"All base personnel should follow designated evacuation routes."

I barely heard the last part of what the voice said. Self destruct sounded bad. VERY bad. I remembered Toby saying something about a fusion reactor at some point.

Would the base detonate its reactor?

I didn't understand the difference between a fusion reactor or a nuke exploding as much as I would like but this sounded terrifying.

"Toby, how long before the base is destroyed?"

Eyeing Toby in anxiety I waited for an answer.

"Estimated time until self destruct 1 hour 29 minutes and 13 seconds."

An hour and a half? I had to be gone fast. I wondered how much time my plan would take. It would all depend on my new abilities at this point.

I couldn't outrun a nuclear blast on foot. Getting up the elevator shaft will probably eat up 15 minutes or more alone.

I rejoiced at my earlier decision to leave instead of getting greedy. It may have saved my life.

Not wasting any more time I started sprinting towards the elevator shaft I had come down.

The robot surprisingly followed me and we quickly came to the elevator shaft. I found what I was praying for.

I hoped the noble had left his own rope here. I was screwed if he used some other methods to get down.

I was surprised, however, at what I found. The "rope" was a handle with a thread like strand of metal coming out of it and ascending into the darkness above.

Upon further investigation, I found three buttons on the handle. Putting two and two together I realized the top button should ascend and the bottom button should descend.

I wasn't so sure about the middle button. It might be a stop button. It might also be a release. I didn't want to test it out.

I tested the first button successfully. The device started to reel in the line. When the button was released it stopped pulling the line in.

I slung the kinetic rifle over my back using its strap and got ready to ascend. Just as I was about to go I looked at Toby.

"Toby, can you climb this shaft?"

I wanted the robot. It could be useful. I wanted information from it mainly. Anything not listed as highly restricted and stored on the base's main database alone SHOULD be stored inside Toby, right?

"No. I can not traverse a verticle surface. My current chassis does not support vertical climbing."

I felt a pang of regret at his words. A part of me hated this robot with a burning passion. That was the caveman part of my brain. It wanted to smash Toby.

The logical part of my brain knew Toby might be a treasure trove of info on the old world, however. More importantly, he may be able to explain my abilities and their drawbacks more.

I was about to abandon the idea when I thought about the problem more. Toby DID say that his CURRENT chassis couldn't do it.

Could I track down a new body for him? Probably not. It did, however, give me an idea.

I looked at Toby and selected system data from the text prompts floating by him.

MUST BE IN SAFE MODE TO ACCESS SYSTEM DATA.

I huffed, took note, and put Toby in safe mode. I clicked system data again.

I was met with line after line of code. Ones and zeros rained down in my view. There was no way I could understand this and alter it.

I wasn't trying to alter it, however. I wanted to copy it. I didn't even know if it was possible before trying, but the implant came through for me.

COPY SYSTEM FILES? ACCEPT - DENY

I paused. The idea was good... on paper. On further thought though...

I wasn't copying Toby's mind to a computer. I was transferring him to my own brain. Or was it my implant that stored him? Were the two things even separate anymore? I didn't know.

I shivered at the thought of Toby's programming going crazy in my head.

In the end, I chose to believe in the implant. I copied the system files. It took longer than I expected.

7 minutes later the process was complete. It was odd. The heat didn't build up this time. My brain didn't ache.

Was it because it was a simple data transfer? Did it take more power to hack than transfer data? I thought about it. It made sense. Many calculations and programs probably had to run at the same time to hack. A data transfer would only be limited by the upload and download capacity of the 2 computers, right?

I really didn't understand enough. That's why I took the risk of downloading Toby. I have always been addicted to gathering information. Today was no different.

Some prompts began flashing again.

FILE DOWNLOADED.

DETECTED INTELLIGENT CONSTRUCT PROGRAM.

ENABLE

DISABLE

QUARANTINE

Instantly I selected quarantine. The idea of Toby's programming mixing with other parts of my head had me worried. I wanted his programming data as secured as possible. Instead of running toby's code on my own grey matter I would find another system to download him on to.

I would never allow an intelligent program to run inside my own brain. The assist from my implant was already pushing boundaries I didn't like.

With the information from Toby downloaded, I had no real use for him anymore. Everything I could want from him was now stored. His entire mind was now stored in my head.

Eyeing Toby, I considered blowing him away with my fancy new rifle. I had some anger issues to work out with the robot and destroying him would feel very good.

Toby sat still as a statue. I came very close to shooting him, but in the end I let go of my anger. It was just a program. A machine. It was just doing as it was programmed.

Blaming Toby for my pain and suffering would be no different than blaming a gun for murder. It didn't make sense. It was fuzzy logic. I took Toby out of safe mode.

I sighed as I grabbed the handle of the device and watched Toby. I clicked the button to ascend and was quickly pulled up into the looming darkness above.

The robot Toby actually came to the edge of the elevator shaft and watched me leave. I thought the robot almost seemed sad. As if a dog whose master had abandoned it.

Shaking my head clear of the thought I looked up and watched for the only other open elevator door there should be in this shaft.

After coming to the door I swung back and then through the opening while hitting the middle button on the climbing device. Like I thought the middle button was a release. The line quickly spooled into the device.

I threw the device into my backpack and leveled the rifle as I swept the room for any dangers. I didn't want to be caught with my pants down. Who knew what was waiting for me up here. An army? A group of commandos? The noble's angry mother? Who knew?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Whatever waited ahead I would blow it away or run. I couldn't surrender. Any other players who had their greedy little hands in this game were unlikely to let me live.

Rifle leveled, I worked my way cautiously towards the bunker exit. I tried being as disciplined as possible, but the thought of the inferno this bunker and its surrounding would soon become had me moving at a half jog.

To my relief, there was no one waiting at the tunnel entrance. Well, no one alive anyway. There were plenty of corpses as well as broken GOLIATH pieces scattered about.

I put the imagery from my head and went straight for my target. The old world armor knelt directly in front of the entrance on both knees. Its legs made almost perfect steps up to the cockpit. I took note of the name given to the mech by my implant.

X-209 "CALIPSO" LIGHT ASSAULT ARMOR

My hands shook a little as I reached up and pulled myself onto the cockpit. I was excited. I had never piloted a mech before. I was also worried this wouldn't work.

I sat in the seat, found a comfortable position and quickly selected the now bright hack option and prayed. A familiar prickling sensation came from my hands and I felt the familiar electric current in my spine and neck.

HACKING... ETA 11 MINUTES.

While the new progress bar began to slowly fill, I celebrated internally. It worked! I didn't have any reason to believe it wouldn't, it was just another machine, but if it hadn't worked I would be going on foot to escape the blast. I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it like that.

This armor also played a major role in the plans slowly forming in my head. Yes, this armor would be a great asset in the future.

My internal celebrations began to falter at the 5-minute mark. The heat in my chest and the splitting pain forming in my head had brought me back to reality.

I was hoping even though the process would take more than three times as long as hacking Toby that the pain and heat wouldn't be that much worse.

At the eight-minute mark, I nearly let go and jumped out of the cockpit. The pain was almost as bad as the experience of being Toby's lab rat... almost.

When the progress bar fully filled and I got confirmation of a successful hack, I drooped in the pilot's chair and took great gasping lung stretching breaths.

Blood had started trickling from my nose and eyes. My hands were shaking like crazy and I swore I could smell some burnt flesh from my chest. I felt exhausted.

I was scared by my own condition. I realized using my abilities might just kill me one day. I didn't understand enough. I didn't understand why my chest burned so much. I could sort of guess why my head ached.

The brain was like any muscle. Overwork it and it would hurt. I guessed the implant was being not so gentle with the wet stuff between my ears.

The heat in my chest... I didn't have a clue. All I could think of was that it may be like a heat sink. I couldn't be sure.

I sat and waited for the heat to die down and for my head to stop pulsing with pain. I knew I didn't have time, but I was in very poor condition now. I needed a minute.

As the heat started to fade and my head started returning to some semblance of normal I thought of my new problem... piloting.

I was no pilot. I had very little idea of how to control this metal giant. I was banking on the implant again. It didn't let me down. Though it found a solution I didn't expect at all.

When I began looking through all the prompts given to me by the implant, I didn't immediately notice anything helpful. There was information on weaponry, power output, power storage, shield levels(currently deactivated), and many other probably important pieces of information.

But not a tutorial option. No autopilot option. No setting a waypoint. Nothing like that. I could do some things with what I found like closing the hatch or fully powering the mech, but none of that was really all that helpful unless I could move the damn thing.

I sat in growing panic as I rifled through all my options looking for an answer. Right before I truly started to lose my shit I found an option marked FULL LINK MODE.

With that option being the only option that might be helpful and a creeping suspicion that I might have a clue of what this option did, I selected it.

All along my hands, legs, spine, and neck, I felt thousands of little pricks. The vast majority of the pricks came from the back of my head and down my spine.

The hatch immediately closed with an audible hiss and a loud locking clunk. Immediately every surface in the cockpit began to be filled with color and light.

The surface of the cockpit was a picture of outside the mech. Blue tracing lines and tactical prompts and sensor data floated here and there. Objects and equipment were outlined and labeled much as my implant did for my human eyes.

I could hear the core drive on the armor begin to ramp up in output. Just as I was drinking in the marvel of everything happening my vision flickered and everything changed.

I could still see everything the 360-degree screen in the cockpit was showing, but it was completely different. WILDLY DIFFERENT.

I realized I was not seeing a screen anymore. I was quite literally seeing out of the armor's eyes themselves. More than just its eyes. The armor had a multitude of different sensors and cameras mounted on and in its body.

All those sensors. All those cameras. They were now my eyes and ears. It felt very confusing to see in the infrared and normal vision at the same time as well as a few other types of vision I hadn't even heard of before.

My vision was also no longer limited to the normal field of view. I saw in EVERY direction. Hell, I even saw behind objects. Parts of the data flowing into my head were more than just visual. I could "feel" the outlines and shapes of objects behind obstacles.

It was creepy, but I stuffed my shock way down and took it all in. I realized the implant was hooked up to this armor and feeding the data straight into my head. My head or the implant was digesting the information and presenting it in ways I could understand it.

I smiled and lifted my right hand to rub at my chest where the heat had begun to slowly grow again. The rate of heat growth wasn't as bad as when hacking, but it was noticeable. I couldn't maintain this full link mode forever.

I knew there was a high likelihood of this happening. Anytime I had used these implant given abilities before the heat and headaches had come. It didn't take a genius to figure out synching with the armor would probably do the same.

I guessed I had about an hour before the pain would become unbearable. It was just an educated guess, but I was pretty sure I would last. I was in pretty shit condition already, but I should be fine.

I was startled, however, when instead of lifting my actual hand to scratch at my heated chest, a large metal hand began to scratch at the front chest plate of the mech.

Pulling "my" hand back, I looked at it. I could feel the foolish grin split my face as I twisted the armor's hand this way and that. I began to chuckle as I started walking.

It was a little awkward at first to walk, but I soon got the hang of my new body's dimensions and weight distribution. I was amazed by the implants abilities all over again.

Stopping myself from running around jumping and skipping like a child with a new toy I slapped myself internally and moved towards my next goal. The noble's box of goodies. He had a supply box that seemed to be full of his own equipment and supplies. He didn't share supplies with anyone else during the trip here.

There should be food and water as well as fuel for the armor in there. I had seen the noble pull all of those things from this box. In fact, he was actually using refined fuel cores instead of the unrefined ones the knights had been using.

There was also two other things I knew were in the crate. Sentry turrets, and those little helicopter drones. Those would definitely come in use.

I tucked the sturdy crate under "my" left arm and was about to leave when I had another thought. Looking throughout the camp I saw what I wanted.

Tucked up and leaning against one wall were two beaten and battered old world armor. They were the two armor the group had found in the rubble of the base.

Walking up to them, I compared the two to see which one looked less damaged. Being unable to carry two, I wanted the least damaged one.

Picking the one with the least damage, I squat down and heaved the damaged armor over "my" shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I wasn't going to leave without taking anything I could possibly take. I was thrifty like that. Others called it thievery... but I like the word thrifty better.

I was worried the load would be too heavy, but the former noble's armor took the weight without much trouble. The load wasn't anything I would enjoy fighting with, but I could still move relatively well.

With the armor now loaded I began to move out. I exited the large building covering the tunnel entrance and began passing in between half torn down building, scraps of junk, the remains of a defensive wall, and left the base completely. It was the middle of the night. I could see a sky full of stars like an ocean above me.

As I passed the last of the base's remains I picked up the pace and moved at a swift jog. It felt weird to be jogging at a moderate pace and see that the HUD listed me as moving at 53kph.

With my new larger than life viewpoint, it didn't feel like I was moving that fast, but the HUD didn't seem to be in error. I loved the feeling of being a giant.

As I moved further and further into the desolate area around the base and did my best to move in the direction we came from I started to run as fast as I could.

I felt more comfortable controlling the armor and I knew I would need as much space between me and the incipient blast as I could manage. I cursed at the lack of any hills to put between me and the explosion. The landscape was as flat and featureless as I remembered. Not even a crevice could be found.

After nearly 40 minutes of running at full speed, I heard the chop of rotors. Several sets of rotors.

I had been concentrating on the path ahead, but with the new sound, I immediately stopped and began scanning the sky. It didn't take me long to spot them. The armor's sensors picked them out immediately.

To the northeast 4 heavy helicopters cut a straight line towards the direction of the base. Two of the helicopters were unarmed helicopters. My heads up display keyed me in on their specs and abilities quickly. They seemed to be fitted out to carry heavy loads.

The third and fourth helicopter, however, were fully armed. I could see the rockets loaded beneath the helicopters as well as a long tri-barreled canon sticking out of their nose.

As I watched, one of the armed helicopters banked to the left and came directly at me. I began to sweat and panic.

I immediately began to sprint again. My pulse began to shift into overdrive and I noticed an odd sensation of time slowing. It now seemed easier to maneuver the armor and as such, I picked up some extra speed. I pushed my observations to the side.

Looking at the HUD my current speed read 138kph. I knew it wouldn't be enough.

As I heard the rotors begin to overtake me I decided I wouldn't wait for the helicopter to blow me away. I would fight back.

Dropping the armor and cargo container I thought about the armor's equipped rifle and it instantly swung down, around, and into place directly in the palm of "my" hand.

I thought I had timed it poorly and wouldn't have time to aim before the helicopter blew me away with its cannon or rockets, but the helicopter blew past me before rounding and settling into a hover.

A spotlight was thrown on and a patch of ground 20 meters wide around me was now fully lit.

I started to level my rifle at the helicopter when a notification on my HUD jolted me from my concentration.

INCOMING COM REQUEST

ACCEPT - DENY?