Toy Wars Read Free Page B

victories and defeat. I would fulfill my mission in their image, for Six’s pleasure and the glory of the Humans .
    “Complete your mission, Teddy 1499.”
    “Affirmative , ” I repl ied as I marched proudly out of the Factory dome to the train station outside.
    My first look around didn’t surprise me as my long-term memories of m ore of the gray picture filled in with pigment and motion. Dominating the view , a 10.2 - meter crimson weeping-fly tree sway ed heavily in a stiff breeze only 43 meters from the main audience chamber of the Factory. A 12 - centimeter - gauge train, painted black and bearing “PACIFIC NORTHWESTERN” in yellow across both sides, waited for a crowding throng of units to board.
    Furious activity flow ed all around me. A squad of elephants, 150 centimeters tall and sporting brilliant multicolored fur, marched past in perfect time, sh aking the ground with every footfall. Three Tami dress-up dolls, their 20- centimeter - bodies nothing more than molded plastic explosives, walked by with exaggerated caution. Eight tiny Tommy Tank s, in standard gunmetal gray, rolled past my feet. An 8 -meter - long python slithered directly behind me past the station and joined up with two drab brown gophers. The trio meandered off into the foothills toward the mines . Two roadrunner birds, with their big saucer-like eyes, raced past on unfathomable errands. I caught a glimpse of three bright-green balloon units launching into the sky. I gawked at the chaos around me .
    The countryside seemed equally busy. Brilliant red light from the sun bathed the landscape , washing out nearly any other color that dared to rear its head — my own purple got scrubbed to an almost burnt cinnamon. The entire area looked as if someone had upended a can of wet crimson paint over everything. Even those plants that attempted to make use of chlorophyll wore a scarlet cloak . Brick - red, rose, carmine, maroon, and ruby were just some of the pleasing variations on the shades. This was home.
    Six’s units scurried all over the mountainous valley on missions instilled into them by Six and decreed by our creators , the Humans. A solitary dump truck , a mere 40 centimeters high, carried an unidentifiable cargo toward the smelting plant. A trio of plastic - bodied spiders scuttled off toward the eastern horizon. The activities spilled all over the lowland in a frantic, almost artistic display of randomness.
    Dozens of kilometers to the north , three mountain peaks so nearly matched the shape of the Factory’s triple redundant net controller (NC) towers that it made me wonder about the Humans and what they knew about that marvelous place. The bright silver of the Central River rushed by , only o ccasionally sending off a spray of liquid metal in its haste to be over a particularly large rock . M ercury globules land ed on the ground nearby, coalescing to roll back into the river as if the components had never been parted.
    I spent some time looking at the creature that had given me birth. A huge mottled pink dome 200 meters across and 80 high sat among several ancillary buildings within a field of tall red and white hor clover. A r i sing helix of dense black and blue smoke distinguished the Factory’s squat brown smelting plant. Six’s power plant, a nuclear reactor, blocked the entire view to the west, with pipes and miscellaneous equipment sticking out, giving it the appearance of a toddler’s T inkertoy creation.
    The net, an all-purpose power and communication system, glittered invisibly in colors that have no Human words. It cove red the valley in a crowded crisscross pattern like matted fur from one tiny node to another with concentrated channels h eading off in the direction where conflicts raged . Each NC transceiver wore a diffuse halo dancing around in changing colors as commands flew in and out . Those invisible but powerful lines of the net were our life force . Six ordered units to perform their task s through the net.