer number of bots they were facing was terrifying. And that wasn't even counting the Queen. The Dreamseeker pictured Queen Arachni waiting for them at the bottom of that dark canyon like a cobra waiting to strike. Her evil blank eyes blazing out of the dark, waiting. Rows of razor-like fangs clicking softly in the shadows.

More to distract herself than anything, the Dreamseeker took the compass out of her pocket. She felt its familiar weight in her hand. She looked down at the four mysterious symbols on its face. But it did not light up. It did not grow warm. The thin red arrow remained limp and lifeless.

But that was no matter. The Dreamseeker knew where they had to go now. All of them knew where they had to go: down to the bottom of the canyon.

"Alright," the Dreamseeker said, taking a deep breath. "We have to get down there. But we should stay hidden for as long as we possibly can. There's no use getting into trouble before we've seen what we came here for."

The four of them peered over the side again. Now they only saw the odd glint of metal here and there. It seemed most of the bots had reached the bottom and had disappeared into the dark.

"Okay," the Dreamseeker whispered. "Let's go."

So, slowly and carefully, they worked their way down the sloping cliff. They tip-toed along narrow ledges. They grabbed onto small bumps and bulges in the rock. Nigel floated close to the wall. He darted from shadow to shadow, trying to hide his bright coloring. The deeper into the darkening canyon they went, the more neon he became.

A few times, the Dreamseeker nudged a pebble off the edge with her foot. Each time she watched as it fell away into the nothingness below. She never heard it land. After a while she decided not to look down anymore. It was making her hands sweaty and her chest tight.

Finally they reached a ledge that was a good lookout position. They were about 15 feet from the bottom. A large, jutting flank of rock hid all four of them from sight. Peering over the top, they could see what was going on below.

Thousands of spider-bots marched along the canyon floor. They all walked as one, like some horrible, wicked river of clanking metal. Imaginanium sloshed and glittered in their tanks. Their heads all pointed in the same direction. Their red sensors were dull and locked. Every sharp metallic leg moved in stiffly perfect unison. Not one bot was out of line or out of step. The sound of their combined footsteps was like the beating of a war drum.

The Dreamseeker looked over at what they were marching towards. Further down the canyon was the glowing orb she had seen from the top of the canyon. Could this finally be what they had been searching for– The Net? The World Wide Web? It was beautiful, in a way.

Standing this close to it, she now saw its true size. The orb was gigantic. It was at least the size of a football stadium. She couldn't look at it directly. Even with her tinted helmet she had to shield her eyes. The light coming off of it was blinding. But she glimpsed that its walls were a complex mesh of the same green threads they had found back in the Duskmare Forest. Together they seemed now to glow even brighter. On the edges of the orb, where it was least bright, she could see the numbers and letters flowing through the threads at a dizzying pace. The Dreamseeker could see that the letters were ordering themselves into actual words. Words that flashed out across the face of the orb again and again: "OBEY," "OBEY," "OBEY."

That's what all the bots were marching towards. Row after row of them walked up to the orb. And when they reached it, they seemed to melt right through and disappear into the orb. On and on they went, swallowed by the wall of green light.

"Oh dear..." Nigel's whispered voice snapped the Dreamseeker back into the present moment. She followed his eyeline to the far side of the canyon floor.

Along a small ridge on the canyon floor , a bot had become stuck against a rock in its path. Its legs continued to step in time with the others' but it could not move forward. A small step to the side would have freed it. But the bot just kept swinging its legs forward and back to no advantage. Its eyes stared blankly at a fixed point in the orb.

After a moment, another bot got stuck behind the first one. Their swinging legs became briefly tangled as they rammed against each other. Then, the second bot simply climbed up and over the first without breaking step. As they watched, more bots began to pile up behind the first. They all followed suit, climbing over the first bot to continue their steady march. As this went on, the first bot was wedged tighter and tighter against the rock. In less than a minute, two of its legs broke off as it was trampled by its fellow bots. Its remaining legs kept swinging back and forth feebly. As its crushed body sank beneath the stomping masses, the Dreamseeker had to look away.

"They're brainwashed," the Dreamseeker said gravely.

"Completely," Abby said. Her eyes were glowing fiercely red. But her voice remained flat and robotic as ever. "Which I hope w-w-will make it easier for me to walk among them."