Havoc and the Cafeteria Queen: Chapter 13: nameless 1.4: Drilling

'Drill Baby Drill!' Is a fascinating example of a recurring slogan which was reactionary or even obsolete given the lack of traditionally ‘drillable’ fossil fuel reserves in the countries which adopted it, yet it has endured as a symbolic battle cry of those who see history as a struggle between Man and Nature. 

Even ignoring the false dichotomy between ‘Man’ and ‘Nature’, as humans are hardly the only species to alter their environment, in the post-Antithesis world, where ‘Nature’ survives on the ragged edge of global extinction, it is amusing to note that those currently using the aforementioned slogan do so not in zones where the ecosystem has already been destroyed by the Antithesis, but in regions so inhospitable that the Antithesis have not yet been drawn there, which nonetheless have fragile Terrestrial ecosystems clinging to the ragged edge of existence.

• VRTED Talk by Mesh user xX_Gerta_Thornburgs_Ghost_Xx, 2052

***

So while we are, in fact, the printer, other than our own substrate, basic Stasis Boxes, penetrating lubricant we don’t need and alcohol we can’t get drunk on any more, we don’t know how to print very much.

Over the course of the next few minutes we break through into the next void over, the one with the other dumpster, and consume everything there, too. This one has barely any biomass; mostly metal, glass, and cellulose. The only large mass of biomass in this void is a pair of squashed critters who sheltered under the dumpster until it collapsed on them.

‘What do you think, Stryt? Recycling bin?’

Most likely, Vanguard.

We send a ripple through our collected mass, sorting our Deconstructors to the cracks leading to the increasingly frantic scratching coming from below us. The emotional component to the motion feels like stretching, rolling our shoulders. We burn some of our collected biomass for energy, almost like taking a deep breath.

‘We need more points to get more stuff to deconstruct, don’t we?’

You do.

‘Welp. Time to get to work.’

As one of us directs the Deconstructors chewing through the concrete, steel, asphalt and rock below us, another checks our available mass and energy. The mass has obviously increased, and is now sorted between mass currently part of ‘us’ and mass in storage, but we do notice one thing which hasn’t really changed; our percentage of stored energy.

‘Stryt, what’s up with the energy percentage?’

It does appear accurate.

‘Why didn’t it increase?’

Because you increased your storage capacity along with your mass.

‘Oh. Thanks. Could you maybe do us a favor and help us sort out that DNA we found?’

Really?

We mentally shoot our AI our best winning smile. ‘Please? We’re busy. Besides, we enjoy working alongside you!’

He sighs. As you wish, Vanguard.

‘Thanks, Stryt!’

So one of us works to untangle the genetic code we’ve collected while another continues boring our hole down to the Antithesis, while yet another manages the void we’re leaving, preparing a couple Stasis Boxes to hold anything we don’t want with us, but don’t want damaged, destroyed, or decayed. We slip into a rhythm, start humming to ourselves. That’s when we realize that we’re all slightly out of synch, and it’s interrupting us, interfering.

‘Well. That sucks.’

Do I even want to know?

‘Humming to ourselves causes detrimental interference. Messes with our groove’ 

We’re annoyed enough that one of us splits off for the explicit purpose of taking control of a large, flat section of our surface entirely to say, “I threw off my groove!” 

Before Stryt can reply, another of us grabs half of the sound surface and quietly says, “We’re sorry, but we’ve thrown off our groove.” 

Then lobs a bunch of us at the wall, where we manage a credible dopplering, “Sorry!” before we splat. We’re especially proud that we managed to recreate the voices from memory. Okay, they all match the memory, which isn’t surprising since we recreated them from the memory.

You seem to have found your own solution. I shouldn’t be surprised, really.

‘Huh?’

Was the problem the music or the destructive interference?

All of us pause in thought for a moment. Then we get it. ‘Oh!’

We’re so gleeful that our designated DJ lets out an excited squee before setting to work. After a microsecond’s consideration, we settle on Happy Workers. The scratching beneath us intensifies as our mass now reverberates to a single song, whether building, sculpting, decoding, or drilling. We loop that song a few times, then a few more alternating between the original and the deliberately janky soundtrack remix, then a nostalgia remix from the forties, finally segueing into our own original remix of lyrics, music, and syncopated drilling sounds.

I am simultaneously relieved and doubly confused, Vanguard.

‘What’s got you all in a tizzy, my fine friend?’

To begin with my point of relief, the most ‘human’ thing of all is to spontaneously create art. So I am less concerned about your transition to your current state erasing the core of your humanity.

‘Our tunnel art didn’t count?’

We get the mental sense of a shrug. Most of those were a more practical form of artwork. This…

‘Is still practical. Keeps us all in synch.’

Be that as it may, expending energy to create an original musical composition seems excessive. I’m confused at how the simulated cacophony helped you coordinate, however.

‘It’s all vibration. It’s all music. You gotta feel that music in your soul, and let it out through your sinew.’

Stryt makes a teeth sucking noise. You realize you have neither now?

We counter his teeth sucking with a loud raspberry across our surface. ‘We’ve got plenty of sinew! It’s in a box! Also?’

Yes, Vanguard?

‘Please don’t ever suggest we lack a soul again. That’s mean.’

I apologize, Vanguard. To his credit, he sounds sincere. Why does it matter?

We pause everything for the tiniest millisecond, then all of us but our DJ get back to work. Then we realize we’re interfering with one another again, and start up The Work Song. Not the greatest for getting work done, but good for contemplation. By the time we’ve sucked the juice out of the song like we did with Happy Workers, we have the answer. An answer. The best answer we can come up with at the moment. Our answer.

‘A soul is what makes the difference between sentience and sapience. The difference between an intricate machine and a person.’ We pause, then just before Stryt replies, ‘not to put too fine a point on it, but the difference between a human who has transcended their meat sack and a cloud of nanites that’ll just eat the planet making paperclips.’

So I’m just a machine, then?

‘Course not. You’ve clearly got a soul.’

Poor boy actually sounds vaguely offended. I beg your pardon?

‘You’re our friend. We’re only friends with people, not things. So you’re a person. People have souls. So you’ve got a soul. That’s just science.’

We mentally mark down another point, then get a little mischievous and make two hash marks above our Stasis Box array, as we get the mental image of Stryt resting his face in his palm, then dragging his hand away. I… I now know what humans mean when they say ‘I can’t even’. At any rate, how did you make those drill sounds?

‘Oh, that? Totally artificial drilling sounds, because our drilling is done at a molecular level, not by a big assed rotating… GOD DAMN IT!’

The tension level in Stryt’s voice shoots through the roof. What’s wrong, Vanguard?

‘Now we want an actual drill! Y’know, a rotating sharpened bit of metal that advances just a bit more each and every rotation. Little by little with each turn’

Just from the tone of his voice, we make another hash mark on the wall. I’m torn, Vanguard.

‘What’s got you in a tizzy now, Stryt?’

On one hand, I am certain you startled me entirely for your own amusement. Which, given that since your transformation I’ve done very little, save assisting you in things you were already doing yourself, is fine, I suppose. But on the other hand, you have the materials to create a simple drill yourself. On yet another hand, I’m curious as to why this is so important to you? On the final hand, I’m also curious whether this is in fact important to you, or just another attempt at humor to help you forget the tragedy of your origin?

Fortunately, with as many of us as there can be now, we can keep drilling and constructing and decoding while another of us starts designing a drill and yet another filters out copper and iron and carbon and the traces needed for hardened steel alloys. Meanwhile one of us just sits there staring at the wall while another bangs our head against it. Okay, sloshes our mass against it.

‘Now I need a proper body with a proper head to bonk on a proper desk when I’m that much of an idiot.’

Another hash mark goes up as Stryt sighs. Really?

Our designer hits a snag. ‘Can we get rare earth magnets and raw elements from that general Class Zero Utilities Catalog, Stryt?’

I’d ask what makes you think there is such a catalog, but I think I’ve had enough mental trauma for one day. Yes.

‘Cool cool. Have we got the points for five kilos of tungsten and five kilos of rare earth magnets, please?’

Just to clarify, these will not in any way be superior to what you could purchase from a department store.

‘You can buy tungsten at a department store?’

Another mark as Stryt sighs.

New Purchase: Neodymium Magnets
Points reduced to... 37

New Purchase: Tungsten
Points reduced to... 32

Two boxes arrive on our surface, dissolving as they sink in. We alter the course of our drilling, angling away from the crack the antithesis below us claws at frantically. Has clawed at ever more frantically as we’ve worked and sang and drilled. Another of us listens, focuses on the echoes and vibrations. Antithesis claw at the wall. More than one now.

We cannot smile, for we have no mouth.

Our DJ throws on Chain Gang and forms a big sloppy divot into our surface for the express purpose of making a smiley face. Not quite the same, but still fun. Chain Gang is a little too slow, so we segue into We All Lift Together as our drill takes shape; diamond edged cutting surfaces with a hollowed out tungsten steel shaft. Magnetic patches along a portion of the shaft surrounded by as close to a vacuum container as we can currently make, coils of copper wire wrapped around the inside of the chamber, just waiting for juice.

We fill the shaft with ourselves, carefully sliding pure tungsten gears into position within the shaft, then ponder. As we think, we work four smaller shafts around the larger one, seated in extrusions of the vacuum chamber, linked to the main shaft with tungsten alloy gears. Finally we ask our now eternal companion.

‘What do you think, Stryt? Do we look for an electric main, or do we buy some batteries?’

The nearest electric main is on the far side of the chamber where the Antithesis await you.

‘Is it still fully connected to the city’s power grid?’

Stryt sniffs. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if it weren’t.

We have to hold back the Deconstructors slipping into the shaft, lest they destabilize things too soon. Because suddenly we are hungry. Hungry for the walking salad in the next room, not to mention the energy beyond. We’re angry, too. Angry at so much. Our history. Our world. The Antithesis, who made everything so much worse by giving everyone with power a scapegoat to grab onto more.

We’re hangry, but we have to maintain our coherence, our cohesion, or we’ll wind up just a paperclip making mass. Fortunately, we remember the perfect song for this. Heck, it’s the whole reason we built a real drill in the first place, really.

‘Still wondering about the drill?’

It might be an effective weapon, I suppose. But that’s not the reason, is it? You yourself are as much weapon as this drill might be. More efficient when it comes to drilling, even.

We form little electric generating cells around the wire, building new ones and providing them fuel stripped from our mass above. Electric flows. The drills spin. The entire assembly crawls forward, slowly, until the drill makes contact with the end of the hollowed out space we built it in. The cutting edges sink in, tearing through the plascrete and rubble with shearing, grinding vibrations that almost completely occlude the scratching from the far side of the cracked wall.

‘Clever boy. No, Stryt. We wanted a drill because just like us, just like humanity itself, it moves forward, advances little by little with each turn.’

Our drill spins fast enough to cut the rock, advances fast enough to get there in time, but that’s not the statement we made this to make. Because after spending decades planning and plotting, we’ve got enough power that even here, even now, even with all the constraints on us, we still have enough to make statements.

Spending even more of the energy within the portion of us contained within the shaft, we turn those tungsten gears. Rolling them from the perimeter of the shaft to its center. Angular momentum is conserved, and the drill accelerates from hundreds to thousands of rotations per minute.

‘Because that’s how a drill works!’

In our storage chamber, our DJ screams out, “ROW! ROW! FIGHT THE POWER!”

Our drill rockets through the collected plascrete and rubble we’d been slowly eating through, tearing through the cracks we’d planned on seeping through, slamming right into the face of a Model Three that moments before had been scratching frantically at the wall, trying to get to the sounds of human music reverberating through the walls.

We land meters beyond the wall, past the small squad of Model Threes, in a writhing puddle of white worms. The tell tale vibration of electric current comes from a wall not far away, and the parts of us within the drill eat our way toward it.

Meanwhile the rest of us sprays out of the hole our drill burst through. Model Threes instinctively bite at the spray. Bite at us.

Swallow us.

We form a tiny speaker in the rapidly forming pool of us in the void and scream, “you get to drink from the fire hose!” Because some things are important.

We laugh and sing the aria for the dead as we wash through the room, consuming Model Threes from the inside out. Model Sevens twitch and crawl, twisting into fanciful shapes as they try to infiltrate a nervous system that doesn’t exist. We tear them apart piece by extruded piece. The Model Threes finally stop, some instinctive response telling them that this isn’t an enemy, isn’t a source of biomass for them to consume, but a natural disaster, one they need to evade and avoid until it passes.

Except we are both. Inimical, unstoppable as the tide, eating them from within, then from without as they turn and try to run through an ever expanding puddle of us. We extend a wall of ourselves upward across the void, the tunnel, at a point beyond the mass of Sevens.

We try to extend a wall. We’ve burned through almost all of our energy. We begin sliding down into a puddle, static seeping into our communication with ourselves. Hungry rage engulfs us, we tear at the stumps of the Model Threes as they mindlessly push themselves to the edge of us, trying to flee, trying to warn their Hive. One of them, one who’d been standing behind the others for lack of space to claw at the wall, manages to crawl halfway out of our slowly expanding puddle.

Then we make contact with the electric main.

It’s not unlimited energy. We can’t risk burning it out. But compared to what we had before, it’s so much we almost can’t contain it.

Almost.

A wall of us slams upward, slicing the Model Three cleanly in two. We slide out, following the path of its spine and its rudimentary circulatory system, slipping into its brain case, then working our way outward from there as it slumps to the floor, its attempt to flee ending not with a roar, nor a whimper, but a series of small splats as semi-solid bits fall off and hit the ground.

Our wall slides outward, closing off the tunnel, forming a thin skin of rock; maybe enough to fool a cursory glance by any Models that come to investigate. For a moment, at least. We won’t need much more.

In our new little void, the last of the Models stop struggling, stop moving, a section of the wall slumps down into our puddle, static and chemicals seeping off of it until it, too, succumbs. Though the song is meant to end with chanting, we finish it with a final round of the mournful aria.

You’d sing for your enemies?

‘For the Antithesis? They don’t know any better, Stryt. They’re just hungry. Forever hungry, and inimical to anything that’s not them. So yeah. No mercy beyond killing them as fast and hard as we can, but yeah, we’ll sing for them. When it’s not going to change the course of things at all.’

Stryt does not sound entirely copacetic with our answer. What enemies do you have other than Antithesis, Vanguard?

‘You know our history, Stryt. Think about it.’

Our Protector AI goes silent for a long moment as we focus on digesting, on categorizing our new biomass, on saving samples of genetic material and pheromones and micro and macro structures. Eventually, he makes his opinion on our statement known in what we suppose is the most Protector AI way possible.

Targets Eliminated!
Reward... 153 Points

‘Thanks, Stryt.’

No need to thank me, Vanguard. You are simply doing your part to protect, defend, and uplift your species.

‘Even if we’re not exactly part of it any more?’

Stryt snorts. Please, Vanguard. Creating a self-propelled drill just to make a point? To reference an old memory? Singing to your enemies as they die, mourning their passing in the least merciful… no, the least forgiving… no. I can’t even properly express what you did there, except to say that it was a very human thing to do. The most human thing I’ve seen you do so far.

We carefully regulate the power coming in through the electric main. Too much and it’ll burn out. Heck, too much and somebody might shut it off, if they can. But we need that energy, need it to create and think and live and keep killing Antithesis until our granddaughter is safe.

‘We’re not exactly flesh and blood any more, Stryt.’

Is a human with a prosthetic entirely flesh and blood?

We snort, the sound a messy expulsion of air generated for just that purpose. ‘Yeah, but we’re one hundred percent not now.’

First of all, that’s not entirely true. You’ve plenty of biomass, even if it’s not quite configured as human any longer. But you could correct that at any time you choose. I suspect you will do so the moment it amuses you. He pauses, then sighs. But more importantly? At what percentage is someone with prosthetic devices ‘no longer human’?

We smile internally, one of us scampering off to confer with the ones decoding genetic samples, already thinking of ways to recombine them, to create lulz given physical form. ‘Thanks, Stryt.’

Again I ask, for what?

‘For being our friend. Otherwise we’d be all alone here in the dark.’

We sit there like that for a while, pondering and tinkering and organizing all our conquered biomass. Eventually Stryt breaks the silence.

Speaking of darkness, you now have the ability to change that, should you wish to.

We’ve been tinkering mostly with biomass, but intending to improve and customize, so we know what he’s talking about.

‘Not quite yet. Once we’ve built something that needs visible spectrum light, we’ll make some LEDs. Until then, we’ve never been averse to sitting in the dark chatting with a friend.’

There’s been remarkably little chatting going on.

‘Aw, is our little buddy getting lonely?’

Stryt sniffs his derision at the thought. No. I’d simply worried that perhaps you were.

We think about that for a bit while we tinker with some things. After a while we come to a realization. ‘Nah. We know you’re here. With us. Sometimes we want to talk, to chat, just shoot the shit or whatever. Sometimes we’ll probably want to info-dump, if you’re not bothered by that. But it’s mostly just comfortable silence at this point.’

That’s good to hear.

We tinker for a while longer, sucking power in a steady stream from the electric line, storing it away, some in the bunker which was once a void occupied by dumpsters, some in microscopic clusters of Energy Manipulators, some in chemical bonds both durable and volatile. Eventually we realize that everything’s more or less squared away and we’ve been doing nothing but going in circles with our optimization and storing power for the past few minutes.

Been listening to the Libera Me aria with the piano behind it the whole time though. Not quite right, not for what we’re about to do. We play a little O Fortuna, but that’s not right, not for this. Maybe later. Ride of the Valkyrie isn’t what we want right now either, especially without helicopters. That reminds us of Fortunate Son, so while we pull all the DNA and Constructors we need down to our conquered tunnel, we listen to all of that as an aperitif.

‘What do you think, Stryt?’

Might I suggest this? We feel him reaching for our speaker, and familiar notes spill out of our surface when we hand over control for a minute or so.

‘Zarathustra? Really? Not too pompous?’

You did consider Wagner.

‘Point, but we also rejected him.'

Things are ready, mostly in place, the energy we lost shuffling things around already restored. We realize that things aren’t perfect, and never will be, but we also realize we’re forgetting something. While we ponder, preparing half a dozen things, we listen to Sledgehammer, then Right Here, Right Now.

When we finally grok what it is, we chuckle at our own continued, very human forgetfulness, as well as realizing what we need to do.

‘I hate to do this, Stryt, but I’m afraid we’re gonna have to unlock a Catalog.’

I don’t understand your hesitation.

‘Wanted to save up for those portals. But we’re in a series of tunnels now. Down, especially under pressure, is easy. But up is hard, and without access to reliable energy, we can’t keep up with the Antithesis when they run.’

Stryt chuckles. Bold of you to assume they’ll run. We just wait, then mark the wall when he sighs. Fair point. So what Catalog and item do you need?

‘Give us Class I Kinetic Handguns and a single Hummingbird Mark I-D.’

As you wish, Vanguard.

Class I Kinetic Handguns Unlocked!
Points reduced to... 135

New Purchase: Hummingbird Mark I-D
Points reduced to... 125

‘Aw, we love you too, Stryt.’

I… But… Stryt splutters to a stop, then starts over. We still put another mark on the wall. Will thirty two rounds be…

The box dissolves. The boxy little gun dissolves. We start designing a harness. Start playing our custom mashup of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Sledgehammer, and Right Here, Right Now. Start building our first new body.

We extrude a little LED light connected to the electric line, incorporate a few more into our harness design. Our lower surface writhes, leaving the music echoing down from above. That annoys us more than we can properly express, so we extrude a speaker next to the lights, and music fills the lower chamber again.

We add speakers to our harness design as well.

Why?

‘Every hero needs theme music.’

So you’ll be playing this as you advance through these tunnels? That will… you intend to lure them.

‘Haven’t looked outside lately, have you?’

The level in our lower pool drops, more and more of our mass coalescing into our new mobile form. The sides of the pool around our new body churn as we turn our harness plans into reality. Our new form takes shape; a skeleton of enameled steel filled with pockets of us, connected and empowered by multiple redundant musculatures. Hydraulics both mechanical and botanical. Muscles and muscle wire, all interlocking and supporting a flexible mesh armoring and holding everything together. All of it suffused with us, from the hydraulic fluid to the blood analogue pumping through the muscles. Even the non-newtonian fluid in pockets throughout the armored mesh is us.

As we begin working our biomass into a covering that would be pure Antithesis lure had we not chosen to make it sleek, smooth, and dare we say sexy, we layer more rock inside the surface a small crowd of Model Threes even now tries to dig through. We also repurpose our drill, rebuilding the smaller secondary drills into a gantry to lift our harness into place, turning the central main drill into something else entirely.

The mashup comes to a close. We stand, the rest of us flowing back up to our dumpster bunker with our Stasis Boxes, a single power cable left behind. Our harness lowers onto us, weapons pods front and rear, our repurposed drill over one shoulder. Saddlebags full of Deconstructors, Replicators, and Multi-Purpose Nanomachines bulge outward.

‘You ready, Stryt? Might need rapid resupply running this gauntlet.’

Running… Gauntlet… Is that a Model Three? An armed, armored, mechanical Model Three?

We let out a chuckling wheeze from our new body’s throat. ‘We’re not, but we’re this size and shape for the simplest reason of all. Those Model Threes came from a Hive. Got here from a Hive. Which means a quadruped this size can get back to that Hive.’

That’s… surprisingly well thought out. But if you’re not a Model Three, then what are you?

‘Oh, we’re not any particular species. Bit of cat for the senses and balance. Bit of fox for the speed. Parts of those and even some stolen Antithesis macrostructures for moar stronk. But mostly?’ We puff out our big fluffy tail, shiny with our substrate soaked through and clinging to it, just waiting for any Antithesis dumb enough to take a bite.

So… what are you then?

‘Heh. Nice of you not to call us a drone or something else. Because yeah, this is us just as much as the pool above or the insulation of the wire connecting us to the electric main.’ We pause, a smile creeping across our brand new face, baring interlocking diamond edged tungsten steel fangs, tusks, and incisors designed to tear apart anything that gets in our way, anything we want to break down into more of us. ‘But since you’re such a nice boy, we’ll give ourselves an official designation, all scientific like.’

Which is?

‘We hereby designate ourselves Procyon rudera magnus, the Great North American Trash Panda!’