I awoke to a steady thrumming pulse in my entire body. The Familiar electric-like feeling traveled up and my spine into my head. With each of my heartbeats, my head throbbed.
It felt as if cotton had been stuffed inside my head. My eyes itched horribly and felt like there was a steady pressure behind them.
Tremors ran the length of my arms and legs. I fought to steady my hands but the shaking was uncontrollable.
A steady beeping drew my attention. Looking around the cockpit searching for the source of the sound, I failed to find it.
Eventually, I found that the sound was coming from my implant.
In the upper right corner of my vision, a new text prompt flashed. The prompt informed me I was starving and dehydrated. It recommended I consume food and drink water immediately.
The implants message was unhelpful as I already knew the state of my body. My throat was dry and my belly felt as if there was a cavern inside of it. A deep and endless black hole.
I've never felt more hungry or thirsty my entire life. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. A crusty film caked the outside rim of my mouth as well.
Painful cracks ran along my tongue. I tried mustering some saliva to wet my mouth, but couldn't bring forth a single drop.
Trying my best to ignore the sensations, I checked the information readouts that were preset to be shown at all times.
The virtual outline of the armor still showed swaths of red and orange. Though there seems to be more orange and less red than before I passed out.
A pulsing light caught my attention. Upon investigation of the light, I was dismayed to find the armor's fuel levels had dropped below 1/3.
Shocked by the fuel consumption, I wondered why the fuel had been consumed so quickly.
I didn't have the knowledge or skill to read or manipulate the systems of the armor and find the answer. Most of the information given to me was surface-level only.
I guessed the damage received during the blast and the subsequent automated repairs had played a part in draining the fuel levels.
Forcing one problem from my head, I focused on a new problem. The viewscreen inside the cockpit was almost completely black.
The discovery was worrying. Before passing out I did remember at least a few sections of the screen showing the outside world. I remembered the massive mushroom cloud looming above me.
Did the armor's sensor stop working while I was unconscious?
No. The view screens were not black. They were grainy. Understanding struck me. The View screen and the sensors that provided the information to the screens were not damaged.
Remembering the earth-rending explosion and the debris, dust, and ash that rained afterword, I knew the problem.
The armor was coated and covered with the detritus from the explosion. Its sensors and cameras were blinded.
Shaking my head at the new problems that always seem to crop up one after another, I began to assess my situation and started prioritizing my next moves.
Leaving this place was of utmost priority. Soon others would be drawn to the site of the explosion. Maybe someone had already arrived and I simply couldn't see them with my sensors covered as they were.
Deciding moving would be my first move, I hoped the armor was still capable of movement and activated full sync mode.
The implant immediately doused my hopes.
FULL LINK MODE UNAVAILABLE
CALIPSO ARMOR SYSTEMS DAMAGED
INITIATING FULL LINK IS DANGEROUS TO HOST.
Fighting the urge to scream and kick something, I calmed myself. Frustration and rage felt like a fire in my chest and head.
Eventually, I brought my breathing and my mind under control.
I made a list of what I had available to me. What tools could I use?
After thinking about it for 30 seconds I was met with a sad reality. I had nothing. Well, not nothing. I had an assault rifle, and my bag but that wouldn't do much good in this situation.
I couldn't move the armor. I couldn't see what was outside the armor. I was paralyzed and blind. Starving and dehydrated.
My hands continue to shake and the pulsing electric like feel was not abating.
Once again I felt like screaming. I felt like smashing my fist in the viewscreen. I wanted to throw a tantrum.
Running through the list of what I had available again and again my frustration grew. A damaged armor and a useless assault rifle.
I did, however, have food and water. My backpack had two canteens and a few packets of beef jerky and protein bars. I decided to eat and drink first.
The protein bars were disgusting. They were meant to be a food of Last Resort. The package didn't even list ingredients. It was just a clear package with a grayish brown block in the middle of it.
I was happy it didn't list ingredients. During the very short training session for scavengers, a few of the scavengers had made jokes that the protein bars were ground up insects and waste meat material from core beasts. If that was true I would rather not know.
Starting with the beef jerky I began eating. I had about 3 lb and would eat it before I touched the protein bars.
I ate and drank ravenously. I felt out of control as I shoved more and more food and water down my throat.
When I finally felt full I was shocked to discover that I had eaten all of my beef jerky. It should have been enough for days.
Turning my canteen upside down I realized I had drunk 2 days worth of water as well.
Chiding myself for being a fool with no control, I put my pack down on the floor of the cockpit.
Being full and rehydrated did do wonders for the state of my mind and body.
Almost immediately the aching thrum and the shaking in my limbs begin to subside. My mind began to clear and feel less fuzzy.
Breathing a deep sigh, I focused on the issues at hand. I ran down the list of my available tools again.
Lists had always been helpful to me. It was a method to keep my mind on the problem instead of giving in to the feeling of dismay.
Don't Panic. Work the problem. Focus focus focus. My strength had always been my mind. I was never a brute. I wasn't strong in a normal sense. I wasn't a genius or scholar, but I did know how to control my mind. Focusing was the key.
My mother had taught me that. She had taught me the methods to refocus my mind on the problems in front of me.
My mother said I had always been a child prone to something she called catastrophizing. I saw the worst in any given situation and the realization usually zapped me of any will to move forward and work the problem.
My mind also tended to wander. A single thought could throw me on to a completely new track.
I was doing it again now. A single thought of mother had brought memories of her up. They circled in my head.
Focus focus focus. I had to focus. I threw the memories of my mother to the back of my head and refocused.
Work the problem. What did I have available to me? I would go over it again and again and again until I found something. There's always a way.
I listed my available tools. I open my backpack and searched through it finding nothing that could really help me.
Stubbornly sticking to the method my mother taught me to solve my problems, eventually, I realized I wasn't thinking of everything available.
I was focused on things. Objects that could be helpful. I was forgetting I had more than just objects available to me.
Realizing that no object would help me, I focused inward. My new abilities would have to help me... somehow.
My implants, however, did not jump to help. No prompts came into my view. No suggestions. Nothing...
Fighting the urge to curse I ran the list of my head again. Nothing...
Wondering if I could survive in the radiation filled air outside I thought back on the experiments Toby had done to me. Would my body survive the radiation?
I couldn't know. I wish Toby had told me more about my body and my new capabilities.
Thinking of Toby and what he had done brought me on to a new track of thought.
Toby... I still had Toby. I remembered back when we both stood in front of the elevator shaft. He told me his body couldn't climb a 180-degree surface. I believe his exact words were chassis.
Lightly knocking my fists against the inside of the armor, I wondered if the armor counted as a new chassis, and I smiled.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
With thoughts of uploading Toby's mind into the armor, the new prompt sprang into existence.
UPLOAD CONSTRUCT TO ARMOR SYSTEMS? ACCEPT - DENY
Fighting the natural urge to not put the armor under the control of a semi-intelligent bastard of a robot like Toby, I hit accept.
It was really my only option. Toby might be able to control the armor. At the very least maybe he could teach me to operate it. And at worst he would kill me somehow.
It was better than sitting here and dehydrating to death. I heard that was a pretty awful way to go.
The upload took a little less than 1 minute. It was much quicker than when I downloaded Toby. The short ETA timer confirms suspicions I had earlier that it was Toby's chassis that had been limiting my download speed before.
The armor seemed capable of much higher speeds of download or upload. It made sense.
I was surprised when all power in the armor cut out. For a few moments, I couldn't see a thing.
Moments later all systems inside the armor began to restart. I was greeted with a happy voice that echoed through the entire cockpit.
“Hello, buddy! It's so nice to see you again. It seems I'm in a new chassis! Did you do this? I like it! This chassis has much higher processing power. It will be of great aid in testing."
I rolled my eyes and scowled.
"Shut the fuck up."
Immediately Toby complied.
“Do you have full access to all systems?”
“yes, all main systems and subsystems are under my control.”
“Can you move the armor and if you can how well?”
“Though maneuvering systems are damaged this armor is capable of movement. Estimate maneuvering systems are at 68% effectiveness.”
" good. Bring the calipso to a standing position."
Without answering the armor immediately began to shake. Odd creaking and cracking sounds echoed around the cockpit.
The feeling of lying on my back turned into a feeling of being properly seated on my ass.
As the direction of gravity changed, so did my view. Like a person shaking off snow that had covered them, the armor stood and all of the debris and ash fell away.
At first, the view was blurry. I was worried they were damaged. But within a few moments, the blurry images cleared up.
I saw a great expanse of charcoal gray ash and debris. Even now it still rained from the sky, though it seems to be slowing. It looked like grey snow.
“There is a supply Crate and a damaged armor somewhere inside this thick layer of ash. Attempt to find them.”
Toby obeyed without a word. After a few minutes of wandering around toby had found the armor. After that, the supply Crate was quickly found as well.
The armor was now more damaged. It was a pity but it was still valuable to me. The supply crate, however, was wrecked. I could only find a few refined cores. 7 in all.
Commanding Toby to use the cores to refill the armors fuel reserves, I was happy to find the armor did not require all 7. Four were enough to refuel completely.
Nothing else of value was recoverable from the crate. It had all been thrown around so viciously that everything was broken. Even the turrets were broken. They looked like scraps of metal.
The container had been almost completely ripped apart and most of the contents were lost as well.
Another happy find was that when I asked Toby to store the three extra cores somehow I learned the Armor had storage capabilities of its own.
Below what amounted to the armor's rib cage, and completely flush with its outer armor were two storage compartments on either side. The space inside was not much to speak of. Toby informed me that there were 10 backup cores in one compartment as well as emergency food rations and water in the other.
I commanded Toby to bring the damaged armor with us and directed him to the east.
During our travel, I asked Toby questions about the armor and its system damage. He informed me full repair would take weeks.
Maneuverability would be restored to full condition within a day or two. It was the least damaged of the systems. Most of the maneuverability systems were armored and deep within the recesses of the outer shell.
The largest amount of damage to the maneuvering systems appeared to have been received by the left knee joint. I could feel the trembling of the armor every time the left leg struck the ground.
Traveling at about 60 kilometers per hour, we did much better time then when I walked here earlier. The speed of our travel made me wonder why the noble even brought scavengers in the first place.
Scavengers weren't meant for this type of work. Scavengers would only slow armors down in this situation. In most cases, scavengers are only used as bait or manual labor in what the knights called hunting missions but really amounted to nothing more than setting up fortified positions and using sounds or scavengers to draw in core beasts. It was the method used to gain most of the cores used in the city.
The corps beasts would charge prepared positions and die too overwhelming firepower.
Within an hour I arrived at the area with broken low hills and cliffs.
With the lessons I learned earlier while traveling through this area I avoided any soft ground. It made for slow traveling, but it was the safest way through this area.
Upon further questioning, Toby actually informed me that the armor had stored map data based on the earlier trip to the base. It would make finding home much easier.
The sky began to darken and I knew I had to set up camp eventually. It wouldn't be much of a camp. It would just be me sitting in the armor in the dark. Alone... I didn't really count Toby.
Eventually, we found a good place to stop for the night. A recess in the rocks, blocked by two small trees and multiple bushes, made an almost perfect place to spend the night.
Toby maneuvered the armor to take a position inside the crevice and sit. I ordered Toby to power down all systems besides sensors and I began to think deeply on my situation.
As I began to settle in for the night I talked to Toby. He was a treasure trove of information, but drawing it out of him was annoying as all hell.
I hated his chipper attitude. As a machine he didn't truly understand emotions and his attempts at connecting emotionally with me only pissed me off. Maybe it was just what he had done to me. Maybe I was holding a grudge. I didn't know.
The first thing I had him do was pull up map data and began to get a feel for the area around me. I was also happily surprised to find the map covered much more area than the trip to the bunker could account for.
The map was a treasure all on its own. Map data was heavily protected. No one would trade map data without good reason or reward. Even if all I got out of this entire trip was the map I could sell it for a very large sum. The map data seem to cover large swaths of land to the north as well.
Cities small, medium, and large dotted the map. I found about 90 cities scattered and hugging what appeared to be a curved coastline. Further inland was nothing but red and black striped land marked unknown.
After a while, I'd seen everything I could see on the map and moved on. With a few more questions toby began informing me how long each system and subsystem would take to repair.
It wasn't good. 2 weeks for the shields to be repaired fully. Sensors would take at least a week. They worked currently but the range was limited and certain types of sensors were not operating. Full outer shell armor repair would be about a week.
I had Tobe run estimates and how long my fuel reserves would last. It would depend on how hard I pushed the armor. The best estimate was 2 weeks with only maneuvering and sensors running on low power.
If I did that, however, the repair systems would stop. Factoring in the repair systems and only running maneuvering and sensors, I had about 9 days at best. If I pushed the armor and ran multiple other systems I had less than 4 maybe 5 days.
The large rifle, which I now knew was called a magnetic accelerator rifle, attached to the right shoulder blade of the calipso was damaged much to my chagrin. However, the sub-machine gun was not damaged.
When I asked Toby how long the rifle would take to be repaired I was saddened to learn the rifle did not possess self-repair abilities.
Maybe I could find somewhere to repair it later. It was a problem for another day.
As the night got darker I began to run out of questions about the armor and moved on to questions about what was done to me.
" buddy was selected as a candidate. Your genetics were altered to allow your body to accept and bond with the Alpha embryo cells. You were also injected with a bio/mechanical nanite solution to facilitate that Bond as well as reinforce the capabilities of your body.
An implant was installed running along the length of your spinal cord and parts of your cerebral cortex to control the nanites and by extension the alpha embryo cells.
With these alterations, your body is now capable of much more than the average human body. Your current body is the perfect Foundation to create the perfect soldier as well as pave the way for a new form of the human race well suited to the world in its current form."
It wasn't much different than I thought it would be. The heightened senses of my body as well as the increasing strength, agility, and balance that I had been noticing ever since I had left the testing room attested to this. Even my thinking seemed improved.
I asked Toby questions about any side effects or dangers inherent with what was done to me and all I received was the answer “unknown”.
I could feel that the process was ongoing. My body was changing little by little. It made me feel like a mutant.
I had a general idea what genetics, as well as nanites, were. Humanity had lost the ability to alter genetics or build nanites, but knowledge of such things hadn't been lost, completely.
The names and general knowledge have been passed down through word-of-mouth, books, articles, and legends passed among the rats. There was also a trickle-down effect from the higher classes. When old world tech was found it rarely stayed secret for long. The nobles loved using the tech against each other.
We rats were also not barbarians. What held us down was mostly poverty and a lack of resources.
There were places one could go and watch old world movies. old novels were passed down through the ages, copied and spread. All expensive for rats, but still available.
The city only had so many resources and almost none of it would be spared for rats. everything the city acquired had to be found outside the city or traded for with other cities. Both methods were dangerous because of core beasts.
Rats were seen by the upper classes as little more than parasites who didn't contribute. We hadn't regressed to a dark age. We were simply too damn poor.
While I knew most of the general terms in a loose sense, it was nice to receive some the more specifics from Toby. The exact wording was Latin to me, but I did begin to fill in the missing pieces in my knowledge.
It seemed any technical details on the nanites were also classified as Toby could only give me a general outline of their abilities and functions.
As Toby filled me in on more and more of the project details that still resided in his mechanical mind, we eventually came to the one thing I wanted to know most of all.
“What are alpha embryo cells?”
“Data not found.”
The answer didn't surprise me, but I had suspicions. I asked a new question following the same line of thought but from another angle.
“The material used as fuel in this armor... What are they and what did they come from?"
“The fuel used is refined cores retrieved from the corpses of beta core beasts. The data on cores is limited. Cores bend the laws of physics and thermodynamics. As such testing and analysis is extremely difficult. Humanity has found methods to use the power locked in cores, but the exact nature of cores is still in the early phase of research.
I also do not possess data on cores beyond the methods of using and unlocking the stored energy within, such as with the core drive installed in this armor. I would have to access the Icarus project main database to read the data directly from them to possibly answer as to the deeper nature of cores. No outside storage of classified data is allowed."
It was infuriating only getting small parts of a large puzzle revealed. Toby's creators had made sure that while he could operate as a research assistant and access classified data he would never be able to leak the extremely classified data.
It was possible to get little snippets of information, but Toby would not be able to give me the full picture. It seemed a large portion of project Icarus data had been destroyed along with the base. Everything I was learning was surface level only.
Toby could use the term alpha embryo cells in what seemed the right context without any real knowledge of what they are. It made sense. A computer didn't actually "know" anything. It was just reading recorded data.
But the little snippets of information had begun to fit together enough for me to ask my next question.
"What are the different types of core beasts?"
"There are more than 16,000 different types of recorded core beast. Would you like me to list them all?"
"No."
My question wasn't asked properly.
"What are the different types of core classifications and what is the classification of the beasts each type of core is retrieved from?"
"Known core classifications are alpha cores, beta cores and gamma cores. Alpha cores are retrieved from alpha core beast, beta cores are retrieved from beta core beasts and.."
"Shut the fuck up!"
Toby stopped speaking immediately.
The cockpit felt like it spun around me. I had my suspicions but hearing the words destroyed me.
Alpha core beasts... Alpha embryo cells... The connection was obvious. He had injected me with core beast cells. The implications were clear and it made me want to vomit.
I thought back to the monsters that had attacked our camp. I remember their mutated bodies and freakish anatomy. Would that be my fate? Was I slowly becoming a monster?
Pulling my knees to my chest and hugging them, I buried my head in my thighs.
It felt pathetic to sulk and act like a child, but I just wanted to go home. I missed mother. I missed what few friends I had left.
While despairing about my possible future, I wondered if I was returning to my mother a monster or human.
Asking no further questions I eventually went to sleep while wrestling with dark thoughts.
In my nightmares, my fingers turned into claws and my teeth were sharp. Awful and grotesque appendages sprouted from my body.
I wailed in an inhuman voice and thrashed in endless darkness while ripping and clawing at my own body.