Saturday, January 16th, 2050

Building more fabricators remained our first priority, but Wendy had that part well in hand. She had hired two more people to help. Between those, Wendy and Arina the fabricators at Vanguard Enterprises were running at maximum capacity.

That gave me the chance to return to two sidelined projects, namely replacing the “Explorer” armed air car and interrogating the Mack MG we had captured in the Mack base. For those projects I had Wendy fly me out to Styx base, the head of the Mack girl in my baggage. En route I observed “Your piloting skills look pretty good, where did you find the time to practice?”

“It comes to me almost naturally. Apparently, being a robot now lets me mesh with machines pretty well. Which reminds me, that upgrade you promised me should be ready now.”

“It should. Elya, have there been any problems with building the new cyberbrains?”

None I could detect. We still should test them before installation though.

“Yes!” Wendy enthused. “Can we do it before I fly back?”

“Of course. Then you can enjoy your superiority as the new master brainiac!”

An hour later

While Wendy was in the process of having her mind transferred, I connected the Mack MG’s head to the contraption I had used before for interrogating Arina and Wendy.

As I was booting her, she went through the routine I had become used to. In a monotone, mechanical voice she said

“Error 404, body not found. Rebooting…”

After a short pause, she continued in a more normal voice:

“Diagnosis: Diagnosis interfaces unavailable.”

“Weapon systems: Flame Arrow unavailable. Vaporizing Blast unavailable.”

“Mobility: Motoric interface not present, movement impossible.”

“Status: Unit not operational.”

Then things changed from what I had seen before. Instead of launching into the usual rant about the doom of mankind, the Mack MG started asking questions in an almost natural tone.

“Where am I? And why does it seem that my body is missing?”

Surprised, I subvocalized to Elya “Is the mind control software even active on this one?”

It is, but the control is more subtle and allows her a bit more leeway than earlier versions. As long as her behavior matches the directives, they only work as a light nudging.

That seemed to explain why Amanda had been able to speak a little more freely than her predecessors. I addressed the MG next and answered her questions.

“You have been captured in a fight. Now you are in an underground base, owned by allies of Haven. And your robot body seems to be missing because it is. Just a little safety measure.

“But why don’t you tell me more about yourself? Let’s start with who you are and how you came to work for the Macks.”

“I was a HANAF soldier when I took part in the attempt to reconq… recon… rec…”. Her face turned into a rictus as she struggled to get the words out.

“Elya, shut that mind control software down!”

Done.

Our latest guest composed herself and restarted her speech. “My name is Megan O’Hare. I was a young HANAF soldier, barely out of basic training, when I participated in the attempt to retake Victoria a few years ago. We were ambushed by the machines and I got hit over the head. The next thing I remember was being in a machine body looking mostly like my old self, and a strange compulsion forcing me to do things. Whoever controlled me used me for maintaining various Mack facilities.”

“It is amazing how well you handle that. We have had some girls in your situation before and they tended to be way more hysterical.”

“I’m just pretending to be calm. Inside I still feel like a small mouse caught in a huge steel trap.” In a small voice she continued “What now?”

“First, I’m offering you a new body. Still robotic, but more human-like than what you had before. Then we can find a new place for you.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I lifted a finger. “There is precedent for re-joining the Army. Sort of. I know a former Magical Girl who was kidnapped like you were. Once we freed her and after a few months of therapy, she recovered to the point where she was fit for duty again. Her Magical Girl powers were gone though, so she joined HANAF instead.”

Another finger. “You might be able to find a civilian job. I know a company that might accept you as you are.”

A third finger. “Or I could find a job for you here. It might be a bit lonely though, you would be the housekeeper of a small base at the ass end of nowhere.”

That elicited a tiny smile. “Where, exactly, is the ass end of nowhere?”

“The south flank of Mount Olympus in what used to be the state of Washington in the United States.”

“I think I would like to get back closer to civilization. No offense intended.”

I stepped up to Meg, gave her a little hug and said ”Maybe you’d like to take a nap while we are organizing things.”

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea.”

I shut down Meg for now and focused on my next task, fabricating a new Explorer. But alas, one thing was missing. Raw materials. The big fabricator I had used to make the first Explorer was operational, but it did not have enough supplies. So my mind turned to potential alternative suppliers.

“Elya, we have hacked quite a few systems on the San Juan Island base when we raided it a few weeks ago. Please give me an overview, especially with regard to logistics.”

We have full control over the work droids and manufacturing systems on the base. Guard and combat units are partially infiltrated, but control over those is at best tenuous.

“Let’s find a way to reroute some of the materials, if possible without alerting the guards. At which point, do you think, would the guards notice that the supplies are going AWOL?”

The guards might not, their only task is keeping intruders out. But I have noticed the base is reporting back to somewhere else, including the number of completed units.

“And if those do not match the amounts of used material, Somewhere Else will get suspicious. Got it. Could you perhaps cook the books for me?”

It would be my pleasure.

“So we report as many units built as the materials usage would suggest. But there is also the question what the not really completed units would be expected to do. Such as reporting their existence back to the mothership.”

They would file regular reports, but without too many details. I could fake those and it might take a while until their central office registers that the new ghost units do nothing useful.

“Sounds like a plan. Next we need to actually get the materials here. I was thinking of using the teleporters in the base and sending the stuff to our teleport receiver outside. The one we used before to capture their units.”

That is doable. I can also suppress the logs and reports the teleporters would usually create.

I checked on Wendy and found that the transfer was complete, so I unhooked her from the cabling and woke her up. “Hello Sleeping Beauty, we have a job to do!”

“Obtain World Domination. Crush the Macks. Take the trash out.“

“Your bad joke skills need some more calibration.”

Remotely I launched a Spectracopter from Vanguard Enterprises as a data relay to our subverted units at the Mack base. Soon we could follow the events on the base in real time. The place was amassing a worrying number of Type Twenty-Ones and Mack Battlecats, together with a few Mack MGs.

“Elya, unless we are stealing stuff at the moment, can you manipulate the teleporters to dump the Macks into seriously wrong places? Especially the Twenty-Ones?”

There are hardwired protections against putting them deep underwater, underground or high up in the air. But I could make them fall a few kilometers short of the coast of Victoria Island.

“Very good, make that the default setting. Now, we need to actually collect the stuff. Could you take Herbie to move the stuff that comes from the teleport gate?”

“Sounds like rather unqualified work,” Wendy joked. “But I’ll do it.”

We met up at the Advanced Capture Facility outside, which was essentially a teleport receiver mounted on a huge turntable and an attached armored chamber that contained several systems to suppress aggressive Macks.

On my command, Elya directed the subverted drones at the base to send their materials to us instead of using them to build Mack units. Once I aimed the teleport receiver of the ACF at the Mack base, a steady stream of containers started arriving. They contained either raw material slurry or pre-built parts, and either was welcome to us. Within two hours, we collected about twenty tons of raw materials and a smattering of components. Finally, Elya ordered the assembly drones to walk themselves into the teleporter.

San Juan Island, Mack base

Model 54404 Combat Unit, Nanite-Enhanced

The artificial girl walked along the corridors of the base, dutifully looking out for intruders and anything else that seemed suspicious. Seeing little that really required her attention, her mind began to wander back to her childhood (error?). Having grown up (error?) on the shores she had briefly seen on her outside parols, she felt a desire to go out and enjoy the sun. But as soon as she had taken a few steps towards the exit, she ran into a mental block. - Error. Cannot leave designated patrol area. -

Rigid shackles descended on her mind and forced her back onto her designated patrol route. For a while, she mindlessly checked the same corridors over and over. Eventually, the compulsion faded and she regained a smidgen of agency. Looking at the rows of cat-like machines prepared for invading the Enemy, a feeling of wrongness creeped up on her mind. There should be more of them.

Perhaps she should go investigate? The decision was taken from her, as her directives kicked in and forced her to take stock. 121 Model Q-1 droids present. Involuntarily, her feet took her to the manufacturing line where the Q-1 droids were assembled. She saw the room was missing almost all of the materials that were usually present, and all of the assembly droids were gone.

Inventory error. Must report.