Alpha frowned down at Alphantonso V as it slowly made its way through the obstacle course he’d set up in one of the side rooms. The ant brain was still struggling to adapt to its body, and Alpha was starting to wonder if he would have to scrap this design and return to it later.
Sure, it was making slow progress, but not enough. It wouldn’t do to have every antborg take weeks, or even months, to be ready for use. That would force him to either greatly slow his plans or waste resources on more IV-2s that he would eventually replace, anyway. Neither option was optimal.
There was another solution —
“Though, there’s no guarantee that it’ll work…” Alpha muttered to himself.
He pulled away from the [Wasp] drone that was watching the antborg and delved into his core world. Alpha pulled up the schematics for Alphantonso V and the Full Body Augmentation model he’d used as the base for the design.
The issue was that the ant and the augmentations didn’t yet know how to ‘talk’ to each other. It was the same problem that the humans from Old Earth had when they were just starting to develop their neural interface technology. The brain and the machine spoke different ‘languages’ for lack of a better term, and mistakes were made, as the machine had to learn what the brain wanted.
This was a slow process; even in the Federation, it could take a patient up to a month to sync with their new body. However, there was a way to speed up the process, especially in younger patients whose brains had yet to fully develop.
A process called ‘Controlled-Replicated Artificial Muscle Memory.’
Simply put, the CRAMM method involved another person’s repeated, remote operation of the augmentation, effectively teaching the argument and the host brain what to do in tandem. It was the equivalent of two students hiring a tutor rather than studying together and trying to figure out the work independently.
The problem was that this was typically only done with smaller augments, such as artificial limbs or organs.
As far as Alpha knew, it had never been tried with an FBA. It would have been like being a puppet, trapped in your own body while someone else controlled what you did.
On the other hand, that’s exactly what the antborgs were designed for.
“Hmmmmm, maybe this could work…”
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
“Weeeeeeeeeee!” Alpha cried as he lept from tree to tree while controlling Alphantonso V. A thin webbing between the antborg’s legs helped him glide the short distances between the trees.
Okay, so this technically wasn’t ‘natural’ from the ant’s perspective, but boy, was it fun… for Alpha, at least.
More importantly, the strange movements let him test the antborg’s specs and make sure it was working properly. So far, everything was working well, which was good. But it also confirmed that the problem was with the ant’s brain.
Lucky for Alpha and the antborg, their brief field trip was showing results. The idea was simple: Alpha would take control of the antborg and perform some basic actions. Then the ant would take over and repeat the action, reinforced with a shot of dopamine. The monitoring systems reported new neural connections forming with each iteration, meaning the ant was quickly catching on.
Alpha had been slightly worried, if he was honest. The last time he brought an antborg into the forest, it hadn’t ended well. With that in mind, he ensured Alphantonso V was a little more protected this time.
An angry chittering from above told Alpha he wasn’t alone. The antborg turned its head, and Alpha spied a large squirrel sitting on a branch a few meters above them. The cat-sized squirrel creature with fangs like small daggers shook a furry fist at Alphantonso V and chittered some more.
Alpha, not speaking tree rat, obviously ignored the creature in favor of planning his next gliding jump.
That, apparently, was a mistake, as the squirrel seemed to take offense and screeched. It then lept from its perch and dived at Alphantonso V. The top of the antborg’s thorax bubbled, and something pushed itself out of the insect’s carapace.
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Bang!
The next instant, the squirrel creature exploded into a dozen tiny chunks.
“Well, glad to see that’s working,” Alpha said, mentally grinning.
When considering defensive options for the antborgs, Alpha went through several iterations. The biggest issue was that messing with the antborg’s profile too much would draw suspicion from the colony. Their eyesight was far better than typical ants. At the same time, the current model antborg wasn’t large enough to store anything complex inside its body. Not without removing other equipment, at least.
Eventually, Alpha settled on a similar solution as the TAWP.
Nano-Skin.
This moldable, versatile ‘skin’ could be shaped into various devices and tools. The only problem was it was relatively expensive to make. To cover even a single antborg the size of a worker in nano-skin would be an enormous investment.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to. Instead, Alpha designated spots along the antborg’s carapace that could be replaced with nano-skin. These ‘hotspots’ would be more limiting than something like the TAWP, but for the cost of covering one antborg in nano-skin, he could give a dozen more antborgs hotspots instead.
With how strained for resources he was at the moment, it was by far the best option.
As for what they could be used for, lots of things! For instance, the new and improved [Crystal-rail!]. Alpha still didn’t have the infrastructure to produce proper ammunition. Not the kind his weapons could use, at least. So, instead, he’d turned to the project he’d been working on in the prairies. The newly designed [Crystal-rail] had several marked improvements from the older versions, most notably in its more compact design. As Alpha’s array work had improved, so had the efficiency of his ‘batteries.’ He had gotten them small enough that they could even fit in the antborg, neatly taking up the space the creature’s hearts would have naturally been.
As for the ammunition, the ant colony stockpiled the cores from the creatures they killed in a few chambers. What they used them for was hard to tell, but Alpha wouldn’t say no to free loot. Occasionally, an IV-2 would sneak into one chamber and collect a few. Never enough to be noticed, but lucky for Alpha, ants didn’t keep inventory records. This meant that some of the cargo space in the antborgs would be taken up by ammo, but that was an acceptable price.
Alphantonso V seemed to enjoy the show, too, as the antborg clicked its mandibles at the sight of the squirrel rain in a way that Alpha translated as contentment. Unfortunately for Alpha, he forgot one important rule for Simon Says.
Don’t leave loaded weapons around children.
Bang! Bang, bang, bang!
Alphantonso V wildly fired the [Crystal-rail] in random directions.
“Alphantonso V no! Bad ant! Bad!” Alpha yelled as he wrestled control of the weapon from the ant and quickly dissolved it back into the nano-skin. Okay, that one was on him. He had just been teaching the ant to copy his actions. Though that it had even interfaced with the nano-skin at all was a surprise. While most of the ant’s body had been made to be as close to its biological body as possible, the nano-skin was something wholly foreign to it.
There was… potential here. He just had to figure out how best to use it.
“Chunk! Chunk! What happened?!” unknown voices called from below.
Alpha mentally flinched as he was pulled from his scheming and turned his attention to the forest floor. There, at the base of a tree some distance away, stood three figures.
Well, one was standing. As for the other two, they were lying on the ground. The sole standing figure, a creature Alpha could only describe as a bipedal cougar in rough leather armor, knelt beside the largest of the fallen figures.
The one on the ground, a human named Chunk if Alpha was a betting man, didn’t answer. Instead, the human moaned lightly and rocked back and forth, clutching their gut as a small pool of blood formed under them.
The last figure lay off to the side. At first, Alpha thought it might have been a child, but on closer inspection, Alpha saw it was, in fact, one of the goblin creatures he’d spotted in the forest a few times.
The goblin looked like it had gotten into a fight with a boxer… as the punching bag.
The creature was in such a terrible shape, Alpha would have assumed it was dead if it wasn’t for the goblin’s slow, one-handed crawl away from the other two.
The goblin came down on a twig a little too hard and snapped. The cougar man’s ears twitched, and his head snapped to the goblin.
“You! What did you do to Chunk?!” they snarled, revealing a mouth full of dagger-like teeth. The cougar man drew a long mace from their belt and slowly approached the goblin.
High in the treetop, Alpha considered the scene.
On one hand, this wasn’t any of his business. He’d already seen how sticking his nose into things could turn around and bite him in the exhaust on this planet.
On the other hand, it was kind of his fault.
On the other other hand, so what? If Alpha went around dealing with the consequences of his actions, there would be no time for anything else.
On the other other OTHER hand, this was a unique opportunity to find out where the goblins came from and maybe find the bastard who’d stolen Alphantonso IV’s remains. It wasn’t even about the materials at this point. It was the sentiment of the matter!
“Hmmmmm…” Alpha weighed his options as the cougar man drew closer to the goblin.
The cougar man raised his mace high, fire in his eyes as the goblin fell to the ground limp, seeming to accept their fate.
“Ahh, Screw it… BANZAI!” Alpha yelled as he leaped from the tree.