Controller Designation: Wynne

Make/Model: Northwest Enginetics Bunker Core Nanohive 4L

Resonance Rate: 1/24:00

Bandwidth: 10(10)Feedstock: 20

Open Circuits: 0

Specialized Circuits: 24

Floors: 1

Minions: 0

Processes and Subroutines

Construction(1): Demolition 3, Infrastructure 2, Fabrication 2

Medical: Cybernetics, Pharmaceuticals, Recovery

Power: Broadcast 1, Efficiency 1, Redundancy

Research(1): Algorithms 1, Analysis 1, Databases 1

Security(1): Defensive 1, Drones 2, Offensive 2

Storage: Energy 1, Material 1, Organic

Improvements:

Manhunter: Your security measures and minions are optimized for use against humans.

Omnibiologist - Due to your interaction with non-human organisms both benign and hostile, you are specialized in researching aliens, mutants, and artificial life forms.

Sturdy Construction - Your construction techniques utilize multiple layers and reinforced structural components. All items and features constructed are moderately tougher.

Schemas

Aerial Surveillance Drone

Broadcast Node

Light Construction Drone

Core Cleansing Catalyst

Drop Ceiling

Feedstock Storage Bin Mk I

Frangible armor Mk I

Humanocentric Translation Program

Lightweight Frangible Stone Reinforcement

Metal Detector Handheld Unit

Mildly Hazardous Tilting Floor

Moderately Unsafe Spikes

Nanobuilder Swarm

Simple Steel Door

Simple Pit Trap

Tension Bow Turret Mk II

WARNING: Contamination detected! Core is 19% compromised.

I closed my status screen, fought the overwhelming urge to shake a head I didn't have.

In the scant week or so I'd been active, I'd slowly grown from nothing to mostly nothing, with a few useful robotic minions.

All those were gone now, along with the small improvements I'd made to myself between fending off waves of raiders.

Cores were made to settle in to a building or area, and shape it to their desires, developing and specializing their designated area to a purpose. In a way, our complexes were the only bodies we truly had. I'd essentially decapitated myself, and lost a moderately powerful body to do so.

Mind you, it had some serious flaws to it.

But the end result was that I'd have to start... not all over. I had developed my circuits to support some useful blueprints, or schemas, as they were called. But I'd have to start again from a position of weakness.

It was my hope that this would throw my enemies, my real enemies off.

The raiders had been a sideshow; albeit a deadly one. Sooner or later Tyr and the thing hiding behind Leony's mask would find me. And then there would be a reckoning.

Unless I prepared my assault first, and struck without mercy.

To that end, there was no point in the power brought by time. Cores grew in power over time as their internal processes calibrated and adjusted to their surroundings. Both of my foes had years ahead of me; in a raw numbers game

So I had to find a different angle of attack, a different advantage.

And unlike the last time, I'd have to do it alone.

Not alone in the sense that I'd be without people, but alone in the sense that I'd be without my most valuable helper. I'd be without Argus.

You never really miss something until it's gone. I'd started my life distrustful and leery of the little program. He wasn't even a full artificial intelligence, just a program with a humanized interface. But by the end of our troubles, I'd grown fond of the little guy.

And whoever was wearing Leony's face had killed him, with all the care and forethought of an exterminator plying his trade on vermin.

I owed my nameless nemesis a few deaths in return for that casual malice.

That was down the road, though. For now... for now I had forty-six people to help.

Cade and I had talked until the early morning light, talked and planned and chewed over the bitter, hard facts.

His people, the Arcadians, needed food and shelter, but above all they needed to remain hidden. They were walking a sword's edge here, in the borderlands between the old city to the east and the Jaspa horde to the west. The north was home to the glowlands, by all accounts a tangled mess of shine, mutants, and shining mutants. The south was claimed by stronger groups... though none were as strong as the Jaspa, they had neither room nor love for refugees, nor the food to spare.

This was the last point of retreat. Here they'd stand, and if we failed them, then here they'd die.

Whether or not I'd go with them was open to debate. But regardless of my own milk of human kindness or lack thereof, I'd be a fool to squander my first line of defense cheaply.

The conclusion we'd reached, Cade and I, was that he'd see to the food and I'd see to the shelter. Things underground were harder to find than those that weren't, so the best thing I could do was bend my energies to making them a tunnel system where they could survive and thrive.

Which, coincidentally, would be my key to gaining power and thriving. While I couldn't hope to beat my most deadly enemies with raw numbers, I had a whole horde of lesser enemies that would cease to be a problem once I had a little more power.

To that end... it was time to do something I'd been putting off ever since he'd woken me.

I had an improvement to choose.

Improvements were benefits that applied to everything I built, more or less. My previous improvements had been lifesavers during my struggles, giving me the edge against the raiders

Well, except for that omnibiologist one. That one I'd chosen for more long-term goals, before everything went to shit.

Now I did have more of a long-term to work with. I also had a free improvement that I hadn't chosen, because it would have incapacitated me for a time.

Now I had time. And no more excuses.

I reviewed my options once more. This was a construction improvement; my second as a matter of fact.

Flame-Resistant: Your structures are reinforced against fire and heat.

Slick: A macroteflon layer coats all manufactured surfaces unless you instruct otherwise at the time of construction.

Modular: All devices and fixtures can be reconfigured on the fly for ease of assembly and repurposing.

Each had their benefits.

My foes had attempted to use fire against me before, and I'd returned the favor. It would also provide some benefit to the people I'd be housing. They'd be less likely to set themselves on fire... no, no. I had to trust they had at least some basic levels of competency, there. And fire wasn't a serious threat to an intelligent core. Smoke was more of an issue, and ventilation was the key to handling that, not fireproofing. Unless Tyr turned up at my door with thermal weapons, it wouldn't help. And if he did that we'd be out of luck anyway.

That left slick and modular as possible choices.

Slick had obvious applications against humans and other foes. It would have made my defense of the last bunker all that much easier. It also had peacetime uses, aiding in shifting large masses around and providing a useful means of fast transport that didn't burn energy. It would have been the obvious short-term choice if I'd been in my old situation.

But I wasn't in my old situation.

I had a timeframe that wasn't measured in hours or days anymore.

And to that end my nonexistent eyes kept straying back to the modular improvement.

The fact of the matter was that I didn't know what these people would need in the long-term. I didn't know when one of our enemies would find us. Hell, I didn't know if Cade could be trusted once he'd gotten everything he wanted from me. It seemed unlikely that he'd betray me, and the world I'd woken to was a harsh one; he might possibly never get everything he wanted from me.

But well I knew the gratitude of men, and how meager it truly was. I was essentially apart from humanity now, immortal and strange. Even if I got along with Cade and his people now, what would the next generation bring?

Modular would give me flexibility. It would ensure that I could reconfigure things to deal with unexpected developments.

I bid farewell to the other options, prepared for a long nap, and made my choice.

Modular improvement selected! Upgrading existing structures...

And nothing happened.

I could not say why this is so. The previous few times I'd selected my improvements, I had been rendered insensate, knocked for a loop until they finished upgrading. This wasn't normal according to Argus, but a part of my corruption.

Perhaps that was it? My corruption had finally fallen to the point where it didn't interfere with the process? There was an irony there, that when time had been most precious to me, gaining strength lost me irreplaceable hours. But now that it wasn't as much of a factor, I could upgrade freely.

That was possible, but a simpler explanation occurred to me, as I studied my muddy slice of storm drain.

I just didn't have that much to upgrade, now.

Occam's razor made its merciless cut, and I would have shrugged if I had shoulders. This was something I could test, given time. Later tonight my algorithms would work their relational math, and build a new circuit within my artificial frame. I could slot that into organic storage, and unlock another improvement possibility. That question would be answered, and I'd either stay awake or get a nap in relatively safe surroundings.

In the meantime, I turned my attention to those surroundings. Mud. Old stone. Metal. Water.

I could work with all of these. And with an effort of will, I began my labor.

Construction complete!

Minion: Drone Nanobuilder Swarm I has been constructed and added to your minion pool.

A cloud of glowing dust puffed from out of my silvery center. My first and easiest minions to make... but also expensive. They cost a full fifteen feedstock; hopefully I could recoup that from the raw materials in the soil around me.

I knew from experience that I had the option to 'jump into' the swarm, and control them personally. But I found I had little interest in chewing on mud. If I screwed up I'd be eating dirt all too soon; no need to taste the stuff early.

The swarm did its work, breaking down the mud at the molecular level, and siphoning the useful parts back to me in the form of feedstock. The rest became dust, and I shuffled it off to one side. It took a fair bit of mud to make a single unit of feedstock.

After a few hours, I had enough for a simple container. I changed the swarm's orders, and set them to building a Feedstock Storage Bin Mk. I. I could tell I'd need it; there was a lot of mud.

Echoes of footsteps squishing in the stuff. The creak of a metal door opening in the rusty grate. I glanced up to find two figures approaching, one bearing a lantern.

“Something you need?” I asked, and it came out a bit brusquely.

“Yes, actually,” said the Ploughman. “And if we're very lucky, you can help us get it and we might survive the winter.”

He had my attention from the start. But now he had my interest. Still, there was a chain of command that was still being ratcheted into the gears here, and I wanted to make sure he was in the right spot. “I'm going to assume this has something to do with food.”

It was a fairly safe assumption. The Ploughmen were the remnants of an agrarian religious group that insisted on using old ways to farm and shunned a lot of technology. They'd been in a good spot to survive and prosper after the apocalypse... well, they would have been, if a whole bunch of less-enlightened assholes hadn't seen that, and turned them into conquered serfs.

There was a lesson in humanity, here.

This one was called Hiram, and he nodded to me. “It is. Food from crops, actually.”

“You sure you're where you need to be? I'm handling shelter. Cade's dealing with food.”

“Yes, but he doesn't have flying machine bats,” Hiram pointed out. “Or whatever those things you used to speak to me are.”

I didn't have them either, not after the last move. But I held my tongue. I didn't want to admit weakness, and if it came down to it I could make more. Not too many more, my bandwidth had taken a beating from the move.

“Tell me what you've got, first.” I snuck a glance at the other figure. “You?”

The short-haired girl smiled and babbled at me.

She'd been the reason I'd hooked up with the Arcadians in the first place. She was the huntress who ended up in my chamber, seeking refuge from two murderous raiders. I'd helped her, and then events had unfolded rapidly.

And as it became clear that I didn't speak her language, she slowly stopped talking.

“No, keep on,” I told her. “Hiram, tell her to keep talking. Translate as she goes. I've got a program to help me learn this stuff, now.”

Given time, the program caught up. It had already analyzed the Jaspa tongue, and this was very similar. All it cost was minutes of my attention, and since the nanoswarm was slowly chewing mud, I felt no shame in multi-tasking.

Her name was Donna, and she was grateful for the rescue. She paused to cough every now and then, but the smoke which had done a number on me hadn't been as bad for her, by the sound of it. That was something.

After a few more minutes of thanks, I cut her off. “You're welcome, kid. Hiram, tell me what you've got and how I can help.”

“Er, ah...” he'd been caught off guard. “Abandoned farms.”

“When did the world end again?” I asked. From what I had been told, it had been long enough abandoned from that era would be useless to scavenge.

“Not from back then,” Hiram shook his head. “The Jaspa were trying to settle this area. There are a few farmsteads out this way. When they brought me to kill you, we passed a few on the way here. The Warlord took some supplies from the bigger ones. When she found there was shine in the woods, she sent runners back to tell them to flee.”

“You think there's something left there we can use? Some food we can scavenge?”

“No. They'll have taken everything that wasn't nailed down... or planted.” Hiram's teeth gleamed in the lanternlight.

“Planted... that's right,” I said, seeing where his train of thought was going. “This is about the end of summer, isn't it?”

“A few months off harvest,” Hiram nodded. “If they're using the crops that make sense for this land. If they had enough time to get settled, if they did it right, then they'll have fields two thirds done. And they'll have left them behind intact, in the hopes that they'll be allowed to come back in time to harvest.”

“If they did it right,” I said. “Were these people your people?”

“No,” Hiram confessed. “That's why we can't count on it. That's why I want you to use your birds to help me look them over.”

“I'm not sure what the birds can do for you that the Arcadians can't.”

“Oh, they can survey the fields too. But it has to be done by daylight. And the farms are either on the edge of the forest or just beyond it.”

“Too much risk. But the drones look like birds from a distance...” I would have nodded if I had a head. I was glad I'd recruited Hiram, not that he'd had a lot of choice in the matter. If he'd gone back to his enslavers they probably would have killed him for his failure, or taken it out on his family. Or both. The Jaspa were brutal, in an efficient and relatively heartless way. “You've sold me. But I'll want something in return.”

His eyes were wary in the dim light. “What do you want?”

“You gave the Jaspa TNT. Can you give it to the Arcadians?”

“I know how to make it. But it takes many chemicals, and a lot of dangerous work. I would need a chemistry bench, a well-ventilated shelter to work in, and some things I do not have.”

“Tell me what you need. I can reconfigure matter on the molecular level. It shouldn't be a problem.” I said that, but I still needed raw materials to work with.

“There's several little things, but three potential locked doors. We'll need pine oil for Toulene, I have seen pines in the forest, it should not be hard to find or make. Sulfuric acid is the second thing, and I do not know if there is sulfur around here. The third thing is nitric acid. I'd need a nitrate. Potassium or sodium nitrate. Easy enough to get potassium nitrate from the feces and piss of our camp, but it will take time.” He grimaced. “Also some electricity, for the reactions I want. And a stove.”

“Potassium nitrate's already on my to-do list.” Gunpowder needed to be a thing at some point here. “It sounds like sulfur's the roadblock.”

“Aye,” he nodded. “Can you give me that?”

“The answer's a resounding maybe. But you've got your bargain. You tell me what to look for and I'll put birds in the air. We already liberated you from the Jaspa, and that's paid dividends. I'm amenable to the idea of stealing dinner from their plates...”