Jim worked into the night and some of the next day digging into his hoard of nuts for energy. He designed various possibly useful programs for various things that might be useful in the future. Starting with boost() for a short burst of directional momentum by simply taking his body's current velocity and increasing the speed by 5. This resulted in an attempt at darting to the base of a branch using boost() causing him to overshoot by 2 feet and crash into the trunk.
The nearby skewer bird (which he now named) noticed the impact but thankfully he was still invisible, avoiding violent death.
Another program he created was interesting, which was the translation of sounds into meaning. He still wasn’t sure exactly how it worked but he believed it would so maybe that was enough? It did not provide meaningful conversation with the local wildlife as a similar squirrel constantly spouted ‘tree, tree, nut, nut, nut’ and a skewer bird similarly said ‘food? food! kill! eat! nest! protect! food?’.
The last one was slightly unnerving as the skewer bird seemed to be looking in his direction, it was still unsure though so probably, hopefully it didn’t see him.
The final program created for the day modified gravity to reduce drag to absolutely zero and remove the effects of gravity completely. It was actually a terrifying program called frictionless() but it did more than remove friction. Trying it out on one of the native squirrels they jumped from the branch and continued on in a straight line flailing and tumbling in mid air. The terrifying part is that the squirrel did not stop as it did not hit another object, the parameter for stopping the program.
Jim had created the first squirrel in outer space and he had barely even left the tutorial.
Deciding that boost() was fine for movement over possible space flight Jim moved on to offensive programs. The first of these was a modified illuminate() that spawned a 100% intensity light orb behind and above his head for 0.5 seconds named flash(). Thankfully the light produced by this method did not seem to have any heat attached to it; for some weird reason, saving the indignity of burning a bald spot on the back of his head. Suffice to say that when using flash any creature hit in the effects was blind for up to a minute and again the local squirrel kin were caught in the crossfire.
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Creating the most powerful program in his arsenal caused as many problems as the previous programs combined. His first thought was to use very high temperatures in a straight line 5m long in front of him. However the consumption of energy for this program drained his core more than sending the squirrel flying into space. This was confusing until he realised that manipulation of energy cost 5 times more than manipulating weight.
He finally settled on simply amplifying the weight of air in a straight line stretching 5m in front by 1000 times. As a result of using the aptly named slice() the air affected became heavier than lead dropping downward at great velocity. When used on a tree limb 30cm thick it had no trouble slicing through with ease and crashing through a few more to the darkness below. There was even a roar in reply far below that caused his fur to stand on end and relocate back to the hollow from whence he came.
To avoid pissing off the local wildlife; which could possibly lead to vacating his new home, he decided to review the invisibility that is a constant companion. Beyond attempting to replicate the effects of the ethereal coating there was not much to determine how it works, only that he knew it worked. Maybe this particular ability could be the outlier in his abilities that relied more on instinct and belief than cold hard logic as creating all the effects proved difficult. As an aside there might be some downsides that had not yet been discovered in using programming to control what is effectively a reflection of himself.
It was time to think about the next steps now that the basics of movement, attack and survivability (being unseen) had been catered for. What Jim really needed to do was explore beyond the forest for signs of civilization, a city, a ruin or even a road would be nice. If this world was just one large forest with nothing else more evolved than a squirrel, he might just consider leaving it; if the mysterious energy even works in space. That was something to consider that there might be places where the energy doesn’t work and he would have to go hand to hand or paw to paw.
Gathering a final load of nuts back to the storage in the tree hollow he set about putting down his literal burdens for the day. Looking up at the sky covered with an explosion of stars greater than any he had seen on earth; there was an anticipation present in the unknown. He might not know what he was going to do but there was no going back, only moving forward. This world may not have the same certainty he once had but he had long ago truly stopped living, working bug to bug and patch to patch. It was as if he forgot that in the midst of working there was a purpose for which everything outside it existed.
Perhaps being stuck here was not so bad or the stimulant effects of the nuts he consumed enmasse caught up with him, he liked to think it was the former. Rolling over he drifted off to sleep thinking of nuts and travelling the expanse of his dreams.