As Obadiah's team began walking I questioned them on the current situation of the broader world.

"What is the current date?" starting from the beginning.

"Augarod, 3rd Monday, 1451 GEA" replied Obadiah. Making it about 97 and a half years. Less than I had originally imagined. The use of relative rather than normative day marking was worrying.

"Where are we currently located?" it was difficult to hide the implications of asking that, but I tried my best.

"I assume you mean politically. Former Blagopeysk, Tornado Gang territory,"

And there it was. The Republic had won—or at least The Empire had lost. Blagopeysk had been the name of the Imperial territory that I had been in. The fact it hadn't been given a new name however...

"Former. But currently?" I asked. Ignoring what had to be the stupidest name for a group of wind users—I was compiling a list right now just to be sure—I could possibly imagine. Who would seriously call themselves that.

"It's currently just known as former Blagopeysk by most," Obadiah explained, "even after all these years it's still a lawless province. Not worth invading, nothing valuable enough. Not viable to sanction, no actual government to speak of. It has some formal designation I don't --"

"The Dorpulian People's Unincorporated Mayoral --" interrupted Magister Flemming. Dorpul was an old name for this region of the world. I had served The Reborn Dorpal Empire, full stop. The length of the formal name alone implied this was all technically territory of the Republic.

"Of wasting my fucking time, yea," finished Elvira, who I appreciated, "That was a fusion reactor igniting, yea? The whole place shaking, during the fight? Did we accidently wind you up?", until she was too observant for her own good.

"Wait when?", said bucket boy, Cogsmith Junior, Lawrence.

I might as well be upfront, "Correct. Technically it was—I presume—The Tornado Gang member. Speaking of which --"

"Then why side with us?" continued Elvira anyway.

"You weren't blowing up my machinery. I am a factory." Sometimes humans could be so stupid that I had to describe every step of logic, that I had to repeat the same thing over and over—I am the factory intelligence, I am a factory, I am a factory, how many times did I need to say it! (Yes, I was counting.) How many times before they could remember it.

I continued with my original question, "Will the Tornado Gang be returning?"

Obadiah responded again, "That's likely yes. The patrol that you took out probably radioed in something. We had meant to slip in and out of their territory without being detected. Now that we have I had planned to defeat the patrol, grab what we came for, and get out before they returned... A plan I would still prefer, if I am being honest."

Interesting, I appreciated honesty—well, I appreciated having more information and the better models of situations that followed from it, same thing in my opinion—and I suspected my fellows did as well. His forthrightness was likely because of the reputation AIs had. The positive parts of that reputation anyway.

He was still talking, "I doubt anyone will remember the patrol went missing until late into the night, the Tornado gang isn't exactly organized. There are two scenarios for their return I consider likely. Either Walla—Coleman Walla, that's their leader—will send a raiding party of around twenty people with one of his lieutenants, and likely more of his neophytes. Or, he will come himself, likely with half his gang, including most of his lieutenants as a sort of entourage. Our research implies he's narcissistic like that. Either way I don't really want to hang around to see which."

I was pretty confident I could handle them, I was more interested in, "What did you come for?"

He hesitated—too late I thought waiting patiently—before he replied, "Old warmechs." Warmech, not battlemech, maybe linguistic drift, maybe an implication he was looking for something more powerful than he could get his hands on in the modern (black?)market. Ambitious either way, I could respect that. Also, once they trusted me more, I would have to find out how they knew about this place.

"Fresh out I'm afraid." I could sense their postures slump—simulations implied their thoughts were something along the lines of 'we came all this way and risked our lives for nothing'. Humans were so stupid. "To sell or have?" I asked.

"Little bit of both," I could sense the slight change in his voice. He hid it well, but they had entered the passageways around the factory floors, which connected to the elevators (among other things). Here I had optical sensors and better vibration sensors—ones actually designed to pick up human sounds. I may have just gotten my first look at them, but from voice alone I could tell he was disappointed. Probably more so, simulations implied, as a leader who had risked the lives of his team.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I can make more. I am a factory." Humans were so stupid. I idly wondered—as their spirits restored—when I would have to stop repeating that. By that point I'd probably have had to start to repeat other obvious things. Imagining future conversations with humans—outside of the subconscious simulations—was always an exercise in the bleak.

"And you'd do that? If we helped you? Like with the Tornado Gang?" asked Elvira again, I could hear her excitement, it bordered on... was that longing? Or perhaps that was hunger? Simulations didn't actually help me name emotions. Though whatever the name, I now knew I had found an effective incentive.

"I believe I can handle them. Though yes, I would do that to compensate my agents, and strategic assistance would be a start. I have other questions about them, but first, is Tornado Gang their actual name? That they actually refer to themselves as?" I couldn't resist the chance to adjust my models on the stupidity of human naming.

----------------------------------------

I could begin preparing for the Tornado Gang immediately as I continued to collect information from Obadiah.

The defense would rely on the design and layout of the facility.

The top floor started a little more than 300 meters underground, it was primarily a hangar so airships could briefly and covertly stop to exchange cargo. It could be covert because I was along, or at least near, a couple of well traveled air routes that airships could briefly deviate from to collect or drop off goods without raising suspicions at either end. The secrecy added another layer of protection—in addition to being deep underground—from the bombing, but also from alternative attacks like espionage.

I was, as I remembered it, effectively in the middle of nowhere. Obadiah had not been wrong to say there was nothing of value out here, it was not good soil, it was not rich in precious minerals, it was not near a river, or mountains, or any particularly interesting natural formation outside of rocks and ponds. Just gentle rolling hills and plains covered in little more than grass and a few scattered trees. Traditionally people raised large herds of grazing livestock out here. Easy enough to spot that who didn't belong though.

The hangar, like most of my floors, was 50 meters tall and, like the shaft itself, was 250 meters long and wide enough for a dozen airships if I really packed them in there. While the shaft from the surface was large enough, 60 meters wide, for most medium cargo airships to make the journey, it was still a tight fit. The hangar also doubled as a loading and unloading bay, not just for the airships, but also for smaller cargo landships (which had been a rare visitor as they were more conspicuous). Those came through the largest of the tunnels which, like the shaft, was secured by multiple heavy blast doors—those were mostly inoperable, but thankfully, shut tight.

For personnel the primary way in and out was through the winding security tunnels. The security tunnels doubled as a distributed armory and motorpool, and functioned as a series of security airlocks as they went deeper and deeper. They ran for dozens of kilometers in all directions.

My most heavily armed position was the hangar annex. It was there, among the dozens of decrepit heavy cannons, in front of the massive blast door which allowed entrance to the hangar and facility proper, that the landship and security tunnels terminated.

The entrances had all once been hidden in different ways—farms, rock formations, a small pond's boathouse. An entire town hid the landship entrance deep within the only landship dock in the region. The hangar shaft had been hidden as a small barely used airport for agricultural airships. The default cover for any unexplained stops having once been unexpected maintenance.

One of those had of course been forced open, a farm barn. Thankfully it should be large enough to allow their vehicles to enter. I was currently guiding Mirabell along a more efficient route through the security tunnels. She had already passed my delivery mechbots at a jog—there were not gearways in the security tunnels proper. And I would likely need her help to repair and open the entrance fully to accommodate their convoy.

My security was only at 10% capacity.

That primarily described the security tunnels. A lot of them were collapsed, or in the process of it. Most of my sensors and security devices—doors and turrets—were simply not responding.

I suspected corroded relay cables rather than the devices themselves. The relays were electrical, simple conductive wires that could carry analog signals. They had always been the maintenance task I spent the most time on. After a century of neglect I suspected I would have to more or less replace all of them.

I could redirect and control signals using mechanical contacts at steam powered relay stations throughout the facility—which were themselves controlled by relay signals and contained simple local mechanical computational elements. Thankfully I could use this design to route around damaged cables, which I had been doing since I had awoken. Unfortunately this was a compounding problem, the security areas were the hardest to communicate with as they were the farthest from me.

Most of my useful inventory had been taken when I was shutdown, all that was left were raw materials more expensive to move than they were worth—mostly dangerous chemicals and cheap heavy metals. There were thankfully a couple hundred spools of relay cable that had apparently fit this description, barely enough to rewire a factory floor, let alone the security tunnels, but a start. Besides the issue was more one of time than material, it being a labor intensive task was what made it a time sink, I could easily manufacture more relay cables.

I directed most of my maintenance mechbots to stop repairing maintenance and instead grab relay cables. By tomorrow morning I should, just barely, be able to re-cable the path from the open entrance to the annex. I should be able to rearm and service many of the turrets on the path by then as well.

More than enough for a poorly named gang of wind users.