Checking the surroundings of the school showed no more enemies. We were a bit surprised that there had been so few, but after the Type Three was dead, we did not expect more to come. According to the official Emergency Survival Guide, Type 3 or Type 21 units were typically the core of an emergence. They were the ones who built or brought in (teleported?) more units. In this case, we already had killed the only one on scene.

In the meantime, an air ambulance had arrived at the school for the wounded teacher. Which was a good sign. If help came that fast, the Victoria area as a whole was probably not too bad off.

The shelter was open and apparently the father of little Cassie had heard about who helped out, so he came up to us and asked if there was anything he could do for us. Roger replied

“Cailtlin here collects dead Macks, and the big one over there would certainly be a nice trophy.”

Damn right it would be nice. Not so much for the bragging value, more for the chance of extracting some Mack technology. So I stepped up and said “That would be really nice!”

Cassie’s father said “Sure, I have a flatbed trailer and I know that Roger can drive my big crane.”

Better and better. But it might not be all that smart to leave the thing sitting in plain view. So I asked Elya “Is there a shop nearby where I can get something like a large tarp?

At Landing Lane, Langford Lake, is a shop with marine equipment. Its database indicates that it has suitable covers for your new toy.

I would have to ask Roger to make a stop there. And I’d owe him a lot of spare parts for today's help at looting. It took another thirty minutes to load up the dead Mack, then we started towards Colwood.

At the shop, I found it was closed. “Elya, could you please open the doors for me?”

The electronic doors unlocked and slid open. I soon found a suitable tarp for my new Mack and turned to leave. Under other circumstances I might have done a little shoplifting, but as I could afford it now, I told Elya “I’d like to pay for the thing, but anonymously if you can arrange it.”

That is an unusually noble move. By your standards. Money is transferred

We went back on the road, following the flatbed trailer with the Type Three on it. Its legs hung down from the trailer and dragged on the road, leaving a trail of sparks. Fortunately the roads were empty, apparently sane people were still sitting in their shelters.

Eventually we arrived at the fire depot where my shelter was and started unloading. We parked the Mack between some old equipment as if it belonged there. My chest started to give me serious pain by now, but with the help of Roger and Cassie’s father I still managed to cover up my looted robot menace with the tarp. I thanked both Roger and Cassie’s father profusely for their help. As soon as they had left, I started inspecting the eye.

“Elya, I’d like to try and find out what this thing has to tell me. Suggestions about retrieving whatever data may be still in there?”

I simply could not stop now, uncovering the secrets of this Mack’s technology was too enticing. Somewhere between genuine curiosity and avarice I guess. But for the creatures I was going to steal from I had zero sympathy anyway.

Directed by Elya, I fetched the adapter hardware I had already kludged together for testing the spike of the Type Four, and with some ad hoc printed probes, I managed to connect the computer to the electronics in the Mack. Or perhaps I should say Elya managed. She did most of the planning and designing, I could barely follow. But I was in too much of a hurry to take it slow and ask for explanations. By the time the fire department discovered the addition to their parking lot, I wanted to have recovered whatever information was still salvageable from the broken machine.

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We were halfway through the accessible cables, when it became too dark to continue. The probes were difficult to connect, and I needed both hands for the work. Perhaps I could have continued with a flashlight between my teeth, but I needed some sleep and my ribs needed some rest. I still did not know if one of them was broken.

Next morning, my chest looked like the worst bruise ever. But the pain in the ribs had receded, so I continued to work on the Mack. After two hours, I hit paydirt. Elya had managed to access the database in what might be called a womb for new Macks. At its rear, the Type Three had a very advanced 3D printer. Large enough to make a Type One or Four in, if its limbs were folded up. Elya explained:

This fabricator is considerably more advanced than what you have now. It almost matches the Assembler Mark II we have in our roadmap for fabrication capabilities.

It has also stored blueprints for anything it might be asked to produce. In particular the Types One, Four and Three, the latter in parts for later assembly. Also a construction drone that is not listed in the Emergency Survival Guide. Its design suggests it is meant to assemble new Threes from the aforementioned parts.

“I want you to extract this data as soon as possible. I am especially interested in the Type Three and its fabricator. Once you have that, we will talk about possible shortcuts in Project Fabber.”

The same afternoon, Elya was still transferring data, but she told me that she had discovered a lot of information from the blueprints. Of course. If you knew the design of a thing, understanding its function followed logically. At least for an entity like Elya. By now she could probably explain in great detail how a Type Three worked, merely from running a simulation.

The most effective strategy at this point would be to use the Mack fabricator to make the Assembler Mark II. Which offers small but critical improvements over the Mack fabricator. Essentially, that would allow you to skip three stages in your roadmap to making a Creation Engine. l suggest that you start to collect raw materials.

Elya gave me a list. It would more than wipe out my stockpile of feedstock for my existing 3D printers. I had to acquire at least part of the raw materials from other sources. Elya had informed me that I could literally feed the Mack with scrap. That was how they fed in the wild. Like when this one was eating the slides at the school.

After a few hours of collecting and buying scrap, I finally was ready to start. First, buying the catalog and blueprint we had picked.

Item

Point cost

Description

Class I Matter Reconfiguration Machines (Catalog)

75

Various fabricators and chemical reactors

Assembler Mark II (Blueprint)

1000

Multi-material 3D printer with nanoscale resolution.

Purchased: Everything in the table

Balance left… 9 points

Second, actually building the new printer. With bated breath I waited for Elya to start the small fusion reactor in the Mack. This was one of the things Elya had not been 100% confident about. She told me something about possible fuel contamination. Which was fascinating, but halfway through explaining the possible reaction chains she lost me.

Finally, I could start shoveling scrap into the Mack’s mouth. The first product was a small barrow for transporting the rest of the products. Next, teleport emitters for the printed material. I wanted the most critical parts done first in case I was interrupted.

After that, feedstock disintegrator arrays, the opposite of the printer. I was not only building a printer, but an entire set of nanoscale shredder, storage and fabricator. For shredder and storage I used the designs from the Type Three, because I lacked the points for the Protector equivalents. But in this context, Mack tech would be good enough.

The following day, containers, conveyors and little pipelines followed. Then the frame for mounting the parts in. Finally, some basic tools to assemble the stuff. The one thing left to do was making or buying panels for the case. Not strictly necessary, but it would look much nicer.