Heart of Ice

Heart of Ice

It was an especially cold day in January. The wind blew a mixture of ashes, dust and falling snow through the torched remains of the city, parts of which were still burning.

Julien stood on the edge of the deserted ruins. He had just salvaged everything he had left that hadn't burned within his apartment. He looked out at the nearby Sea of Sand, and jostled the box that he held.

He remembered from his childhood when the Sea of Sand used to still be a sea, albeit a small one, and not ever very deep. But every summer his mother would bring him to their special spot on the beach, and they would play on the shore…

And she would chase him down the shore, and then he would chase her into the water, and they would swim for a while, and then they'd build sand castles on their lonely beach.

Lots of their old sandcastles littered the surrounding sand – or, at minimum, their crushed and dried-out remains. They weren't on a public beach – those were all near the actual ocean, not the slowly-drying inland sea. This was Nature's beach, and they used it simply because no one else would.

Sometimes they would see trading ships pass by, about half a mile out from them. He remembered waving to the ships; he would be standing on the shore with his mother as they would both wave down the brine-covered ships out at sea…

His mother helped him identify them when he was younger by their flags. Different colors represented different locations. She told him the green flags meant they were from the place where she and his father lived before they moved to where they were now.

Over time, he grew to recognize the one that was his father's – it was a red ship with large sails and a dragon's head on its prow, and appeared much older than most of the other vessels.

They still waved to the other ships, of course. But it felt special to know that his father was out there, seeing them wave to him.

But as the shore went farther out, year by year, they saw fewer and fewer ships. When he was twelve, the sea dried up completely, and that was the summer that his father never came home…

It was hard to believe that that wasn't even thirty years ago yet that that had happened. So much had changed…

A noise from somewhere behind him jerked him out of the memory. The ashen snow whispered past him, calling out to him in the silent screams of the deceased, as his invention-gone-wrong stepped out from around a nearby building.

"It HAs bEEN a WHiLe," his creation addressed him. "I BELieVe I haVE kILLed eVERYonE thAt HAs noT lEFt. It iS pROBabLY tiME For mE to mOve oN."

Julien ignored him, trying to hold on to the remnants of his last 'happy' memory.

"If yOO dOO noT LOok at mEE I wILL kILL yOO rIGht nOw," it said fiercely.

He set down the box and turned around, staring at his creation. He remained expressionless.

"WhY aRE yOO noT aFRAid?" it asked him. "WhY dOO yOO noT rUN aWAy?"

Julien sighed. "Because I can't run away yet."

"WhY noT?"

"I haven't said what needs to be said."

"WhICH iS?"

Julien sighed. His next words would be the final point in this conversation.

"Zane, I hate you."

His creation cackled. "YouR wORdS hAVe nO EFfECt On mEE, fOOL."

He went on with his argument. "You have disappointed me."

The robot seemed to sense the power in the words. "NoO…" it said quietly.

"I should never have made you."

The effect was immediate. Julien had programmed this backdoor function in the robot himself.

The robot froze up and deactivated itself, its power supply being diverted to a side processor that would run an endless loop of nothing forever.

Julien knew he shouldn't feel an attachment to this thing, this thing that had killed his mother…

…and she didn't have time to scream before the inside of her head was on the wall…

But at the same time, he had succeeded in creating an artificial life form, that none had ever done before.

He knew, though, that he wouldn't be able to stay in the city. The police would begin to hunt him as soon as they realized that he was the one responsible, and they would never stop.

He was an outlaw, out on the open road. He needed to run. He'd walk until he tired, and then he'd stop, and then he'd never leave that spot again.

Julien would keep his successful failure. It was too big a part of his history to not keep it. It would be a way to remember his treachery, to remember that he made this thing and it killed over a thousand people.

He placed the deactivated machine inside the wooden box with the rest of his things, among which there was a set of blueprints, a slightly-charred roll of fresh drafting paper, and a large black scrapbook.

Julien had nothing left. It was time for him to go.

And so he wandered out into the freshly-fallen ash-coated snow, dragging the now much heavier box, seeking peace and silence in the wilderness of Ninjago.

Snowflakes blew around his face, and froze him to his core.

A heart of ice he had, but the ice could melt no more.