05 - Bonita
“What do you think, Tender?” Maya asked.
“You do seem to have an affinity towards the color purple, boss,” Tender replied.
“Yeah, I know. I was the one who got Pops to paint his fleet of food trucks purple. Mother was against it, but when Pops found out it was the color of royalty; he got behind it.” Maya looked at herself in the full length mirror. Even with advanced technology that outstripped everything ever made by Humanity, mirrors were still a thing. It, of course, was a sci-fi mirror in that the image it presented wasn’t a reversed copy of Maya, but one that showed her as she was.
Maya smoothed down the fabric of the robe. She still wore her battle armor, but held the robe against the black armor, bathed in light coming off of Tender. She nodded her head and added it to her Inventory.
“That’s going in my fall collection,” Maya said. She glanced back down at the desk and rifled through the pile of clothing.
Dead things didn’t survive long in the rainbow sky hellscape. That was something Bell had discovered. For some strange reason the dimensional plane she was stuck in caused ‘dead’ organic matter to disintegrate. That included clothing and bedding and bodies.
It was the reason Maya had only found a ship full of skeletons. Not skeletons in rotting clothing, just skeletons. The common uniform of the Tozenreli Exploration Commission was mass produced cheap organic body suits. It was what amounted to alien all natural 100 percent cotton. That went for the bedding and the chairs and pretty much anything that it could be made out of. Compressed organic furniture was a thing and that didn’t just mean veneer over particle board, this was actual formerly living organic material that had been shaped and compressed into desks, chairs, and beds. Sturdy and very cheap.
Then there was what Maya was calling the Captain’s Ready Room, it was so large it was almost like a suite itself. Cheap organic stuff was used by the common crew, but when one got so rich it went full circle to using organic materials again. Instead of compressed organics, it was ancient wood shaped by master craftsmen, finely woven tapestries, and mana shaped desks and chairs, not the mention exquisite paintings done by some long dead master.
High grade clothing lasted a very long time, especially when they were sealed within a recovery stasis chamber that through some system tech wizardry prevented the clothing from degrading due to wear and tear. The chamber actually rebuilt the clothing when it wasn’t in use. It was another piece of tech that Maya was eager to dismantle and study, but for the time being she was focused on a new set of clothing.
The clothing she had taken from the pub were rags now, the clothing she had gotten from Shen’s ship held too many bad experiences, but this clothing was calling to her.
-I am glad you are enjoying going through Captain Huvano’s personal belongings.- Veskari’s stated, there was nervousness in his voice. -But time is running short for Yositari.-
“Your captain had some stylish tastes,” Maya remarked.
-Yositari-
“She’s been chilling for twenty thousand years, no rush, pal. We’ve got two days and one thing I’ve learned in my days of slinging food, you can’t keep looking at the clock or it’ll kill you.” Maya picked up a crimson vest that extended down to her knees. The fabric was trimmed with iridescent blue and had ivory buttons. “Nice.”
-I know where there is more items of value. If you help Yositari, I shall tell you where to find these items.-
Maya made a face. “Yeesh, now you make it sound like I’m holding your friend hostage for loot. I’m really not, all of this,” Maya waved at her hour spent digging through the remains and offices, “is my way of thinking. I have to be doing something and taking my mind off the dire needs of right now. Sitting down and pondering is not something I’m good at.”
-I see.-
“We’re going to save your friend and you too, but first we need to know if our doctor can do what needs to be done to get your bro safely out of that stasis pod. I’ve had Tender contact Nan and she’s still running through the information we’ve dumped on her. She’ll come up with a plan, we just need to get your buddy to her. You should know her, she was an emergency medical AI on this ship.”
-I do not know a Nan.-
“Nanaseto?”
-No.-
“Well, she’s a blast and you two should totally hang out.” Maya turned to Tender. “Make a note. Take the mirror. Take the closet. Take the paintings.”
“Noted, boss.”
“Alright, new plan.” Maya sat down at the desk that occupied the Captain’s Ready Room. There wasn’t much in the large room, a desk, couches, bathroom, and the large wardrobe of clothing and other items. There was also, disgustingly, a small bed in the corner for what Maya assumed was a Tari slave. “We fix up Bonita. We rush back to the ship. We grab Nan. We bring her back. We free Yoshi over there and then we get on with making sweet, sweet credits from devastated people.”
“What about the loot.”
“We keep the loot, do something with it, and make profit. Business!”
“Is this one of the moments where I question authority, boss?”
“We’re besties, Tender. I’m not an authority figure. I’m just a sweet girl hoping to save a little dinosaur in a tank, therefore you don’t have to question me. Because we’re partners.”
“I don’t think that’s right…” Tender said.
“As we’re partners, Tender. I’m open to suggestions.”
“We could disconnect the tank and take it with us, boss. These stasis pods are designed to be moved and the battery within it will remain active, therefore there is no risk of waking or hurting the occupant. That way we only have to make one trip back after fixing the Bonita. As for the loot, your dimensional gateway can go anywhere in the multiverse, so maybe we can sell some of this high end loot to non-humans?”
Maya chewed on his words for a moment. “Jesus, Tender. Maybe you should be making all the decisions.’
“I couldn’t do that, boss. I have no morality,” he said.
Maya frowned and then sadly smiled at the AI. She could banter and bounce words off of him, but in the end he really was only a machine. She didn’t know if rogue AIs could ever feel emotions or truly care about anything, even if they evolved into Tier 2. Veskari was the only non SIL Tier 2 person she had met and all his worries seemed focused on Yositari, so there was hope that they could achieve emotional attachment of some sort.
“We’ll work on that, bud. In no time, you’ll be as moral as I am.” Maya grinned.
***
Maya had helped her father plenty of times in maintaining his fleet of food trucks. Her youngest brother was all thumbs when it came to anything mechanical and her other brother had joined the military as soon as he could. It was something she enjoyed doing, working with her hands. She was no mechanic, shade tree or otherwise, but she had some knowledge and experience when it came to vehicles and engines.
“What the shit is this?” Maya asked.
“Universal mana motor adaptor kit,” Tender responded.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“It doesn’t look like a motor to me.”
“It is.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
The mana motor was a two foot cube of yellow metal. The labeling on the cube did say mana motor and Tender carried it over to the hole the that once held the engine of the truck. That engine had been pierced by flying debris and had to be removed before she had left the remains of the pub, so many weeks before.
The food truck, Bonita; which had been her home for the first week upon arriving into the rainbow sky hellscape, was nearly a wreck these days. She had been gored by a ramming AI, she had suffered through the explosion of a dimensional bag bomb, and she had sat idled and unloved outside of the Hanganathorie for weeks.
“Sorry, babe. I’ll buy you flowers later. But now, we got a new part that’ll hopefully make you run again.” Maya looked askance at the motor and shrugged.
Electronics wasn’t a thing in a post Integrated world. From what Maya had learned from Maria, some kind of EMP had hampered the use of most electronics on Earth; from her own experience, Maya knew that the System didn’t view electronics as necessary. For a multiverse spanning being, the System wanted people to consume and use mana. Therefore everything ran on it.
To be fair, Maya realized that it was the ultimate energy source. Essence mana from which mana was derived existed in such abundance that it threatened to destroy all of existence. So, long ago some people built the System to force everyone to use up mana.
Even with all her reset levels in [Mechanic], [Technician], and [Engineer], Maya still didn’t fully understand how machinery consumed mana. It just did and it made things work. It was like electricity of the post Integrated universe. But electricity that could be given form to do a lot of things.
The existence of the mana motor negated the need for all the equipment that was necessary to make a truck engine function. Out went all the cooling devices, the exhaust, and everything that was associated with keeping an engine running. Maya was a bit concerned, but followed Tender’s instructions. It seemed like they were taking out too much.
In the end the main problem turned out being trying to figure out a way to connect the motor to the drivetrain of the truck. But the mana motor kit had adapters even for that. Maya was amazed at the foresight. She shook her head and continued working on the truck, with heavy assistance from Tender.
“Primitive conditions are not unexpected,” was Tender’s reply when she asked how the kit was able to have everything needed to retrofit the truck.
She kept the steering wheel, because otherwise it didn’t feel like a vehicle. But the manual transmission had to be removed and she had no use for the dashboard of dials, but she kept that also.
“Alright. I’m starting her up.” Maya summoned a tablet before her and it connected to the small computer within the motor. There was a mana battery connected to the whole set up, a small tool battery that Tender claimed would be enough power to take them back to Shen’s ship.
With a press of a button, a light went from red to green. There was no sound and there was no feeling that the motor was running. Even with the hood removed and the motor exposed for her to see, Maya didn’t notice anything different about it.
She selected the forward arrow icon and the truck jerked forward. Maya hastily slammed her hand down on the large “stop’ button. The truck didn’t stop, instead it continued rolling forward until friction caused it to stop.
“No brakes,” she groaned.
They had pulled out the braking system as there was no way to operate it. Unfortunately the mana motor didn’t come with brakes, that was apparently a whole different kit they hadn’t found yet. Maya gingerly moved the truck forward and began to figure out how to slow down using the reverse option.
The forward motion of the truck could be slowed via telling the motor to go into reverse. It was a tricky workaround, but after an hour of testing and nearly colliding into every piece of debris on the surface, Maya managed to control the amount of power to slow the truck down in a safe manner. It wasn’t going to stop on a dime, but if she were lucky it’d stop on a twenty dollar bill.
Maya sighed as she leaned against the steering wheel of the truck. She looked up at the rainbow sky and remembered doing the same thing all those weeks ago when she first arrived. At that time she had been sick and suffering from what seemed like the worst hangover in her life, now she was just tired and anxious.
“Two days now,” she said to herself. “Two days and there’s still so much to do.”
The food project was put on hold after their little excursion into the bridge, the water project was on hold again because they hadn’t gotten around to it. The weapon making had stalled after they had figured out how to make them, but only a few proto-types were created. The only thing they had made progress on was producing more cheap duracloth so people could potentially make shelters out of it. That was mostly due to Nan’s work, as she could control the machines that produced the cloth.
There was also the issue of Veskari and Yositari, the two were an unknown. For all she knew, Veskari had become insane in the last twenty thousand years. Yositari might be a vindictive little monster ready to kill and consume everything. But Maya was an optimist and was willing to give it a shot.
Things had turned out fairly well so far. The excursion into the bridge had gained them five dimensional bags, along with tons of items. She was extremely wealthy, according to Tender. Some of the protective items were worth a lot, but Maya knew that she was only technically rich.
She had been in that position before. When she had found the million credits Tommoth was hiding, but at that point she didn’t have any way to spend the credits, except buying drinks from Tender. Now, she needed credits and had high grade items to get those credits, but no one to buy them.
Earth, even though she loved it, was a backwater hellhole now. People had reverted back to survival and fighting off mana mutations. That didn’t give rise to a robust economy where they could afford to buy the items she had found within the bridge. It was like trying to sell a Ferrari to a war torn village in the middle of nowhere. Sure, a lot of people would be interested, but they didn’t have the cash on hand.
She had to find that line between charity and business. She needed to help her people, but the best way to help them was through Settlement Deeds. She couldn’t get those unless she had credits.
The thought made her sick sometimes. She didn’t want to be one of those exploitive assholes who sold bottles of water at high markups. She didn’t want to be the hotel that raised their rates when homes had been destroyed and people were forced to leave.
But she needed credits.
She looked at Tender who had been patiently waiting for her.
“New plan, Tender,” she said.
***
“I’d totally help, but y’know… one hand.” Maya said as she followed behind Tender.
“It’s no problem, boss. I got this,” Tender replied, dragging along the tube that contained the dino creature.
Maya had fretted over removing the tube holding Yosi, but after a few questions and a quick download of the Yolovani Eternalast Stasis Pod - low grade, Tier 1 knowledge cube, she understood that the pod was detachable and moveable while it still maintained it’s own power. Each pod had a Tier 2 mana battery that could last up to twenty five thousand years, which Maya saw was a complete falsehood. This battery had only lasted twenty thousand four hundred and twenty five years.
“You’re a lucky little dinosaur, you know that?” Maya spoke to the creature in the tube. “You spent the last twenty thousand years on ice.” Maya said to the dinosaur.
Technically, Yoshi wasn’t frozen, nor were they suspended in a fluid. It was, according to the manual, a crystalline gel structure that hardened over the years, until it completely supported the body and stopped all bodily functions. It was fascinating, the gel was created from some kind of animal, according to the manuals. A space faring whale like creature that fired plasma and had massive mana tentacles that could snap a battleship in half.
But the ‘blood’ of the creature was the major ingredient in the stasis gel. It stopped all kinds of bodily functions, effectively putting one into suspended animation until they were revived. The combination of crafting and system tech at its best.
The pods themselves were also very expensive, another testament to the disparity between officers and crew members. There had been half a dozen pods, one for each officer. From what she had managed to dig out from the logs, there were also another half a dozen of the pods on the ship for the other high leveled officers, the doctor, head engineers, and the like.
Maya wasn’t intending on selling the pods; it was what they held within them that had caused the greedy little monster within her to screech with glee. Crafted mana batteries.
The current mana batteries she lugged around were the Markozki emergency mana batteries that had mostly lasted twenty thousand years, but they were massive things compared to the crafted batteries that powered the pods. One small fist sized battery held enough power to be continuously used for about five thousand years. Their charge could be held for nearly forty thousand years without much mana corruption.
Veskari had informed them that Yositari had managed to cobble together the remaining batteries together to keep the pod powered for potentially twenty five thousand years of use, but somewhere along the eons that had passed, one of the batteries had disconnected. Yositari hadn’t been a [Mechanic] or [Technician], but a [Slave], which Maya discovered was an actual Ability.
Maya had Inventoried the disconnected mana battery. Extra mana was always needed.
It did occur to Maya that all those weeks ago she could have just made straight for the bridge after defeating the rogue AI that occupied the ship. She had four days of power and light when she arrived, she could have gone to the bridge, met Veskari, saved Yositari, and used the additional mana battery to power Nanaseto and get Yositari fixed up in the process. Everything she had experienced could have been negated with a simple exploration of the ship.
Then again, she would never have met Tender or Bell or gotten so many other Abilities. Plus for all the horror and pain she had suffered, she had come through it all stronger. She had changed and she had gained so much more than she would have if she’d just stayed on the ship.
Still, she added exploration of the ship to her list of things to get done. There were still plenty of secrets on the ship and she hadn’t found them all yet.