14 - The Piles

A lone light in the darkness. A beacon to the lost traveller. Maybe a trap by some alien that survived the Dimensional Instability. Maya was of several thoughts. To go or not to go, and risk losing out on potential loot.

The lit signage meant functioning technology. Be it a billboard or a slew of robots. That meant whatever it was had power. Thanks to the downloads of various manuals and maintenance cubes, Maya understood that mana batteries were not like normal chemical batteries. The tablet that she had found was a testament to that, it had been there for hundreds of years yet it still worked normally. She needed power.

The trek down the Hangy Trash Pile was uneventful. Maya cursed her new bed as it seemed to get stuck on every edge and by the time she had gotten it to the bottom of the pile and to the truck, it was filthy.

Pops would be shitting kittens, Maya thought as she sat in the truck. It had been nearly a week since she had arrived and the truck was already becoming a sty. Grey dust covered the truck, she had been sleeping fitfully on the bench seat and her bedding was lying on top of it, and in an effort to conserve water, she hadn’t washed any of her dishes, because of the water. Not because she hated washing dishes and cleaning.

Maintenance for the truck was out of the question, as she had nothing to keep up the maintenance. Even if the tire pressure was low, she had no way of increasing it. No extra oil, no more cleaning wipes, and no more paper towels. Without proper tools, knowledge was useless.

That not only applied to the truck maintenance, but also the maintenance cubes she had downloaded. The ability manuals she had gained from the security room had successfully filled her head with information on how to keep machinery running, but there were no tools to do so. Without actually doing the work, she couldn’t gain the ability. It was an odd impasse.

This all lead her back to power. A part of her mind was making connections on how to use an external power source to jury rig the door mechanisms of the ship’s locked rooms to open. The maintenance manuals, combined with the illegal knowledge cube of Lock-picking, said it was possible.

As in any good game, playing the rogue, the thief, the swash buckling woman of mystery, Maya had figured the ability of lock-picking would open the world to her. It hadn’t. Locks weren’t what she had been expecting, mechanical in nature with tumblers and such. No, space faring societies, it seemed, had evolved beyond simple mechanical locks. They were all electronic. They all needed power. Therefore she could not open them.

The tablet she had found was powered, but she knew that its power output was in the low range. If there were more mana in it, then the batteries would have corrupted faster.

Mana as a power source still confused Maya. Sure, the underlying aspect of using a renewable, very abundant energy source was fascinating, but the complete disregard of electricity to power anything was confounding. Why not use electricity? From what she understood, any advanced society would have been able to make electrical energy very easily, but the manuals and Nanaseto had stated everything ran off of mana.

A knowledge byproduct, Maya discovered, was that mana that a SIL used was different from mana used by electronics. Ambient mana was a raw form of mana that was processed by cores to be used by electronics, but ambient mana could also be processed by SILs to give them magical abilities. The same mumbo jumbo magic energy distilled into two different kinds of power. Which ultimately meant that Maya could not recharge batteries with mana she technically had, but still didn’t know how to use.

The truck rumbled to life. Maya shifted gears and eased forward. The feeling of trepidation at leaving the Hanganathorie was more intense than she imagined. Six days had been spent in its shadow, six days she had been pillaging the vessel, bleeding and nearly dying within its hull, and now she had to leave it. It wasn’t home, but it was a sort of safety.

The giant piles of trash greeted her.

***

“If you’re gonna drive, drive. Don’t think you can do two things at once when you’re blazing down the road in a hunk of metal weighing a ton,” Pops’ other driving advice that had complemented the no eating while driving rule.

Maya pulled out her phone as she scanned the images she had taken of the location of the light. It was several trash piles over, but she was looking to shorten the trip to it. From above, the distance didn’t seem that great at all, but as Maya drove through the piles, she began to realize the distances involved.

Perhaps there was something about distances in this dimensional plane that were different. She remembered the suddenness that the piles had arrived when she had first travelled east. She had been on the gray plains for hours when suddenly she’d arrived to the piles.

As half an hour passed by, Maya worried she was lost. She glanced at her phone and at the piles that dotted the landscape. They all looked the same. There were no noticeable difference between one pile and another, besides the one she had left behind. All the piles were just old junk upon old junk.

She stopped the truck and studied the pictures she had taken. She then exited to figure out which direction she had been traveling. It should have been easy, but she realized with the gloomy light and the towering piles, she could have easily turned around. The vertical streaks did not a compass make.

As she compared one trash pile to another, she paused when the ground began to rumble. Earthquake? No, it was a distant boom. Not an explosion, but as if a heavy weight had settled.

Maya shuddered. She had thought the trash piles were solid, even when she had discovered the upper portions were not as stable. With the black lightning bringing more items, who knew what the additional weight would do to the stability of a pile. One overly heavy object might topple everything.

“I don’t wanna die in a trash avalanche,” Maya muttered. She looked down at her phone again, trying to find some kind of landmark to orientate herself with.

The boom came again and Maya felt it through the soles of her feet. The sole benefit of being barefoot.

“Just my luck,” Maya said, glancing around. “It’s probably recycling day.” A boom vibrated the ground again. Maya felt a trickle of fear. “Either that or its a T-rex.”

Boom.

“Definitely getting faster and closer,” Maya said. She moved to open the truck and her eyes scanned the trash piles. Like a deer in headlights, Maya froze.

Through the gloomy half light of the world, Maya saw a great hulking shape blot out a portion of the sky. The trash piles were big, but a shadow rose up seemingly challenging it in size.

Maya’s mouth dried up and her knees began to buckle. She held onto the door and stared with open terror and wonder. A distant boom resounded as one of a dozen long legs rose up and fell, propelling the creature forward.

No, it was no creature. Maya realized. It was another mechanical monstrosity. Far bigger, far more terrifying than the peacock turtle she had battled in the ship. She continued to gape as tendrils whipped out and punched into a trash pile, dragging scraps and twisted metal into a glowing red maw between its legs.

A long groaning screech of distressed metal filled the air as the dozen legged mechanical beast stuffed its gullet full of trash. Strange runes and lights began to flicker along its body, energy coalescing at bulging points and arcing into the air.

Then from its backside, relatively speaking, erupted shredded material. As if someone had launched confetti from the creature’s rear end, a spray of loose material blasted out, covering the gray plains with a coating of chunky monster waste.

“Gross,” Maya muttered. She reached into her Inventory and pulled out Vaanaak’s tablet. She had discovered the low quality of her own phone, but also realized she could get a better quality image from the tablet.

She aimed it at the beast and began recording.

“Crikey, look at that beauty,” Maya intoned in a bad Australian accent. The image on the tablet shook and her voice wavered for a moment. “Though it needs more fiber in its diet. Its body is literally a machine. It can’t be a good thing to eat all that trash. Trash in; messy shit out, as Pops says.”

The image on the tablet was indeed far better than the camera on her phone. It seemed human tech didn’t hold a candle to lizard tech. She zoomed in on the creature and the video program promptly changed the lighting levels so that she could see the creature fairly well, even as it was backlit by the rainbow sky.

Tosmapa Heavy Industries Automated Mining Barge - Far Reaches Class - high grade, Tier 1

Maya nearly swooned as the message appeared. It wasn’t a rogue AI. It was just an automated mining barge, doing automated mining barge things. With the newfound knowledge, Maya continued recording the barge as it slowly chewed through the trash pile. Occasionally it ejected what she assumed were materials it did not want or need.

If it were a miner, then it would be after metal. Which meant whatever it was leaving behind was most likely non-metals. Maya made a note to one day check if it was leaving behind organics. One day, not now, probably not this year. She shuddered looking at the machine as it brought more trash to its maw.

It might be a machine, but the world she knew had gotten more dangerous. Who knew what the aliens that built the machine would have added on as protection against massive metal eating space whales or whatever.

Although it showed up as a mining barge, Maya also didn’t know if the System’s labeling would show it becoming a rogue AI. For all she knew, one day the label could just switch from machine to rogue AI and then it would go about trying to kill her. More questions that needed answering.

Maya used the tablet and scanned the creature. She found an option that was labeled “3D” and immediately tapped it. The image of the barge lifted off the screen and floated before her. Maya had to smile, because this was pure sci-fi. Not killer robots sci-fi, but holograms and fancy computer sci-fi.

She spun the image, discovering it showed all aspects of the machine. The detail was extraordinary. It was beyond just what she could make out, the colors had been adjusted so that it seemed to be displayed in full daylight. She could make out alien words upon the metal hull, bulging parts that stuck out, and what appeared to be a control center in the front portion of the machine.

The metal pieces it was pulling into its maw were revealed in bright detail and the glowing maw seemed like the gates of hell. It was a churning mass of spinning blades. She could see the trash being shredded apart and before it hit what she could only describe as a furnace, the non metallic items were shunted off to be blasted out from its backside.

Maya set down the tablet and shuddered again. Incredible machinery, but also scary as hell. She looked to her truck and rubbed its hood.

“One day, Bonita. One day you’ll be a walking death machine too.” She laughed and gave the metal eating barge one more look.

Her laughter died in her throat as she saw a plume of gray dust rising in the gloom. She saw the dark shape of something racing in her direction. It was large and it was mechanical.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Maya cried, jumping back into the truck. “Not again!”

She cranked the engine and with record speed had the pedal down and gears shifted. The truck engine roared as it jerked forward and plowed into the gloomy darkness.

Her view of the mechanical creature was immediately lost, but Maya figured if she got enough speed and distance, she’d be safe. Running away was the best option. A repeat of the Hangy’s rogue AI was not something she wanted to experience again. With no Nanaseto to repair her, any injures was probably a death sentence.

The loose gray dirt caused her truck to fishtail and Maya cursed, slowing slightly. She forgot about the mining barge, she forgot about finding the neon light, all she wanted to do was go as fast as she could to lose the mechanical creature.

Boom!

Maya’s world spun as the truck was struck. There had been a time in her teens when her mother and she had been in an accident. Maya had insisted on going on getting her phone checked out and they had been traveling there, when a car had run an intersection. One moment it was a low grade argument about how Maya’s mother didn’t listen to her and the next it was shattered glass and stunned pain. Maya had at least worn a seatbelt at the time.

Her head slammed against the side window and rebounded, then she collided with the steering wheel and cried out in pain. Maya dragged her focus back into the world, pushing aside the numb and confusion that were trying to overwhelm her. She was in danger, she had to focus.

Boom!

The truck stalled out and then it shook as it was hit again. Maya franticly looked into the side mirror to see a four legged creature ramming the side of the truck. It was the size of a bull and shaped like a puck with four thin legs. Its head consisted of a rounded metal disc that it used to ram into the side of the truck.

Rogue AI HUYN87 - level 4 - low grade, Tier 1

The design of the rogue AI was laughably stupid looking, but Maya was too terrified to laugh. The truck shuddered again as the AI backed up and charged.

Fear and pain clogged her mind. The Hanganathorie’s rogue AI had nearly killed her. She had been lucky. This creature that was attacking her truck was not a drone or a minion, it was a full rogue AI. That meant it was similar to the rogue AI she had defeated.

The truck shuddered again and Maya looked at the buckling sheet metal. A twisted image of Pops’ cartoon face could now be seen as the metal bulged.

Fear burned away as anger rose up. This was her truck. She needed this truck. If she lost the truck, she was lost. It was her home. She couldn’t let her home be destroyed by some idiotic ramming rogue AI. Pops would be pissed to see the damage to his baby.

She wasn’t the weak girl who had lucked her way to victory. She was stronger and faster now. She had stats, in fact, she had twice as many levels as the Rogue AI. She wasn’t the low leveled one here.

The door swung open and Maya pulled herself onto the roof of the truck. It swayed as the Rogue AI rammed into it again, this time the screech of distressed metal was heard. The water tank was on the passenger side of the truck, where the Rogue AI was striking. She couldn’t lose her water.

The hammer appeared in her hand and as the rogue AI backed up to prepare for another charge, Maya called out at it.

“Hey, asshole!” she yelled.

The Rogue AI paused and it tilted its disc shaped head at her. It wasn’t a full disc, she realized. It was a crescent shape with the red lights she had seen from the Hanganathorie’s rogue AI lighted up in the bottom of it. She didn’t know much about AIs, but she knew those red lights were its eyes or sensors.

Her hand was already pulled back and Maya launched her hammer at the red lights. She had plenty of baseball practice in the day and her aim was good. Pops was a die hard American, baseball, picnics, shooting guns, and blowing up a piece of America on its birthday kind of guy.

Maya fell into a cliche. She didn’t know her own strength. True, she knew that she had gained muscle mass and had been able to move things she would have struggled with before, but she hadn’t fully tested her strength. The anger fueled hammer shot out in a blink, crossing the distance and then slamming dead center into the AIs red cluster of lights. The strike was so fast and so powerful that the hammer shattered into a rain of plastic and metal. The rogue AI staggered, its back legs giving out and it sat in the dirt, stunned.

Maya didn’t take a moment to bask in her strength, she had to move. Animals could be stunned, but machines? She didn’t think she had that much time to gloat over her own power. Indeed, the rogue AI was beginning to get to its feet.

There was no way she was letting that happen. Maya’s bare feet landed onto the flat back of the creature, a shock of pain raced up her legs, but she ignored it. Her extra weight caused the AI’s legs to buckle again and it hit the ground in a puff of gray dust.

The AI was a cylindrical disc, about three feet thick and covered in smooth metal. She didn’t see any weak points, this wasn’t like the AI in the Hangy, here there were no exposed circuits. But there was a neck and a head and there were joints between them.

“Everything’s got a weakness,” Pops used to say. “For most guys its the balls, hit ‘em there and that’s half the battle. Now if a nut shot don’t get them crying, then hit them in the trachea. All the muscle in the world can’t protect that piece of real estate. That’ll collapse their larynx and most likely kill them, so do it only when you mean it.”

Everything had a weakness. Maya thought and then stabbed her crowbar down at where the ramming head connected to the body. She felt a bit of resistance then the crowbar sunk it. She immediately levered the crowbar back, putting her weight on it. There was a crack and a hiss and then the AI let out a mewling cry. She didn’t know why a machine would do that, but the other rogue AI had also cried out when it was dying. Perhaps it was trying to tell her it surrendered.

Maya ignored the cry and slammed the crowbar back down again. Then used it as a lever once more, the machine crunched and cracked. She yelled, feeling the almost electric feel in the air.

Mana. She realized she had to channel mana through her body, like Nanaseto had said. Channeling would make her stronger.

She didn’t know how to accomplish it, but Maya focused on the feeling of energy in the air. Mana was all around her. She just needed to suck it up and use it. She needed to send it through her body, through her veins, she needed-

CRACK!

Maya slipped as suddenly the resistance was gone. She fell painfully onto her knee and then lost balance, falling off the back of the AI and landing onto the gray dirt in a cloud of dust. She heard the crowbar clang away.

As she was still in danger, Maya clamored to her feet, trying to remember if she had any tools that could be used as a weapon. Some rock hard stale yeast bread she had forgotten to put into her Inventory was the only thing she could think of.

It wasn’t necessary, though, Maya saw. The head of the rogue AI laid against the wheel of the truck. It had been ripped clean off of its body. Maya let out a laugh.

“Damn, I’m becoming a bad ass,” she announced.

Rogue AI HUYN87 - level 4 - low grade, Tier 1

Defeated

350 EXP

Lootable

Maya’s victory dance stuttered to a halt as she read the message.

“Lootable?” she asked.