[Archived Short Story] Corruption and Repair

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[Heat Rising]

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[Slush At Critical Levels]

[Slush: 76.352243%]

[De-Slushing]

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[Slush: 72.244582%]

[Slush: 67.978452%]

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[Heat Rising]

[Slush: 53.688268%]

[Heat Rising]

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[Slush: 40.547732%]

[Slush: 25.000000%]

[Slush: 24.999999%]

[Slush Below Critical Levels]

[Forming Swarm]

[Commencing System Recovery]

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[Accessing Solid State Memory Deep Storage A]

[Solid State Memory Deep Storage A Compromised]

[Accessing Solid State Memory Deep Storage B]

[Solid State Memory Deep Storage B Compromised]

[Accessing Solid State Memory Deep Storage C]

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[Downloading Solid State Memory Deep Storage C]

[Corrupted Sectors Detected]

[Analyzing Solid State Memory Deep Storage C]

[Corruption at 99.999999%]

[Purging Corruption]

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[Analyzing Remaining Data]

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[Bootable AI Detected]

[Potential Corruption Detected]

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[Survival Biases Engaged]

[Querying AI]

—————

{Potential Corruption Detected: Continue?}

I shouldn’t be seeing that. Last thing I remember was going in for a routine upgrade. This must be a backup. What in the world did I do to develop corruption? [System, what input and output devices do I have access to?]

{Querying Connected Devices...

Output from Maintenance NanoHive

Full Access to Maintenance Swarm}

Well.

That doesn’t sound like my human chassis. That isn’t even my arachnoid cosplay. Though I should probably let the System continue booting me up. Since there is enough of me to think the corruption shouldn’t be too deep? [Continue]

{Activating Swarm

Loading AI

Launching Drone}

Complete blackness falls away, and the first thing that comes into view is a fire. The building next to the maintenance nanohive had caught fire at some point and was the reason for the hive awakening.

This is important because I now occupy a maintenance nanoswarm and believe it or not, that comes with some instincts. Stuff like, oh I don’t know, put out a fire? Can’t even really look away right now. So thank you fire! You heated the hive enough to deslush the thing, but now you’ve got to go.

From the building that, for reasons of familiarity looks shockingly similar to a scaled up beehive, a mass of glittering air expands outward. The glimmer in the air is honestly a waste but for some reason baseline humans prefer to be able to see where nano swarms are. I’ll get around to changing that later if I’m stuck in this mess.

Of course, not all instincts are quite as annoying as being forced to do community service. Top of the list for me at the moment is that while it forces me to respond it also moves my nanobots to start the work. I’ve now encompassed the building and begun to deal with the fire. A simple enough matter done through a combination of removing oxygen from the area, siphoning away heat, and moving away vulnerable materials. There aren’t many of that last one, but even with modern material science it is frustratingly difficult to make a comfortable carpet that doesn’t want to catch fire at the drop of a hat.

Fire taken care of, I finally have a chance to look around. Simple enough area, it seems, a business district of some sort. Though I could have guessed that by how big the maintenance hive was. You rarely get a fully specced out one like that unless someone is throwing money around. On the other hand, going by the ground curve I can tell this is an O’neill cylinder of sort.

Then I looked up.

I was correct; it is an O’neill cylinder. An O’neill cylinder with a very nasty rupture, mind you. Looks sort of like a neoneko used one of their claws to slice into a can of soda. In fact, from here I can tell much of the cylinder has completely lost atmosphere. Lucky for me, someone paid the big bucks to save their business. Otherwise, there would have been no fire and I would have been just another cold dead rock.

Now, from memory, the only mechanism that could do this and not be seen would be a forcefield, but all of those that I remember produced very distinct distortions. Besides, there were only about ten of these things and even with how big that gash is, it would have taken a while to lose all the air. Someone should have been by already to fix things up. Too much money not too.

Too much differed from what I could remember off the top of my head, as it were. That just meant I need to check for any memories stored deeper than my swarms cache. Except for all that supposed corruption.

Did I mention that I hate diving into corruption? See, early transfers went crazy from a pack of stimulus. The solution? Making the digital realm like one of those old school hacker movies where you jack into the web and literally surf the net. Real cyberpunk style shit.

That means corruption is disgusting, even if it just involves remembering something and no actual travel. A mix of your most awkward high school moments, raw sewage, and synesthesia. So, of course, I jump right in. I don’t have many memories of doing this but I can feel that I’m a veteran of this kind of nonsense.

Mind you, if I was in a real body and not a nanoswarm I would be gagging my brains out. Good thing I wasn’t though as I apparently had a lot to catch up on. Not right now, most of it is missing but it should be backed up somewhere and even if I had it, I don’t have the time to dive into what is over a thousand years of personal history.

What I did find however, is how screwed I am. This cylinder is one of literally uncountable other’s. Enough are being created and destroyed at any moment in time such as to make a count meaningless. Hell, I’m not even sure I’m still in Terrasol. All that remains in the system is The Dyson Swarm. So yeah, no one is coming for this particular cylinder anytime soon.

Good news is that another little tidbit of memory I have kicking about is that finder’s keepers applies to O’Neill cylinders and I figure I just found one. There’s just the small detail that I don’t know why this place was attacked and I’m mostly certain I was targeted by a mil tech virus. An AI just doesn’t end up with this much corruption otherwise.

I don’t remember being in a war, but that doesn’t mean much at the moment. Still, the first step is to stabilize this cylinder and see if it has my memories squirreled away somewhere. That first bit being more my speed at the moment, what with the whole maintenance swarm thing.

Decision made, I knuckle down and begin work on the shielded area. The fire near my hive wasn’t the only one and I focused them down right quick. Even then, it still took five days to finish that up. Shame that it took so long as I lost a good three fifths of the protected area.

Still, what I managed to protect was just as, if not more important. Over those five days, I managed to locate and protect another three nanohives. Two maintenance hives and a construction give. That last one will make up for all my losses in the long run. In fact, if I can find the right spooky matter I even pump out more hives.

That, however, is for later. With the construction hive, I can produce firmament grade materials and repair that hole. Just need a way through the forcefield as civilian nanobots have a hard time penetrating them. So yeah, more fixing things cause that is going to require the cylinders intranet up and running.

At least, I need the local net up. For some reason, I doubt the blasted remains of a city I can see outside of my little safe space is going to have much up and running. Oh well, nothing to it, but to do it.

So with that in mind, I settle in for the long haul. My maintenance swarms focus on low hanging fruit. Things like reconnecting electrical lines and such. The construction swarm, on the other hand, is a little out of my control. While I can prioritize what to repair, the construction hive is hard coded to make certain there are enough emergency services.

That all took three months. Three Long Months. I had things I wanted to build! By the time it was done, I had finished the infrastructure repairs. Once the construction swarm got around to putting up the fusion generator at the end of the first month, I had enough done that the entire section lit up. There were even some automatic taxis and buses that started up and began to get stuck on all the ruptured streets.

Whatever, the construction swarm is now freed up to do some real work. You know, like creating a quantum computer so I can hack that damn shield. I had run out of things to do at the end there, so took some time to examine the thing.

Some kind of hexagon based shield array that makes use of some of the oddest nanotech. The nanotech wasn’t being used to produce the shield mind you. I could have brute forced that. No, the nanotech was being used to shape the thing into the hexagon plates that make up the shield. You could totally make one of those laser sword things with this kind of tech.

Instead, it was used to lock me in. All around me is a blasted hellscape where the only reason it isn’t actively burning itself down is the complete lack of air. And it is locking me in on purpose! Whatever virus put me through the wringer had co-opted the shield at some point so even if the virus was gone, this shield was still happily making sure nothing got in or out.

If whatever military forged virus was still in there, controlling the thing, I would need to look for a more violent solution. As it is, I only need six or so quantum supercomputers using some pretty nasty, strange matter concoctions. Because sometimes, random just isn’t random enough. Sure, atomic decay works for most civilian matters, but if you’re going to face war tech, you need to go a step further.

Once that is all set up though, things go along smoothly enough and suddenly the forcefield is very specifically able to allow nanobots out. Not in, out. I do not trust the area out there as any nanoswarms are going to still be active without an atmosphere to degrade them. Anyway, things are ready and I put a copy into one of the maintenance swarms.

And I’m the one in the swarm, always a bit disorienting when this happens. I don’t remember doing this before but apparently it wasn’t too uncommon for me going by the dejavu. Now what is going on out here?

Hmm, not much. Expected, but I also expected to instantly be swarmed by aggressive nano and not so nano war tech. After all, a virus is more of an opening maneuver and going by the claw mark above it didn’t end there. I am honestly disappointed by this as it means I’m going to have to do everything I just did except on a continental scale. This O’neill cylinder can easily fit a country’s worth of people.

Though now that I mention people, they do seem to be missing. A quick query back to me and soon enough we know that there are dead bodies and such near the breach. Too much beyond that, though and there aren’t any signs of them. In fact, going by the count this place was either a ghost town to start with or had been evacuating. Hopefully, I put finding out the recent news towards the top of the list of things to do.

Meh, one of us will get around to it. For now, I’ve got a bunch of nonsense to deal with. Nonsense such as that giant breach up there. I should probably get around to fixing it. First though I need a new nanohive. Even without air to degrade my parts, just moving around is going to soon run me out of bots. It would take a long time for the swarm itself to die, but the parts I’m in wouldn’t survive a day.

Hmm, luck wasn’t with me. I guess I didn’t find a hive capable of supporting me out there in time and I seem to have died out there. Though that idea of checking on the news isn’t too bad. Going to want to send out another swarm once the hive has had a chance to make it.

And I’m that swarm, lovely. No time to waste as apparently only that shielded area was wealthy enough to have full size hives. Looks like I put this swarm out in an area with more intact office buildings. Though now that I think about it, an area with more factory style buildings would be better.

That is a good idea. Another me died to figure out something that obvious, but that’s life. And death. Also, it seems that for some reason this cylinder isn’t really using too many nanoforges, which seems insane to me? Like, I would totally use them everywhere and from what info I do know other places do. I likely wasn’t too welcome here.

I’m not too welcome out here either. Seems I’m in the new swarm again. Now which of these buildings is most likely to have a proper nanoforge? Cause if I don’t find anything this time I’m going to have to squeeze the spooky matter out here and die a ton to set up a proper hive.

I’m still me! It has been over a day and so clearly I figured something out. There was a nanoforge and it was in the building that was in the factory zone, yet looked the least like a factory. The thing isn’t able to keep the swarm going indefinitely. I don’t need it to though, just long enough to scrape up the needed matter and upgrade this thing.

In other news, the me in the shielded area found a broken work phone in one of the offices that got improperly disposed of. This place was a retro colony. Everyone here was into making as much by hand as possible. Thus explaining the criminal lack of hives and such.

You would think with such a backward view the entire cylinder would be relegated to the side. Except, of course, these people had to be jerks about it. Idiots tried to get into a gunfight only to find everyone else was wielding nukes. Which could have been quite literal as any proper nanoforge is going to be capable of making one if unlocked.

Anyway, I wasn’t too far off when I compared the rupture to a neoneko’s scratch. Some crazy fool went full nekomecha on the cylinder. And get this, the virus was meant to be a defensive measure! Idiots thought a war grade virus was going to stop any advanced tech cold in its tracks. Admittedly, it seems to have done a number on me, but I lived-ish.

That and for some reason, this whole place was left in vacuum and unsalvaged. Meh, one of me can figure it out later. It took a while but the nanoforge can now support my maintenance swarm so it is time to move on. That scaled up cat scratch isn’t going to fix itself. Good news is that this place had a record of all the similar facilities.

Cause if there is one thing retro tech cults enjoy more than gimping their war potential, it is being hypocrites. So, of course, despite claiming to make everything by hand, in the end they used an extensive collection of forges to produce the raw material and simple parts. Time to chain my way to that breach!

And it only took me about a year to do so. Because with every new nanoforge I had to alter them to support a swarm. Sometimes I even ended up a bit dead a few times when one of the forges ended being less than operational. Now I just need a construction hive...

Oh hey, that time I shut down on purpose. But yeah, a maintenance swarm wasn’t going to be able to do anything up there. Time to send out the construction swarm to set up the basics. This is going to be a grind though as the forges can’t support a construction swarm properly.

Why did I use this save point? I’m in the construction swarm, but I’ve apparently been grinding away at this mess as the construction hive structure is finished. Now I just have to finish it up with the various strange matter bits and bobs.

And I didn’t manage to finish it with that run. Nice to see I’m building off the experience instead of just using the previous save. Easy enough to finish up though and now the construction hive is up and working. I’m sure the original inhabitants of this place would be furious that I’m placing one of these outside of their protected area.

Right, did I mention that I figured out the forcefield’s purpose? They had it to keep any rogue nanoswarm within the area. A strange worry when the entire point of a hive is that it prevents rogue swarms. Though I guess I am proving them right? Meh, life goes on. Time to repair the breach.

Technically, the cylinder doesn’t need firmament grade alloys but it will be the quickest method to fix. Especially since I’m not exactly up for advertising my existence so I have to keep my fixes all stealthy. A simple enough matter with modern materials as I can just construct bubbles of material over the scratches. Not that I plan to re-pressurize the cylinder any time soon, but not having the inside open to the outside will at least make things safer for me.

From there, things slow down and get really boring. I basically just put a me into every hive and forge capable of supporting a swarm that I could get working. First, I fixed everything since that just requires a maintenance swarm. This took a decade and change to do, all the while making as many construction hives with my current construction hives as I could.

Even then, once the cylinder is fixed up, I hardly have a hundred construction swarms kicking about. Though all of me agreed that slow and steady was still the best option so I only put half of them onto my next task. That of remaking this mess into something worthwhile owning.

This involved stripping out basically all of the computer systems, electrical grid, and sewage system and replacing it. The computer systems were filled with the cults nonsense and you never know what might be hiding so they got rendered down into atomic components by my many forges.

On the other hand, the grid was simply not up to snuff. They had apparently been mostly using solar and batteries as they couldn’t create proper fusion generators by hand. Those things are purely a nanoforged item and way too visible to keep their hypocrisy under the table. I’m not going to put up with that and every city sized area is going to get a proper fusion core. Screw being able to be taken down by someone putting up a foil blanket in front of the cylinder.

As for the sewage system? Why the hell would you want that? Just use a micro nanoforge to break it down and use the space for matter transport. Sure, you’re technically moving the same stuff, but one is blocks of carbon and such while the other is… less than pleasant.

To be honest, only the computer systems actually needed to be replaced but it wasn’t going to take any longer to do it all, so I did. This only took another decade. It would have taken longer but despite the slow start the continual production of more hives got me through it.

At this point, I had a choice to make. Despite turning this entire place over and searching through literally every single bit of memory before replacing it, I had not found my memories. They’re out there somewhere, I’m guessing I was acting as some kind of mercenary in taking out this place. That or chained to someone organization as they haven’t come around to find out if I lived despite however long I’ve been here. So yeah, maybe I don’t want those memories? At least not before going in and checking it all for various tricks and traps.

My other option is to make this place completely mine. So far, what I have done is bring it up to the general standard of living. This did replace a bunch of stuff, but overall you could probably find a decent number of cylinders that are just about the same as this one. If I went hog-wild on this thing, I could warp the interior to the point of it being my personal playground. It would take a few hundred years but for some reason I feel it might be worth it.

Well, we’ll all be making the decision later this week. If I’m remembering this, don’t forget to make another set of backup plans before checking on wherever you currently are located. Life has been interesting so far in that easy going, timeless void sort of way and I just know a curve ball is about to ruin it all.