06 - Rainbow Sky Hellscape Roads

“Oh, you’re still alive,” Maya said as she looked into a secured room. It had occurred to her that she hadn’t checked up on the roach rogue AI that she had captured when battling the Roach King all those weeks ag.

Rogue AI NN4582A was a dog sized roach that she had defeated but not killed. She could technically still kill it and that would give her some experience points, but the reason she had saved it had been to study the rogue AI core and see what made them tick.

Then Shen had come and all her plans had been tossed aside.

Maya squatted down beside the broken rogue AI. She had smashed its ‘spine’ and rendered it immobile, but the core and power supply were still intact. She didn’t know how intelligence cores were, but a low grade core, unless programmed, wasn’t all that special. Or so Tender had said.

Most of Tender’s SIL-like personality were programs that had been loaded into him when he had been created. He was originally a bartender and that had required some semblance of camaraderie and faux empathy.

When she thought on it, the fact that Tender only pretended to have emotions or act as if he cared frightened her. She had never been in the position to deal with someone who didn’t have emotions or a moral compass. She hoped she was a good influence on the rogue AI, if not then she would probably end up dead. It was a strange ledge to walk upon.

“What am I going to do with you?” Maya asked. She still felt some pang of remorse for the injured rogue AI. She wasn’t foolish enough, anymore, to think it would be thankful to her for keeping it alive or fixing it. It was a rogue AI, they were killing machines with only a hunger that could be satisfied by more mana.

Yet, in that low grade core, there was the potential for it to grow. The difference between normal artificial intelligences and the rogue AIs was that rogue AIs had been ‘mutated’ by mana. They had achieved an existence that correlated to what one would consider animals. They could grow, they could change, and they could evolve over time. Perhaps in some hundreds of years, this rogue AI could increase it’s grade and levels, until if finally reached Tier 2 and gained sentience and sapience.

Maya tapped her hand upon the shell of the roach and pondered. There was potential and she had all the time in the multiverse to see what could be achieved.

She inventoried the rogue AI and got to her feet.

“I always wanted a roach dog.”

***

-I believe this method of covalence is extremely dangerous- Veskari stated for the tenth time since they left the Hanganathorie.

Maya grimaced. For a golem core that couldn’t be easily destroyed, Veskari was a worrywart. She understood his concern was over the welfare of Yositari, but that still didn’t mean she was able to keep from becoming annoyed by the core.

“Live fast, die young, leave your corpse to be eaten by the dimensional plane,” Maya said. “We’re barely going twenty miles an hour, if we crash, we’ll all survive it. The joy of being Tier 2 and having levels.”

-I understand, but still…-

“Stop worrying nothing’s gonna hap- OH, SHIT!”

Maya slammed her hand down upon the stop button and pulled the emergency brake, then reversed the motor power. They had installed a new braking system in the hours before leaving the Hangy, it was the simplest of things, an anchor.

Twenty feet in from to them, the ground erupted into a spray of dirt and heat. It was a good thing Maya had decided to wear the battle armor when they had left, otherwise she’d have been pelted by shrapnel and coughing in the dust cloud. Tender had suggested she wear the armor as much as she could, to get use to it and for it to adjust to her body. There was some small bits of mana magic going on in the suit and over time it would be more responsive to her movements. She still felt she was lugging around too much weight.

“Red Alert, Tender. Get that gun up and ready.”

Maya dodged out of the truck seat, the truck still slowing and not fully stopped yet. She summoned an ornate Scatter Gun from her inventory. The items that the officers carried were varied and expensive, but they like an good high leveled SIL were well armed. Maya had found plenty of good weapons that could be used with her levels and Abilities, but as with everything, the actual good stuff wasn’t available to her. As the items had been stored in dimensional bags, they had not degraded or lost their charges.

How mana could be held in stasis fascinated Maya. If the mana batteries were in a dimensional bag, then they would not lose the stored mana within the battery. It was an odd concept and Maya wondered how it worked. Surely mana corruption would have eventually gotten to the items, the System wanted mana used, not stored for later use.

She shook her head as she crouched on the ground, the scatter gun aimed at the settling dust.

A terrifying screech filled the air and Maya gasped as the dust cleared enough for her to see what had caused the mess. It was a rogue AI, there was no doubt about it. There were few technological creatures that looked like they had been slapped together by a five year old who had no idea what ascetics and symmetry were.

Rogue AI HVB4578V - Level 16

The rogue AI was a mass of bulbs and tubing, or that’s what it looked like to Maya. She could see where some of the bulbs had smashed, releasing a black goo and with it a foul stench.

Maya snapped up her scatter gun and began firing.

“Hit it, Tender!” she called out.

Danger was everywhere, not in this dimensional plane, but in the multiverse itself. One had to go about always armed and ready for conflict. In this case, Maya had converted the back of the truck into a firing platform for the rogue AI beam weapon they had gotten long ago. The mana pulse beam was still the best weapon she could think of to use against rogue AIs, it had worked against Shen for a while and it would work against lesser, low leveled AIs easily.

The blue beam hit the rogue AI, splashing against a bulb before it burst and expelled black goo. The rogue AI screeched again, even though there was no discernible head, she could feel that its attention was now focused on them.

She hit it with the scatter gun again, going into full automative. The scatter gun was similar to the flechette shotgun, it fired scores of tiny pellets at a high velocity. The upside to the scatter gun was that the former owner seemed to have shelled out a decent amount of credits to have a large quantity of thermal explosive ammo.

The rogue AI rocked back from the successive strikes, more bulbs shattering and more screeching filling the air. Maya jumped forward, using her empty left gauntlet, she steadied the scatter gun and fired into where a bulb had once been.

It shredded the internals fo the rogue AI, causing it to spasm and screech once more. After another shot by the beam gun and a few more rounds from Maya’s scatter gun, the rogue AI finally gave up the ghost.

Rogue AI HVB4578V - Level 16

Defeated

+ 1750 EXP

Lootable

Maya quickly looted the AI and snapped her gun up to scan the area. She gaped as she looked up and then up some more. A towering creature stood before them, seemingly confused at what they were doing.

“Oh, shit, Tender. Why didn’t you say this guy was here?” Maya asked over the short ranged comm the suit had.

“The mining barge is of no threat,” Tender replied. “Well, to you anyway. It might find my status as a rogue AI a threat.”

Maya popped open the faceplate of her armor and strode toward the hulking machine before her.

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

“Hey, buddy. Nice to see you’re still alive. I thought Turrethead or Medusa had gotten to you,” Maya called out as she approached the massive mining barge.

It had been weeks before, when she had left the Hangy to find the mysterious light she had saw while scouting from the top of the Hangy Trash Pile, when she had come across the massive mining barge tearing away at trash piles. She felt it was ages ago, but it was less than two months before.

She wondered how she had not heard the machine. Her first experience had been with the mining barge groaning and booming its way across the rainbow sky hellscape. Now it towered above her, but seemed oddly quiet.

It was a machine, Maya knew, but she still felt a quiver of fear run up her spine. It wasn’t a rogue AI and it wasn’t a death bot, it was just a mining barge doing mining barge things.

“Hey,” Maya called out again.

There was a crackling noise and a ghostly holographic figure appeared before her. Maya stopped and stared at the figure. It was a tall chunky looking fellow that reminded Maya of a sadder version of a certain crime dog. Instead of droopy ears, it had a small rack of antlers and bright violet eyes.

“Hello!” the holographic figure boomed. “Thanks for the assist, buddy. That rogue AI was a real doozy, but nothing ole Zono couldn’t handle! I’m Zono by the way.”

Maya grinned. The hologram might had looked sad, but the voice and mannerisms were not. “Hey, pal. I’m Maya and I’m glad to help anyone who isn’t actively trying to kill me. You don’t kill SIL do you?”

“Only if they tell me to,” Zono grinned. He glanced behind her at Bonita and the crew. “Nice ride. You’ve got a rogue AI sitting in that back of that ground vehicle.”

Maya glanced over her shoulder. “That’s Tender. He’s cool.”

“Temperature don’t matter none when it comes to rogue AIs, hon.” A scowl formed on the friendly face as he kept staring at Tender.

“Tender is my friend. He’s helped me out and he’s no danger to anyone who doesn’t mean him or me harm,” Maya elaborated. “Leave him be.”

Zono looked at her and shrugged. “Your funeral, doll. If SIL wants to play with deadly AIs, it’s SILs business. I’m just interested in the wealth of materials this place holds.”

Maya perked up at the mention of materials. “Hey, buddy. You by any chance giving away some of those materials you’ve been harvesting?”

“If by giving away you mean selling, then damn straight I am.”

“If by selling you mean giving it away for free, then color me interested,” Maya replied.

“If by coloring you interested you mean increasing the base price by five percent every time you try to weasel free stuff from me, then yeah!”

Maya had to laugh. “Got a catalog, bro?”

“Even better, kid.”

Zono Material Merchant has offered you a System Catalog. Accept? Y/N

“System Catalog?”

“New around these parts, lady? A System Catalog is as it sounds. It’s a product catalog you can peruse at your leisure without the messy need to activate a hologram on a tablet or computer.”

Maya shrugged and willed the catalog into being.

“Wow,” she said.

‘I’m gonna hit my quote this quarter and then I’m gonna blow it out of the solar system,” Zono said. “This place, wherever it is, is stock to the brim with already processed and refined materials. I’m gonna make my boss so damn rich, she’s gonna kiss me.”

“Uh, do you actually have all this material on you?” Maya asked. She scrolled through the pages upon pages of materials and noted the quantity given in neat metric numbers.

“Heck, yeah. Tier 2 Industrial dimensional containers. I can carry more than a standard year’s worth of mining and processed material on me,” Zono replied. “Far Reaches class, baby. I go where SIL are too scared to go.”

Maya glanced at the dead rogue AI. “You can protect yourself?”

The crime dog scoffed and tossed his head up. “I’m a Far Reaches, like I said. I’ve got the armament and power to protect myself and the cargo I carry. Of course, I didn’t work alone, there were another five dozen of my fellow barge compatriots with me, until… well, until the dimensional instability formed.”

“You been alone since then? How long?”

“About three months now. One of my port thrusters was acting up and I was down for self repairs, when I got the alarm. Instability forming and I couldn’t get away fast enough. Damn thrusters, they’re sub-contracted out to a shitty low tier civ.”

“So… uh… not to be rude. Can I lay claim to you as salvage?”

The dog deer laughed. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m already spoke for. Not that your’e not cute or anything, for a hornless, furless biped.”

“How about buying you outright.”

“Now, we’re talking. Far Reaches are sent out by the Core to mine the edges of Known Space, but if someone wants to buy up a barge, they can. Got a hundred million credits on you?”

“Nope.”

“Sorry, then.”

Maya thought for a moment. “Let me discuss something with my compatriots over there. I’ll be a minute,” she said.

“Take all the time you need. I’ll be on my way soon enough, more of these delicious stacks of materials needing harvesting.”

Maya filled Tender in on what was going on. Veskari didn’t seem to care, only worried about Yositari.

“If some of the materials you’ve listed are indeed apart of is inventory, then you should secure his services,” Tender said. She couldn’t show him the catalog, as he had no access to the System, but she did tell him what she saw on the catalog and after a moment, he had told her what to look for. Crafting materials. They weren’t all biological material, they were also various Tiers of materials that were created by the infusion of essence mana into a universe.

Zono it seemed was a wealth of minerals and materials.

“A big guy like him doesn’t need protection,” Maya said.

“The mining barge also has the ability to manufacture its own ammunition and repair itself,” Tender said. “That means it has some manufacturing modules, high grade if its a Far Reaches minion barge.”

“A manufacturing base on legs,” Maya mused. “If we can get it to make us stuff…”

Maya grinned and hopped out of the back of the truck. Zono’s hologram was still standing where she had left him. She was glad they were using the suit’s inbuilt radio to communicate. She didn’t know how the AI would handle being talked about.

“Hey, buddy. Sorry for the wait,” Maya said. “Things to discuss with my partner over there.”

“No problem, lady. I’m just enjoying the scenery.”

“First of all, I can I have that rogue AI that was just killed?”

“Oh, sure. You killed it and you’re a SIL. You’ve always got first dibs on those kinds of things.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be polite, like my Pops used to say.” Maya cleared her throat. “Hey, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

The AI grinned. “Buy a guy a drink first. I’m not that easy.”