City of Slow Dreams: Chapter 4 (by Elliot Bowers)
They left the apartment at 1300, going out of the building and out onto the sidewalk—into bright afternoon daylight. The Cloaked Man—resplendid in ironed slacks, tee shirt and cape—wanted to be dramatic and leave at 1800, going through the west gate and riding into the sunset. But Alia thought it best to leave while there was still light in the sky—during Brunswick's business hours. That way, most people of the city would be too busy working and handling other business; there would be lowered chance of random violent encounters with the city's randomly angry citizens. Alia used that very phrase, randomly angry citizens.
Slender and feminine Van—also in pressed clothes—mounted her nuke bike as Alia watched her movements, quite carefully. All should be well with Van; autorepairs should have recalibrated her mobility systems after the A.I. module was repaired. Yet, Alia wanted to be sure of Van's status; Van was fresh from having her crystal-matrix mind repaired.
"Alia, I didn't know you had homosexual tendencies," said The Cloaked Man, standing by his own vehicle. "You must think Van is pretty cute, looking at her the way you do. Too bad it can't come to anything, us not being able to enjoy sex and all."
Van looked at Alia, a look of shock and embarrassment. She did not realize that she was being honestly admired. Admiration was it; it was a compliment to be looked at by Alia.
No! Alia, in turn, looked at The Cloaked Man. "Incorrect, that assumption. I acted to ascertain her well-being—visual diagnostics of her mobility systems. Van was repaired yesterday; immediate perusal becomes necessity." As Alia said this, her pert synthetic face showed anger.
But to The Cloaked Man, the look on Alia's cute face just looked like a pout—a little metal-bodied doll-girl looking angry. Sure, the Cloaked Man believed Alia, her just inspecting Van's mobility by sight; he just wanted to see her angry. Alia was just so darned cute when she was angry! So he goaded her a bit more.
"Perusal? Diagnostics? Su-u-ure, Alia! And passers-by can inspect
Van's—uh—mobility systems, too." He winked. "I'm sure there are plenty of real-bodied people wanting to inspect Van in bed, too."
With a denying shake of her pale-blonde head, Alia turned to her own customized nuke bike. She then put her hands on the handlebars, and gripped. The nuke bike's electronics systems recognized Alia's faint electromechanical emanations, then started the electric repulsor engine—the engine staring up with its trademark roar. She angrily revved the engine a few times more.
Van started her vehicle's engine as well. The Cloaked Man, still smiling, mounted up and started his. Three mounted nuke bikes in a line, all started. The Cloaked Man, his cape unfurled, was up front. Van was in the middle, looking comfortable on her nuke bike. Alia was at the rear, her previous anger gone as the journey was finally started. The madman up front organized this party; he would lead.
The Cloaked Man revved his engine, thinking on the direction to take. He knew the way to the City of Slow Dreams, had a very vague idea as to which direction to go. Where to go? North. North was the general direction to take. They would have to leave through one of the two gates of the city's border-wall. Since this journey was guided by whims for senses of direction by The Cloaked Man, he would choose the direction by whim.
He spoke just loud enough that he could be heard over the idling repulsor engines. Head turned to the left, he addressed his other party members. "I suppose we could quit this crazy city by going through the east gate. I came in that way some time ago, so let's leave through there. Less dramatic than going through the west gate, but the roads are better."
He then looked forward, down this typical Brunswick street: short buildings left and right. Ah, but more distant and wider roads await him and his party. He gave a twist to the accelerator, and the extremely tough rear tire squealed before taking more full purchase—sending The Cloaked Man rocketing away. Van just followed suite, with less squeal of tire. Alia was more prudent and accelerated just enough to allow a minimum of tire-squeal.
They jetted through Brunswick's streets, buildings and people being blurringly passed. People walking along the sidewalk gave looks to those three non-Ganglanders on nuke bikes, racing at demonic speed. It was a demonic speed, going just over seventy miles per hour on city streets.
Among the crowd were e-cops and Ganglanders. The gigantic e-cops passed also looked at those racing through the city's streets. Neither of those two factions in society—neither the Ganglanders nor the e-cops—would stop the party of three from leaving this city. The Cloaked Man, up front, would not let his party stop now. This was traveling at escape velocity.
Just under an hour of riding through city streets, they came to the city limits—then to the east gate. And had to put on hard brakes to a stop, rubberoid tires smoking and screaming on the asphalt. If they did not stop, they would have smacked into the closed metal gate, high speed.
With nuke bikes beginning to cool, the three looked at the tall and thick wall that was closed. The gate sealed off the road, blocking and trapping and constraining the three. There was no way around; that wall over there went all around the city. Absolutely all around. Now, all three were angry.
Just maybe, The Cloaked Man was angriest. He squinted, and his mouth opened. Shouted, "Who in tarnation closed the gate? Sure as heck better not be bureaucrats!" From his shout, there was an echo off the long tall wall. He un-squinted his eyes, then bothered to look at the two windows set in the thick wall before them—windows set at the sides of the retracting gate. "Yo, inside! I know you e-cops are in there. Now tell me why the heck you're keeping us in?"
A light female voice spoke from the right window, echoing from the open window set in the wall: soft-speaking, gentle and young. "What have you? Do you desire to chasing ghosts? Or scavenging antiques? Seeking more of the likes of that little blonde one you have? Ha ha, not an immensely good idea, Cloaked Man." Surprisingly, it was Alia's voice coming from that window.
And yet Alia was there with The Cloaked Man. He gave a look to her, and her eyes showed no trickery, only sudden concern. The Cloaked Man thought this was creepy. Why was Alia's voice coming from inside the window set in the wall?
Alia shouted to be heard by who or what used her own voice. "We cannot chase ghosts, chase forgotten dreams. Yet, we can chase a dream's vision! Its ideals! It surpasses chasing money and political power in Brunswick. You may view us as foolish; I do the same to you! You using my own voice—for mockery."
"What, antique, you want to travel the plains too?" continued Alia's voice from the wall. "Pretty little things like you would be broken out there. Who can predict and tell, maybe some mutants, roving madmen, or War machines will sense you. Then smash your pretty little metal body into parts. Then, when enough damage is done, your brain would finally die. The peace of death, the final peace."
A voice from the other window, the left window, spoke: a low male voice. "And Cloaked Man, what the heck about you, huh? You really want to go out there with just two groupies? Risking your synthetically enhanced life? For what, a dream? Arguing and all that?
"This is not good, Cloaked Man! You're not going to get anywhere doing that! Tell you what: Go home, buy yourself some oatmeal and plenty more damned good coffee. Then take a nap and invite some people over—every day. You'd never have to consider doing crazy shit again."
The Cloaked Man himself shouted in response to his voice. "Crazy shit?' Is that what you think this is? Sure, it's not totally sane business. But it's business. It's something to do besides staying in this whacked and tired city."
The voice spoke again from the left window, still using The Cloaked Man's voice. "What about the rest of you two? You want to leave with that freaky joker? Probably drive you nuts with his gibberish and all that. But if that's what you want, I suppose you're welcome to hang with him. Heh, heh, heh…"
Alia spoke up, slightly annoyed at this play. With her infrared vision and artificial hearing, she was able to ascertain who imitated their voices. "You question the obvious. Just perhaps, you yourself can puzzle out the answer? Do so, and be sure to open the gates. We expect compliance of you, Officer Marphie."
That was when the wielder of the copied voices, the one behind the left window, quit. In his own voice, Officer Marphie shouted, "Damn, how'd you know!" Silence, then he laughed… "Heh, heh. You've got a pretty good ear, kid! And a good memory. Recognizing artifacts of my voice print and all. You deserve a nice bottle of motor oil for your joints.
"But seriously, I tried to convince you against leaving. Especially you, little metal-bodied girl. You, Alia, first came to Brunswick, weakened and lost. The plains did that to you, weakened you. And you had nowhere else to go. So you came to Brunswick. Guess you want to return to that situation. Guess you want to leave. And I'll let you.
"Just don't hate me for it or anything. What I did, it's all part of policy when people talk about leaving Brunswick. Traveling the plains. We e-cops, enforcement officers, try to keep you from doing dangerous things like leaving the city, try to convince you away from that. This must be one of those times where we can't, though…"
After moments of silence, there was then the sound of machinery from inside the wall. The tensor-reinforced gating parted. Now again, the road out was open. A very long road.
Alia suspected as much; it was Officer Marphie himself who tried to convince them away from leaving Brunswick. Strange, since Brunswick had such an annoying procedure for bringing in citizens. Now, Brunswick had a procedure for letting people out.
Then, after a minute's waiting, the immense gating was finally fully open. That revealed a long highway out into the sunlit plains. Somewhere, there should be a left fork in the road—to go north. The three revved their nuke bikes' engines, then motored out onto that highway. They left the City of Brunswick.
In the light of the yellow afternoon sun, three mounted nuke bikes roared out and away from the east gate of the vast and immense city on these plains. Their engines could be heard from miles away, echoing and thrumming sounds of motors out on these otherwise quiet plains. With so much speedy confidence, the trio of riders moved quite quickly along the vast stretch, going away from the lone city on these plains—to ride the somewhat cracked highways.
In speeding so, the three left the city further and further behind with passing minutes—despite whatever feelings of regret they felt. For Alia, those feelings were ones of unsureness. The city was almost all that she could really and truly remember of her life since awakening on the plains. All else in her past seemed faded.
Now, she was again on these lonely vast stretches. Out in the immense green lands where there was almost nothing but vast green land, blue sky above and a road. From the smallest of the three in this riding group, this feeling made for the most consternation—for her alone. She would not speak aloud of her fear.
But Alia was not alone this time, riding along with two other people. This time, she had much more than she had before. When she first staggered into Brunswick, she had nothing but her metal body and intensely fogged memories. Even then, she had less than that; faceless, she was not even considered a being.
Now she had so much more: a face, some friends, and—above all—a purpose. Without purpose, without a quest, she would have just been a piece of junk on the streets of Brunswick. Junk, to be eventually sold when her brain finally rotted…
Her reverie of contemplation was interrupted. "Oh, yeah!" shouted The Cloaked Man, loud above the three engines. Alia and Van looked, seeing the cape fluttering at his back and his left hand raised. "Okay folks, there's a northward turn coming up. I have a real feeling that that's where we go. So slow up and follow me."
They slowed and followed The Cloaked Man into a long banking turn that went left, easing up on the accelerator and leaning into the turn. When they hit the straight highway at the end of the turn, they straightened up and sped up again. A bit more cracked and bumpy in places, this was a slightly rougher stretch of pavement. Despite the slightly tougher going, the three were silently thankful; they felt lucky that there was still pavement out here after all. They were inexperienced nuke bike riders and were not quite comfortable with off-road riding: Luckily, there was a road going north at all.
With that turn taken, The Cloaked Man had thoughts on this long route. It was that whim again that made him take that turn. That whim was a guiding force, a subconscious guiding force that made him do things. He did not quite question why they had to go north. He just knew that they were supposed to go north. And just now, he knew they had to take that left turn—knew by feeling.
The Cloaked Man thought, Can a robot ever have emotional hunches? Did a humanoid robot have real feelings at all? All of this time, The Cloaked Man just saw Van as a kind of appliance-turned-person. If she was damaged, they could just let her lie overnight and let her body's autorepairing flow of microscopic nanobots fix her. If too broken for autorepairs, they could just buy parts for her.
No, not that: they were traveling now. Who knew when they would hit the next settlement? Or another city? There are no machinists' shops out on the plains, no readily available shops for any goods! The Cloaked Man would have to go through the trouble of apporting anything they needed, like spare components for their nuke bikes or themselves—should autorepairs ever fail.
Van was like that: something to be fixed when broken. She may have simulated feelings and all, may look beautifully human, but she's just a robot. From there, The Cloaked Man thought of Van and her worth as a person s they rode on into the dying day. Him thinking prolonged thoughts.
Night soon came over the wide green-grass land. Out here, away from the glaringly bright halogen-arc lights of the city, the sky was a clear dark spattered with clouds and twinkling with spotting stars. The moon was near the horizon. Other than the stars above and moon at the side, their nuke bikes' headlights were the only lights.
They had ridden for an hour now, into the night. Alia felt her brain growing tired. She would have to sleep for four or five hours. Otherwise, she would fall off her vehicle and possibly ruin her newly refurbished head. And it could take hours more for her nuke bike to repair itself. But then…
Squeak! That was the sound of both tires making slight skidding sounds; Alia had corrected at the very last moment after she dozed off! She heard Van speak up, speaking above engine sounds. "Alia, are you okay?"
"My brain grows tired. I need sleep," answered Alia, feeling her brain's exhaustion pulling down on her. "If I do not rest soon, I will not fall asleep by choice." That is, she would fall asleep, anyway.
The Cloaked Man spoke up. "You tired, too? Dang, I thought it was just me! Okay, let's just pull over and sleep. Anywhere, I suppose…" After saying this, he did slow and pull to the left side of the road—anywhere.
They all pulled over now. Engine roar went down to a lower tone as they pulled over to the left. Alia spoke up, not having to shout over louder engines. "Let us rest twenty yards from the roadway; I would feel uncomfortably vulnerablerable resting so close to such an easily accessible area," she said.
It was a good suggestion, resting away from a too-obvious area where anyone or anything could come by and attack. Idea taken, they moved themselves away from the highway, walking the nuke bikes. They turned on the headlights, lighting the way forward.
Alia found a decent resting place for them, a deep grassy depression. They could set camp here. Nuke bikes laid on the sides, placed in a triangular way, they had a sort of defined camping space. Van had an odd comment about there being no cozy campfire, or campfire songs to sing. The Cloaked Man and Alia just gave her odd looks. Why set anything afire out here? What was there to burn for a fire, anyway?
There could possibly be things to burn out here for a "camp" fire. Possibly, there were forests out here. But likely, they would not hit any of those "woodlands" or "forests" of legend for dozens of miles—if ever. But that was tomorrow. Tonight was rest-time.
They laid their synthetic bodies down on soft grass in the grassy depression in the earth, a bike-bordered triangular area. Each had their own particular space to sleep. Alia looked upward, looked at the somewhat cloudy night sky, then let the warm and dark comfort of sleep take her brain, finally.
And she woke up, wet with rainwater, to the sound of a crack-boom explosion, quick-followed by a scream. That was Van's scream. Alia's synth-flesh eyelids snapped open. Then she snapped to stand up, quickly on her metal bootlets. Her ceramic eyes switched over to a hybrid visual-infrared sight to see better, and she was able to see Van. Damaged and fallen Van, her wet-clothed body sprawled on the grass.
She must have been struck down by something in the night. What happened? Who would know?
The Cloaked Man, where was he? Where could he have gone? Alia put her silvery hands to her realistic face, cupping her mouth to shout, "Cloaked Man! Cloaked Man! Van is down!" She listened for a response. One more try… "Cloaked Man!"
"Oh, my head!" came the loud and groaning reply from behind. Alia turned. She saw The Cloaked Man come stepping drunkenly toward her. His right hand was on his chest, and his left hand was on the side of his wet-haired head. "I'm feeling hurt! The components in my chest started to act freaky, and I don't think my brain was getting enough oxygen and nutrients for a while. Feeling shaky all over. Damn, I felt like I was struck by lightning!"
That could explain the explosion she felt and heard, the one waking her up. "We were. That loud sound, it marked a lightning strike." She looked back at Van. "Van must have suffered the worst."
"Dang!" said The Cloaked Man, perhaps too loudly. "Maybe we should have slept with the nuke bikes parked standing up? You know how it would work: lightning being attracted to taller objects and all. That would have been better than being blasted by electricity…" He looked at Van, sprawled. "Would have been better for Van, too."
Alia suddenly thought, What ails my thinking? Van needs help! She scrambled over to the fallen gynoid. Kneeling by Van, Alia wriggled her metal fingers in the air—flicking water from silvery fingertips. She then set those fingertips to Van's forehead.
Now for diagnostics. Reading information through fingertips, Alia's visual systems began displaying basic information on Van's hardware—transmitted information coming through Alia's titanium fingertips. Mobility systems were fine, status still in green-light condition. Her energy systems were in a vaguely yellow condition from the electrical burst, still in operating order. The A.I. module, though, was in red condition and not autorepairing. Something was critically wrong.
That was because Van probably had no reboot module—very tiny, very compact, and very expensive backups of an A.I.'s operating subsystems. It was a dime-sized and
gem-shaped greenish crystal. Her owner, Steve, must have removed it—probably to sell it.
The result, Van's personality was erased by lightning—and with nothing to re-start her thought processors. Alia lifted her fingers from Van's forehead. "Her personality was spited," she said aloud, then looked up at The Cloaked Man. In her infrared-enhanced sight, she saw a surprisingly serious look come to The Cloaked Man's face. "She is shut down, unless we can get a reboot module."
The Cloaked Man squinted at Alia. He took steps closer. With that severe look in his eyes, he said. "Did you say, 'reboot module'? Specifically, that part?"
She nodded once. "With certainty. A reboot module. It has the look of a faintly greened diamond, very small."
"Does it have to be an exact sort of thing? Exactly what would fit in Van?" asked The Cloaked Man, very carefully. He had something in mind…
Alia thought some seconds. "No. Exactness is not quite an issue. Reboot crystals are generally made the same standard size—generally 2.75-centimeter radii and
5.5-centimeter height. Do tell me why you inquire so."
The Cloaked Man sighed, then reached into his left pocket. As he did this, his cape gave slight crackling sounds. He was apporting something sophisticated. Then, he pulled out what he apported: a small greenish crystal.
He held up the crystal, held it grasped between thumb and forefinger. "Alia," he began, "I want you to listen to me on this one. See this?" He wriggled the crystal slightly. "It's an apported copy of a crystal matrix, one that I never had the confidence to install. I had techies custom-make the compressed personality in this crystal matrix. They made it from data extracted from my own brain. Mad from memories of my last girlfriend, conjured from a straight-up brain hookup. I'm talking, like, cerebrum."
"Uh?" she gasped. That sounded very dangerous. Connecting a human's spinal cord was commonplace technology, necessary for body replacement surgery. But to connect directly to a person's cerebrum was trouble.
The Cloaked Man could have become a brain-dead vegetable if such a procedure was done wrong—if at all. "You risked the death of your brain—to copy memories?" she asked. "Merely memories? Raw data? Tell more to reveal." Alia suspected something else, but did not say aloud. She wanted The Cloaked Man to say more, to reveal exactly.
"What I mean, my girlfriend's personality is in this crystal," he said. "Not her identity. Because she's dead. I never wanted her copied into a crystal matrix. That would be wrong. She's dead and that is that."
Alia looked down at the grass, seeing it through a grayish-red gloom. She was not quite sure if she wanted to hear about this. But she would listen, anyway.
The Cloaked Man spoke on. "My girlfriend, she was beautiful. I loved her. One day, two or so jerks—some pre-teens wanting to be Ganglanders—bought some refurbished burst guns War antiques.
"They somehow snuck their way into her house. Then they blasted her, bullets into her body. But that was thirty years ago. All of that is in the breeze now. Not that I should whine over her anymore. Because I don't. Look, do you want to hear more of the sob story, or are you going to use this thing?"
Alia looked at him, her face grim. He held out the small gem. She took it carefully between her gray fingers. "With this, I'll need a repair kit. At least with electronics tools," she said.
Then The Cloaked Man reached into his left pocket. No cape-crackling this time. He pulled out a long and slim toolkit, one that wasn't in his pocket before. He gave that to Alia. "Use it in good health, kid," he said, his commonplace mirth somehow restored—perhaps too quickly, Alia thought. If she lost someone she loved and had the
personality-preserving crystal being handled, she would have acted with more reverence.
But The Cloaked Man was his own person, odd as it is. Then, the sky began to lighten as Alia began to do this work. She opened the slender toolkit, selecting a pen-sized tensor knife. With the knife, she cut and peeled away the swath of pale skin over Van's forehead—like done two days ago. And like those days ago, she unscrewed a part of the metal skull beneath, exposing the circuitry of Van's computer-brain.
Alia mentally spited herself. Why did I fail to note what was missing before? Now that she perused the circuitry in Van's forehead, she specifically saw a certain empty socket—where Van's reboot module was supposed to be
It was a circular place where a tensor field would hold it in place. Alia put the gem of a component inside that place, in Van's head. It fit in and was held there by a minute tensor field. Circuits connected. And the small crystal was now installed within Van.
The rest was closing-up work: putting the section of metal-skull back, re-screwing it to seal the head, then flawlessly re-sealing the synth skin with dabs of nanobot-containing liquid. That was surgery on a gynoid: no blood, no scars and no pain.
After that, there was nothing to do but put away the tools and wait. Alia put the tools back in the long and thin toolkit, then handed it back to The Cloaked Man. He, in turn, returned the toolkit to his left pocket, where the apporter field in the pocket returned it to wherever it came from.
Alia then sat down on the grass, legs folded under her. Waiting for Van's autorepair systems to take to the newly installed reboot module. Passing the time by looking up at the slightly lightening sky as the morning sun was coming.
To wait, The Cloaked Man stood, then checked his pants for grass stains and such. Their clothes were supposed to be treated with catalysts that repelled dirt. But he was just checking, even if it was hard to tell in this gloom.
The Cloaked Man then flopped down on the grass, next to where Alia sat by Van's reclining form. "Isn't it pretty sad and annoying how Van's the weakest of our party? Travelers have all sorts of stories about what's outside of the cities, and we haven't even faced any out-of-city problems yet. And look, Van's been beat, twice!"
Alia turned her head right, to look at The Cloaked Man. "Hey, I'm listening to you!" Alia's dark eyes widened, her small mouth making an o of surprise. She didn't say that. "Calling me the weakest, the nerve of you! Jerk…"
Both Alia and The Cloaked Man looked down at the refurbished gynoid. Alia's procedure worked. Now Van's eyes were open to the pre-dawn sky. She looked right, at the two sitting by her side, a small smile on her face. She then spoke again, "Yeah, I listened! And why are we all lying and sitting around? Is this supposed to be my funeral? If so, aren't you supposed to put me in the dirt, not on it?"
And she sat up, her slender sleeved arms crossed across her small bosom, giving a toss of her dark-haired head. A carefree sparkle in her dark eyes.
The Cloaked Man leaned forward, his face close to Van's. "Yeah, you're acting like Aura! Just as confident. And, just as bitchy!" He smirked. "I like bitchy. The personality is back!"
Alia looked at The Cloaked Man. "Indeed. Personality—not identity. Van remains with a simulated sense of her own self; that sense remains Van, not that of your deceased mate."
Van gave a leer to Alia. "No shit, Nancy Drew! If your powers of observation were any better, I'd have to take you seriously, wouldn't I?" In response to her remarks, Van saw Alia's lips turn down slightly. "Aw, did I hurt your feelings, little blonde cyborg-girl?"
Alia's synthetic face had real anger on it. "No! Cease ridicule! My body's appearance is not by choice of myself!" Then, with quieter sarcasm, she spoke on. "Do forgive me for not being taller and not having a more mature look of femininity. For not having a more mature synthetic face. Perhaps, some day, I can get a replacement body, and…"
"And you can grow up! Get some bigger metal tits and wider titanium ass!" said Van, her voice ready to laugh. Alia's face showed more anger. The refurbished gynoid then put an elegant-fingered hand to Alia's pale forehead, being glared at all the while. "Meanwhile, better be careful, little metal-bodied girl! The sun's coming up, and that living brain of yours could overheat or something." Pulling away her hand and screwing her face, she added, "Ew, just thinking of that is nasty! Baked human brains. Gosh, human brains can be nasty stuff. They're mushy and get rotten really easily. Too bad your brain isn't made of microchips and crystals."
"Watch it, Van!" exclaimed The Cloaked Man. "I resemble that remark! My brain is still human, too! Gray mush and all." He stared at the gynoid, seeing her mirthful stare back.
"I won't hold that against your worth, though," said Van. "Because you're cool. And Alia's not," said the fully synthetic female. "Not only is her brain living mush, despite her cool metal appearance from the neck down, but her speech is also un-cool. Ever notice how she talks really creepy? Ugh, she's cramping my style."
Alia turned around, quite angry—but quietly so. She pivoted to sit facing away from Van. "Such is thanks given for help. To revive a truism of times past, note that no good deed goes unpunished." She pulled her armored knees to her solid chest. "Punishment from allies, indeed."
Van reached for Alia, stroking the metal-type cyborg's silky pale hair. "Aw, Alia, don't be that way. You're too cute to be mad all the time…. You remind me of something once downloaded into my memory. A cute elf, or something. Yet, my data never told me that elves became really angry. Will you be angry with me, little elf?"
Alia held her hands away from her knees, then clenched them—one finger at time. Then unclenched them. Then clenched again, methodically and rhythmically. That made for the sound of machine-metal clicking as her hard fingertips clicked to her equally metal palms. Now Van threatened to ridicule her genetic heritage.
Alia heard The Cloaked Man next. "Damn, didn't remember my girlfriend's personality being this bitchy. Aura was just bitchy enough. Used to tell me that I was the same way. But I can't be that annoying, can I?" muttered The Cloaked Man.
To think, that his girlfriend had a personality somewhat like that. He remembered Aura as being perky and pert, not pesky and bitchy. He loved his girlfriend. Now, the personality traits were in someone else. That made for peskiness and bitchiness.
But it was not Aura. It was not her. It was an it; it was Van there. Alia said that Van just needed a reboot module. Which brought about this change in Van. Maybe, Van was more likable when she was more contrite and humble. He thought about trying to apport a waitress' outfit.
"Hello, Cloak! Remember us? We're your other two party members? Where's your mind at now?" Van interrupted The Cloaked Man's emotional rumination. "You look, like… Dazed! Couldn't believe it. Like you turned epileptic, or something. One of those human maladies, you know?"
Alia stood and walked some yards away. She faced the oncoming sunlight of the new day, her eyes adjusting to the new glare. Still, she squinted away from the light and looked down. Speaking just above a whisper, she said, "At least, the revision of your behavior lacks permanence."
Van, still over by The Cloaked Man, spoke up. "What's that, Little Miss Mumbles? I didn't really hear what you said. My hearing is damned good, but not good enough to hear what you jumble-mumbled."
Alia turned from the sun. She addressed The Cloaked Man. "As I said, Van's behavior will not at all last. That which was installed, it re-started her personality emulation. But, the unit does not become her personality. Give days or perhaps weeks, depending on the speed of Van's processors, and Van returns to herself."
Van then turned to The Cloaked Man, looking. "That can't be true, can it? I'm not going to keep my new personality?" She took a step closer to The Cloaked Man, close inquiry. "It isn't perfectly mine?"
The Cloaked Man gave a shrug. "Not really yours to begin with, honey! Right, right? You shouldn't have what wasn't really yours to begin with." He smiled. "This business is seeming to get pretty weird, though: seeing my dead girlfriend's mutated personality in you."
Van's large dark eyes went wider. "Oh, shit! What the Hell?" She backed away from The Cloaked Man, then fell onto her slacks-covered butt. Then, carefully, she stood again.
The Cloaked Man still smiled, face brightening with the brightening sunlight of this coming day. "Yeah, Van, feel the power of my ranting! My words have that effect on people, don't they? I can rant and rave with the most solid people. My whacked out wording squirms and jiggles in their brains, and they feel themselves go mad."
Van squinted, then shook her head twice—an emphatic and unsaid no, no! "You freak, will you just turn around? See if your words can deal with that!" And Van, to some satisfaction, saw The Cloaked Man turn around.
He turned around. His arms went rigid at his sides. And his brown eyes had a lot more white showing as his eyelids were open so far. "O-o-oh, shit!" He did not have sense of mind enough to tell Alia to turn around as well.
Something very big and very heavy just dug its way out of the grassy sod of the plains, smashing up and out into the day. It was something man-shaped: nine feet tall, metal all over, and with a machine-body almost as wide as it was tall—a body still covered with dirt. The arms were pole-thick: right arm with a cylindrical hammer at the end, the left arm ending in a thick tube made up of smaller tubes. That would be a multi-fire burst gun, spinning barrels of automatic fire.
The massive thing looked like a demonic cross between a troll's suit of armor and a medium tank. With immense stomping steps, was coming right at the three, them standing still and by their nuke bikes. Even better, those three targets made no moves to evade: easier on the age-worn targeting systems.
"That MBD will crush the nuke bikes!" shouted Alia. "A day to wait for autorepairs to fix them, at least! Move to evade!" She moved over to Van and The Cloaked Man. Then had to lightly slap them to get them out of their surprised shocks. "We move! Surround and engage it!"
MBD—Military Battle Droid. An antique from the War. Still functional beyond a century of being buried.
With quick and long strides, The Cloaked Man ran to the right of the nine-foot beast of a machine—his red cape fluttering as he moved so. Van positioned herself as so she was to the back and left of it. Alia, the small metal-bodied cyborg, stood as so she was just a mere yard from the thing. Nine feet to her four feet, the MBD was over twice her height.
Van saw where Alia positioned herself: right in front. "Are you psycho, you elf-faced little cyborg? It'll crush you!" Not that Van liked Alia too much now, but she didn't want to see the cute little thing get squashed! Warm soft brains oozing out from cracks in a flattened metal skull… Ew! "For goodness sake, Alia, get the heck out of the way and help us beat it from behind!"
Not at all listening, the gigantic MBD attacked first. Motors in its immense right shoulder made noises as it raised its right hammer-fist. With an air-tearing whoosh sound, it brought the hammer down at the diminutive target. The smashing blow shook the ground, a spray of dirt where Alia stood. Van shrieked.
But Alia was no longer where she stood; she had dashed to the right. Positioning herself next to the MBD's gun-arm. She leapt up, then kicked with her left armor-bootlet. Her kick struck the barrel of the multi-fire burst gun installed onto the MBD's right "hand."
It pulled its massive hammer-fist out of the soil where it had been pounded into the earth, another spray of sod. Immediately after doing that, it pointed the gun-fist at Alia. Whirring sounds came from inside the weapon as it powered up.
The Cloaked Man did a long step forward while the immense MBD took aim at Alia. The tall man in cape clenched his fists, and there were slight sounds of crackling static electricity. Then, using those fists, he struck the thing in the back twice—bright blue flashes coming with each punch.
Hit by fist-sized static electrical bursts, the MBD shuddered for a quarter-second—throwing off its aim. With its waist as a pivot, the upper body then turned completely around. The MBD now faced the opponents positioned behind it. Facing Van and The Cloaked Man.
"Damn, my cape's capacitors are gonna take seconds to charge after that!" he said. Anger was in his voice. Anger, because that damn monster machine was going to open up on them with gunfire from that spinning automatic gun mounted on its right arm.
With the thing facing those two fellow two party members over there, Alia struck with two straight alloy-fisted punches, then a leaping side-kick. All three of her blows went for the thing's circular waist. And all three attacks had desired effects.
The circular joints in the MBD were especially vulnerable in that they were not maintained for some time. Being so long in the soil, that was not good for a massive machine. Big machines require more maintenance, and it did not get any. Combined with the static bursts from The Cloaked Man's fists, its mobility systems did not take too well to that.
But facing The Cloaked Man, it still had its circular gun aimed. The machine gun began to spin…but made just grinding sounds. Those were awful ch-ch-ch-chunk sounds of broken parts moving as the thing tried to fire the gun-hand—which Alia had damaged as well.
Detecting that it could not fire its right weapon, it tried to raise its right hammer-fist. It could not. It could not bring its hammer fist above its waist—body shuddering. That must have been damage done by The Cloaked Man's static-based attacks. Alia stared, amused.
It then rotated its upper body right. Doing so, its still-extended hammer-fist smacked Alia. With a quick shriek, she was flopped onto her back—hitting the grassy ground. She then struggled to stand again, trying.
"That's it! You're a done deal!" shouted The Cloaked Man, his cape now crackling with a better charge. He extended both his large fists before himself, crackling sounds in the air. There were dangerous sounds of snapping and sharp electricity coming from his direction, jags of blue dancing all about his upper arms and fists. Then, the lightning came.
For several seconds, a loud shower of lightning flared and arced between The Cloaked Man's arms and the immense Military Battle Droid. Cracking and popping sounds coming from within the thing. There was a loud pop as something inside the MBD gave away, and the metal beast began to kneel—and smoke.
And there it remained. Kneeling and not moving. The three that attacked it remained where they were, waiting. In the now-morning light, the defeated MBD did not at all move. This made for a good time to leave.
The Cloaked Man went to Alia, lifting her by the shoulders to help her stand. She accepted the help, thanked him with a nod. "My mobility systems took a swaying hit, nothing immense," she said. "Autorepairs recalibrated, so I can walk."
He looked at the immense thing they fought. "Well, Alia, I suppose you aren't the only military-grade antique still functioning. Did you call that thing over there an MBD? What does that mean? And how did you know what to call it, anyway?"
Alia looked away. "I know what to call it because of what my faulted memory told me. The identification came out of memory. I identified the threat on whim, Cloaked Man, not from solid memory.
"Perhaps, if I were not faulted, I would have been able to help eliminate the threat more effectively. My brain is not in flawless condition." She looked at him, her synthetic face looking lost. "Memories of the War should have helped. Should have."
Van came close to Alia, looking down at her. "Didn't know you were—handicapped, Alia. Guess I'd better watch what I say. It's not nice picking on humans like you. I'm sorry."
Alia thought on that. She saw herself as faulted, but not quite handicapped. Her memories of now worked quite fine, no gaps. But it was memories of a life past that gave her troubles. Decades of stasis must have clouded those recollections.
"You know, ladies, I'd like for us to chat and do introspection, I think it be best if we moved on. Being in one place for too long is a bit dangerous," said The Cloaked Man. "Hitting the road again. At least we got some sleep. Regardless of the cost: struck by lightning and being attacked by some buried and should-have-been-broken War antique."
Alia affirmed the idea; she went over to her nuke bike, set it upright from its side-leaning position. Beating the MBD where it stood, it did not get too close to her ride. Now she sat atop her machine and put hands to the handlebars. It started.
The other two started their vehicles—then motored them out to the highway. The Cloaked Man knew the way. North was the way, of course. And with a rumbling of repulsor engines, they headed onward to wherever the road led. Riding, The Cloaked Man suspected that they would face another city soon. That suspicion was right.
