27 - Farmer

“Silence!” Maya shouted over Nanaseto’s screaming.

The AI immediately stopped its noise and turned to Maya.

“There is an incursion of a rogue AI in our vicinity. I suggest the use of deadly force,” she said.

“Jesus, Tender. Do all the girls scream when they see you?” she muttered, massaging her ear. “Look, Nan. That’s Tender. Once a proud bartender who has fallen on hard times due to dimensional bomb explosions and asshole robot kaijus looking for tasty mana.”

“I think my presence is not welcomed, boss,” Tender said.

“Bullshit,” Maya responded. “This is my ship, technically, and you’re welcomed anywhere on it. Stop being coy, you’re my right hand robot.”

“Okay, boss.”

“This is highly unorthodox,” Nanaseto stated. She looked at Tender with what amounted to AI disgust.

“Ha! Welcome to my life, Nan. It’s been a busy three weeks since we last talked. A lot has happened,” Maya grinned. She was excited to see Nanaseto, even if their meeting and time spent together had been brief. The demonic doctor after all had saved her life and provided her with the chance to survive.

“I am happy to know that you have survived,” Nanaseto said, smiling once again. “I hope to hear all about it.”

Maya nodded and rolled her shoulders. “I’ll give you the deets later, but for now, it’s business first.”

“What do you require?”

“I need to know if the mana core we’ve set up is good enough for you. I need you to run diagnostics on all the remaining machinery here. Finally, I need you to check me out because apparently my body’s wonky and I’m not channeling mana like I should.” Maya said. “Oh, right. Food. We’re running on fumes here. I need you to do your magic and create something edible for Bell and I. Also whatever you know about algae and making that stuff grow, because the more we have of that, the better off we’ll be.”

The AI took it all in stride and nodded. “The mana that is being provided is more than sufficient to power all my systems. I shall run a full diagnostic and it will take about an hour. I will, unfortunately, be unavailable during that period.”

“That’s cool. The diagnostic is important. I’ve got some mechanic abilities now, but Tender here is more adept than I am. So, the faster we fix whatever is wrong, the better off we’ll be.”

“I will start immediately,” she said and looked at Tender. “Watch out for this one.”

“Wait-“

Nanaseto vanished. Maya sighed. “Well, so much for the girl talk and hair braiding.” She glanced at Tender. “I never asked, but you’re a rogue AI now, aren’t you?”

“I believe so. Although I still have my primary programming as a bartender from the pub, I feel… less hinderance or constraint in deciding what to do,” Tender finally said.

“Free will is awesome, right?”

“It’s not entirely free will. I still follow your orders.”

“But I’m not your boss anymore. The pub is destroyed,” she said.

Tender paused. “I see,” he finally said. There seemed to be hesitation on the AI’s part. The articulating head looked at her, confused.

Maya patted Tender’s metallic shell. “If you want. I can hire you. How about that? I mean, there’s nothing to prevent me from hiring workers right? Let’s say… Chief Operations Officer of the Sullivan Survival Society. You’ll be my second in command. Run the day to day affairs, if you choose.”

The AI processor bobbed up and down. “I would like that. You shall still be my boss?”

“Hell yeah. We’re bros to the end, bud. At least you don’t scream when you see another of your kind.”

“I did scream upon meeting rogue AI GBN125B.”

“Let’s not tell anyone about that,” she said.

***

“Missed out on all the juicy loot, Bell,” Maya said as she and Tender exited the ship via the hole.

Bell looked up at her from where he sat, a crossbow in his larger hands and a sword and shield in the smaller. Junior was on the ground before him.

“Never asked, but do you have the Plunder Ability?” she asked.

“That’s a rude question and no. I don’t have the Plunder ability.” There seemed some jealousy in his voice. Maya smiled. “That’s a System Ability rarely granted.”

“Hot damn, I’m swimming in awesome System stuff, ain’t I?”

“Is your cursed AI doctor activated?” Bell asked, changing the subject.

“Yup, Nan’s all juiced up and ready to rumble. You should go chat with her and see if she’s got tips on algae growing. I’m sure she can help in its production.”

“The only reason this algae is still alive is because the mana I’ve been channeling into it. AIs cannot channel mana and care little for biological life,” Bell snapped.

“Yeesh. Fine.”

“I care for Boss’ continued existence,” Tender said.

“Aww, you’re a sweetie, Tender,” Maya said. “Let’s haul some of the stuff into the ship. I’m still curious about the whole manufacturing thing. Maybe if Bell stops being a broody algae hen for a hot minute, we can set up something to make Junior big, strong, and tasty.”

“Manufacturing?” Bell asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Yeah, man. We found the rogue AI’s manufacturing module. Lets us make itty bitty rogue AI parts. But since it’s a suped up engineering module, I figure we can probably make regular old System Tech components with it. Right, Tender?”

“Yes, the manufacturing of both components are very similar, albeit they cannot be used interchangeably.”

“We can also start making a room for Junior. Growing boys need privacy, otherwise there’ll be a lot of awkward moments, trust me.” Maya said.

Bell looked at the ship and she could see trepidation in his gaze.

“We made a detour before coming back,” Maya said. “I mean that ship is dark as hell, so we’ve got the lights up and running again on the main areas between here and the new mana core room. Most of the lights still function, so it isn’t a death trap anymore. It’ll make carrying things inside easier.” Maya paused and then pulled open her inventory. “Oh, right. Do you know what this is? It says Tier 2 resource, some kind of ore.”

Maya summoned the zaurtaium ore into her hands. The five kilo block of material was pitch black with specks of red, that seemed to glow, within it. Bell looked up and stared at it quizzically. Maya tossed it at him and he dropped his crossbow and hurriedly caught the ore.

“Don’t just throw that around!” Bell cried out, clutching the ore.

“What is it? It says it can make components,” Maya said.

“For you it says that, for me it says it can be used to create mid grade, Tier 2 potions.”

Maya furrowed her brow. “Hold on a moment. It says different things to different people?” she asked.

“It’s the System and this is a Tier 2 material,” Bell said. “This was a loot drop?”

“Yeah, the boss rogue AI had it on him.”

“Tier 2 materials are far different than the abundant Tier 1 materials. Everything you see here is made of Tier 1, because it is cheap and it is plentiful,” Bell cradled the ore in one hand and summoned a sickle like sword in his other. He had a lot of weapons in his Inventory and he wasn’t keen on sharing his former friends possessions. The sword was about three feet long and curved, the metal shone a reddish color and she could see pale white glowing runes upon its surface.

“Nice sword.”

“This is a mid grade, Tier 2 sword. Habamona Doratun was its previous owner. He was considered a gifted swordsman, level 40.” Bell swung the sword and it cracked with energy. She watched as the curved blade seemed to multiply in the air, a white afterimage followed behind the arc of the weapon. At the end of the swing, the pale blade kept moving, flashing out across the air and hitting the gray dirt twenty feet from Bell. The ground exploded in a cloud of dust.

“Damn,” Maya said, impressed.

“The sword is made of zaurtaium and basnolium, together they make an alloy that holds an enchantment very well, not the best but good for the cost.” Bell stated.

“So, it’s valuable?”

“For mid grade warriors and craftspeople, yes.”

“Why does it just say that its good for component making, then?”

“Although you have Evaluation, the System is also taking into account the Abilities you have. It seems your Abilities are geared more toward using System Tech,” disgust, “and mine is devoted toward alchemy. Therefore you are seeing what you can use it for.”

Bell handed her back the ore and she stared at it.

“That’s one of the limitations of the System. It’s not going to tell you everything. Most of it comes from sheer experience. Take that ore for example, for you it says its good for components, for me it says it good for alchemy, but from what I’ve read it’s also good for enchanted explosives and ammunition.”

“A lot of properties for a rock,” Maya said.

“It’s a Tier 2 ore,” Bell answered. “Tier 2 is essence that has been shaped by mana. The mutable building blocks of the multiverse.”

“So Tier 2 materials make Tier 2 stuff?” Maya asked.

“Not necessarily. Tier 2 materials can be crafted into Tier 3 items, with the right skills, effort, and mastery. But Tier 2 can be wasted and made into Tier 1 items. If you use this to make System Tech components, it’ll be a waste.”

“But it says I can.”

“You can also use this mid grade sword,” Bell held up the sickle sword, “as an ass scratcher too. You can use it to cut your meat. You can-”

“Yeah, I got it. Wasteful. How do I get more information on this stuff, then?” she asked.

“Education and Abilities, but even Abilities won’t completely cover all of it. Education is best. I spent six years learning tier essence material identification and mana trace mapping,” Bell said.

“All of that just went over my head,” Maya replied.

“My family was large and well established in the alchemy field. We started young; by the time we were out of the creche, we were being schooled to take up the family trade.”

“Did you want to be come an [Alchemist]?” Maya asked.

“It was my family’s trade,” he replied.

“Doesn’t answer the question,” Maya said and looked up at the sky. “I can understand if you didn’t want to follow in the family trade. For my family it was business or the military. My father was a soldier for twenty years, retired and started up a food truck business with my mother. We sold food to people and we were good at it, but I was young when I was made to work with my parents. I had brothers who wanted to be like my father. My younger brother, by a year, joined the army to follow in my father’s steps. My youngest brother was going to do the same.”

“Soldiering is an honorable trade,” Bell said.

“I suppose if there are mana mutations and super powered people running around. My father wanted me to join the military too, but I decided to go to college to study business. My mother was a business manager for a small company before she and my father started their own. So I guess I still followed the family trade too, but honestly. I wasn’t happy about it.”

“What did you want to do instead?” Bell asked.

“I don’t know. Something that had an impact, I think,” Maya said.

“I wanted to be a [Farmer].” Bell said.

“Farmer?”

“Not a simple food producing [Farmer] but an alchemist [Farmer],” Bell said. “I loved studying plants and growing them, hence the [Gardener] Ability. The growing of alchemical plants is a very difficult occupation, especially on a commercial level. My family has been in the alchemy business for nearly a thousand years. The Family Head fought to retake our planet from the Outsiders. She is a Tier 3 [Alchemist] and will continue to lead our family for thousands of years to come.”

“Damn,” Maya whistled.

“Once Integration is completed in your universe, it will be those with high Tiers and levels who will carve out their own empires, politically or commercially. The Domakun family is synonymous with alchemy, but we have stagnated. There are new ways of doing things, but the Head refuses to listen to them. We still make so much credits that she does not want to change things.

“I had an argument with my mother about it and was sent on the expedition to think on my dedication to the family. As I was from the main branch of the Family and unmarried, I had to go.”

“Do you miss them?” Maya asked.

“Desperately so.”

“Me too.”

They both sighed and stared up at the sky.

“It might not be much, but we can start up the algae farm,” Maya said. “I’ve been looking at the ship map and I’ve found a space that seems good. Wanna go check it out?”

Bell hesitated as he looked at the ship and then nodded. “Yes.”

***

“There’s a lot of spaces on the ship that need to be explored. But first thing’s first. The farm,” Maya said as they headed down a corridor. It was on the same level as the hole in the ship and from what Maya could tell from the map, around the same area of the medical room and battery room. “Junior’s going to be a big boy, so we’re gonna need a large spot for him. I don’t know the conversion rates for food creation by Nanaseto, but it’s probably not one to one. I mean she took all my clothes to fix my eye and other stuff.”

Tender strode before them, illuminating the corridors. On his back were stacked most of the materials and supplies they had salvaged from the pub. The lights in the corridor were active, but most of the bulbs were burned out. Maya made a note to begin replacing them with fresher ones, but the only method she had found to check them was sending them power and then physically checking them in batches. There had to be a panel somewhere to allow her to know all the statuses of the machinery on the ship. Maybe the bridge, space ships had bridges, right? With cool captain chairs.

Maya made another note.

“Anyways, this is the largest room on this level. It’s pretty empty too.” Maya said. Tender marched to large sliding doors. They squealed opened and the large AI entered the room.

As with the corridor, the room was suffering from a lack of sufficient light, but Bell and she could make out what the room had been. A ship of a few hundred needed a place to eat and they stood in the cafeteria or mess or whatever the nautical, space-ical, term was used.

The room was bare, it seemed no one had the munchies before heading into another dimension. Maya was surprised by the usual lack of dust in the ship, she had been expecting dust covering everything, but it all remained fairly clean.

Maya felt odd looking into the room. It felt like any cafeteria she had ever entered, from high school or college. There were scores of round tables with half a dozen seats around them. The mess hall was huge, so wide she couldn’t see the other end.

“We gave it a little look-see before we headed out to meet you,” Maya said walking into the room. Her voice echoed in the vast chamber. “This place falls within range of the mana battery room, so we can power it with the core. Nan says she doesn’t need all that much power, so we’ve got excess. We’ll start on replacing the lights and then setting up more lights for Junior’s comfort.

“I think we can have this spot not only be the farm, but since its on the Hole level and there’s set of stairs in here that leads to the medical room, it might be our main staging area. You’ll probably be spending a lot of time here and I still need to learn a lot from everyone here, so we all need to be in shouting distance of one another.

“What do you think?”

Maya looked to Bell who stood by the entrance, holding the tub with Junior in it. He walked into the mess hall and looked around.

“It seems acceptable,” he said.

“And I thought Tender had the silver tongue.”

Bell gave a confused look. “Silver?”

“Never mind. Let’s get to work, boys. Time is money and money is worthless here.”