Chapter 3 This is my rifle, this is my gun

Hunter was disappointed to not find anything other than disgusting bear guts and half eaten flesh. He was not sure how he did not puke his guts out, but again, all hail the mighty alien overlords. He considered cooking and eating the meat but he was not sure it was contaminated therefore decided it was wise to ask Glados before attempting to do so.

After the amateur butchering of the animal that resulted in what looked like a scene in a terrible B horror movie, Hunter sat at the edge of the small cave and waited for the printing to finish. The hour took way longer than he thought and all the contents of the previous day came rushing to him at once.

'What is this place? Why am I here? What is the 'mission' the AI keeps raving on about? Who was that girl? Did the other bear eat its sibling to get the monster core? Did infant monsters even have monster cores? Were monster cores even a thing? How the hell am I going to power the printer again? Crap I should have asked Glados before it started since its going to go to sleep mode now. Shit........ btw should I consider Glados a 'she' since it has a feminine voice?'

As Hunter was working himself into a panic, with a satisfying ping, the printer was done. Inside the printer lay a futuristic looking, yet crude looking rifle with its stock folded that strangely resembled an AK-103 rifle from earth which Hunter guessed the name TMC-103 came from. Hunter had a strange nagging feeling since all these names were too familiar to him like the name Terra and the fact that the alien AI knew both English and the curse words he sporatically spewed out in Korean, but Hunter decided that was a problem for another time and he had much bigger problems on hand to worry about .

When Hunter picked up the familiar looking rifle that he used to own a civilian clone of during college in the US, he started checking out all the controls of the rifle. After Hunter was confident each of the controls on the rifle were exactly what he thought it was and got familiar with them, he picked up one of the 6 magazines and with a familiar rocking motion inserted a magazine into the rifle. Hunter then pulled back and released the charging handle.

The cool sci-fi rifle had some kind of miniature battery pack in each of the magazines, presumably to electronically ignite the propellant and there was a tiny display below its integrated holographic sight showing rounds left in the magazine which indicated 1/29. After disengaging the safety and aiming at the bear carcass, Hunter suddenly realized he would go deaf and get titinnus like the alchoholic spy in archXX, firing something like this in a cave.

"Hey Glados, are you there?"

"Yes Hunter, be quick please, I will switch to sleep mode in 2 minutes"

"Is that bear edible? And also can you make me a set of foam ear plugs?"

"Yes Hunter, the bear is edible but unfortunately I have no more energy left"

"Well, Shit....."

Hunter decided that the sleeves of his pajamas cut, folded and wet would have to make do and after doing a hasty job of making a temporary ear plug, nervously fired a round at the bear's skull.

The rifle had surprisingly more recoil than what he was expecting, but the thick skull was shattered and the rest of the head behind the skull exploded clean off. Surprised by the rifle's power, Hunter hastily put the safety back on and could not stop himself from grinning and laughing maniacally.

"Oh, those damn bears are gonna git it now!"

Not sure when the bears are coming back, Hunter decided to have some food and rest until the bears were back. He decided to place some traps first and after sharpening some wicked looking bone spears with his knife and sticking them in a small area around his little hiding space, he carefully went all the way out of the cave to find some firewood. He was not willing to eat the bear raw even if he was absolutely hungry and tired. He found some driftwood on the shore of a nearby stream and with the rocks he somehow managed keep in his pajamas, started a fire. The wood was still wet so it created a lot of smoke, but Hunter was hungry and stuck a decent looking piece of meat with all the fat trimmed off on a stick and started cooking.

The bear meat on a stick smelled absolutely awful and was extremly gamey and made Hunter question his sanity at believing glados was right about the bear being edible. After the torturous but filling meal washed down with a small drink from clean water flowing out of a crack on the wall, Hunter crawled back as far as he could into the crevice and immediately blacked out from the fatigue.

'Hey Hunter, Wake up!' After a short dreamless sleep, Hunter was startled awake by Glados who was once again operational. From the light flooding into the cavern, Hunter realized it was near dawn again and started to hear the angry grunts from the inhabitants of the cave returning to find their house in a complete mess.

Steeling his resolve and making sure all his valuables were deep inside, Hunter took a deep breath and quietly aimed his rifle at the nape of the remaining bear cub who was facing with its rear end towards him. After a sharp crack, the bear cub was no more and Hunter was face to face with mama bear the alpha predator staring at him outside of his little crevice. Hunter wasted no time with his chance at easy shots and put three quick shots into the area where he got his lucky one hit kill on the first bear cub. However the shots were stopped by a faint blue hue covering the bear and what Hunter thought would be an easy kill quickly turned into a nightmare.

Shot after shot rang out after Hunter started to panic and the bear angrier than ever, started ripping the entrance to the crevice apart sending rock shards everywhere, completely oblivious to the rifle shots and the makeshift bone spears around the entrance. After Hunter emptied 3 of his magazines the frenzied bear finally spent all of its energy keeping up the barrier and another full magazine worth of bullets ripped off most of its arms that were trying to stop the bullets and a couple of shots finally managed to blow past the weak snout area of the beast and turn its brain into a bloody pulp.

Breathing heavily from adrenaline, Hunter realized how reckless he has been. From his nerves breaking down from the horrific murder he saw yesterday, Hunter gained too much fake confidence from finally having a weapon he could somewhat use proficiently. He was forgetting the fact he was in a magical fantasy world and a scenario that a already terrifying 3m tall bear on all fours had some kind of energy shield did not come to him. Feeling the cold sweat on his back, hunter reloaded his rifle and just to make sure the beast was dead, Hunter dumped another couple of shots into the beast's head and jumped carefully down from the crevice to inspect his kill.

From close inspection he realized just how massive this creature was, from the creature dwarfing him even when lying on its belly on the ground. Glados who stayed silent until now suddenly concluded that the bear indeed might have a monster core seeing how much energy it used to move its body and all the kenetic energy it had stopped. Hunter with a long sigh, went back up to grab his knife.

After almost half a day of slicing the bear up, Hunter finally found a golf ball sized crimson red sphere that was incased in a hard slimey and fleshy carcass near the heart. Hunter then decided to try the bear cub too and found another 2 small shards.

"You think this would do as a power source Glados? - That energy barrier that the bear was running was pretty intense."

'The remaining power and material might just be enough to make an adapter to power the printer using the core. The shards are not large enough though.'

"Looks like we are in business then. Do we have to keep hunting monsters like these to keep powering the printer? "

'If we have enough power and materials we can build a simple wood gas generator. And with enough parts I can print the parts for a minature cold fusion generator'

"Wait, cold fusion actually works? Although I don't know if I feel safe working with stuff like that glados, I fixed planes on earth not build and design nuclear generators! I am not even close to be qualified to even attempt that."

'Don't worry Hunter, when we upgrade your brain with the 3D printed bio computers, with my increased computing capacity and your improved intelligence, you would soon learn and understand all the basics you need to know in no time'

".......How much did you guys mess with my brain for that to be even possible? And do you even realize how long thiswould take? I quit school and became a mechanic precisely because I don't wanna do engineering anymore Glados."

'This is all what you wanted Hunter'

"Why the hell can I not remember that?"

'The procedure requires some time to fully work with all those nanobots in your bloodstream slowly doing its job. Don't worry, you will remember everything in due time Hunter.'

"You are sounding a lot more like a person now Glados. Now you are trying to reassure me and you are really starting to freak me out. You aren't even talking in that creepy monotone anymore. Are you really just an AI program on an alien computer chip?"

'I am still learning about human behaviours and nuances . After all Hunter, you do realize I am only 3 days old. And again, I already told you, I am different than just a 'computer', I am one of the most advanced AI in the galaxy created by MOTHER herself.'

"Well computer or not, having a completely sentient being in my head seeing and hearing everything I do is not very comforting Glados"

'Nothing I can do about that Hunter, again, its what you wanted.'

'God dammit past me, at least include the option to turn the damn thing off!'

'As long as you have sufficient nutrients, I am operational 100% of the time controlling all of your bodily functions for optimal performance. I highly recommend not attempting to turn me off seeing you almost died twice in your sleep'

'Great..... it or she can read my thoughts now.'

'You are just a simple man Hunter, so simple in fact, just a 'program on a computer' can read you.'

'Well, fuck you too Glados'