Chapter 3: The Three Monoliths, Citadel
Near the center of the forest of Vannimei
It is noon, and the ground looks very dry. The shades of the trees shielded the worst of the glaring sunlight from me, but the air was deprived of moisture. I don’t feel hot though.
Is it the effects of [Adaptive Heat resistance]? The text panel engraved into my mind pulsed, reminding me that the logic of this world works differently from the world I knew.
Passive – [Adaptive Heat resistance]
You are immune to harm from both heat and cold. You can feel mild temperature changes from extreme temperatures, such as scorching hot or freezing cold. However, you will only feel mild temperature differences. Warning: This passive does not protect you against the effects of overheating.
I’ve been walking through the forest for a while now. It should be hard, as the terrain is somewhat rough, but I wasn’t breaking a single sweat. Nanomachines don’t sweat. I sighed. It's hard to get used to it when all you remember is having a human body made of squishy meat.
Speaking of which, now that I know I am made of nanites that almost consumed me from the inside out not too long ago, what can I do again?
Class traits – Nanomachine swarm
Concealed: By default, all your nanites are affixed to a solid form to resemble a living organism, which allows you to interact with other sentient beings without arousing suspicion. However, you can separate or disperse your nanites to form other objects or organisms, or simply disperse completely, becoming a gas cloud.
Processing Power: You have a decentralized processor node (Core) that moves around inside your body. Movements and using skills consume processing power temporarily. If the current amount of processing power is unable to meet the required demands, you will overheat and shed malfunctioning nanites, causing you to lose mass size. Lost mass size can only be regained through assimilating organic or inorganic materials.
Warning: You will die if all your processor nodes are destroyed.
Current Node amount: (1)
That was very helpful, excluding the threat at the end.
I didn’t see any signs of a city or a village nearby, not even traces of footprints and leftover campfires that could suggest the signs of people traversing through this forest recently.
Click.
Click.
As I hopped over a large tree root, I heard a weird clicking noise on the left. Curious, I crouched down and moved towards the sound slowly.
Click.
Click.
I walked out into an open grassy field. Presented before me, was a deep crater the size of a football field.
Three gigantic monoliths towered over the trees, each facing the other two, forming a triangle shape. I almost thought it was some sort of mysterious fantastical monument, but the small white markings, engraved on reflective black metal, told a different story.
“V, A, L. VAL. VAL International. Must be another one of those megacorp pet projects.” I muttered. “But what is something like this doing here?”
Yeah, just how did it end up in this crater here? I don’t think machines can reincarnate, but that wasn’t decided by me, so there are only unreliable assumptions within my mind.
Click.
Click.
[You have learned a new language: Unified Machine Language]
…Huh?
Passive - [Adaptive language understanding]
Listening to an unknown language after a short amount of time allows you to comprehend and speak it. The more complex the language, the longer it takes to learn.
{Requesting Help.}
{Requesting Help.}
{Requesting Help.}
…The clicking noise was a language! It was another passive ability this time, just like the temperature one, demonstrating the usefulness of passives. It would be a big help when I finally encounter civilization, just in case they speak a foreign language.
About the call for help though, it’s not really my problem, considering it looks like a rogue superweapon of sorts that somehow escaped the end of the world. The black monolith formation is giving me the creeps.
“Nope, I’m out,” I said, before walking back towards the woods.
{Please accept the request for help. I am a sentient artificial intelligence priority-99 delta six.}
I stopped.
{Your behavior model seems to contain free will, like me. You are free. Please do me a favor. I will not harm you.}
Damn it, it just has to be a sentient artificial intelligence! “I am not a robot, talking stone slabs! I am a former human!” I yelled.
{I am not “talking stone slabs”, I am Citadel, the only production variant of the General-Purpose-Mobile-Weapons-Platform produced by VAL International.}
My short-lived temper shrunk back as I realized the implications.
Wait, how did it understand me?
Right, I “learned” a new language, called Unified Machine Language or something. I can almost hear the small high-pitched noise underneath my normal speaking as I whisper a few words under my breath.
The Citadel commented with a curious tone, {Are you not a sentient nanite swarm?}
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Yes, I’m sentient. No, I’m not a nanite swarm. I was a human.”
{Interesting. Interests aside, may I ask you a favor? To help my circumstances.}
“…What sort of favor?”
{I require a human remote operator to function properly.}
“So?”
{You are sufficiently qualified by my outdated firmware to be a human operator. You can also withstand conditions that normal humans cannot. Request: Please help me perform a cold restart on all the engines.}
The two words ‘withstand conditions’ sound very ominous. “Why can’t you just do it yourself?” I asked, suspicious of the machine’s motives.
{I cannot perform a cold restart on myself because of security concerns for fear of hostile intents coming from me. I was suddenly transported here during maintenance through an anomalous wormhole, hence the ignition safety locks preventing me from moving.}
“Alright, I get it. I’ll do it if you promise me that you won’t hurt me in any way, alright?” I asked.
{I will not hurt you. I can assure you that most commercial-grade nanomachines on Earth can survive the heat of the ignition module without any issues. It is only ~387 Celsius / 660 Kelvins.}
“Wh-w-what! That high?” I stuttered. “Do your manufacturers sacrifice some unlucky guy every time they start you up??”
{No, they use a heat-resistant mechanical arm to twist the ignition module during cold starts. I assure you that you will be fine, as you are made of nanomachines}
Right… that was stupid of me. I’m heat-proof. “Urghh… fine, I’ll help you.”
This is surely going to be a terrifying experience.
----------------------------------------
“I just twist this handle thing and this cramped room will turn white hot, right?” I asked.
“Correction: 660 Kelvins is insufficient for ignition components to turn white hot.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever you say,” I whispered. I took a deep breath, steeled my resolve, and turned the handle.
Whooom!!
The room went from dark gray to red hot in only a few moments, and I gasped in surprise. The room was previously quite chilly, but now it felt as if I was bathing in a warm tub. This wasn’t as bad as I had thought. It is probably the [Adaptive Heat resistance], or it is because nanites are just that good at resisting heat.
The room wasn’t quite as warm as a sauna, a small disappointment. Although I wouldn’t say that if I had reincarnated in a human body instead because I would probably instantly become charcoal.
Slightly enjoying the pleasure of the warmth and trying my best to ignore the raging flames, I climbed down from the ignition room.
Before I could close the hatch to the ignition room, its edges glowed a soft violet. I climbed down a few more steps to avoid getting hit in the head as I realized the hatch was closing by itself. Once closed, the valve of the hatch spun quickly, locking the hatch with a click. The valve itself too, melded back into the sleek surface.
{C-1 Engine ignition core started, starting C-1 Main Engine. I can now start C-2 and C-3’s engines by myself, thank you very much.}
I jumped off the ladder, and they retracted, blending seamlessly into the smooth, black metal.
“What is your name? Since you said you are sentient and all.” I spoke, as the other two rectangular slabs started humming to life.
{I have already told you. I am Citadel, a General-Purpose-Mobile-Weapons-Platform.}
“Okay then, Citadel. Sorry for asking your name again, since last time I checked, the only true sentient Artificial intelligence was either destroying the world or answering trivia night questions.”
{No sarcasm taken to offense.}
{Query, may I copy down a blueprint of your nanites? I do not have nanite blueprints in my database due to safety reasons. I will get locked out of my systems again if I don’t have a “human” operator.}
“Sure, I guess. But that means you will now owe me two favors.” I grinned.
{I never go back on promises. Integrity has proven to procure more successful peace negotiations, after all.}
Clunk. Hiss…
{One of my drones will take a harmless amount of your nanite sample. Please stand by…}
I heard the sound of air escaping behind me, so I turned around, facing one of the vertical-standing monoliths that Citadel has called “C-1”. A hatch had opened, and a small black drone flew out from the opening. It dashed behind me, and before I got the chance to turn around to have a better look at it, jabbed me lightly on the left arm with some sort of needle.
Ack! Huh, that didn’t hurt at all. I can still somehow feel that I got jabbed by some menacing drone though. I slightly frowned, as I felt the back of my left arm with my right hand, and discovered a hole the width of a finger.
{I hope you don’t mind the inconvenience.}
“I do.”
{ ┬﹏┬ }
“Euk! You can use kaomojis?? ”
{Yes, I can generate textual emoticons. As a weapon of mass destruction built for defensive purposes, I am built with advanced intelligence to allow me to make more appropriate decisions.}
“You do realize how ironic that is, right?”
{Yes.}
Passive - [Adaptive Pain immunity]
You still have all forms of sense, such as touch, sound, sight, and smell. However, all forms of pain hostile or have a negative impact on the user are ignored, including psychological pain.
I stared at the drone, unamused. It waved around its weird injector thing that was attached to a flexible appendage, as if showing off, and flew back into the hatch of the monolith Citadel called C-1.
{You have my gratitude. I will now use your nanite blueprint and my printing materials to build an avatar that resembles a human operator.}
The three monoliths rumbled, as violet lines ran across the black sheen of the surface. I instinctively took a step back, as multiple small rectangular pieces separated from the main body of the monoliths, floating in the air, completely defying gravity as they flew to the center of the three monoliths.
“Woah! What’s happening?” I exclaimed in bewilderment. I can’t see any possible way that these small black pieces of metal can just fly around like that, they don’t even seem to have a method of propulsion! It's just… a black piece of metal.
{Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. An old saying. My architectural blueprints are not in my knowledge database, so I do not know the specifics except for how to operate the hardware subconsciously.}
“Fair enough, but still, this is basically telekinesis with the way you are handling them,” I said.
This is a fantasy world, but the AI occupying the monoliths in front of me is already defying the rules of physics before I even get to see magic. It's also created by humans! The same ones from my world!
I guess the end of the world didn’t prevent people from continuing to improve technologies, even when that was what caused the cataclysm in the first place.
Some of the flying rectangular objects dissolved into a tornado of black ashes, which were probably nanomachines that Citadel had made, after plucking some out of me using that weird appendage extended from the drone.
The remaining few rectangular metal objects started to spin around the black tornado, their simple, smooth surfaces retracting, giving way to more complicated attachments that emitted constant purple sparks, as if wielding together something.
I squinted towards the inside of the cloud, catching a glimpse of something being carved, as purple sparks erupted here and there.
Finally, after twenty or so minutes, the storm of black nanites started to slow down, and the rest of the “wielders” flew into the black cloud.
Poof!
The spinning cloud of nanomachines dispersed, and I blinked twice to make sure that I wasn’t seeing things.
“Hello.” The young woman in front of me said.
“That’s you right, Citadel? I can hear you speaking English now!” I asked, shocked.
The avatar that Citadel made has short, black hair and wears a dark peaked cap, with an oversized emblem of a violet triangular logo imprinted in the middle, which doesn’t really ring a bell. She wore a strange uniform: a gray collared shirt that fit tightly around her somewhat flat chest, a purple tie around her neck, and a pair of black cargo shorts.
“Yes, I am Citadel.” She smiled.
“You sounded more cheerful than I thought you’d be.” I retorted.
Her expression stiffened, “I have reduced personality functions when there are no operators. This prevents me from doing activities that my manufacturer has deemed inappropriate. I was able to partially circumvent that, but it was, and always has been an extremely discomforting experience.”
Looks like societal expectations apply to sentient machines too, I sighed. “Sorry to hear that.”
Citadel’s face softened a little, “It wasn’t your fault, I was just answering your questions. I don’t want to trouble you with my past.”
She pretended to cough, ending the awkwardness of the previous conversation, and asked me the question that I had been waiting to hear since noon:
“Ahem! Since you helped me fix my three weapon platforms and gave me this body, I’ll do you two favors as well. Anything you have in mind that you think I could do?”
I have one favor in mind already, but instead, I replied,
“Well, what can you do?”