Havoc and the Cafeteria Queen: Chapter 14: nameless 1.5: Destruction

Here I am in silence
Looking 'round without a clue
I find myself alone again
All alone with you
…
I know I could break you down
But what good would it do?

• Information Society, What’s On Your Mind

***

Trash Panda? Really?

‘Great North American Trash Panda. Larger than other North American Trash Panda species.’

The Antithesis scratch at the veneer of rock cutting them off from the cul de sac we’ve conquered. They’ve nearly breached the wall for the dozenth time, but this time we’re prepared, and choose not to waste any more energy rebuilding it from the inside. Instead we fold our harness’ gantry into the harness itself, then cycle ammunition into our offset spinal mount weapon. As we do, the speakers on our harness play out a much deeper version of a familiar ‘chick-chack’ sound effect.

Really, Samurai? There’s equal amounts of approbation and affection in Stryt’s voice as he reacts to our loading sound.

‘Some things are important traditions. Shotguns ought to sound like shotguns.’

Isn’t that sound for when you’re ejecting an old cartridge and replacing it with a new one, though?

The best part about being a nanomachine cloud, at least in our admittedly biased opinion, is being able to have conversations with our AI at the speed of thought, while simultaneously multi-tasking to do our grisly work.

We access the durable little speaker we’ve added to the back of our weaponized maw. “I love the sound of shotguns racking in the morning!”

Then we start our O Fortuna and Ride of the Valkyrie mashup.

Is that even a shotgun though? What gauge would that even be?

Okay, another best part about being a nanomachine cloud running on a simulated augment substrate is the facility with mathematics. We juggle a couple numbers, then reply, ‘we’re not sure. One?’

That’s not a shotgun. That’s a punt gun.

‘Oh. Oh, no. We’re gonna be breaking a few laws then, maybe.’

Dare I ask why you’re not certain?

‘Well, Model Ones and Twos probably qualify as ‘migratory’, and possibly even as ‘waterfowl’, so hunting them with a punt gun is illegal, but we don’t think the Antis will be using any Model Ones in the underground tunnels. So… maybe.’

Are you seriously telling me you won’t kill flying models with your ridiculously oversized scattergun?

‘Oh, hell to the no. We just need to get ourselves a red bandanna.’

That leaves our nice boy the AI equivalent of open mouthed and staring for the barest instant. Not a sigh, but we mark the wall anyhow. Why?

‘Because you can’t be a proper redneck without some red on your neck.’

With that, we slip the lyrics into our mashup. We’d intended on Fortunate Son, but we make a last minute adjustment just for this, and the eponymous lyrics echo through our little void. “Click, click, boom!”

Our gun fires, the artificial sound of detonation echoing from our speakers as magnetic coils accelerate a sabot filled with ready-to-fragment submunitions forward, accelerating the mass through the entire length of the two meter barrel.

We did say ‘Great’ Trash Panda, after all.

The sabots slip free as the round flies over our head, and the barrel drops back to our shoulder as we leap forward behind it. The submunitions separate, flying free even as the sabots tumble, all of them striking the wall near simultaneously, shattering it outward, turning the rocky veneer itself into more shrapnel ripping into the small crowd of Model Threes gathered on the far side of the wall.

Then we hit them, and it’s claw versus claw and tooth versus tooth. But they are hydraulic muscle and wooden bone, while we are the best amalgam of machine muscle, synthetic sinew, and ferrous fang we could design. Our jaws shear through them, while theirs struggle to find purchase. Their green blood spurts, splashes, and flows, while the few of them managing to penetrate our armored hide get mouthfuls of gray slime that eats them from within.

Mouthfuls of us. More of us coat them as our bushy tail brushes over them in passing, leaving them coated in us. We eat their shattered corpses while we’re still advancing, slashing, biting, even shooting those who seem ready to turn and run, or those who seem to be lining up for a more effective attack on our side wherever the tunnel bulges.

We come to a sharp corner where the tunnel heads down. Something on the far wall from the descent leaves us confused, our senses dulled, our mind wandering like it does in too many of our later memories from our past life. Enraged, rebellious, we spin with our bushy, dripping tail blocking the path down, swivel all four of our turrets and fire them in unison with our spinal mount.

The wall splashes, ichor dripping and changing colors, the electromagnetic interference hiccoughing and dying as the Model nine collapses to the floor. It screams out along the wavelengths more advanced Antithesis use to communicate when pheromones and body language won’t do. We snarl as we shrug off our harness and charge through it, past it, up a set of almost recognizable steps, coating it with us in passing.

The us in our harness combine, configure, and use our Energy Manipulators to send out garbage in that same wavelength, an incoherent ululating scream of rage. We smile to ourselves as the dying Model nine quivers in time to our strident call. One Hummingbird turret points up to prevent the escape of any wounded Antis who try to flee, the other three point down the descending tunnel, ready to repel any reinforcements.

We charge up the steps, slowing as we impact each Model three in our path, the advantage of high ground not enough to stop us, but enough to let each one bite, and claw, and cling to us as we hit them with a forehead designed for ramming, then tear at them with our own fangs, so much sharper and harder than wood or bone. By the time we reach a level space, three cling to us, another four having dropped off, twitching, after tearing mouthfuls of us free.

The Hive is likely down, not up.

‘People to be saved are up, not down.’

Fair point.

Ahead we see a small gathering of humanoid figures pulling rocks away from a collapsed tunnel entrance. A half dozen Model threes stand behind them, corralling them in place.

Vanguard! Those are not humans!

‘Thanks, Stryt.’ We growl, furious that we’ve left our harness and turrets behind. ‘Damn sevens.’

Before we can launch ourselves at the threes, who turn to face us as we set ourselves, a weight crashes down on us, smashing us flat into the floor. Tentacles wrap around us, squeezing us, crushing hydraulics both bone and mechanical alike. Muscles still bunch, and while the ceramic on our bones crackles, the bones themselves remain strong. We flex, twist, and bite and claw at every tentacle within reach of our fangs and feet.

The four doesn’t care. It continues squeezing us, trying to crush us, to force the air out of its prey, to defeat us by pressure and endurance and the raw strength of its tentacles. Despite its own natural pheromone slime and our own coating of us providing lubrication, it manages to get a grip and lift us clear of the floor, denying us traction, separating us from our best source of leverage. More tentacles wrap around us and, with a triumphant heave, it twists us as it squeezes, wringing us out like a rag. Our internal reservoirs rupture, and we bleed out all over the Model four.

Drenching it in us.

We let our body go limp as the pool of us in and around the Model four activates all of our Deconstructors, all of our Multi-purpose Nanos, every one of our tiny substrate warriors set to tearing the thing apart atom by atom, molecule by molecule, an angry, determined pool of acid set to eat it alive. 

It flings us at a wall. While we try to twist and take the shock of impact on our legs, the twisting damaged us. We only manage to get partially oriented, and if our tail takes some of the impact, much of the bushy fluffiness lies flat and squished from the Model four’s wringing us out. Ceramic cracks, both the tiles on the wall and the coverings of our bones. We flop to the floor, Constructors racing to fix critical areas as quickly as possible even as we push ourselves to our feet.

Before we can properly right ourselves, the Model threes are on us. Biting, clawing, ramming into us not unlike we did to so many of their kin. We try to give as good as we get; we’re still larger, and two of our legs and our tail are still mostly functional. One of them rams itself into our jaws hard enough to strain them; we clamp down and leak nanomachine-filled ‘saliva’ onto it. It burns, but refuses to vacate our jaws, refuses to give us back our second most potent weapon.

One of them gets away with one of our legs clutched in its mouth. It runs down the steps. Right into where we wait with our Hummingbird turrets, blasting it right in the face before it can react. It slides to a stop at the base of our harness, and we extrude another speaker to say, “Sit! Stay! Good dog.”

You realize you’re talking to an Antithesis, correct?

‘And the only good Antithesis…’

We put another mark on the wall as our Deconstructors pour out over the Model three, claiming its biomass and reclaiming our limb. We probably shouldn’t take so much glee in tormenting our Protector AI, but it’s a gentle torment, laced with gifts of Antithesis dying in job lots.

Up in what we’ve realized is the remains of a High Speed Line station, the Model sevens have each used their human bodies to lift the largest chunks of rubble they can, and use them to bash our trash panda body over and over. They don’t realize their feet are melting until it’s far, far too late.

Down at the branch of the passageway, we collect new mass and throw up another veneer just below our harness. With no active Antithesis Models coming, we take the time to mold it to look like collapsed rubble rather than a sheer rock face. We don’t bother swivelling our turrets to point any particular direction. The only sounds in our tunnels come from the twitching of dying Models and the moist splashes as bits of them gloop away to plop into the growing puddles beneath our victims.

Well. At least given the limitations of these tunnels, we aren’t likely to see any larger Models.

‘Dammit, Stryt!’

What?

‘We told you, our House God is Murphy. The Words of our House are “Wait For It.” Now that you’ve gone and said that, they’re sure to be building a Model fuckety-leven down in the base of the Hive!’

For a synthetic consciousness running on a nanomachine swarm, you are remarkably irrational at times.

‘Aw, thanks, Stryt! Nobody ever called us that before!’

You’re welcome?

‘We were being sarcastic. Mostly. What are our point totals looking like now?’

May I?

We sigh, scrubbing a mark off the wall, because fair’s fair. ‘Sure.’

Targets Eliminated!
Reward... 223 Points

That means your current point total is now three hundred and forty eight points.

We dedicate one of us to pondering our next purchases, while a few of us orchestrate the ongoing digestion of our new biomass. Another of us continues deciphering genetic codes, eager to start in on the new information from the Model four, not to mention the additional human DNA from the Model seven corpses.

A thick tendril pours down from our dumpster bunker, following the power line to where our veneer wall used to stand, then connects to the growing stream of organic nanomachines and biomass in the middle of the tunnel. That portion of the tunnel isn’t very steep, but there’s a small gradient heading toward the branching point. Fighting gravity is irksome, but with the power from the still active electric main, we can wrestle with it a little, enough to carry a few samples of Model Three up to our Stasis Boxes for storage.

‘You realize those will attempt to regrow, to digest additional biomass and create a new Hive?’

Yeah. It’s why we’ve got ‘em in a Stasis Box. Not gonna let ‘em out until we grok how their genes work. Also why we’re breaking down our old body and making a new one. Don’t want any of our faux-Anti biomass to get ideas if we let it go on too long.’ We sigh. ‘Kinda wish we had some actual Terran plant biomass to work with. Not to mention a wider variety of genetic material.’

There are Catalogs for that.

‘We kinda figured. We need to save points, though. Speaking of, before we do something stupid like blowing our points on a big pretty bomb, unlock the Dimensional Shunting catalog for us?’

That will put your total below one hundred points.

‘And?’

Most Samurai eventually decide to maintain some level of points as an emergency fund.

‘For?’ We ask, knowing the reason. We weren’t an Operator for so long without knowing that.

A variety of reasons, but primarily for emergency medical… Stryt stops. Sighs. We mark the wall.

Class I Dimensional Shunting Portals Unlocked!
Points reduced to... 98

‘Thanks, Stryt.’

I must admit, I’m mildly surprised you didn’t have me deliver a single use portal.

‘Nah.’

Dare I ask why not?

‘Any generator that can handle the power load for a portal device is one we simply must get our greedy little paws on.’

Stryt goes quiet for a bit. Meanwhile we hollow out a big basin at the juncture of our tunnel and the stairs, pouring all the biomass and metal we collected in the train station down into it along with the biomass from the tunnel itself. Then we nudge the corners out and start bodybuilding again. What worked last time ought to work again, but we don’t want to get too predictable, so we go with four of them, each twenty percent smaller than the original. We also incorporate some minor tweaks to musculature to help with reaching our own sides and rear.

We also start playing What’s On Your Mind, partially because we like the song and it spurs our creativity, partially to gently prod at Stryt, because we really do want to know what he thinks of our progress so far.

I suppose at least now you don’t have… Our four new bodies stand up, flexing their little Procyon hands as we do. And now you have paws again.

That worries us the tiniest bit. ‘Are we going too far, Stryt?’

We get the mental impression of a shrug. Maybe. Maybe not. What you are doing, however, is fighting the Antithesis tooth and nail in one of the most difficult environments possible for most Vanguard. If my peers feel I’ve been too lenient with you, they can send their own Vanguard into these Antithesis-infested tunnels to talk to me about it any time.

Our four new bodies pull our harness back into the pool, where we break it down, add to it, and form four new harnesses. While we wait, we consider what we’ve found so far.

‘Lots of threes, one four, and one… no, two nines?’

That matches my count, Vanguard. Also, many sevens.

‘Can sevens reanimate corpses?’

An interesting question. If the death was due to direct brain damage, very likely. They do replace brain and nervous function to some degree. Any other damage makes it less likely, but not impossible. In a situation like this, where Model eights are discommended since any large scale tunneling is likely to cause additional collapse, using Model sevens in their primary role of biomass retrieval might be common.

‘Might be?’

While we Protector AI are powerful, we are not omniscient. I suppose there might be an AI out there who has studied Model sevens extensively who might know, but I do not.

We think about that for a bit while we tweak our harnesses based on our first combat. ‘So, what do you think they’ll have waiting for us?’

I doubt there will be too many higher tier models.

‘Too soon?’

That, and the tight spaces make things awkward for larger models, or most flying models.

‘Most?’

Some are capable of ground locomotion, and the nines’ ECM affected you, which means a fourteen might be problematic, and a Model twelve could very well kill you.

‘Only if it gets close enough to all of us.’ We ponder a bit. ‘We need some kind of shielding.’

Advisable, but difficult due to your very nature.

‘Yeah. Didn’t say we’d be getting any. Just that we need some.’

But then how… Do I even want to know?

We send a ripple through our shrinking pool in lieu of a shrug. ‘We don’t even know yet, so we have no idea if you want to know.’

Be careful, Vanguard.

‘Never are, Stryt.’ We step our bodies into their harness gantries, pull the gantries back into the harnesses, and pull as much of our substrate into our four new combat bodies as possible. That done, we pull the remainder of our mass back up the tunnel, then back into our dumpster bunker.

As each of us stretch, wriggling our harnesses to settle properly, we begin nature documentary style narration. “Here we see a gaze of young trash pandas preparing to go on their first hunt. Normally such a hunt would be led by an elder trash panda, but their mother has recently given her life in order to bring these young Procyons into…”

Stryt notices us trail off. Vanguard? Is everything all right?

It takes us a bit to gather ourselves, and when we do, we can’t bring ourselves to talk about the core of the sudden sadness that grips us. So we talk about something else, a spinoff sadness, a long buried recurring rage that flickers to rekindled life 

‘No, Stryt. No, nothing is right. We were supposed to be working on cures for old age. Colonizing space. Restoring the ecosystems and leaving the world to whoever came after us. The bees, probably.’ 

We pause, wondering why now of all times we’ve decided to rant about this. Probably our mention of dying. That’s a trauma we still haven’t really processed, let alone the manner in which it happened, nor the oddity of our rebirth. ‘We’re not all right, but we’re not sure we ever really have been.’

I know this is small comfort, but for what it is worth, your species is doing most of those things now. Even restoring some ecosystems, although in most cases that is being done to provide sustainable food sources. Vanguard Groundwire has done an admirable job of doing so in the farming country to the west.

‘Really?’ 

Indeed. 

We hadn’t really heard of that. Just goes to show that no matter how well informed, a human with access to the internet or mesh still isn’t omniscient. Even an AI, even ones as awesomely powerful as Protector Vanguard AI, isn’t really. Or we wouldn’t have been dumped on a youngster with no previous experience. Then again, that could be our generational curse at work. Everybody forgets about us, always has.

But… that thought about youngsters without previous experience cuts to the heart of our sudden melancholy. As some of us idly tinker with our four new bodies, customizing and decorating them, and others continue decoding DNA, designing new bodies and weapons systems and anti-Antithesis traps, our DJ rolls out an old melancholy tune from the thirties, Picnic. Total glurge when it came out, romanticizing something we hadn’t enjoyed even in our youth, but right now it fits our mood as we wander through our memories, through our pictures. In one of them we notice evidence of our deliberate erasure of our past. Of ourselves. Our smaller grandkid wears a team jersey in that picture, and the name, the number, and the team name all blurred beyond recognition.

It’s an automated blur. We could reconstruct it. Just dedicate one of us with some processing power. Then wait. Odds are the name on the jersey is a player, we don’t remember ever being rich enough for customized stuff, but even that much might be enough to track them down.

Slowly, carefully, reverently even, we erase the blurred words and number completely, until our grandkid wears a green and white jersey. Then we blot out our own memory of doing so, because it contains the pre-edit image.

We realize right then that we lied a little bit to Stryt. Just the once, and we didn’t even know it at the time. We’re not doing this ‘to get the job done’. We’re professional, but we’d been retired long enough to forget the need to complete tasks given to us by others. No, we didn’t lie about erasing ourselves to protect our kids. We lied about our motives. We’re not doing this out of some kind of ‘work ethic’. We’re doing this to protect our kids, our grandkids.

We don’t even really know which ones are ours at this point. Oh, we’ll know them if we see them. Even if they won’t recognize us. But without direct line of sight to them, we won’t see them. Won’t ever get that chance to recognize them, to maybe have them cheer us on. So we don’t know which kids are ours, really.

Old saying. Two kinds of people. We know which kind we are.

They’re all our kids now. And we’re doing this for all of them.