Toy Wars (24 page)

I
hadn’t
always agree
d
with Six, but I
’d
always tried to do the best for it that I could manage, even if that meant disobeying.
How I wanted to go home and be happy again and I knew I couldn’t, as there would soon be no home left
if I did
.

As I continued to climb over the mountains, on those few occasions when I chose to remain conscious through the day, I noted a daytime mist.
Apparently
,
the mercury boiled out of the
ground
even earlier in the day.
It had to have something to do with the air pressure, which here, so high in the mountains, was considerably lower, but I had no way to gauge it.

My sensors were
n’t
designed to note air pressure.
I could get some estimation of it by the sound of my own voice
:
the higher the
pitch, the lower the pressure. My approximation had me
7,000
meters above the level of Six’s dome.
A week later, when I thought I had reached
10,000 meters
in height
, the
fog
remained
constant
day and night
.

The
moist
haze
didn’t keep the
light pressure of the sun from recharging
me
.
It
wouldn’t have bothered me save that it obscured my vision and made my footing treacherous.
At least three times I slipped on rocks.
One of those times I saved myself from falling down a
200
-meter ravine by blindly flailing my arm into the crook of a tiny shrub-like growth on the edge of the cliff.
I peeked over that particular edge
and
concluded that
after such a fall, remaining
operational would have been miraculous.
I opted to slow even further after that near miss.

Along my ascent, I made a conscious decision not to take the easier passes through the mountains.
I could get stuck in a situation where there was no sunlight
at all
to recharge, so I had to do it the hard way
—
up and over.
The
peaks
slowed my advance by
80
percent
or more
.
I was hard
-
pressed to
tell my straight-line speed as I kept going up and down so much
. W
ith my inertial locator damaged, I was reliant on something the Humans call “
b
y guess and by golly.”

The mountain peaks contained
an increas
ing
number and diversity of
biologic life forms.
Almost all of them ignored my presence.
Only one tiny, multi-toothed carnivore, all of fifteen centimeters long, attempted to take a bite out of me while I sle
pt
.
My internal sensors woke me to the threat and I eliminated it with a single shot from my
sidearm
.
My voltage fluctuated wildly for several hours
after that incident
,
making it impossible to justify shutting down
.

Plants covered the entire ground beneath me.
Although a health
y
shade of pink, it reminded me of the green carpeting in my dream of so many days ago
—
when
I
had
turned off for my CCT replacement.
The vegetation and life forms here
still
were mostly unlike any I had ever encountered.
It was something to keep my mind occupied as I traveled each night.

Only one of the flora or fauna gave me any real trouble.
One evening I awoke to find myself entangled in a crimson and pink growth of vines and leaves.
When I tried to free myself, not only did I find that I could not move but the vines wrapped more tightly around me.
I struggled to lay my hands on my pack, but the
creepers
intertwined with my arms so well I couldn’t move.
My gun, slung over my shoulder, was
of
no use.

I spent almost the entire night twisting and turning, first trying this group of motions and then that
. Not only did none of it help, but the animated plant seemed to hug me even tighter
.
I might as well not have any limbs at all.

Morning came and no new ideas came to me.
I hadn’t quite despaired at that point, but visions of
watching
each erg float away filled my mind.
It seemed too much to believe that a biologic, and a plant at that, could keep me from completing my mission.
The idea was laughable at best.
But that didn’t change the cold, hard fact that I could not move.

Oddly
,
my idea came from yet another biologic
—
a
2
-
kilogram quadrupedal insect that filled the same ecological niche as a Terran rabbit.
It even looked remarkably like one if you discounted the
blood
-
colored carapace
and convinced yourself that its two
20
-
centimeter antennae were ears.
This rabbit, for want of a better name,
edged up
to the
periphery
of the growth
that
surrounded
me
and began nibbling on the outer leaves.
I screamed at it in hopes that it would at least save itself
. Without moving
,
i
t kept one eye on me as it continued to munch on the leaves.

The vines attempting the encirclement of its new prey moved with the speed of frozen mercury. Every few seconds the insect
just walked out of its reach and continued nibbling, this time on a new vine.
After about an hour of eating
and occasional leisurely dodges
, the rabbit walked off, sated and free.

It did give me an idea.
I didn’t know why
Six created me with
a mouth or for that matter, teeth.
My mouth had, up to this time, served only as my vocal apparatus.
I had only ever used my teeth once
—
against
the T
.
rex.
It was time to do it again.
I reached down and grabbed a mouthful of vines in my teeth and bit down hard.
The vines parted easily.
I spit them out and
repeated
.

Every time I got close to freeing an arm, three more vines slithered, with all the speed of
a rock crab
, to take their place.
Chew and spit.
Bite and expel.
It was a race to see if I ran out of power before the plant ran out of vines or tentacles.
I won.

Eventually
,
it
had
committed the last of its leaved resources to the battle and I managed to chew enough to get my first arm free.
The process of liberating myself speeded up tremendously as I pulled the knife from my backpack and slashed away
at
the rest of the offending plant in broad
,
exaggerated strokes.
The plant parted easily
to
the onslaught of the blade, barely offering resistance.
Once completely free I moved out of the immediate vicinity, fully charged or not.

As I walked I couldn’t help but feel nauseated by the concept of chewing on the vines.
To think that biologics actually
ingested food
to survive was a horrid thought.
Even more, why did I have a mouth?
Or teeth?
No answer was forthcoming for these truly puzzling questions.

I retreated at least
half a kilometer
before looking for a new place to recharge. This time I chose a large
,
barren rock without so much as a twig lying near it. Even with this I kept my processor online all day and jerked at even the slightest
breeze
hitting my fur.
I took the time to
fully
recharge
by spending another full day
lying in the sun
. By the second day at least I didn’t start at every little sound or movement
.

I couldn’t decide if I’d just succeeded or I’d been an idiot
for lying into the creature in the first place. In the end it didn’t matter.
I was
finally
able to return to my quest.

Creator

Five uneventful days later
I came over a
sharp
ridge
. T
wo
Tommy Tank
units and a pair of elephants r
an
a random patrol in a tiny valley.
The tanks’ turrets spun toward me. Tracers spit out directly at me. One came close enough to part the fur on my left arm.

I dropped immediately to my belly. It took a few moments to understand why I’d been spotted so easily. Looking back
,
I had
silhouetted
myself
against the triply moonlit sky.

I don’t know whether their net told them to attack or they were running standard orders in dealing with a
fauna
.
I rolled to
my right to
take advantage of some cover provided by a group of large rocks.
I pulled out my M16 and sighted down the hill
.

The elephants ran surprisingly fast, weaving as they c
limbed
. The tanks
darted in amongst rocks of their own, but always upward toward me.
I la
y
still and kept my eyes peeled for an opportunity.
I knew where to hit most standard units
to
score
kill
s
—
I was just waiting for that perfect shot.
Patience rewarded me with clear shots at the tanks one after another in rapid succession.
Two of my bursts equated to two kills
on the tanks
.

Another
kill shot
through the processor brought
the
first
pachyderm
to an abrupt halt. I sighted in for the final kill but s
omething stopped me.
I had the shot and didn’t take it.
An idea
began
to form
.
Instead of blowing its sump apart, I o
nce again used my knowledge of unit anatomy
to place
two aimed shots, shattering the knee joints on the forward legs.
It went down in a heap.

I really don’t know what came over me.
Maybe it was loneliness.
Maybe it was just stupidity, but I
put down my assault rifle and
walked down to deal with the injured unit, with only my
sidearm
and
my medical tools
.

As I approached from behind, t
he pink elephant, sporting purple polka
dots, thrashed wildly on its destroyed knees
. I
t
would
twist around to
bear its
chest
-mounted
mortar
on me.
A mortar
has as much reason to be used as close
-
in defense as do plastic explosives.
That didn’t prevent this elephant from trying.
Despite its infirmity, the unit moved rather rapidly, turning to face me at just the last second
. I’d dart just out of its firing arc
.

The great rose-colored trunk of the creature knocked me off my feet in a great sweeping stroke.
The prehensile snout returned to wrap around my leg, but
I
backpedal
ed
crab-style just out of its reach.
“Elephants do have an additional close
-
in weapon,” I reprimanded myself.

For nearly an
hour
I dodged
back and forth to circumvent both the power of the elephant’s single digit, and the
potential disaster of the weapon in
its chest.
A tiny opening between the pair allowed me to jump
on
to
its back
. I misjudged
the creatures flexibility as it hunched over. Only
my paw
s latched onto
its massive ears
kept me from going over its head.
Instead
,
I
dropped
and
straddl
ed
the massive pink back.

The elephant’s
gyrations
and flailing trunk forced me to focus on remaining mounted
. While violent and lengthy, I never feared the outcome.
After three aborted attempts,
I
opened its processor access panel and toggled its deactivation switch.

As the unit stopped
I slumped forward over the unit’s lumbering bulk.
My joint
sensor
s
complained of excessive wear
and my hydraulic fluid
suffered further degradation
.
I eased myself to my feet
,
taking care not to add any additional damage. Each of the units had been clean kills.

To appease my body processor, I did a slow, restful search of the
desolate
valley
. It boasted nothing but some gentle rolling hills with almost no flora or fauna. While I only carried rudimentary programming on mineral wealth, it didn’t seem to boast even that resource.
Six never put a guard on a place unless it had some intrinsic value.
There seemed to be no specific reason for any units to be there
.

Six sometimes applied such low priority to units or tasks that their interrupt
would never get
serviced
. Those units remain
ed
in a never-ending
back-flow process
, doing the same useless jobs time after time until they wore themselves down to uselessness
.
I shrug
ged
it off as
the fallibility of the Factories
,
a
fact
proven
by my continued activation.
Twice over my processes should have been terminated
if
a Factory had its way.

Desolate
Valley, as I dubbed it, had nothing of any value.

I
spent all
of twenty-three milliseconds worrying that I might have given away my position
by attacking these units. In the end i
t seemed so minor a thing at this point that I shrugged it off.
Had
there
been another
within
kilometers
it
would have responded to the
alarm raised by the
units I had just dispatched.

Once I had assured myself that I was alone in
Desolate
Valley
, it was time to get to work.
I
intended
to be Dr. Frankenstein, right out of the original Shelley novel.
I set up shop near the
powered-down
elephant.
With great care, unlike my radical CCT
-
ectomy in 55474’s space, I removed my secondary CCT.
I took quite a long time disconnecting each lead
.
In the best of circumstances it was not a trivial task.
The surgery took on a new complexity with my only view of it in
the
surface of a mercury pool.
The mercury pool
helped but
reduce
d
the image somewhat due to the curvature of the surface.
It took some adjustment algorithms to get the distortion filtered out.
Manipulating the fine
tools
amongst the even finer hair
-
like strands of the CCT
’
s connections with imperfect vision could have been described as foolhardy.
Luckily, my body process automated most of the motions.
I can’t explain it other than I knew, without looking, where everything on my body was, could touch it and manipulate it without sight
. My sump dragged up the
word
kinesthesia
.
Still,
the
sight of the excision reassur
ed me enough to complete my task
.

I was quite pleased with myself.
Even Humans didn’t perform surgery on themselves.
With a greater interest in speed, I removed all four of the elephant’s CCTs.
I then installed my CCT into
its
primary location
. In spite of the vast number of connections, the work went smooth and sure.
Even after the better part of an hour no
doubts
lingered
about
the accuracy of my connections
.

Its damaged limbs also needed
replacement before my creation would live.
I removed the offending
appendages
of my creation
.
While I thanked assembly line technology for allowing one unit’s parts to be used
interchangeably
, I cursed the weight of those damned lower
legs
. Each one massed
nearly eight times that
of a
teddy
leg with hip socket.
From the other destroyed pachyderm, I removed its dull red legs, dragging them up the hill to my worksite over hours.

The interchangeable parts fit perfectly
on the eighth attempt to angle them into the socket correctly while holding half of their weight (overload capacity on my part) with one hand.
While the fur colors didn’t match, I stitched them together with white thread. Color coordination wasn’t my primary concern.

By the time the sun was sending direct rays down into the valley, I admitted I wouldn’t finish and la
y
down next to my project as my charging systems began to soak up energy.
Instead of sleeping, though, I contemplated
my unusual choices and actions
.

Did I have any right?
A
quote
kept
echo
ing
through my mind:
“Necessity is the only right the strong require.”
It didn’t help that the Human named Hitler
provided the quote
.

I couldn’t even think why
my efforts
bothered me.
I could have been one full day closer to the next point in my mission. The exertions might have been for naught.
Even more, it did not fit into my mission at all.
I couldn’t understand the drive within me.
But no matter how I analyzed
it
, I always decided to
finish the task.
With the decision scrutinized and a course determined,
I let my processor wander to reduce
its
stress.
Time ticked away at an accelerated rate.

Night fell abruptly and I jumped up ready for action.
I had been right
that the valley cut off a vital portion of the solar power.
The sunlight had not fully recharged me.
I was going to have to spend more down time.
I pushed the thought aside as
I had work in front of me.
I spent the early evening
reconnecting neural connections in each leg. The darkest portion of the evening I spent
removing all the filters on the energy panels of my
monster
.
It would need power, too.

A creation
whose total conversation and responses were programmed into it from its construction date
appealed to me as much as getting eaten by a basilisk
.
M
y desire for companion
ship
to ease the solitude
drove me to this act.
This meant
I required it to have
intelligence and empathy.
I knew only one way to give it the qualities I desired.

Out of the tools I’d salvaged from the Nurse Nan,
I removed a brain sump syringe, with a needle that seemed longer than my arm.
I think the apparent length was
my
emotional response as it was only
5.3
centimeters long.
I personally have no idea why a
Nurse Nan
should be carrying one of these devices.
I’ve never seen it used anywhere on the battlefield or in repairs.
But then why should I have teeth?