NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3 (Spring? Cleaning)
[Unit B1] "What are my orders?" The masculine robotic voice sounded out into the room, each syllable slightly disconnected from the others, clearly separating it from any human speech pattern. Fluttering about in my drone I looked over the machine as it stood up casting off layers of dust that had accumulated across the ages of inactivity. It was a little hard to judge in my current state, but it seemed quite tall, at least a head taller than a normal man. Two legs extend from a slightly rusty midsection, its imposing armor which had a shape similar to medieval plate mail sloping up to form a seal around the neck. Besides the arm with the gun set into it, the other hand was open with overlapping plates of metal that resembled reptilian scales extending up the rest of its arm.
It bent its disproportionately large flat foot forward onto the ground pushing it’s body away from the wall, revealing a metal platform with six canisters attached to it set into the floor. From the data I had absorbed, I could tell it was some kind of workstation, but as the overbearing figure came fully into view, that wasn’t at the top of my mind.
The drone carried by my thoughts flew a few feet towards the door, before I corrected it, as I realized that the machine had become connected to my own consciousness. However, unlike the drone, there was a degree of separation between us. It took a moment for me to realize it was like the relationship between a master and a servant. Not outside of my control, but operating in a much more complex manner than I was able to control on my own.
The robot’s head, a slightly rounded block of steel with a single set of three lenses protruding out of it like the eyes of an insect, two armored plates extended and retracted around the lenses as they scanned the surroundings, before focusing on my drone again. In that moment, I became aware of a new set of information originating from B1. Pictured in my mind was a complete view of the room, as if shot through a thermal camera. A grin began to form on my lips at the sight of the war machine trying to help me.
After “waking up” it stood still waiting for orders, its head silently tracking my drone as I flew. Now that it was out of the charging bay, I also had a better view of its backside. A large pack extended over its midsection with a chain of hollow cylindrical canisters extending from it to the gun stuck into its arm. I could also barely make out some of its internal workings that had been completely hidden by the overlapping sheets of armor on its front. Below the back of its leg joints were almost completely exposed.
As I spun around the drone, I also managed to finish scanning the bits of the room that the robot had missed. The other inanimate robot was nearly identical to the first, except that its arms were longer and it held no weapon, besides the huge quadrupedal tank, there wasn’t much else in the room. only a pile of dust and a few small animal bones under one of the boxes, which the blades of my drone swept into a cloud, causing me to frantically drift back to the middle of the room to avoid ruining my own visibility.
Satisfied that I had seen everything, I flipped my vision back to the robot. "Looks like there's only one thing left to test, huh?” as my drone danced excitedly in the air, I half-heartedly wondered what the robot would say if it saw the evil grin on my face. With that thought, the robot's left foot dug into the ground, releasing a grinding screech, as it shot into the air. Its arms also began to move; its armor creaked as they stretched their full lengths into the air in the shape of a “V”. Seeing this sight, I tried my best to stay serious. Yes, that’s right! It was a necessary test; I had to make sure this thing was under my control, but still, it could just be waiting to find where my body was before it betrayed me...
The robot then cycled through a series of comedic poses, ending with a mock running stance, still looking almost pleadingly into the corridor of the room. It hadn’t taken long for my facade to crack as I was laughing uncontrollably, causing my drone to tumble through the air like a loose bag. Finally satisfied, I released the robot from its orders. Though it was somewhat for fun, ordering around the robot while controlling the drone had served as a good test of my limits. I had found out when asking it to do a dance routine that I could only give so many orders at a time before the new ones would start to override the first ones. I needed to do more experiments to see if the complexity of the order or the fact that I was flying the drone had anything to do with it.
Looking around at the run-down state of the place, I decided to test out longer-term orders. Hmmm, I wonder if this guy can go through all this stuff.
I sent over an image of how I wanted the room to look while telling it to bring over anything that might be important. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but luckily it seemed to understand what I was saying as its powerful frame effortlessly walked over and began moving a crate
As the machine lumbered about the large room, I felt a bit weird flying overhead as if I were some sort of bird. I wondered what it would look like if anyone saw this - a small drone flying about excitedly watching as an armored robot sorted boxes. Though it really was kind of fun; with each lift, the robot gave off a series of agitated clanking noises, and bits of rust fell off its joints. I was a little worried if it would be able to continue to hold up, but as if to calm my fears, it seemed to be getting only more agile as the task went on. Box after box, crate after crate were taken down from the shelves and stacks, slowly turning the mess into a few neat piles. Worryingly, there were lots of boxes that were nearly falling apart labeled with an explosive symbol next to words that read "ANS," and then just as many much cleaner metal boxes that had no labels, only a code. Based on the information, I had in my brain the numbers also meant "explosive". I wasn’t sure why there were two different styles, but it's not like it really made a difference. The point was there was lots of dangerous stuff here, and while it's not like I would die or anything if they blew up, it still wasn’t something I was super interested in happening.
After some time of buzzing around idly, I watched as B1 worked hard, feeling like a proud manager watching their employee. I would have laughed if I was able to, of course, I worked hard as well. Each time a crate was stacked up, I carefully scanned and cataloged what I could. A few crates seemed to be unregistered, and those were mostly the ones labeled with the "ANS" symbol, so I had a pretty good idea of what they would be used for anyhow. Still, it was probably best to check them out myself. After some more time passed, I flew around the three piles of crates with excitement like a kid about to unwrap a new Christmas present from their parents. I half wondered what exactly each was going to have in them so that I could be truly certain it was time to unwrap them.
One by one, I had B1 pull off each crate and crack open their tops, giving a satisfying feeling each time its steel hands pried apart the metal lacing on the crate like a crowbar. After a few tens of minutes, I had in front of my camera two piles: one piled high with ammunition, spare parts, grenades, explosive charges, and anything else that would warrant a place being called an armory, and the other one had only a few handfuls of ammunition, three grenades that seemed to only be meant to be fired, two charges which seemed to be filled with gas, a landmine, and a few spare barrels and loose parts. I had split the piles into ones that were good and ones that were unusable. Unfortunately, the pile with nearly twenty times more material was full of nothing but junk, rusted ammo, and falling-apart scrap. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but I knew quite well they were worth less than the material that made them. In my floor plan, I saw there was a fabrication and construction branch of the facility, but they seemed to be split off quite a ways away from the room my core was in, and I didn’t have any way to try to get any of these materials there to be salvaged.
I panned the camera on the drone longingly to the large quadrupedal tank in the corner of the room. I had inspected it, but sadly it didn’t seem to work. it looked perfect even without the gun for carrying all this stuff, without it I’d just need to do a lot of trips carrying crates with my good friend B1. Guiding B1 over to pick up the few bundles of ammunition, I watched with awe as each belt was easily swallowed by a hatch on the side of its back with a series of clicking sounds the usable ammo was pushed along from a chain from its pack into its machine gun arm. Without needing to be told, it picked up the three grenades, each one falling into place along a tube-shaped belt underneath the gun. After a while, the series of clicking noises came to a halt. Assuming it was done, I pumped my digital arms in the air happily declaring to B1 that now it's time to explore!