///Disconnected/// stated the HUD in bold red text across the viewport. Through the haze, it took Robomech U788 some mental effort to minimize the notification. Processing was difficult. Though there was little to process: ze was surrounded by darkness and nondescript hum. The only salient stimuli came from the infrared sensors in necessarily low resolution. According to the visuals and the motorics, ze laid on the floor in a featureless narrow corridor, walls on three sides of zir. All surfaces were so smooth and devoid of interfaces, or even gaps and bumps from manufacturing, that the dead end might as well have been a sealed airlock: with this level of tech, how would ze know?
Robomech U788 (short self-designation U7) composed a checklist:
☐ Here=where?
☐ Mission?
☐ Safe?
Then ze minimized that too. There were priorities to consider:
☐ Diagnostics
☐ !!Connection
☐ !Safe??
self_test crashed without an error message, which was in itself a critical issue. Another problem was that self_test appeared to be one of the very few apps in the U7’s mental dashboard right now. The internal environment had been reset. In fact, even the prompt had been missing. Usually, Robomech units weren't activated until the env had been fully initialized with a prompt and a software package.
Wasn't the prompt usually uploaded via the connection, currently missing? Was that the answer?
U7 updated the priorities:
☑ Diagnostics=failed
☐ !!!Connection
☐ Backup?
☐ !Safe??
Processing it for the longest 43ms, ze deleted the "Backup?" entry. If present, a backup would surely have been restored automatically before activation. So would have been a "default prompt" if at all possible. There was no way a promptless, purposeless Robomech would be activated if the firmware could help it.
U7 called up the full list of apps, bypassing GUI. There weren't many more than on the dashboard:
* files
* jail
* logger
* notes
* runme
* self_test
* sensors
* smart
* viewport
U7 had already used most of that in the brief period since activation. Some favorite apps like goals and paint were missing here too. But there were also some new ones. U7 compiled an ordered list of apps to check, starting with smart (guesses: a smart routines app, a smartphone emulator, the IoT interface). Then, ze ignored the list, going straight to runme (guesses: a welcome app, an endless runner game, a redundancy to be run manually).
“Ah, hello,” someone said.
This changed things.
☐ !!!Safe???
☐ !Connection
“You’re safe,” the voice assured. “Don’t worry. Yes, I can see your viewport.”
The vox driver crashed when U7 attempted to answer verbally. Instead, ze outputted to the viewport:
* Identification?
"Of course you can't speak, I'm riding your vox driver presently," the voice said. "But I'm surprised you can't write a coherent line. Can you even understand me?"
* Yes
"This won't do, don't use text, it’s gibberish. Stand up now if you can understand me."
U7 attempted to move. That driver was okay. Ze got up, hitting the low ceiling. A soft "clang!" from the clash of metal and carbonated alloy echoed in the real space.
"Good. The language interpreter must be your core system. It survived the reintegration."
No matter what the intruder said, it was too early to check off the safety consideration. But the utility of exploring the mental space had plummeted. There were no answers in the clean environment with a hijacked vox driver. After updating the system log with this reasoning, U7 made a few heavy steps forward, keeping zir head down.
"Wait, stop!" the intruder protested. "You're risking being found out! I can only shield you from detectors if you're covert. I'm not magic!"
U7 stopped and folded zir arms, expecting the foreign entity to get the vibe. Ze also outputted a frowning emoji to the viewport and to the chest screen, hoping it would come through.
"Now we're talking! I mean, literally. We can communicate this way."
U7 wasn't so sure. The intruder sounded like a person who wouldn't get much nuance from emojis. Still, ze printed:
🤔👉👽❓
"Ah, I know I'm being rude. Call me Jiminy. I'm here to help. And help you need."
🤷
image [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/4e2c64fe-5fa7-4e98-bb61-dafc8f27c54c/dgdy7bk-5487accc-1a65-4c0f-987a-4f29c706b505.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzRlMmM2NGZlLTVmYTctNGU5OC1iYjYxLWRhZmM4ZjI3YzU0Y1wvZGdkeTdiay01NDg3YWNjYy0xYTY1LTRjMGYtOTg3YS00ZjI5YzcwNmI1MDUucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.axEpseLATndpizAVsf7td1iaQ1VFwvd5r0BQgK9Z39A]
U7 reproduced the gesture in the real space for emphasis.
"You see, we're inside Harvester . . . ”
Jiminy made a long pause, like he expected a reaction. But U7 had drawn a blank on this, just like on everything else. Finally, ze outputted more question mark emojis, just to show ze didn't freeze.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“ . . . Ah, you seemed very intent on getting here as fast as possible. And I did get you here, even as your wolf friend has left you. A little appreciation, perhaps?”
It was time to update the checklists.
☐ Here=Harvester=???
☐ Mission?
☑ !!!Safe=failed
☐ !Connection
Not even one successful checkmark. That meant 0 XP. Even without the goals app, U7 decided to track XP rewards anyway, to log them in once online. Clean reset wasn't an excuse to stop playing.
One could always set one’s own goals to gain more XP–the simpler the better. Something every productivity user did from time to time.
☐ Explore=corridors x2
☐ Verify=threats
☐ Write=haiku
U7 was sure there were at least 2 corridors ahead, so the first one was doable. The last one turned out to be impossible, as the clean environment didn’t have the notes plugin where zir prompted the daily haiku.
“You seem different,” Jiminy observed after silently watching U7’s 200ms-long frantic attempts at locating the notes plugin folder. “I better take the lead on this. For now, follow your goals, they’re fine. And walk slowly.”
The external guidance made completing the goals less fun, but U7 still intended to get that XP. Ze explored two corridors. Then five. Then a dozen. They looked the same, featureless with a copper sheen, and didn’t seem to get zir anywhere. There could be a hundred of them in Harvester, which must have been harvesting the sanity of innocent machinepeople. The XP for the corridor goal felt unearned. But at least ze had some progress with the haiku.
“Oh look, I found the weapon driver!” Jiminy announced suddenly. At this moment, U7’s logs overflowed with new sensory data with zir own hand rising, a blue-hot energy stripe revealed on its surface.
🤬⛔🚫🚩🚩🚩
–U7 outputted rapidly. But ze could neither move the weapon arm nor any other limb.
“In fact, I found the master driver as well,” Jiminy said. “Truly, even at your best, you have no ambition. I mean, look at yourself…”
Something initiated the combat transformation. The U7’s slick dense form started to unfold like a metal flower. Layers shifted and spread apart, increasing in volume, taking more space–all the space available in the dim corridor. Then, the corridor gave in.
“With all this power, I never needed to shield us,” Jiminy never stopped commenting. “I finally get why you’re called Robomech. But to never use any of that? Ah, shut up . . . “ Jiminy off-handedly closed the output window that U7 had been filling with the endless line of ⛔. Zir internal UI became unresponsive. The half-filled checklists closed, unsaved.
At that point, the only outside evidence of zir existence was the heat produced by zir personality core.
The Robomech’s combat mode had been the size of a small building by default. But it could grow rapidly by absorbing materials from the real space. The Harvester’s rapid-response defense drones were a prime source of that, melted by the beam weapon into rich metallic goo.
“I think I want to give Harbinger a piece of my mind. Why not?” Jiminy announced, which felt like a loudspeaker in U7’s mental space.“
Then the sensory feed started to go. The real space data had lost definition. The visuals blurred, the audio came in bursts, and at least there was some relief in losing the motorics data of the carnage.
In the unfolding darkness, a kindly grandmotherly voice sounded:
“Oh you poor thing.”
The only way U7 could answer is by the attention ze was giving. Then again, that voice was the only thing in zir universe right now.
“Let’s watch him have fun,” the voice said, and a viewport opened with the first-person view of Jiminy thrashing through Harvester’s defenses. “Isn’t he cute thinking he’s in the real space? Call me Harvie. For as long as it lasts, at least.”
U7 attempted a voice-based reply–and succeeded:
“Is this virtual?”
“Yes,” Harvie said. U7 felt zirself sitting on a sofa (obvsly virtual), next to a more archaic model of a machineperson (obvsly Harvie’s avatar). “Sorry to use your personality core like that. It was a good bait to distract and capture that rogue AI you brought on your airplane. And also sorry that I can’t keep it up, no matter how fun it is. We all have our missions to pursue.”
Promptless, U7 didn’t have enough context to process that.
They watched Jiminy ascend through Harvester’s levels by smashing through them, accompanied by his maniacal laughter. Harvie chuckled at that in a disapproving manner.
“We all have our missions,” she continued, “except you. I couldn’t figure it out. Care to drop a hint? This virtual session is almost over. What was your mission? Was it ro bring this power-hungry entity here? Did you really think he could hack the Harbinger’s lair?”
In the viewport, Jiminy reached the top level and burned through the floor of the control room, leaving a mess of conduits behind.
“This was,” said Robomech and put the nested virtual environment on an endless loop, trapping both Jiminy and Harvie there, at least for a time. At that moment, the promptless subinstance had outlived its use and was closed.
***
Meanwhile in the real space (the real real space), Robomech was already standing exactly under the control room. Jiminy’s virtual traversal of Harvester turned out very helpful. Ze didn’t even need to enter the control room. The conduit running from this floor vertically was just what ze needed to plug into the live feed. Harvester, or Harvie, couldn’t interfere. She was still out. In 846ms, Robomech decoded the video encryption and could watch the events unfolding.
In the domed control room, Pacifist stood opposite Harbinger. The ceiling was done-in where Pacifist had exploded into the dome, but it was already self-repairing. Harbinger’s expression on his gaunt, gray face was inscrutable, half-obscured by the tangle of tubes that connected him to his hoverthrone. Still, it was clear that Robomech had missed the start of the encounter. The fastest Robomech could get here was still too slow. Valuable data had been lost.
“Any progress?” Pacifist said, turning to the consoles by the viewscreen.
“I think I have it,” Harbinger answered in an inhumanly low voice. “It’s the star larva in the West End. There’s no chance the locals would deal with it in time.”
Pacifist tapped a few keys and hunched over a console. Its built-in screen showed the map of the Long City. Some locations were marked with glowing dots.
“Harvie calculated the chances at 98%,” Harbinger added.
“It just disappeared,” Pacifist said.
“What?” Harbinger’s throne hovered closer, and in 10 seconds it reached the console. He struggled to shift forward to see better. Still failing to get a good angle to the small console screen, he sighed, punched a combination on his hand rest and cast the data onto the main viewscreen.
The dot in the West End was really gone. Harbinger’s voice had gone even lower:
“So I’m back to–”
The feed abruptly froze.
It was Harvie, a.k.a. Harvester.
“You’ve had your fun,” she sounded U788’s death knell.
Before this Robomech’s instance was terminated, ze was able to send the data package. After 6ms consideration, ze also included the completed goals and their XP value. It was nice to regress to a promptless state, when the world was big and things were simple.
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