9
A Leg up
AJ led them to a room in the Weapons sector that seemed to be centered around M adaptors. Many of the weapons used the strange undefined M energy, this lab seemed to be designing different adaptors to convert electrical or thermal energy into usable M energy, or in a few cases, the other direction. It was very similar to some of the projects in genetics, though these were meant for weaponry and were less squishy.
One of the simplest designs was a small two way adapter, plug M energy into one side, get electricity out the other, or the other way around. It was simple and portable meant for inclusion in a variety of small arms. Luke took a couple as well as designs to make more.
The notes that AJ led them to seemed to be meant for a more efficient larger scale operation, perhaps meant for a large armored vehicle or even a stationary cannon. AJ insisted they hide the notes even from themselves in case the observer could record and read anything they opened around cameras, which was everywhere down there. The task seemed simple enough and Luke decided to wait to make any decisions when they got closer to completing it.
That done, they made their way to the tram station aiming for Robotics once more. When they made it to the tracks and AJ couldn’t see from his vantage point Luke considered teasing him by pretending they were again blocked, but the little robot had been literally vibrating with anticipation and Luke didn't have that kind of cruelty in him.
“It’s clear, I can see the station lights, want a boost to see?”
“Forget a boost, carry me there, those tracks look like a pain, let’s get this done!”
With that they entered Robotics. The lack of active resistance since they left the Tribe behind was starting to worry Luke. Despite what AJ thought, they had been cruising along with little trouble for a while now. Even the weird voice that hijacked AJ's body didn’t really fight them, just asked them to grab some stuff along the path they were already on. It felt like the calm before the storm and Luke almost wished a crazy scientist would try to stab him or something to break the tension.
No such thing happened though and Robotics was eerily similar to Weapons, so much so that Luke checked the map. The layout of the two sectors was exactly the same, the only difference was the purpose of any given room. Rather than special ultra light long rifles with M enhanced rounds, there were instead mining drones meant to report to a survey satellite and automatically harvest various metals from not just anywhere on earth, but anywhere in the solar system.
The scale of the ridiculousness was the same, only the flavor had changed. It seemed that a lot of the robots that were actually built and functional had been taken whenever the base had evacuated, that had crippled a lot of the automation. Based on what they were seeing in the various rooms, Surface Operations and Manufacturing were completely crippled without the drones they relied upon. Maintenance was also largely automated and things like the cave ins and broken doors should have been handled by robots.
After consulting the map they decided they had two possibilities for where they might be able to upgrade AJ, the lab where AJ and others like him had been designed, or something called ‘Artificial Intelligence Driven Exploration Drone.’ The obsession with acronyms in this place was a little concerning but AJ realized he wanted to be AIDED so that’s where they went.
The room was quite large on the map, the matching room in the Weapons sector had several disassembled helicopters complete with heavy weapons meant to be attached as needed. This AIDED room was a shallow room, barely as large as a walk in closet. It must have been recognized as one room along with the weird collection of machinery behind the glass wall. The only thing in the walk in section was a small computer terminal with no chair or keyboard or anything of that nature, just a monitor.
AJ walked over to the monitor and looked at Luke expectantly.
“What?” Luke asked curiously
“Pick me up meat bag, this is it, I’ve been waiting for this for centuries, hurry it up!”
Luke didn’t really understand, but did as asked anyway.
As AJ reached monitor level a voice rang out, “Daddy?!”
“Yeah its me, but I'm called AJ now, the human doesn’t respect names and I’m attached to it for now”
Luke realized now what was going on, the AI used voice to interact.
The voice was a bit strange, changing accent and tone every few words, “Eww you got a human pet? Why? They are so gross, do you want me to make you a flamethrower attachment so you can clean up after it?”
AJ leaned forward in excitement, “You can do that?”
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea, we’re here for legs right?” Luke really didn’t want to have to veto terrifying weapons, he still couldn’t fully trust AJ with his strange behavior and being hijacked once already.
“Right, I’m tired of being carried, I want to explore the world on my own two feet.”
“Legs huh? What kind, we have springy ones for jumping, spiked ones for latching onto stuff, wide ones for skittering atop snow, long ones for all terrain, all sorts of legs.”
AJ leaned back and forth as he examined a few options that were shown on the monitor.
“Maybe long ones? I want to be able to go anywhere"
“Anywhere… legs aren't what you want then" The AI said matter-of-factly.
“Wha?”
“Nope, legs are so last millennia, why walk when you can fly?”
“If you tell me you can make me fly I will give you anything you want, I’ll even give you my human, I have dozens now"
Luke turned the robot to meet his eyes and gave him his best glare
The AI shot the idea down though, “Eww no I don’t want any humans, you know they leak their own coolant everywhere, like all the time? Just pick a modification from the list, that’s what I do. No payment necessary I haven’t had a job to do in like forever”
The monitor changed to display lists upon lists of different forms of flight AJ was compatible with. The process took a long time, and Luke zoned out after a while. AJ decided to take advantage of the modifications and chose a whole host of options to add on. He was limited by weight if he wanted to fly but there were still some impressive add-ons available.
At one point in the process AJ clapped his hands to get Luke's attention.
“Focus meat bag, this is the most important part of your life. Wendy here said she can install a M energy powered signal blocker. It will be toggled and is the only way either of us knows that can block Nomed. The problem is when its active it blocks ALL signals, that’s in or out, to doors, to you, to anything. What do you think? Its not the upgrade Nomed mentioned but I don’t trust that guy half as far as I can throw him, and I have weird stumpy robot arms.”
Luke thought for only a moment, “yea you should get it, I have the Maintenance access, the only thing you have that I can’t replicate is access to the system itself. Safety is more important.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“What if it pisses them off?”
“What if I don’t care? You can’t get mad when people don't let you take over their body for fun.”
AJ paused and then shook a fist at the sky, “Curse the universe, I want to grin but I have no mouth, I want to hug you but my arms are too short, I want to dance a jig but I don’t have knees. I can't even celebrate properly without upgrades"
Luke shook his head, “Then upgrade, what are you waiting on?”
AJ and Wendy went back to their discussion. Once everything had been decided Luke started getting excited himself, he had ignored most of the talk and so the result was going to be a surprise to him. Wendy opened a previously invisible door in the glass wall where she instructed Luke to place AJ inside a box. After AJ was secured and set into a hibernation mode Luke returned to Wendy’s room and the upgrades started.
Most of the actual parts had been fabricated as they designed AJ's new body so the process was quick. Even being quick and simple it was nerve-racking to watch. Drills and saws tore AJ to pieces before new parts were introduced and welded, soldered, and bolted in place. Once the process was done AJ was about double his original size but still in the same black sphere shape when shut down.
Wendy quietly spoke, “It’s done, go get him human”
Luke retrieved AJ from the same box he started in and placed him on the floor. They waited in silence as AJ rebooted. When the little light turned green two discs folded out to either side about where AJ's feet had been previously. The discs started glowing a light blue and AJ lifted into the air to about chest height.
AJ broke into song, “I believe I can fly"
The robot slammed into Luke's chest and wrapped him in a bear hug with much longer arms, “I believe I can hug this guy, thought about it every night and day! Spread my … hover discs and float away! I believed there could be more! See me flying though that open dooooooOOOoorrrr…”
AJ's voice faded as he took off through the hallways.
Luke looked to the lone terminal in the room, “Thanks Wendy he really needed that. Is… is there anything we can do to thank you? Anything.”
Wendy displayed a pixelated winky face, “Nah, just visit and talk to me sometimes. When no ones here I go into sleep mode, it’s like it was just yesterday that I was making new gadgets for the people here.”
“I promise we will visit as often as we can, thanks again Wendy"
The monitor displayed a thumbs up as Luke left to find his runaway robot overlord.
AJ wasn’t difficult to find as he zipped around at breakneck speeds singing all the while. Luke tried calling out a few times but the robot either didn't hear, or ignored him. It looked like he was gathering things into a bag but was moving too quickly to say for certain.
Luke eventually gave up and called out, “I’m beat AJ, I'm going to find somewhere to rest, please don’t wake me.”
Without any indication that AJ had heard Luke shrugged and checked the PDA for the quickest route to anywhere he could camp for the night. It had been a ridiculously long day and Luke wanted nothing more than to laze around for a while. He didn’t find a camp before a message stopped him though.
Data reconstruction complete
Corrupt file restored
View restored file?
Yes
Replaying original fragment
A familiar video played and Luke recognized it as a partially corrupt video that had cut off when he got the message dump after waking up.
Old Janet came on screen, “Hey Luke, please don’t panic, but as you know by now you are a clone. The four of us managed to actually do the experiment… some stuff happened, a lot of stuff. Its been twenty years now since that day, we were making recordings to give to you when you woke up but things changed and we don’t have them anymore. Not to worry, we managed to revitalize the project and are keeping it much quieter now. We each want to update you a bit and then we will be giving you more messages that we record through the next five years until the bodies are ready, Rick hon you’re up"
A very grey Rick came on next, “Hey L2, the fuckers didn’t win, Kev managed to save some backups, we’ll finish this and they will know not to fuck with…”
“Calm down, he wont know anything about that, just update him honey.” Janet interrupted
“He needs to know though… fine, update. update. Well shit hit the fan, we got out and restarted the project. We are back to doing it all in a garage, but that’s how we started anyway. We have a nicer garage now. We all got ‘real' jobs and we use most of the money to work on the project, no more hiding and stealing things from college and work. Janet and I got married. Kev is still… Kev… yea. And I’ll let you explain you to you.”
The camera panned to old Luke, “Hey me, yea stuff happened and we lost eight years of progress. But you want updates, they…”
Continuing with restored portion
Original Luke continued, “They’ve pretty much skipped over the point so I’ll give you some context. We sold some info to what ended up being a government funded research facility. That bit us when we were raided and closed up just a bit short of being able to wake up the clones, or Seconds. We brought the team back together and restarted to project. It’s important to be aware that between then and now things haven’t been great. Rick mentioned we got real jobs, well yea, we went into a database somewhere when the raid happened and so when a war started looming they … let’s say they ‘offered’ us a job working on experimental weaponry and super soldier programs. Yeah it sounds like a crock of shit but it’s true. We are right on the edge of world war 3, and no one wants to lose, but we aren’t allowed to use nukes or the world will go to shit. So we make new ways to fuck people up, as history dictates. I won’t go into details but obviously we each had a talent for our field that we didn’t realize back when we were playing in the garage. We didn’t realize but the government did. The point is, it’s not a pretty world you’ll be waking up to second me, and I’m sorry for that. Kev?”
“What?!”
“The message for L2, you’re up.”
“Oh… uhh” Kevin didn’t even turn from whatever he was working on at the workbench, “good luck L2, make sure to continue the good work when you wake up”
“… alright there you have it me, I’ll see ya in five years”
End of restored file
Further corruption detected in later files
Continue restoring files?
Yes
Luke wasn't sure what to believe anymore. Clearly they had a hand in the world going to shit, but it couldn’t really be blamed on them when they were forced to do it right?
“I’m sure the people who died would agree, it couldn’t be the people who built the tools that ended the world that are at fault" Luke muttered sarcastically
It was good for him that no one knew what they had done in the past. It seemed likely that Luke himself could have been one of the most hated people in history if things went as he imagined.
Now even more exhausted than before, Luke gave up finding a suitable place to rest and chose a random room. The rows of janitorial drones in his chosen camp site looked as comfortable as a feather mattress to his eyes. Even as tired as he was Luke couldn’t sleep well and dreamed of raining fire and death.
Faceless people stood on either side of a road as Luke walked past them. None of the people spoke but he could feel their hatred and despair. All the people knew him and what he was doing, where he was going. Luke tried to ask the people what was happening but only felt the hatred that radiated from them.
Toward the end of the road the people took on familiar faces and Luke recognized them. Most were people he barely knew, the cashier at the gas station he frequented, his landlord, a librarian from school. None of the people said anything but their glares told him they would strangle him if they could. Then he saw his friends and family. They spoke but they all said the same thing, over and over.
“Why?”
Luke tried to shout back, to ask them why what? He didn’t do anything. But his mouth was taped shut, then he realized he was in chains and could do nothing but march to the pedestal where his chains led.
When he saw the pedestal he was suddenly in front of it. There was nothing there but a red button and a sign that said ‘Destroy'
His chained hands reached out of their own volition and hovered over the button.
Cold water splashed over Luke and he started awake.
“What no stop wait" Luke sputtered
AJ hovered over him with a bucket in hand and a holographic grin on his face.
“You talk in your sleep you know.”
“No I don't and you could have found a drier way to wake me… or not wake me, I did say don’t wake me up right?”
AJ shrugged, “Don’t know, don’t care. I got my upgrades, now its your turn"
AJ spat something out from a hatch where his mouth was making it look like he was throwing up on Luke
“What’s this? Upgrades?”
“That my young troubled confused silly meat bag, is your ticket to being less… awful"
Luke just looked at the thing instead of trying to talk AJ into making sense. It was a Genetics researcher ID. Luke understood the meaning, he had been excited by the idea of being able to get cool interesting and powerful new additions and modifications to his body. Now that he actually had the means in hand though, the thought of tearing himself apart and stitching new bits on like AJ had just done was a bit scary.
“I don't know. This is a bit… I won’t really be ME anymore…”
AJ shook his head, “Are we really going to have to do this? Can't we just skip to the part where you realize your body is not only inferior and you have the option of modifying it to your liking making you more YOU than ever, but also that your body is poorly equipped to handle the world as it is now. Not using the resources available to you is just stupid, not ‘oh you silly meat bag‘ stupid, but ‘you're dumb and you’re going to die because of it' stupid"
Luke didn't have a response to that and just nodded.
“Great, hurry up I don't have access to the systems anymore with the signal blocker so I can’t see what all the projects were, but I remember some pretty useful and important ones. Come minion this way to GRAB ME"
AJ flew off leaving a dazed and soaked Luke in his wake.