by Isaac Hooke
When he was far enough away from the dogs so that the drones wouldn’t attract their attention, he pulled himself onto a single story building and sat down, letting his long legs dangle over the edge.
He activated the appropriate Teaching AI and the mad scientist avatar appeared. Jason opened up his drone repair panel, and, following along with the avatar’s instructions, he installed the necessary blueprints into the flash memory of three drones. Any more than that, and they’d just get in each other’s ways.
Then the drones got to work. He instructed them to take apart one of their own to use as materials for the camera and support equipment, since he had a lot of drones to spare.
In a few moments the machines had taken apart and melted down one of their own, and then used the raw material to begin printing up the camera, along with the necessary transmitter and receiver. When it was done, he installed the appropriate gear in his mech and the drone he had chosen to act as scout, and allowed the remaining drones to finish the connections.
In his local database, he had a selection of preprogrammed scout firmwares to choose from. He reviewed the different documented features of each, and chose the one that seemed most suited to the job, titled Explorer. He flashed that program into the scout’s ROM, and then activated the drone using the remote interface.
He was pleased when the camera feed appeared in the upper right of his vision. Via the remote interface, he had complete control over the scout—he could assume direct control and fly it personally if he wanted to, but he could also dispatch different commands with the help of his map, sort of like in a real time strategy game. He selected the Explorer on his map, and with his mind drew a quick spiral path out from his current position, and instructed the drone to follow it before returning.
As the scout buzzed into the air, he minimized the video window, and placed it in the upper right of his display. He set the Explorer to alert him if any motion was detected.
He recalled his remaining drones to his leg compartment and sealed the panel.
“All right, we’re good,” Jason said.
Tara and the dogs joined him, and they continued into the city. They passed a chain grocery store. The front doors and windows were smashed in.
“You think there’s any food for the dogs in there?” Tara asked.
“Doubt it,” Jason said. “With their keen noses, they would have already been dashing inside if so. Anything of value would have been raided by the bioweapons years ago. Especially considering that the micro machines would have digested any cans, leaving behind the food.”
“Oh well,” Tara said.
Jason glanced at the sky. “It’ll be night soon. We’ll have to find a place to hole up before these Nightmares of yours begin roving the streets.”
“I’m not sure if they’ll actually come inside the city,” Tara said. “But then again, I don’t see why they wouldn’t. There are lots of places for mutants to hide here. This is probably their prime hunting ground.”
Jason halted, exasperated. “So you tell me this now, after we’ve already come all this way?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I still think we’ll be the safest here,” Tara said. “They roam the countryside, too.”
“I think I would have preferred a cave somewhere,” Jason said.
“Sorry, big guy,” Tara said. “All caves are already taken. Trust me, I’ve tried. Where do you think the Nightmares make their homes?”
“Oh,” Jason said. “Okay.”
The drone continued passing over the city, but didn’t catch sight of anything that was moving. Of course, it probably helped that the buzz from the Explorer would have alerted any bioweapons on the ground well before passing overhead.
“Are you reading any available Internet hotspots?” Tara asked.
“No,” Jason said. “If there are any landlines here, like you said, we’ll have to visit a data center to find them.”
“Too bad any routers we’d need to access them will have been dissolved by the micro machines,” Tara said.
“We’ll just print more, if we have to,” Jason said.
“Oh yeah,” Tara said. “I keep forgetting about the drones…”
“For a woman with a machine memory, you’re awfully forgetful,” Jason said.
“Hey, cut me some slack, I’m still getting used to being a machine,” Tara said.
Jason paused at an intersection. “Okay, turn north here.”
“Why?”
“Well, according to the map, there’s a warehouse that way,” Jason told her.
He thought it a little odd that the map data would be so accurate, containing detailed descriptions of all the buildings in the city, pre invasion. Then again, maybe it wasn’t odd. The detailed data only reinforced the fact that the military had intended him to be on some sort of mission in the region, and they had wanted him to be prepared for it, whatever that mission might be.
“The warehouse is big enough to fit our mechs,” Jason continued. “It’ll be almost like a tent for us. There’s enough room for the dogs, too.”
“I kind of liked it better when you called them kids,” Tara said.
“That was a mistake,” Jason said. “Anyway, it should be as good a base of operations as any.”
A few blocks later they reached the warehouse. The garage doors were gone—apparently they’d been made of metal. But the rest of the concrete structure remained intact.
There was more room in the street here so that Jason was able to lower himself to the ground easily enough. A good thing, because he had to low-crawl to fit through the garage entrance, but once he had pulled himself inside he was able to stand to his full height.
There were smashed wooden crates lining the floor. Metal racks had probably formed aisles across the warehouse in its heyday, but the micro machines would have eaten those away a long time ago.
“Well, looks cosy-ish,” Tara said.
Bruiser, Lackey, Shaggy and Runt promptly chose spots for themselves amid the crushed wood, which they treated as bedding.
“The kids agree,” Tara said.
“Sure,” Jason said. He plunked himself down next to the far wall, propping his back against the concrete so that he could gaze at the entrance. He recalled the Explorer, and set it to guard the front entrance. By then, evening had arrived, and the sky was slowly darkening. The inside of the warehouse was growing dim to match.
Tara sat down beside him. She slid her metal legs over his.
“Um, that’s a bit within my personal space,” Jason said.
“What?” Tara whined. “I need a footrest before I can fall asleep.”
Jason forcefully shoved her off him. “I’m not that footrest.”
“Hmph,” Tara said. “I’m going to sleep. Care to visit my VR for a quick drink first?”
“I don’t drink, remember?” Jason said.
“You’re such a liar,” Tara said.
“Believe what you want,” Jason said.
“Have a coffee then,” Tara said.
“I don’t drink coffee,” Jason said.
“A juice?” she pressed. “A water?” When Jason didn’t answer, she sighed. “Good night.”
“‘Night,” Jason told her.
Her head lowered slightly. That was the only external sign she’d gone offline.
According to the manual, the AI cores had a sleep mode that allowed critical systems to remain operational, while the consciousness subroutine switched to idle mode. Sleep mode provided the lowest draw on their batteries, and thus at night, when there was no sun to recharge them, it was the preferred mode of operation.
The manual also encouraged the use of that mode because the human mind was accustomed to hours of complete downtime, to allow memories to set, and whatnot. While Jason’s AI core offloaded such tasks to background processes, and didn’t technically need downtime per se, studies had shown that Mind Refurbs who slept regularly were generally happier and more content than their non-sleeping counterparts. Again
, at least according to the manual.
With those thoughts on his mind, he activated his external monitoring systems, linking one of them to the Explorer, and initiated sleep mode.
8
Jason reactivated. The warehouse was completely dark around him, which meant he had been awakened early.
He switched to LIDAR, and white wireframes popped into existence, highlighting the walls and other objects around him.
There were no currently active proximity alerts, so he reviewed his logs.
The alert had been triggered by the Explorer, but the scout had inexplicably canceled it. There was no reason left in the logs. He studied the video feed, which had switched to night vision mode—the street and surrounding buildings were represented in different shades of green. He rewound the feed to the point where the alert had sounded, and saw a flash in the distance, above the rooftops.
Odd.
Jason tried to get up, but he was pinned. Suppressing a sudden panic, he looked down and exhaled in relief.
While he was under, Tara had sneaked her feet back over his, using his thighs as a footrest.
He sighed, and picked her feet off him, setting them down on the floor beside him. She didn’t wake up. Or maybe she had, but was pretending she hadn’t.
Well, if she was still asleep, her motion sensors would promptly wake her when his next actions registered.
Jason hauled his heavy mech body upright and walked toward the entrance. He tried to plant his feet as quietly as possible, but it was difficult when you weighed as much as he did, and your feet were cast out of a metal and polycarbonate composite. If his motions didn’t wake Tara, his footfalls would. The Rex Wolves were already stirring, in fact.
As he approached the far side of the warehouse, he noted that his sleep had been refreshingly deep, and free of dreams. He wondered if sleep was always like that, for a Mind Refurb.
He approached one of the open garage entrances, and crouched down to peer outside. He surveyed the wireframe representation of the street and surrounding buildings his LIDAR returned, which overlaid the dark shadows visible beneath the night sky. Everything seemed normal out there.
He heard a thudding behind him, and a moment later Tara crouched down beside him to peer through another garage exit.
“What is it?” Tara said.
“The Explorer picked up some flashes in the distance,” Jason said. “I’m not seeing any sign of them now.”
He waited for a few moments, and his gaze drifted to the stars overhead. The moon was out, shining in a dull crescent.
“I wondered if the stars and moon still existed,” he said softly over the comm.
“Why wouldn’t they?” Tara asked.
“I don’t know,” Jason said. “We don’t know how long it’s been before we were awakened, after all. Could be a few weeks. Could be hundreds of years. Maybe thousands.”
“That’s true,” Tara said. “We’ve been talking like the invasion happened fifty years ago. Could have been a thousand.”
“Or it could be fifty,” Jason said. “That’s the thing. We don’t know.”
“Well, I could have told you that the stars and moon still existed,” Tara said. “But you never asked.”
“I know,” Jason said.
“I could tell you a lot of things…” Tara said.
Jason turned toward her, but saw only the outline of her faceless head on the LIDAR.
“Come to my VR tonight,” Tara said.
“Why?” Jason said.
“I just want to talk,” Tara said. “Face to face, with another human. Not these simulacrums I’ve generated to keep me company.”
“I didn’t know you had any…” Jason said.
“Oh, of course I do,” Tara said. “I spent the whole first day perfecting them. Sexy hunks, at my beck and call, ready to obey my every command. I kept them deactivated when you visited my VR.”
“Maybe I should look into creating my own,” Jason said. “The female versions, I mean,” he quickly appended.
“Why, when you have all the female company you need at the moment?” Tara said.
“You’re going to be at my beck and call, ready to obey my every command?” Jason said.
“Well, no, but—” Tara began.
“There you go,” Jason finished for her.
He surveyed the area outside one last time, and was just about to turn around and go back to his bed of broken crates, when he spotted a flash above one of the rooftops.
“There it is again,” Jason said.
“I saw it,” Tara told him.
Jason sent his Explorer forward to scout, but since he had a better zoom level on his mech, plus LIDAR, whereas the scout only had night vision, he also scrambled outside, crawling through the opening, and then stood to his full height.
Tara joined him. He only had to take two steps, and he was next to the single story building across from the warehouse. He gazed into the distance, activating night vision mode to abet his LIDAR.
There was a region of raised land outside the city to the east. A valley of sorts that was devoid of buildings—none of the outlying towns and villages extended there. He wasn’t sure if that valley had been present before the invasion, or if it was something the nukes had dug up, but it didn’t really matter what created it.
“Do you see them?” Tara said.
“Who?” Jason said.
“There’s a mech out there, staving off some Nightmares,” Tara said.
Jason checked the Explorer’s feed, but got nothing.
He returned his attention to his local cameras, and then he spotted… something. He zoomed in.
“I don’t see the mech, but I see these Nightmares of yours,” Jason said.
In the dim light from the moon, at first he thought the Nightmares were essentially jellyfish… he saw several bulbous shapes hovering in the air, with tentacles trailing down to the surface. But as he studied the creatures longer, he realized those tentacled bulbs were attached by thin stalks to the body of a bigger creature behind it. That creature was about twice the size of his own mech, and it stood on four, tree-like legs. It was from those legs that the stalks emerged.
He spotted smaller shapes caught up in those tentacles, and realized they fanned out all around the body; there were smaller mutants caught up in the web formed by those tentacles. Jason was reminded of a baleen whale straining plankton from the ocean, but in this case the prey were slightly larger than plankton, just as the predator was slightly larger than a whale.
A massive head bent down from the upper body to chew away one of the mutants that had been caught. That head was at the top of a wormlike neck, and there didn’t appear to be any other features on the head, at least not as recorded by the LIDAR, except for a large toothy maw, which promptly swallowed the mutant it had torn from the tentacles.
He counted three of the Nightmares in total. At their feet, a herd of quadrupeds were howling away as they leaped at those legs in full assault; they didn’t look like the Rex Wolves, but more like some kind of giraffes with octopus heads. Octoraffes.
“Why are they fighting?” Jason said. “Don’t they know they’re going to lose?” He watched Octoraffes get snagged by those tentacles surrounding the legs left and right. Some were able to break free, but most were not.
“The Nightmares have a nose for ferreting out mutants,” Tara said. “I’m guessing the smaller creatures have a nest in the mountains, and these are the males assigned to protect the herd. The females and their litters will be deeper in the valley.”
“Great,” Jason said. “You know, since we’re harboring a few mutants ourselves, eventually we’ll attract their attention.”
“Maybe,” Tara said. “But that’s why you’ve got the big guns, hey?”
A flash came from underneath the legs, and then a moment later the LIDAR silhouette of a mech emerged on the other side of the Nightmare. That mech was fending off the quadrupeds, while at the same time dodging the head of a Night
mare that kept striking down at it, trying to snatch it up.
The flash came again, and this time the mech flew skyward, toward the elevated torso at the top of those legs.
“Whoa, jumpjets,” Jason said. “Nice.”
“It’s one of ours, I think,” Tara said.
He ran an ID against the thermal profile of the mech, and the model number returned as Highlander.
“Looks that way,” he told her.
“Should we help it out?” Tara said.
“Probably,” Jason said. “Though if the pilot is anything like you were when first we met, our offer of help might not be taken kindly.” He switched to an open band. “Unidentified mech, do you need assistance?”
No answer.
The Highlander had landed on the torso of the nightmare, behind the neck. The head was twisting back to strike the mech, but then a swarm of small shapes darted down from the sky, enveloping the head.
A loud bellow echoed across the plains.
Meanwhile, another Nightmare swept its head across the torso, hitting the Highlander, which was sent tumbling toward the ground. It released a jumpjet burst at the last moment to cushion its fall.
The surrounding mutants leaped on the mech.
“Well, guess we’re going in,” Jason said after a moment.
Bruiser growled beside him.
“Uh, maybe the kids should stay home,” Jason said.
“Why?” Tara said. “I’m raising them to be war dogs. Come on Bruiser!”
She leaped over the building in the direction of the valley. The Rex Wolves followed her, barking eagerly.
Jason sighed, then pulled himself over the building and pursued. With the help of his map, he chose a path through the city that was interrupted only by single story buildings, allowing him to easily surmount any that got in his way.
In a few minutes he was leaving the city behind, for the rocky plains, and the valley.
He pulled ahead of Tara and the dogs, and as he neared the fighting, Octoraffes broke away from their doomed assault on the Nightmares to intercept his party. Now that he was closer, he had a better idea of their size: their bodies were a little smaller than that of his Vulture mech, but their necks allowed those octopus heads to reach right up to his own.
