It was night. Radioactive asbestos, masquerading as snow, pleasantly glittered in the light of the two moons of the beautiful planet called Copper-9. Shards of broken glass covered some part of the ground, creating an unusual garland of glistening fireflies that just begged to get into someone's eye. A light breeze lifted the radioactive snowflakes and swirled them along unusual trajectories, guiding them through the thin passages of ruined buildings, gently laying them with their brethren.
The scene was beautiful. Especially for me. It's worth remembering that I have a quantum processor at my disposal, and a happy smile immediately appears on my face. I still couldn't believe my insane success.
All these flying snowflakes were as obvious to me as an open book. I could calculate every one of their movements for the next billion years, simulating every situation that could disrupt this beautiful dance.
But I didn't do that. As soon as I got the computational power, I immediately put it where I needed it most at the moment. I started creating simulations right in my head. It turned out to be very convenient to see what would happen to me under certain circumstances, so I could then repeat or avoid those circumstances. It's a wonderful thing, but mostly useless. After all, I could process simulations, but choosing the best one from them—no.
Or could I?
An interesting idea came to my mind, which I immediately hurried to implement. A few moments later, a full-fledged AI was connected to my simulations, or as I called it, the "Idea Generator." Showing the AI's work on one simulation would be stupid because it's not even trained, but if I use a few more simulations...
Well, a couple hundred billion isolated simulations.
With that kind of power, the AI would be able to learn in record time and start giving me decent results.
I think I should explain why I'm doing this. I need mastery and perfect command of every weapon, combat experience, and tactics. That will take 75% of all my simulations, and the remaining 25% will work on developing my own technologies. And the AI, extracting information from the simulations, will pass on the latest data that was in the simulations to me. The AI will become a kind of filter that removes unnecessary information. Also, this AI will be used as an idea generator in the 25% of simulations for technological progress. I'm in the plus.
A few seconds later, everything was already running. Several billion simulations were launched and running simultaneously, while the AI trained on all the incoming information.
I can't believe I created such a complex... crap, in ten seconds of flight at a speed of 700 kilometers per hour. I still have about ten minutes to fly to the tower of corpses, so out of boredom, I created this nonsense.
Buildings flew by below at tremendous speed, practically blurring into a solid blue picture. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a trail behind me right now from friction with the air. Of course, it's not the speed of sound, but it's not the speed of a wheelchair either. I'm definitely kicking up snow (asbestos) as I fly by.
It's worth looking up, and a beautiful picture of a cosmic landscape opens up to you without a single cloud in the sky. All of it illuminated by two satellites. Beauty and grace. How nice it is to fly at an altitude of five hundred meters above the ground. So relaxing.
After the promised ten minutes, I flew up to my destination—the tower of corpses. With one last flap of my wings, I landed right on the very top of the tower, surveying the surroundings. It was beautiful here, no denying it. Fallen skyscrapers, mountains of snow, heaps of corpses... They didn't seem so appealing at first, but as soon as you looked into the distance, a beautiful view of this planet's horizon opened up, mixing all shades of blue. It was perfect.
Grinning, I jumped and began to fall down, rapidly heading toward the asphalt. Just before impact, I spread my wings and made a light flap, slowly landing and raising a cloud of snow around me.
Folding my wings, I looked around. Nothing new, except for buried cars with skeletons inside. Just before falling, I managed to notice small tracks in the snow, as if left by something small. Walking a little forward, I came to a spot where the tracks weren't erased by the flap of my wings.
The tracks had patterns like from the sole of a boot. Not surprising, worker drones love to wear shoes. Heh, their feet are so small that they have to take boots from the children's section, speaking from experience. Now I'm a gigachad with height exceeding that of a disassembly drone. But before... Yeah, those were terrible times.
Not coming up with anything better, I followed the tracks. I had to walk for about twenty minutes. The distance was by no means as small as I initially expected. If this is the canonical bunker, then all the time spent will be justified, but if not... It'll be unpleasant.
Near the bunker, about a hundred meters from it, the worker drone's tracks were joined by tracks with a rather strange shape. A rounded triangle with several holes in the center. Those were disassembly drone feet, I'd recognize them out of a thousand; after all, I lived with L, and he had exactly the same soles on his feet.
Reaching the bunker, I encountered a depressing scene. Oil was spilled on the floor, and corpses were lying around. Looking to the left, I saw a mark of three claws on the wall and a decapitated dummy right under it. This finally convinced me that this bunker was canonical. And that means the main characters are already ready to meet me, right?
Accelerating, I ran to the last, third door, which Khan had closed right in front of his daughter and the disassembly drone in the coat. Knocking a couple of times on the hydraulic piece of super-strong metal, I smiled. Looking up, I was met by an already open ventilation shaft. I smiled even wider.
"How can you do without flair?" I said, scratching the back of my head and looking at the door in front of me again.
"The smart one doesn't go up the mountain, the smart one BLOWS UP the mountain!" My face took on its insane expression. The Solver symbol appeared in my eye, and my smile turned into a menacing grin with atomically sharp fangs. Extending my arm to the side, I snapped my fingers, causing a metallic ring. A moment later, a singularity hovered in my hand.
۞⦰۞
Third Person POV
The room with a huge number of containers filled with who knows what was not as quiet as usual today. Most often, daily, a couple dozen drones passed through here, and even then it was the same individuals who, for one reason or another, needed to stroll through the bunker toward the outpost.
But at the moment, this usually empty place was filled with activity. A battle.
A small worker drone named Uzi, who positioned herself as a rebel who could defeat disassembly drones, and, actually, a disassembly drone named N, who was helping the little rebel fulfill her dream.
Essentially, Uzi had already defeated a disassembly drone when she blew off poor N's head. But now she needed to prove her strength in front of the other bunker residents, who were hiding behind containers in fear. Besides these two, the rebel and the disassembly drone, there were two more killers, only of the female model, with a huge inclination toward sadism. It was a two-on-two battle. A battle to the death.
One disassembly drone, J, had already taken enough damage to lose her temper. She never thought that her favorite corporation's branded pen could harm her.
The second disassembly drone, V, was fighting N and holding up pretty well, but only because N was holding back, not wanting to harm her. And it could have continued like that for a long time, until...
A rumble was heard.
The floor began to vibrate and then went quiet. A loud explosion sounded from the corridor that served as the entrance to the container room. The passage was blocked by dust.
The battle stopped; the drones tried to understand what had happened. Maybe it was another intruder? Or just a banal act of terrorism, which was rare for drones? The answers to these questions were literally walking toward the drones.
Footsteps were heard through the dust. Quiet ones that grew louder and louder with each new step. The fighting drones didn't even notice how they froze, waiting for whoever might enter the room. After a few moments, a barely visible silhouette appeared in the dust cloud. A tall being whose eyes were visible even in such pollution. White eyes.
Taking a few more steps, out of the dust came... a drone. A light but sly smile played on his face. Silver hair played with the warehouse lighting, a long coat swayed from who knows what, and his arms were folded at his sides, relaxed.
From behind one of the containers came another drone, named Khan. He also had white eyes, but his appearance was more unassuming than the drone at the other end of the warehouse. The only thing that caught the eye was his mustache, black and slightly curled. From Khan's face, it was clear—he recognized the newcomer.
"W-what are y-you..." Khan began, but the drone sharply interrupted him, speaking in a calm and confident voice with a slight note of mockery and hidden sadness.
"Long time no see, Khan. Remember me?" The intruder's light smile turned into a vicious grin, not inferior to the disassembly drones' grins. If any other drone were in Khan's place right now, they would have been scared and probably fainted. But the current colony leader only appeared frail and cowardly on the outside.
Looking at the tall drone once more, Khan smiled as if nothing bothered him. The others who saw this smile froze in confusion, trying to understand their leader's behavior.
"Of course I remember, Ai," Khan chuckled.
"I thought I'd have to wait for you at least a couple more years..." Khan put his hand on his chin, hiding his growing smile. His old friend definitely wouldn't like everything he demanded to be told. Maybe even everything that had accumulated over this long time. Khan exhaled and began to speak.
"You don't like long conversations, right?" Ai simply nodded in response to this question, not removing the carnivorous grin from his face.
"I have two main pieces of news for you. Good and bad. I'll start with the good: you're an uncle now!" Absolutely no one expected such words from the usually serious colony leader.
Especially Ai didn't expect them, who, with an indifferent face, tried to calculate the logic in these words with his chip. Abandoning the task, Ai nodded to Khan to continue.
"Yeva and Dima... are dead..." Khan lowered his gaze to the floor, trying not to look into the eyes of probably the most dangerous drone currently in this bunker.
The silence produced by his words was almost ringing.
"Who. Killed. Them." Ai enunciated each word. No one dared to be deceived by the absolutely calm face of the white-eyed drone. Khan, raising his head, stepped back a couple of steps. He, more than anyone, understood how dear Yeva and Dima were to Ai. And he understood what fate awaited their killer.
Nervously coughing, Khan replied:
"A disassembly drone..." Khan said and heard only a soft "Good" in response. You could see the swordsman's eyebrows furrow.
"I think I should introduce myself." He smiled again, as if forgetting that his best friend and girlfriend had been killed. Placing one hand on his stomach and putting the other behind his back, while bowing, he began to speak:
"My name is Serial Number Ai from the Cyn test batch. I was resurrected by a human named Tessa James Elliot on September 15, 3048. I was one of the five sentient and emotional drones of Elliot Manor." Finishing his speech, he straightened up and surveyed the frozen battlefield. Finding his favorite trio of disassembly drones with his gaze, he continued:
"Some of you know me, right, N, V, J?" He narrowed his eyes and addressed the entire trio at once, not particularly caring about the fact that they were his natural enemies. Many years of living with a disassembly drone who, depending on his mood, covered you in curses, leave their marks.
A few seconds passed. The cross on V's display suddenly disappeared, and she sat on her knees, looking as if she had met a long-dead relative (which wasn't far from the truth). She paid no attention to anything, just sat and stared at the floor with zero eyes.
N, in turn, understood nothing. He was the only disassembly drone whose memory Cyn had erased. He didn't know who she was, he didn't know who Ai was, he knew nothing that wasn't related to adventures on this planet. He only looked at his beloved in confusion, who had suddenly lost the will to fight.
And J...
"Fake! You're not real! You're just an illusion!" exclaimed the disassembly drone with pigtails on the sides of her head. Her gaze drilled into Ai's soul, as if trying to learn everything he was hiding.
"You disappeared after the gala, we searched the whole planet! I'm sure you're dead! A copy! A hologram!" Suddenly falling silent, J tensed. Her hands transformed into two blades that, by their appearance alone, spoke of insane sharpness. Spreading her wings, she took a step forward and a few moments later was already raising the blade over Ai's head, intending to deliver a fatal blow.
"That was offensive," Ai replied calmly, and with a loud screech, drew his sword from the magnetic sheath, blocking the disassembly drone's strike. Sparks covered the floor.
Not wanting to wait any longer, Ai kicked J in the chest, throwing her back several meters. In the next second, he had to deflect a barrage of machine gun bullets, spinning his sword like a scalded cat. Everything flying toward him was either deflected or cut.
A crunch was heard. It was J's fist smashing into the white-eyed one's display with all its might, sending him into the nearest wall and raising a lot of dust. The disassembly drone didn't have time to catch her breath before Ai jumped out of the dust, heading into battle with sword at the ready. His display was covered in a web of cracks; you could even see individual shards falling to the floor.
Snorting, J positioned her blades and went on the defensive, completely confident in herself. But Ai was completely different in terms of combat experience. After the hit to his display, he quickly absorbed everything that had been invented and sorted by his AI. Now he had tactics.
First, he redirected energy to his legs and jumped so as to leap over the disassembly drone. Wait for her to turn around, and inflict a small cut with the sword, hitting between the two blades. The rest was technique. Applying a bit more effort, divert the blades to the side and push them out of the line of attack and defense, throwing the defender off balance. While J tried not to fall, Ai tossed his sword aside and with force, punched the disassembly drone in the face with his fist, causing the familiar crunch of the display. J, like Ai, flew back, but before colliding, managed to dig her claws into the floor and spread her wings to stabilize her body. Two long stripes from the claws remained on the floor.
"An eye for an eye," the worker smiled, approaching the sword lying on the floor. Stomping his foot on the sword's guard, the latter flew up and landed in its owner's hand. Knowledge of physics and enormous computational power can create such beautiful tricks.
J growled something unintelligible and rushed into battle again, aiming her claws at the neck of this small and irritating element. Ai, watching this, didn't move from his spot at all. It seemed like he was paralyzed with fear.
As soon as J approached, Ai, without delay, grabbed her by the collar and, not holding back at all, threw her into the wall. Next, he immediately grabbed a metal pipe that one green-eyed drone had tried to defend himself with, and threw it after the disassembly drone, hitting her right in the shoulder and pinning her in place. Oil flowed from the wound, repainting the floor black.
Ai calmly approached the girl with purple hair and took her railgun. Examining its structure, Ai couldn't deny the genius of Khan's daughter. If Uzi was a genius in weapons, then Khan was a genius... in doors.
Approaching the pinned J on the wall, the white-eyed one aimed the railgun at her, waiting for the disassembly drone's last words. The last words didn't take long and came out of the girl's voice modules as a statement, a verdict.
"Fake." She looked at Ai with hatred in her eyes, awaiting the execution of her death sentence. The worker only rolled his eyes at this and said, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. At that moment, Ai didn't even suspect the truth of his words, thinking it was a feature of his Solver.
"I'm not an 'ALONE'¹ from Omicron-12. I can't be copied." After these words, the brightest green light filled the entire space. For a few seconds, nothing could be seen except pure green color bursting from the photonic railgun. After those few seconds, only the remaining legs and a huge melted hole in the wall reminded of the disassembly drone. Ai didn't hold back and poured a bit of his own energy into the railgun. The experiment was a success.
۞⦰۞
Ai's POV
Looking at the fruits of my labor, I sighed tiredly. If J had been more patient and less bloodthirsty, I wouldn't have killed her for nothing. Maybe we could have even jointly hammered the memory into N's head, but alas, J tried to kill me and now was in such... a state. I could even still see the trickling streams of molten metal and heated concrete in this, I don't know, hole.
Twirling the rail in my hand, I couldn't help but be surprised by its stability and efficiency. True, it wasn't without flaws. Thirty-minute recharge, some chance of overheating, and if the structure is destroyed, nothing good will happen to the railgun. Rather, something bad will happen to everyone standing around it at the moment. Huge energy losses due to poor choice of conductive materials—I didn't even mention that. Too obvious. But still, not bad for a first craft.
Turning around, I reached the sitting Uzi on the floor in a dozen steps, who was looking either at me or at the melted piece of wall along with the disassembly drone's corpse. Casting a shadow over the teenager, I knelt on one knee due to the height difference and handed the rebel her railgun, saying:
"I advise finding a metal that conducts energy better. Aluminum is a decent metal, of course, but if you compare it to copper or silver, it barely makes the top for small electronics. Use it when making power lines. If you ever do." I smiled kindly and placed the railgun in Uzi's hands, rising from my spot. A few seconds later, the entire warehouse erupted in joyful and happy exclamations. The drones crawled out of their hiding spots, looking at me like a Messiah.
"That was cool! I want to learn to fight like that too!" I don't think it's worth mentioning who said that. The rebel finally snapped out of it and was now jumping behind my back, begging me to teach her martial arts.
Exhaling, I, without turning around, replied:
"I can do that, but your computational processor won't withstand such insane load, and most likely, you'll die a painful death." I said, spreading my arms. Taking a few steps forward, I looked at Khan who ran up to me, who, without thinking for a second, threw himself to hug me. Honestly, I didn't expect that from this... old man, but be that as it may, I'm very glad that I'm welcome here.
Khan pulled away.
"What are your orders, General?" A light smile played on Khan's face, and he straightened up and stood at attention, awaiting orders. This was no longer the drone who flinched at every rustle. This was a wonderful colony leader who saw no problems in managing a large number of hands and resources.
"You're the colony leader, not me. Do whatever you need, not what I need." I replied, patting Khan on the shoulder. The drone only narrowed his eyes at my words and nodded, already about to turn around when I suddenly remembered one thing.
"Wait a second." I grabbed him by the scruff like a kitten and lifted him off the ground, turning him to face me. My cracked display showed an extremely serious expression.
"What do you mean 'Uncle'?" After the question, Khan visually shrank, trying to avoid eye contact with me. Interesting, does he know that I was once called "Mad Ai"?
"Yeva's daughter... And my daughter... I told them about you and called you the uncle who loves experiments." Khan blurted out nervously, still several dozen centimeters off the floor. My gaze swept over everyone in the warehouse. There was silence. Too loud a silence.
Setting Khan on the floor, I sighed through my teeth and looked toward one of the containers.
Next to it stood a girl with dark purple hair and bright red eyes. She was wearing a red skirt with yellow elements and a matching top. I had no doubt who this could be. Doll, Yeva's only daughter.
Shifting my gaze to the right, I looked at the bundle of hyperactivity with purple eyes. Uzi Doorman. Right now, she was looking at Khan and me in confusion. Strange that I didn't suddenly feel an urge to chop the white-eyed mustachioed one into salad.
Returning my gaze to Doll again, I delved into my thoughts for a couple of seconds, weighing the pros and cons. Returning to reality, I disappeared, only to appear next to the red-eyed girl a moment later, raising a cloud of dust again, this time from air resistance.
Poor Doll jumped away from me, looking as if she was about to fight to the death.
Shrugging, I approached closer and ran my finger over her display. Doll froze in fear and uncertainty of what might happen next. Through empathy, I felt her horror, rejection, and... anger directed at me. The latter I completely didn't understand.
"You look so much like your mother..." I whispered and stepped back a couple of steps. Turning around, I surveyed the battlefield again. N was already holding V tied with her own tail. V wasn't resisting, and from her appearance, she clearly wasn't up to it. You could hear the gears grinding in her head, trying to comprehend my presence.
A moment—and I was back in the center of the warehouse. Looking at Khan, I said:
"Watch the kids, Khan. I ABSOLUTELY don't like what you've signed me up for." With those words, I spread my four wings and, catching several surprised glances, pushed off the ground with all my speed and strength, breaking through the fragile glass ceiling of the bunker, leaving the drones with their thoughts.
With a sense of overfulfilled duty and without any doubts, I headed to the nearest high-rise that hadn't tilted from eighteen years of disuse.
A few seconds later, I found the building I needed, which was literally a five-minute walk from the bunker. It was no different from the other buildings. The same blackened metal, small windows like in Russian Khrushchyovkas, and a certain majesty that came with a fifty-story metal skyscraper. And, by the way, it held up only because other skyscrapers had "fallen" on it from all sides, keeping it in place.
Smiling, I flew into the window I liked, turning it into shards of glass and pieces of metal scattering across the floor. Looking around, I waved my hand, and the window, as if by magic, reassembled itself, returning all the glass pieces to their rightful place.
Walking into the living room of this small apartment, I waved my hand with a cube again, and a few seconds later, the apartment shone like new. The sofa regained its velvety shine and color saturation. The ceiling and floors were completely redone. All the electronics now worked, and light appeared in the apartment itself, as I willingly shared my energy.
Sitting on the sofa, I created a random book in my hand and began reading, waiting for N, V, and Uzi to return to the pod. I need to talk to the former maid. Maybe even torture her a little. Just a tiny bit. It's a matter of time.
---------------------------
¹Note: The automated system "ALONE" was deployed in the colonial war from 26## to 26##. This system proved highly effective, turning enemy vessels and maneuverable shuttles into space debris. Nothing could defeat this system, which was capable of mimicking human behavior and deceiving its adversaries.
In 26##, a human clone named [REDACTED] succeeded in disabling the system, finally bringing an end to a war that had already been formally concluded.
Word Count: 4213