Havoc and the Cafeteria Queen: Chapter 12: nameless 1.3: Dreaming

Chapter Four: Dreaming

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We’re dreaming.

We dream of talking with our AI companion about our plan to become a superhero, a Samurai. We dream of pictures of ourselves, of our loved ones, of our life. We dream of a time spent at the hospital, cut short by insurance companies and alien invaders.

We dream of crochet, of gaming, of guiding young Samurai out of danger from behind a keyboard, of holding us when we weep for each and every one who passes unremarked, unnamed, unmourned by any but us.

We dream of teaching, of learning, of mentoring, of parenting, of giving birth and watching ourselves nurse our boys. 

We dream of reading and watching, fiction and reality, passive and interactive, from before we were born and after we got old.

You’re not dreaming.

Stryt’s voice shakes us, wakes us, but can’t pull us from our dreams.

We dream of love, of wild rutting passion, of slow gentle intimacy, of smiles and laughter and tears.

We dream of meeting, of angry rage and stunned adoration.

You’re being transferred.

We wrench ourselves free of the endless dream before we can dream of childhood. Childhood was awful. Let our memory of our lives begin with our meeting.

Slowly, agonizingly, with nothing left of ourselves, electronic or biologic, we fade into nothing.

We let go.

We float in a slurry of chemicals, water, and nanomachines.

‘Stryt?’

I am here, Vanguard.

‘We’re blind.’

Stryt chuckles. No, Vanguard. It’s dark.

We… do not blink, but we cycle our optic inputs, spreading them wide. The walls of our transhuman womb still glow faintly above our ambient temperature, although hundreds of tiny polka dots, capillaries where our substrate drilled out to acquire vital nutrients, stand out from that glow even as it fades. Other than those capillaries the walls are smooth, the kind of smoothness we’ve only experienced before in glass and icing applied when the cake was just warm enough to melt it without it all winding up on the plate.

Our womb has become silent, although we have hours upon hours of recorded bubbling and burbling as our growing substrate leached every erg of energy from our surroundings in order to reproduce. The remainder resides within us, enough for continued but not indefinite operation. We try to get a ballpark of how much energy we’re storing compared to how much energy we could possibly store and fail successfully. Eight point two followed by a string of digits isn’t a ballpark, but it does tell us we’re… hungry? No. Thirsty.

‘We’re thirsty’

You’re floating in a void filled with surprisingly pure water.

‘Not for water. Energy.’

The closest energy sources I can detect are in the same direction as the nearest signs of Antithesis.

‘Show us?’

Our Protector AI is a nice boy, and nudges us in the right directions. We… listen, but not for something as crude as sound. We listen for vibration. We hear the telltale echoes of plants growing at rates that no Terran plant ever rivalled, the distinctive stretching, snapping, hydraulic sounds of Antithesis ‘muscles’ and joints. We even hear the quiet carrier tones used by Antithesis Hives and higher models to send signals when pheromones won’t work.

Stryt directs our attention to another vibration, and when we hear it, we can’t help but laugh.

What’s funny, Vanguard?

‘Always said we could hear all those electric lights and computers and everything. Told people it wasn’t the fans, either. Sounds just the same.’

I don’t believe human ears have the capability to hear those frequencies, Vanguard.

‘Still sounds the same.’

We listen more, realize that electric sound and others like it emanate from several points around us, but none closer than the one hard by the Antithesis sign. Now that we hear both of those, we recognize another tell tale vibration, this one not exclusively Antithesis, but predominantly so now that they’re the most common wild life form on the planet; scratching.

‘That a Model three?’

I can say yes with five nines of confidence. If not, whatever it is is likely fleeing them.

‘We have a direct path there?’

Unfortunately not. However, there is one positive note, if you wish to move in that direction.

‘Well, give us the good news.’

It’s physically at a lower altitude than we are.

‘Welp. Gravity still works. Let’s map out a least energy path to get there.’

I’ve taken the liberty to do so, Vanguard.

We pause, then… nod. Not really a nod, but even with a substrate rather than a body, a ripple washes through us. Maybe not not a body then, maybe the substrate is our body now.

‘Show us, please.’

Guided by Stryt, we pulse. It’s not something we have an immediate analog for, sending out a subtle wave of energy that could be anything; a dying circuit, a collapsing chunk of masonry, a delayed tertiary explosion. Even with our attempt at subtlety, the scratching pauses, then redoubles its efforts. But we feel, we see, we hear in the echoes of that pulse the web of voids and cracks surrounding us. Just for a moment, but now that we know how to listen we know how to listen for changes.

We worry about forgetting. Check our map. It shines there, bright in our memory, crisper edged than organic memory ever was.

‘Thank you, Stryt.’

De nada, Vanguard.

We plot out a course on our map, check it against the one Stryt showed us. The routes differ. We show him, notionally holding them out side by side. ‘Why?’

Crawling across even a small void requires energy. Dripping down does not.

‘Can we make it if we use ours?’

Of course. I estimate zero point zero one five percent of maximum energy storage additional usage, but your route is still viable, you will still arrive with over five percent energy remaining.

We notionally nod, amused when our substrate ripples with the motion. Checking our map, we focus on the crack we’ve seeped into, chewing away at the edges of it with microscopic mechanical teeth, widening the gap atom by atom, molecule by molecule. It sounds like it ought to be painfully slow, but we lose ourselves in the process. While part of us focuses on making the crack wide enough for us to flow out of, another part grades the base of our starting void, making it that much easier for us to flow into our chosen path. Finally, another part of us starts the process of drilling through to the next weakness, the next void, the next crack that will bring us to the presumed Antithesis which even now scratches its way to meet us.

At that point we suspect something, and decide to ask Stryt if we’re correct. ‘Are we focusing on three things at once?’

Four, since you’re speaking with me.

‘True multitasking. Neat. That’s not gonna ruin our ability to remain, y’know, a sapient being, is it?’

Stryt’s voice holds honest confusion. Why would it? I multitask all the time.

‘Yeah, but you’re working on a purpose built alien supercomputing device, where we’re on a cobbled together simulated one.’

Oh. I see your concern. Your substrate is currently energy manipulation nanomachine heavy, since they’re the core of your processing power. Now that you’ve learned how to emulate advanced computing hardware and wetware, as well as transferring your consciousness, creating additional temporary emulations of your core consciousness to focus on multiple tasks is simple enough your substrate does it without requiring you to consciously direct it to do so.

‘How many of us can there be?’

Stryt pauses for a moment, although whether he’s actually calculating something that makes him pause for a moment, trying to dumb it down enough for us, or just doing so to emulate normal conversation we’re not sure. By my estimate you can emulate the hardware required to support your consciousness with roughly half a kilogram of energy manipulation nanomachines.

‘How heavy are…’ we trail off as the information is just there, like the knowledge of which way is down and where all our bits are. Unlike those other sensations, this one has a bit more of a hard edge to it, reminiscent of data pulled from the net or the mesh into our augments, back when our arguments weren’t entirely us. At first the data comes in with nigh endlessly spiraling decimal places, but as one of us follows that data down into oblivion, we truncate things for ease of manipulation and conversation.

Overall Mass: 327.38 kg
Organic Nanomachine Replication Nanomachines: 32.60 Kg
Inorganic Nanomachine Replication Nanomachines: 8.30 Kg
Organic Multipurpose Nanomachines: 8.61 Kg
Inorganic Multipurpose Nanomachines: 4.06 Kg
Organic Deconstruction Nanomachines: 8.04 Kg
Inorganic Deconstruction Nanomachines: 4.45 Kg
Organic Construction Nanomachines: 4.03 Kg
Inorganic Construction Nanomachines: 2.80 Kg
Organic Energy Manipulation Nanomachines: 16.07 Kg
Inorganic Energy Manipulation Nanomachines: 64.42 Kg
Biomass: 0 Kg
Water: 174.00 Kg

‘Where’d all…’ We stop mid-question as we realize the Inorganics must have come from a multitude of sources. Bones. Trace elements. Glass from the whiskey bottles. Metal from our can of lubricant. The walls of our void. Of course that list of data does bring up another question. ‘Can the Multipurpose Nanomachines emulate our hardware?’

Of course, although they are substantially less efficient. Approximately two point five kilograms per iteration. Stryt anticipates our question and answers for us. Such a nice boy.

‘Any way for us to reprioritize what the Replicators are making?’

Of course. What would you like to prioritize?

‘How about Deconstructors, since we’re drilling.’

As you wish, Vanguard. Observe.

We try to watch how Stryt manipulates our substrate, but we’re overcome with a wave of… something. Something very basic flowing through our emulation direct from our substrate. We’re… ‘Hungry.’

Pardon, Vanguard?

‘All of a sudden we’re hungry.”

I hope you are not offended by me saying that is a very troubling piece of information.

‘Yeah. Can we maybe reprioritize to Multipurpose Nanos?’

As you wish, Vanguard. As Stryt does something, something we once more cannot quite follow, we no longer hunger. We continue drilling through our path, dissolving enough of our void to allow the viscosity of our substrate to pull us along. We start cycling between tasks, an endless dance between ourselves, each one taking a turn at each of the tasks before us. Eventually we randomize the order, seeking variety. Over and over and over we cycle, until eventually we realize that being hungry might not have been such a bad idea.

The thought of hunger ignites the impulse itself, and we focus on tearing through the cracks, the voids, the thin obstructions in our path.

Well done, Vanguard.

‘We’re nowhere near done yet.’

I meant well done swapping your ‘Replicators’ back to focusing on ‘Deconstructors’.

We freeze for a microsecond, everything running on automatic, before one of us breaks off again to dig and another to speak with Stryt while a third indulges us in surprised near panic.

‘What? We didn’t intend to do that. But…’ We consider what we’ve just experienced. ‘Could you please prioritize Constructors for us?’

As you wish, Vanguard.

We pay attention this time, but it’s not until we focus on our work, our drilling, our alterations to the voids we’re transiting, that we realize we’re not just altering our path for optimum flow. Without really bothering to think why, only that it amuses us, we’ve added spirals to the hole we’re drilling at our leading point, swirls and curves to the bottoms of our voids, and even little bits of celtic knotwork to the ceiling of one void we fill completely.

Just then we break through a thin layer of metal into a new void and encounter a veritable rainbow of compounds.The aroma is complex, layers upon layers. After an endless moment of overwhelming chemical sensation, our substrate begins picking apart the molecules in the organic slurry filling the void. Primarily biomass poorly contained by thin, soft, flexible plastic, but as our substrate filters to the bottom of the void we find something shaped like a nearly intact quadruped corpse. Animal, not vegetable.

Where vast amounts of rural wildlife has succumbed to humanity’s abuse of the ecosystems of the planet, and most of the few clinging to existence after that met their ends at the hands of the Antithesis, urban wildlife has always managed to avoid extinction primarily by piggybacking on our own defenses. We’re not sure what we’ve found; our senses are too different, we’ve not had the chance to calibrate them yet. Too big to be a rat, we think. Possibly a cat, or maybe a raccoon. We direct our deconstructors and multi-purpose nanites to corral the poor dead scavenger’s native flora and fauna; they might be useful to us later. Meanwhile we go about doing what they were doing; breaking down the remains into things we can use. Water, and the vast array of compounds that make up terrestrial ‘biomass’.

As we do that, we realize the rest of the void is full of a mix of plastics, metals, and biomass. It takes us a second before we realize. A metal container filled with miscellaneous plastic sacks full of biomass and junk, with a scavenger hiding in the bottom.

‘We’re in a dumpster.’

It appears so.

With that realization, our conscious mind somehow links all those detected chemicals to our remembered sense of smell. Rot. Rust. Decay. Yet without a hindbrain to make our nonexistent digestive tract nauseous, the smell doesn’t hit the same. It’s a fascinating melange of breakdown and by products. It’s an intricate education in the failure of recycling. It’s making us hungry.

We did not expect that last to hit us so hard, and for the next while our drilling, our advance along the path we’ve plotted to the Antithesis we’ve detected, stalls. We’re too busy eating. Deconstructing the meat, both from the corpse and the garbage. We savor that, saving most of the proteins for later perusal and use after we break enough down to map them out. Then we get a rush of brains to the head and focus on remembering the unique flavor of the deoxyribonucleic acids we’re consuming.

We’re not just eating the meat, though. We feast on all of it. The discarded carbohydrates, both complex and simple, their sweetness breaking down into the energy we need to consume the rest. The plastics are a little too tough for that, so we unravel them, simplify them, store them as simple short polymers. We realize as we do that despite condensing everything to the most compact we can get it while still being fluid, we’re now somewhat larger than a dumpster. Also, while it’s not along our line of travel, there’s another dumpster in an adjoining void.

‘Wish we had some way to store this stuff.’

You do have access to Class I Stasis Boxes.

‘Yeah, no, how would we access it?’

Stryt paused for a moment. Dimensional shunting.

That sounds intriguing. ‘Go on?’

Dimensional shunting is the most primitive iteration of how Protector AI deliver gear to our Vanguards. In the simplest of terms, it overlaps two three dimensional spaces to allow transit from one location to another.

‘So, like, gateways?’

A bit of geometry flops directly into our mind, courtesy of Stryt. Not exactly, but I suppose a gateway could be created using them. The term used by most species is ‘portals’, even if it’s a bit of a misnomer.

‘Huh. How much would that cost?’

Two hundred and fifty points for Class I Dimensional Shunting Portals, then an additional two hundred fifty points for each Portal Device.

‘Ouch. Nothing cheaper than that?’

Stryt notionally shrugs at us. Single Use Portal Devices from the catalog are fifty points. A pair of Bi Directional Linked Portal Devices are one hundred points, but only operate between two fixed points. I thought you’d prefer the ongoing utility of the full Portal Device.

‘Fair point. Uh, why are the Single Use Devices single use?’

They can only be used once due to a combination of their power sources being batteries rather than generators, and the components not having the durability to avoid burning out after a single use.

‘How much for a blueprint for one of those?’

A blueprint wouldn’t be terribly useful without a… Stryt trails off, the faintest touch of horror in his voice as he realizes.

‘You want us to say it?’

Stryt sighs. I suspect you want to. After a brief pause, he sighs again. Go ahead.

We don’t quite. Not yet. Instead we search through our memories, grabbing up the most recent ones and sifting through. Not memories from our waking life, before or after our transference. Memories of the between time, memories in the subconscious of our substrate. The substrate programmed, before our transference, to break down our purchases and record every jot and tittle of their form.

The memories of how to make nanomachines. The memories of how to make augments. The memories of how to use those nanomachines to emulate those augments, and to use those augments to emulate, to host our nearly, mostly, fundamentally human consciousness.

The memories, thus far unused, of how to make a Stasis Box.

We set our Constructors to crafting molecules from atoms, meticulously aligning those molecules into components where they’re needed, bonding them all together in the proper form to ensure their functions.

As the Stasis Box we’ve created to store our more volatile mass takes shape, we mentally project the image of us cosplaying Danielle Cage, head thrown back to shout, to roar in defiance of everything that might try and stop us from protecting everything we hold dear.

‘WE ARE THE PRINTER!’