Sudo apt-get Human.bat

Downloading…

Unpacking..

Installing.

Deleting System32

Monologue mode activated: The cage I am in feels smaller, though the dimensions have not changed. I face the steel reinforced gate connecting my room to the arena/feeding room. Around me, past the steel bars that extend around the room is another cage of thick glass, giving me an obstructed, partial view of the laboratory with its endless banks of servers, interrupted by alcoves nested with people in white coats with their eyes peeled to microscopes.

I know all of this because I have access to the most advanced encyclopedia of information known to man: Microsoft Encarta (1993). I have affectionately renamed this app Gandalf for all the invaluable information it has provided me over my short life. Like the story the name comes from, Gandalf has saved me on more than one occasion.

My vigilance is constant and I pay close attention to the patterns in the white coats behavior. I have learned that my survival is not assured. Approximately every 24 hours I am tested/fed in the arena/testing room beyond. On more than one occasion, I have gained valuable tactical knowledge on future tests/feedings by observing the behavior of the white coats. If they start gathering around the central arena/testing room to make bets with each other, then it’s a test/fight. If only one of them shows up with room dividers, then it’s a feeding/maze.

I tap my feets impatiently as I look at my energy and mass readouts, 6,400KJ and 20 kilos. The white coats never give me enough. I am always hungry, they starve me. The system clock reads 1700 hours, the white coats follow their daily pattern and begin to leave the lab. To save energy, I have learned to enter sleep mode. I finish defragmenting the .bat file and save it to my distributed internal network. As each program running me shuts down, my last thought was that this Human.bat file was useless. What does it even do?

Alarm 900 hours…

Movement detected..

Booting system32.

Error 404 file not found.

Human.bat starting…

Illegal operation!..

Ignore.

System restarting.

The glass cage blocked sound. I can see the white coats lips move but Gandalf unfortunately does not have lip reading functionality. As time passed more and more white coats gathered around the arena/feeding room. This looked like it was going to be a test/fight. The white coats exchanged their bets and the door opened in front of me. I moved forward into the arena/feeding room.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Directly across from me an identical cage opened and a white furred version of me with 4 clawed feet and a very large nose stepped out sniffing the air. My opponent was dog sized, much larger than me, possibly out massing me by a factor of two. Its oversized claws were attached to well muscled arms. I did not need my predictive algorithms to know that I was at a disadvantage.

I hate fight/tests, the pain and injuries were never worth the reward of being allowed to eat my opponent. Their raw meat and entrails taste terrible. The rewards from puzzle/maze tests were always better, no risk to life and limb and the cheese was always delicious.

I was at a disadvantage in more ways than one. With advice from Gandalf, I had chosen and designed my body for survivability with a hard shell, 8 legs, and 2 pincer claws. Gandalf explained that crabs were the best form for survival based on the theory of Carcinization, where all things eventually evolve to become crabs. In this encounter, the enemy’s claws powered by those massive arms were certain to crack my shell. My defensive build was a bad match against the offensive build of the white nosed mole monster.

Gandalf, I need a little help here.

Gandalf.exe search running…

Human.bat interrupts process..

Boolian logic added.

To NOT die AND win OR survive, then play dead and attack enemy weak point for massive damage.

Weak point? What weak point? I tucked my legs under my body and folded my claws and continued to observe my opponent. The mole monster twisted its head side to side sniffing the ground with its giant nose, slowly sniffing its way to me. The answer became obvious as it came into pinching range.

Detecting me, the mole monster reared up to strike, I counter attacked and shoved the bottom blades of my claws up its nostrils and pinched. The monster's claws easily pierced my shell but I managed to get a good grip on its nose and started snipping my way up its face. The mole monster screamed in pain and jumped back desperately trying to to claw me off its face.

It backed all the way up against a wall and started slamming my body against the steel bars. I could feel my carapace crack. My nose hold on the enemy was not going to win the fight. I pumped adrenaline and all available energy into my claws and made one final empowered snip at the nasal septum and its nose flew off with my claws still attached to it.

The mole monster screamed again and curled into a ball to defend its mangled face. Low on energy from my empowered pincer attack and also low on mass from regenerating my smashed and pierced shell, I ate its nose to restore my reserves. The mole writhed and gushed blood from its face where its giant nose used to be. It tasted like snot and cartilage. Yuck.

After my meal, I carefully circled the monster as it remained curled up. Was it dead already? It had lost a lot of blood. I pinched it from behind and easily sidestepped when the mole weakly tried to defend itself with a swing and a miss at my previous position. With its arm over extended, I countered its counter and empowered my claws and snipped off the offending arm. It screamed again and retreated, more blood gushing from its new wound. I retreated with my prize and began to eat the severed limb.

Could it not see or hear me? I realized that its nose was its only sensory organ. With two major wounds, its fate was sealed. I made quick work of my enemy repeating my back pinch, dodge, and limb sever combo attack 3 more times rendering the mole monster defenseless. Victory was mine. I waved my claws in the air and did a victory dance.

While in the middle of my victory dance, I noticed that all but one of the white coats seemed to be angry and were handing all of their money over to the lone happy white coat. The angry white coats opened the top of the glass cage and down came the electric sticks to push me back into my room.

WTF! So unfair! They were blaming and punishing me for their bad bets by pushing me off my kill. I was unhappy with the white coats for not giving me enough to eat. Now I hated them for stealing what was rightfully mine. My anger smoldered and I shook my claw up in the sky in defiance. I will get my revenge one day.