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Nellie and the Nanites - Bk3 - Ch.32
🕑 Added 2024-05-30 08:00:03 +0000 UTCChapter 32
Exploration Mode
“Are you sure about this?” Lucy asked again.
The AI was not used to being unable to interact directly with the world. She had a body for so long and had become so adapted to being able to affect the world around her that it was proving difficult to have that taken from her. The repairs were taking a lot longer than she had expected.
The anxiety was coming out in weird ways.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Nellie replied patiently. “The improvements to the Exo suit are more than capable of carrying my weight.”
“But the tensile strength of the claws…” Lucy fretted.
“Lucy, babe. I’m okay, alright?” Nellie flexed her clawed fingers and looked up the side of the building one more time.
In the end, the decision to explore the facility was easy. They needed to know everything they could, pure and simple. Adapting the exo suit to include extra armor had been easy. The climbing modifications had been a little more complicated. The designs she ‘remembered’ thanks to her Survival Crafting would simply not work given the parts she had on hand.
Luckily, she was 75% replenished as far as nanites went. What was more, they were HERS now. It made a hell of a difference, Nellie had discovered. They were not just a part of her; they were her. There was no separation at all. Result? She could do what she planned.
Reaching out, she dug her exceedingly sharp claws into the heavy stone. With a slow pull, she reached up and dug her other hand into the side of the building.
Hand over hand, she got to almost the second story before kicking the spikes on her boots into the wall.
Hand over hand, foot over foot, Nellie climbed the sheer side of the building, heading for the large melted hole high up on the side.
“Top of the world, Ma!” Nellie laughed as she climbed, feeling her muscles humming as nanites reinforced her muscles and the servos and pneumatics on the exo suit worked.
Nellie decided there are times when it is appropriate to feel like a badass. Hanging from one hand and one foot while you lean into the gash in the side of an unknown facility on a volcanic planet, with nothing but the revolver version of a shotgun to protect you, was one of them.
Sweeping the room with her suit lights and improved senses revealed little other than some tables against the walls buried in ash. Drifts of it had built up on the floor as well.
“Testing weight,” Nellie told Lucy as she stepped gingerly onto the floor. It was nice to have someone to talk to again. She had really missed that, even if it was only for a few hours.
The floor creaked a little but didn’t sag as Nellie leaned her full weight on it. Only once she was confident that it would hold did she step fully into the facility. Three steps inside, she sent the command for the heavy crawler to join her. It arrived seconds later, flowing smoothly around the edge of the broken wall and onto the inside, still holding to the walls and seeming uncertain about the ash covering the floor.
Nellie frowned at that and scanned the ash piles just in time as it happened.
Cables were slowly sneaking through the deep ash toward her metal-clad feet.
Something was active in here, and it was trying to ambush her.
Nellie carefully reached back and pulled the melee weapon she had crafted for close fighting. It wasn’t much, really—a glorified machete with some extra size and weight to it.
Oh, and a nanoblade edge.
Nell lunged, the blade severing two of the cables even as the others immediately burst from the ash and flew at her. Batting one aside with her gun, she opened fire on another, the thick slug severing the cable entirely.
Two more cables came for her as she leaped away, backing into a corner and stamping down on the cable there as she kept her blade moving constantly. It wasn’t exactly a defense, being merely something she remembered from a movie, but it looked impressive.
At least to her.
A clicking noise from the wall was followed by the heavy crawler diving into the ash. Horrific noises emanated from under the deep ash as waves and plumes erupted.
Nellie focused on the two remaining cables as they danced and swayed, trying to dart around her blade.
“No chanc–” Nellie cut off as the two cables swayed and struck, knocking her blade aside and darting at her chest plate.
Nell didn’t have time to think. She dropped the gun and blade, grabbing both cables. The sharp climbing claws tore into the things, and in seconds, she had nothing but bits in her hands.
The sound stopped, the ash settled, and the crawler emerged from the ash. Its carapace was scuffed and dented, but otherwise, it seemed in good condition. Nell scanned the room suspiciously as she retrieved the gun and machete.
“Good job,” Nellie told it as she passed, heading for the door.
Something was on; the facility was still functional, and there was no way she would give it time to figure out a new way to attack them.
===<<<>>>===
Something was very wrong with this facility.
Nellie was more and more sure with every inch of it that she searched. No other cables had come to attack them, but something was watching. Her senses and sensors both insisted there was nothing there, but they were wrong.
Humans used to be prey. It was how they started out, all those many years ago. Sure, things had changed, or so they insisted. When Nellie had been taken from Earth, there was a big movement about the Alpha archetype. The truth was, the very idea of an alpha was stupid. It was based on faulty research that had been disproven a hundred times over and ignored the fundamental truth of human origins.
Humans evolved from Prey.
People didn’t like that idea, so they mostly ignored it. Which just went to show how blinded most people were. Evolving to be the dominant species as a predator? That was just doing what you were designed to do. Doing it as a prey species? That was a fucking achievement to be proud of.
One of the great legacies of the origins of man as prey was the ability to sense when you were being watched. When you were being stalked.
Nellie had that feeling now.
Something was hunting her, looking for a weakness, a moment to attack.
It wasn’t a bad plan if you were after a predator.
As for if you were hunting the nanite-boosted descendant of the most badass, inventive prey animal ever to exist?
A poor choice.
Scanning the room, Nellie decided this was the place.
Thick metal walls on three sides, a good few inches of heavy instacrete beneath her feet, and a single entrance.
“Lucy, I think it is safe to sleep here for a few hours; let me know if the ship comes back online, okay?” Nellie said out loud. The suit speakers would relay it, almost as if she had forgotten to turn them off.
Standing with her back to the door, Nellie let her body go limp, the Exo suit supporting her weight.
Lucy: Are you sure this is a good idea?
Nellie: No, but I don’t have a better idea, do you?
Lucy: We don’t even know what it is,
Nellie: With luck, we will after this.
Lucy: What if it is too strong?
Nellie: Better to find out now, before I get too far from the breach.
Lucy: If it is too strong, will you promise to run?
Nellie: Of course. I’ll then stay on the ship until it is repaired. We’ll leave and come back with enough Centrums to level the place. Promise.
Lucy: Movement!
Nellie smiled to herself, watching the feed from her rear cameras as something lowered itself slowly and quietly from the ceiling. Metal body, random pieces of fused armor, clearly a thing created from random pieces of leftover gear. Interesting. More so when you consider it had a thick cable running from the back and into one of the large vents up there.
Hello, weak point. Nice to meet you.
The metal claws it used as feet touched lightly down on the tiled floor with a slight click, and it froze, a single glowing light on the head watching her closely.
When she did not react, it moved a step closer, drawing back one long, bladed arm.
The next part was going to suck and was only possible because of the amount of modification she had. Still, it was going to really hurt on her one natural elbow.
Nellie sent a command, revering her knees and elbows as the double joints in the exo suit worked over time.
Her mechanical arm grabbed the attacker's elbow and twisted, ripping it off at the same time as her foot caught it in the chest, flinging it backward.
Leaping and twisting in the air, Nellie bit her lip as her joints reversed again. She landed knee-first on one of its legs, crushing the joints and mangling the entire leg.
Rolling away as it swung the remaining bladed arm at her, Nellie met the blow with her nano-machete and sent it flying.
The opponent turned to run back to the vent and froze.
The smiler sat in the vent, legs astride the cable and drool dripping down onto the umbilical.
“Ostie, that hurt!” Nellie hissed as she rubbed at her elbow. “I really need to avoid that in the future.”
“Kill me, I will not serve you,” The robotic voice surprised her.
“You can talk?” Nellie asked.
“You know I can, monster!” The robotic voice was garbled as static disrupted the cheap speaker.
“Actually, I don’t,” Nellie clarified. “I just got inside this place when you attacked me, remember?”
“Kill me,” It snarled again.
“Well, if you insist,” Nellie leveled the gun at the thing’s head.
“DEATH TO THE I.E.S.!” It roared and looked directly into the barrel.
“Say that again?” Nellie lowered the gun.
“You heard me, monster.” It tried to glower. The robotic face was just not up to it.
“What did they do to you?” Nellie asked gently. It seemed this might not be an enemy after all.
“Look at me!” It roared in her face.
“Are you an AI?” Nellie asked.
“No,” The robot collapsed back down to the floor. “They failed. So they did this to me.”
“Okay, still not telling me what they did, so I’m going to scan you. No sudden moves, or I shoot you. Got it?” Nellie said warily.
Not waiting for a response, Nellie scanned the metal body in front of her. Then she did it again.
And again.
The results did not change.
“Putain!” Nellie gulped, not wanting to throw up in her suit. “That’s obscene!”
“Don’t look,” The robotic voice almost whispered. “Please.”
“Sorry,” Nellie turned off the scan. “What were you? Human, Brackta?”
“I–I can’t remember.” It said. “I can’t remember anything about me. Just things.” It looked up at her. “Just kill me.”
“No,” Nellie shook her head. “I have a better idea.”
“Please, kill me!” It wailed. “I can’t exist… not like this.”
“No, of course, you can’t,” Nellie shook her head. “I have a much better idea. Do you know what a synthetic is?”
“Yes. I am not compatible,” It turned the mess of a head away. “They can’t interface with real flesh.”
“They can now,” Nellie said thoughtfully. “At least, when we do it.”
“We?” It asked, looking around. “You and the one in your ship?”
“She’s not in the ship,” Nellie laughed. “She’s right here.” Tapping one side of the metal helmet with one finger, it rang like a bell. That was a pretty serious design flaw, Nellie noted it for next time.
“Nanites?” The robot sat up. “Really?”
Nellie stretched out one hand, palm up. A small cube of silver rose out of it and then slowly covered her glove.
“Save me, and I will serve you for as long as I live,” The robot was on its knees. Well, one knee and one twisted mess. He also, embarrassingly, had his metallic forehead pressed to the floor.
“Can you look at the I.E.S. systems for us?” Nellie asked, really wishing he would stop the groveling. “I don’t want to risk Lucy, just in case they have some nasty code in there.”
“Anything,” The robot repeated.
“Right,” Nellie looked at the robot. “Two things. One, you fuck us over, I’ll kill you. Second, you don’t, and I will do everything I can to make things better for you.”
“Anything,” It repeated again.
“Let’s start with you explaining this umbilical.” Nellie pointed up into the vent. “Where does it go?”
“To the central power node,” It still spoke from the floor. “It is how I power this body.”
“That’s not going to work,” Nellie said with a shake of her head. “Please, get up.”
It sat up immediately. “We will need to get some things from the ship and make some changes here.”
“Of course,” It tried to stand, and Nellie gestured for it to remain sitting.
“Look, this is going to be long and fairly complicated, so just rest there for now.”
Lucy: One of the cent’s bodies should work, maybe the power cells from the suit of armor?
Nellie: That will be a good start, at least until we get off this fucking volcano.
“Are there many security systems still operating in this facility?” Nellie asked.
“Nothing,” The robot insisted. “I had to turn them off to get to areas that still had parts over the years. I did feel something yesterday, but that came from outside.”
“Yeah, we noticed that,” Nellie said wryly. “Why don’t you tell us what you remember while I send my little friend to go and get the parts we need?”
===<<<>>>===
The Robot’s Story: Transcribed for the record.
My first memories are primarily of the pain.
It was hard to think back then. Really, all I get is flashes of people and machines working on me. I was restrained, I think. Over the years, I’ve tried to remember the details, but the attempts all failed.
I think I’m a coward. I always look away at the last second. Like, I remember them removing my limbs. I can remember that, but I don’t remember what they looked like. I don’t even remember how many of them I had. Isn’t that weird? People should know how many limbs they are supposed to have.
I even tried closing off my sensors and that, making myself focus. It never worked. In the dark, I panic, so I turn them back on.
I do remember the first time I was in the dark like that. I remember the knife at my face and the pain. It was sharp, even with all the other pains. Then, one side of my vision went dark.
I saw my own eye as they lifted it away. Can you imagine that?
Then, the pain again, and I knew what was happening. Then it was just dark and pain. Everything just gets fuzzy after that.
For a long time.
I think—I think I lost my mind for a while. Do you think that can happen? That you can be so scared and so trapped, in so much pain, that your mind just kind of turns off for a while? I think it can. I think it did.
The transcription stops for ten minutes. The words of the Queen were private and are not a part of this record.
Sorry about that.
Thank you. I feel a bit better now. It was just a lot, you know, saying it out loud to someone for the first time.
The first clear memory after that, I’m sort of floating. I still can’t see, not really. I just kind of sense what is around me. It wasn’t much, but it was so nice after having nothing for so long. I think it might have been what pulled me back, you know?
Figures—I think they were people—are moving around the tank I am in. They talked, but I had no sound yet. I just sensed their mouths moving. I remember the exact second I fully ‘woke’ again. It was when one of them laughed. I can remember the sensor information like it was a second ago. The way their body shook. The way their head was thrown back. Someone slapped them on the back.
It was such a normal thing, you know? Someone laughing and joking. But they did it right next to me. I think they might have been one of the people who took me apart. They took me apart while I lay there in pain, unable to scream… and then, they laughed. I don’t know how long after the operation it was. A day? A week? A year?
Who knows.
All I know is thinking to myself that they did that or knew it was done to me. And they still laughed. Right there, next to me.
That was when I first tried to figure out how much of me was left.
I wanted to know what floated in that tank that they felt they could ignore it and laugh.
A brain, some spinal cord, and nerve fibers.
That is what was left.
Not even a whole brain. I don’t know how I know that; I just know it is right. They carved pieces off. Paired it down.
So it would fit easier.
I think—I think that is when they cut out who I was. The memories of who I was. I wonder about that a lot, you know. Did I have parents? Maybe I had a wife or a husband? Do my children wonder why I never came back?
Do I have children?
Do you think I had friends? I like to think I did. Maybe I laughed, and someone clapped me on the back. Just like they did.
I thought about that a lot over the next few weeks as they removed me from that tank and clamped more things on me. Made me something else.
At first, I wondered why they left the nerves, you know? What was the point?
But I learned that fast enough.
Once I could see, once I could hear.
They told me to make things move. A servo or a pump.
I tried. Really, I did. But they didn’t tell me HOW to do it.
Just do it!
Do it!
And I couldn’t.
Then, I learned what the nerves were for. They were for pain. So they could still hurt me if I failed. When I failed.
The sixth day I failed, they activated the pain… and then they left. It was hours, maybe days, before someone came in and turned it off.
I managed it a week later.
They made me feel pleasure.
That was what the nerves were for, too.
Pain if I failed or refused.
Pleasure if I did what they wanted.
Weeks turned into months.
Then into years. I think. It’s kind of hard to be sure. They took the calendar away when they noticed I paid too much attention to it.
I wasn’t allowed to do that.
That was a painful day. They kept making it worse, you know. Turning the levels up until I wanted to die every time they turned it on.
Motivation.
Then, one day, they came and fitted me with an arm. It was nice having a whole arm of my own. I thought things were going to get better. I looked forward to the following day.
Maybe I would get another arm.
Only the next day, the people didn’t come and give me another arm. Instead, they started to pack things away. The project was canceled. I overheard that. The people back at headquarters don’t think it will work long-term. Apparently, another team had a success, but the thing they made couldn’t be controlled—not really.
I remember the person who ran me. Who trained me. They looked over at me and shook their head. Then they said something that haunted me for the longest time. They said, ‘wasted my damn time,’ as if it was my fault.
A few days later, they stopped coming.
I waited, and I waited. I didn’t want to do something to make them punish me, you know? I was so afraid of the pain.
So I sat in the dark and waited.
But no one ever came.
The shameful truth is I only tried to move to get to the controls. I wanted to feel the pleasure again. It had been months, and I missed it so much. I could see the little green button, but it was too far away.
So, I tried to get to it.
I crawled with one arm across the desk. It took me days. The arm was really weak. It was only a demonstration tool, not meant to actually do anything.
Still, I got there.
I pushed the button, and nothing happened. The machine was off.
I would like to say I realized the futility of that act, but I didn’t. I pushed it over and over for days. Always hoping, always believing that this time, it would work.
It was a difficult time for me.
Pleasure, pain, it didn’t matter. I just wanted to FEEL something. It was like I was pushed back into the dark all over again. I hated my metal shell then. Hated it with my every waking moment.
Sometimes, I dreamt. I would dream of having a body, of being able to feel and see and smell as much as I wanted. But always, I would wake up back in this awful metal shell.
I tried to end it then, to rip myself free of the cable that gave me power and life. My arm was too weak, and the cable was too long.
The transcription was redacted at this point out of respect for the subject. The thoughts they shared at this point are not relevant to their story and are, therefore, considered private.
I built myself a new arm. It was my only thought at the time. My only plan.
I found a bit of a mirror and a box of parts. They were complicated, and my first few attempts were, frankly, pathetic.
Eventually, I got it right enough to work a bit.
Enough, anyway.
I grabbed that tether and pulled with every servo in my body.
The tether simply extended. They thought of that, I guess.
I made a new arm, stronger and more controllable, and then I replaced my original arm. I was strong then.
I could have ended it, I guess.
The strange thing was. I was proud. I had gotten myself arms again.
Strong arms. Strong enough to explore the room I was in. It was almost all I knew of the world. I mean, I knew what things were, but my only actual memories were of that room. When I made it to the ceiling and discovered the paneling, it was like I had found a whole new world.
Then, I found the vent!
I was slow and careful, and I saw all the other rooms I could reach. All right there, all just waiting to be explored. I even met the occasional maintenance droid up there. That was fun.
One day, I found a damaged one. It was out of power, but the parts were still good, so I used them to make more arms—four arms! It was a revelation.
That gave me the courage to enter those other rooms. Inside was a lot of random stuff that I frankly never learned to care about.
All I wanted was more parts. Parts meant more arms. Or better arms.
Eventually, I started to make legs instead. I don’t know why. I just did.
Part of me wanted legs, and the day I first stood up again was like… I don’t really have words for it.
This facility became my domain. Of course, the computer fought me. It didn’t want an experiment to get out, so it signaled for help repeatedly. It was irritating.
Also, I worried someone might come and take my parts away again. I found the communications system and took it apart, piece by piece. Then I did the same with the computer.
From then on, I ran this place.
It was a long time before the first of my parts failed. The ash was starting to get in, and the air. It destroys things, you see. It seems to just be what it does. I build things, and then it destroys them.
There isn’t much left here now.
When I sensed you entering the facility, I thought you were them. They had come back to push the pain button again. I always knew they would.
Part of me hoped they would.
Just so I could feel something.
But, anyway, I didn’t want my parts taken away again. I thought if I could kill you or make you kill me… it would finally be over.
I just, I just want to FEEL again.
Sorry.
Transcriber’s note: At this point, the Queen speaks again, and I will include it only because I think her attitude and words are worth recording for posterity.
Queen: I’m so sorry that all happened. If I could, I’d give you back everything they took from you. I can’t do that. (Long Pause) What I can do is give you a body you can feel with, a place to call home, and people who will look after you for as long as you want us to. Other than that, all I can offer is a promise. No one from the I.E.S. will EVER touch you again. Even if I have to kill you to prevent it.
Thank you.
END OF TRANSCRIPTION.
