15 - Wailing

Rogue AIs were looking to be this world’s monsters, Maya realized. Being pulled into the dimensional instability was a deadly filter for living organisms. One in a billion was most likely hyperbole, but it probably wasn’t far from the truth. If they survived the instability, they were in her own position. Running low on food and water, if they were sapient SIL ,that was.

Other lifeforms would wither away and die in a world that lacked a sun. Nothing grew, nothing lived. Even Maya felt a little sickened by the unchanging nature of the environment. No wind, no rain, no change in the intensity of the rainbow sky. It was all wrong and alien and after a week, Maya wanted blue skies and the smell of grass.

That just left the rogue AIs and the trash piles. It was a logical progression, Maya thought. In a world of metal and machinery, machines would begin dominating. It reminded her of a novel she’d once read, where one machine made another and eventually it paralleled biological evolution on Earth.

That thought gave Maya pause. Would it also mean there were carnivore AIs out there? She could still see the giant mining barge, seemingly oblivious to the battle she had just won, chewing away at a pile. The AI that had attacked her was small and low leveled, but given enough time…

It was not the best of ideas to have gone exploring with so little known about the world. Maya mused. She had a habit of getting herself into trouble with this whole exploring bullshit.

She glanced at the product of her ignorance. The side of the food truck was buckled in. It had missed the tire and gone for the fleshy part of the truck, crushing the weak sheet metal that made up the vehicle. Maya sighed and then spotted something. Liquid dripping from between the rented metal.

“Fuck,” Maya hissed, rushing to throw open the doors of the truck. She scrambled into the back and checked the large plastic tank that contained all her water.

“No, no, no!” Maya cried. She disconnected straps and pulled the fifty gallon tank forward. Misshapen metal punched a hole into the plastic above the halfway mark. Water dribbled out and already there was a thin layer on the metal flooring.

Maya ripped open a cabinet and dug into it, pulling out a stainless steel pot and rushing back to the leaking tank. She opened a nozzle in an attempt to tap off some of the excess water, all the while cursing.

In the end Maya estimated she lost half of her water. The tank itself was damaged and she slapped some duct tape on it, hoping that it would hold until she found a better solution.

She sat on the bumper of the truck and sighed. She looked down at her filthy legs and hands, then at her makeshift skirt and shirt that was already filling with holes. She laughed bitterly.

“Fuck,” she muttered. She got to her feet and walked over to the dead rogue AI. She still had to loot it.

“Loot!” she cried, but nothing happened. Maya reached forward and touched the metal corpse of the AI and a window popped up.

Loot? Y/N

“Yes,” Maya said.

Nothing occurred. Maya looked down at the machine, confused. Wasn’t there supposed to be some indication she had looted the corpse? The games Maya had played usually had a window open and then she’d have to transfer to the character’s inventory.

She paused and brought up her Inventory.

She had filled her inventory with all her perishable foods and tools, but there was about half a dozen spaces, one more now that the hammer was destroyed, still available. She saw that three remaining spaces had been filled.

Removing items from her Inventory to examine them wasn’t necessary, so Maya expanded the Inventory window and selected the first item.

Rogue AI Processor - low grade, Tier 1

She frowned at the information. What was a rogue AI processor? The main computer? The thinking part of an AI? Could she make her own AI? Maya sighed again, she knew what an item was, but that didn’t mean she knew what it did or how it worked.

The AI processor was a heavy chunk of metal with strange runic patterns on its surface, similar to the ones she’d seen on other machines. Another mystery to solve.

The second item displayed a numeral six and was labeled:

Tanamanium alloy blast plates - low grade, Tier 1

They were one foot square metallic plates and upon comparing it to the defeated rogue AI, Maya realized it was the metal that made up the AI’s body. She scanned the corpse of the AI, but beyond the wires and broken components spilling out of it’s removed head, the AI seemed to be whole.

“Where did this come from then?” Maya asked. She looked at the plates in her hand. They weren’t heavy, but they seemed tough. She wondered if she could make a set of armor out of it. Or maybe a weapon? A shield? “I’ll need to research a crafting station.”

Still puzzled, Maya kept searching the dead AI to see if her looting had removed the plates. She found no other damage to the mechanical creature and sat down looking at the plates again.

“Magic?” she wondered. Was this the Plunder Skill she had been awarded for killing the Boss AI in the ship? Did it mean she got free stuff from defeating enemies? Maya looked at the rogue AI again and smiled.

The Plunder Skill was giving her items that made up the rogue AI. That meant she could also dismantle and harvest parts from the defeated AI, itself. She had left the ship to find more power sources and the AI had to have some kind of battery or mana core within it.

The third item she looted from the corpse were low grade, Tier 1 components. There were ten of them and as Maya looked through each, none of their markings or serial numbers matched any she had memorized from the manuals. With an untold amount of Tier 1 components to be had, these were more or less junk.

The head of the AI Maya put into her Inventory. She had tried to do the same with the body, but one thing she had learned when cleaning out the corridors of the Hanganathorie was that there was a weight limit to what could be put into her Inventory. From the small experiments Maya had done, she discovered that all the items in her Inventory did not impede her in any way, but she was restricted to fifty kilograms per stack.

The bull sized rogue AI was definitely more than fifty kilograms. Maya tried moving it, but even with her enhanced strength she barely managed to rock the body. She had some ratchet straps and a chain in the truck, but she didn’t think it would do to just drag the body around after her.

Dismantling the creature seemed to be the best option, but she didn’t know where to begin. The body didn’t have any visible screws or clamps to disconnect. That made Maya wonder how the AI had seamlessly created its body. The Hangy’s Boss AI had looked like welded together junk, but this AI seemed more streamline and well thought out. There were no delicate pieces exposed to the air; everything was covered by blast plating.

So how did the AIs evolve then? How did they create more pieces for themselves? She remembered the wrecked mana core room, it had seemed like the AI had trashed the place and most likely recycled components and machinery to make its body. Maya scanned the trash piles, the world was filled with things grabbed from the multiverse, so did the AIs just harvest what they needed?

But that didn’t explain how the ramming AI’s form appeared to be custom made. Did it grow it? Did it have some kind of manufacturing ability?

Maya didn’t know. She took out the tablet and began taking scans of the rogue AI. Then she took images of the surrounding trash piles and made a map to mark the location of the body. She was not going to take the corpse just yet, after all she was still on a mission.

The light that had taken her away from the Hanganathorie was still out there. After getting her truck beaten and losing half of her water, Maya was determined to find that light.

She felt the slight rumble in the ground again and looked toward a pile. The mining barge was still out there, probably too big to worry about the smaller AIs. Perhaps, as she had thought, it carried weapons to defend itself. It was a high grade, Tier 1 machine, did that mean it also had an AI controlling it, like Nanaseto? The thought of speaking to someone other than herself was a powerful fantasy, but everything here was dangerous.

Maya took a moment to try and hammer straight some of the bent sheet metal with her crowbar. She needed better tools, but she managed to get the truck side looking less ragged. It wasn’t pretty and Pops would be angry, but what could she do?

She glanced at the dead AI. “Definitely doesn’t have insurance,” she muttered.

***

Caution was the word of the day. A bit late, but better late than never, Maya thought. She eased the truck around another trash pile, either it was her imagination or the piles themselves were getting bigger.

Perhaps the Hangy Trash Pile was a mere hill compared to some unseen Himalayan-esque range of trash piles further east. One could only hope. The idea of this trash world’s geography burrowed into Maya’s mind.

Everything she had seen currently was flat plains. There were no dunes, no raised elevated parts, just plains. There were the trash piles that gave the land texture, but beyond that. Just gray flat plains. The more she thought on it, the more unnatural the world was.

Not only was there breathable oxygen, but there were no plants to make it. There was normal Earth gravity, there was no star in the sky, there were no weather patterns, and there was no wind at all. Surely, such a planet couldn’t exist. The little she knew about weather patterns was that heat coming off the sun warmed the air of a planet, warm air rose, cold air fell. The interaction between warm and cold created weather.

Yet, here was a planet with breathable oxygen and no weather. The air was comfortable, so something was regulating the temperature.

A distant roar snapped Maya out of her thoughts. She immediately stopped the truck, turned off the engine, and peered into the gloomy darkness for movement.

The sound erupted again and Maya listened intently. It wasn’t an animalistic roar, but it sounded like a klaxon, a wail of warning she associated with a tornado siren. A long wail that rose and fell, telling of danger.

Maya shuddered at the sound. What was making it?

The question was answered a few moments later when she saw a shape in the gloomy darkness, silhouetted against the sky like the mining barge. Whereas the barge was massive and bulky, the creature walking between two trash piles was tall and slender, almost human like in appearance, except it stood about fifty feet tall.

“What the fuck,” Maya said. She pulled out the tablet and used its superior camera to scan and record the walking monstrosity. She was comforted by the fact the creature was a fair distance from her. Several piles lay between her and it, and it moved with slow deliberate steps.

The camera brought up a humanoid body made of metal and piping. Energy crackled within its torso and three long legs kept the creature upright. It had long arms that hung nearly to the ground, occasionally tipping forward to walk on all five limbs. What made Maya shudder was its head. A blinking red light strobed in the center of what seemed to be a turret. She could tell a gun barrel when she saw one and the mere sight of the object told her it was deadly.

Perhaps it was one of her Skills firing off, but Maya knew that the creature was pure danger.

Rogue AI SRND99Z - Level 20 - mid grade, Tier 1

“Yeah, stay the fuck out of its way,” Maya whispered. She kept recording the creature as it slowly disappeared behind another trash pile. As it moved, it continued to wail its klaxon cry. The sound echoed through the piles and sent icicles of fear down Maya’s spine.

“One thing you need to know in life is when to cut your losses and bail,” Pops’ words rang in her head. “Except for family. You never bail on family. Unless its your Uncle Tim. To hell with him.”

Maya rewatched the footage of the walking horror machine and came to a conclusion. She was unprepared for life outside of the Hanganathorie.

The mining barge and now this rogue AI, she didn’t think she could crowbar them to death. There were definitely more rogue AIs out there in the world, she just hadn’t run into them yet. Their levels were rising and the danger they presented was increasing. She could see that they weren’t stationary, as the Hanganathorie’s rogue AI had been, instead they were wandering. For what? Most likely prey. Were they the carnivores of the AIs? Were they after sources of mana? Her ship was spewing mana out from its unshielded core.

Maya waited an additional half an hour to ensure that the walking wailing AI didn’t return. It had been heading more in a southwesternly direction, not in the direction of her ship. Hopefully. She figured it would be walking away from her and she could sneak back home and hide away in the Hangy until… Until what?

Until she died. Most likely.

She sighed. Circles. She was moving in circles. She needed to break her cyclical thoughts.

There were monsters out in the world and if all she did was hide, then she would eventually die. If she challenged the world, then she would probably die as well. All roads lead to her dying, but one road lead to her at least trying to survive. She wondered if her family was facing the same dilemma.

Pops would not hide. He had been at home with her mother and brother. He would not let monsters run amok in the neighborhood he loved so much. He would fight. If there was anyone in the world who would fight in a post apocalyptic world, it was Pops.

Could she do the same?

Maya stared out at the trash piles.

Low on food. Low on water. Filthy. And very, very alone.

There were monsters in the world. They would always be there. She had to either face them or hide. She would not hide. She would not give up. She would fight them. She would survive.

Maya started the truck and pulled forward. She would find the light and see what it was. If there were more rogue AIs then she would fight them also.

“Fear is the mind killer,” Maya muttered. What was that from? She didn’t remember.

A trash pile lay before her, massive and blotting out the sky, she had to detour around it and when she finally came out on the other side, she saw the light. Or what produced the light.

“Well, now,” Maya muttered. “I guess turning back would have been a bad idea.”