B2-12 - A Promise Made (Patreon)

“Wow, oh, wow!” Maya exclaimed as the cast was removed from her forearm. Everyone was there, watching with semi-boredom. Bell was still on bed rest, sorting through loot. Tender was remotely controlling his new troop of battle drones, picking up their brethren’s pieces and harvesting black goo. Veskari was there because Yositari was there, still unconscious, but making mewling noises every now and then. And finally Zono made an appearance because he was grumbling about the fact that his repairs had to be halted because she wasn’t there to help him. 

The metal tube slid off her forearm and Maya stared down at a sickly grey hand that had seemed to have spent one hour too long in the hot tub. 

“Wow, that’s disgusting,” Maya said. She flexed her digits and grunted as painful pins and needles sensations crawled along her hands. It wasn’t as painful as the itching, but it was bothersome. 

Nan’s robotic body scanned the hand. “Everything seems to be connected properly,” she said. “You’ll feel some odd sensations for the next standard day, but after that it should be fully functional.” 

“What about the gross gray color?” 

“That is permanent,” Nan replied. 

“What!” Maya screamed. 

“That was a joke,” Nan said, then she emitted what sounded like a pre-recorded chuckle.

Maya growled. “What the hell? Are you going crazy?” 

“Bell stated that my bedside manner was lacking in any empathy or emotional compassion,” she said. 

“Wow, rude Bell. You don’t just go telling people they’re robotic in their mannerism.” 

“She literally is,” Bell snapped. 

‘Well, still…” 

“Your hand will return to its natural pigmentation within a week, if not, then we can just use some ultraviolet light to increase its color,” Nan said. 

Maya looked at her sickly gray hand and flexed it. She could feel the muscles moving and a knuckle popped as she made a fist. 

“This’ll do, Nan. This’ll do.” She smacked her left fist into her right palm and looked at the gathered crowd. “Who’s first?” 

“What do you mean?” Tender asked. 

“Who. Is. First?” Maya said slowly, punching her palm.

***

“I’m not normally afraid of heights,” Maya said as she looked down from the hundred or so feet she stood above the gray dirt of the rainbow sky hellscape. The ‘day’ was its normal blue gloomy color, but like a showcased car, Zono was lit up by a dozen glowing spheres, shining into every nook and cranny of the massive mining barge. 

One hundred and forty feet high, three hundred and twenty long, and another hundred feet wide. But in truth, Zono’s legs were about sixty feet long, making the Zono processing frame about eighty feet tall. 

Maya was still impressed the the mining barge, that someone out there had created such a massive machine to independently mine ores and materials from uninhabited or backwater star systems. 

As it wasn’t designed to do its job in gravity wells, the mining barge was under a lot more stress and wear and tear than normal. In addition, all the rogue AIs wanted a piece of Zono action, mostly due to the Category IV core he had propelling the entire structure. 

Maya wasn’t ashamed to say that she wanted a piece of Zono too, the pieces being the ores and materials he carried in the industrial dimensional storage containers. She was technically getting a discount on the price of materials, but after Tender had given her the list of materials they would need to begin production on black goo, Maya realized she was back to being poor again. 

Not that credits had much value in the rainbow sky hellscape, there was nothing to buy and all one had to do was dig through a pile of trash, find something they liked and repair it. It was the ultimate dream of a self motivated upcycling handy-person. Maya was none of those. 

Not that she didn’t know her way around tools or machinery; Pops had insisted she learn by his side as her brothers were more interested in playing games. She had followed him around in her youth, fixing cars, helping neighbors, and learning to swing a hammer and spray a liberal amount of WD-40 onto everything. 

Zono wasn’t a rusty door hinge or a faulty light switch, he was a massive, verging on Tier 2, independent automatous mining AI. His sub systems were vast and varied; the amount of damage sustained was shocking, and Maya had given her word she would fix it all. 

“I do not fear heights,” Tender stated. “I will survive, if I do fall. You might also.” 

“Really? A hundred foot drop?” 

“You are Tier 2. Although… Nan most likely would have to be rushed out and you would spend several days recovering from your injuries.” 

“Nah, Nan’s gonna let me bleed out if I fall. After all the time she spent on regrowing my hand? Did you hear that laugh? It was terrifying.” 

Maya wasn’t in her armored suit anymore. That had been partially destroyed and although she had a spare, she determined that they were safe enough as they were. Veskari had finally hacked the weapons systems on Shen’s ship, so now they had some beam weapons and mana shields to protect and defend themselves with. Maya was a bit miffed that she hadn’t really gotten around to doing a lot of things. 

She felt adrift these days. She had found a way back to Earth, but now she was stuck in the rainbow sky hellscape for another five hundred standard years. Six hundred and eighty-five Earth years.  

Those numbers were hard to fathom and when she thought on them, it caused her brain to short out. She had been thinking on them far too much lately, in the moments where there was nothing to do and no emergency to handle. She would dwell on the hundreds of years she had left and feel sick to her stomach. 

So it was with a sigh of relief, that she managed to escape Nan’s clutches and make good on her promise to repair Zono. 

There were climbing gear in Shen’s storage rooms. Technically not climbing gear, but a sort of mana-netic harness that allowed her to crawl over Zono’s external plating like a gecko.  

Ponzollo Movement Harness - mid grade, Tier 1

When repairs are needed, in and outside of gravity wells, Ponzollo provides the best Movement Harnesses in the multiverse. Buy Ponzollo. Always.

Maya wasn’t entirely sure how it worked, but it was like magnetism, but with mana. It was like anti-gravity, but not. It was like a lot of things, but it boiled down to Maya being able to maintain a two meter distance from the hull plating on Zono’s body and lay out safety line incase the harness failed. She felt like she was flying, but if she pushed herself beyond the two meter field the harness generated, she’d fall to her doom. 

Zono’s manufacturing ability was another thing that impressed Maya. One of his legs had been blasted away by the plasma beam from Big Snake, but already it had been remanufactured and Zono just needed her to put some finishing touches on the connections. She discovered that the massive glowing furnace on the underside of the ship just didn’t break down materials, it could also rebuild them.  

The mining barge had regurgitated the needed metals from his dimensional storage and then using mana fields and his furnace, melted down the metal, cast the pieces with the mana fields, then spent some time doing finishing work on the pieces, machining them out to specific tolerances. It had all been done in less than a standard day.  

Currently, the mining barge was creating hull plating from marsani it had mined up from the trash pile. Maya watched in awe as she thought back on the hours it had taken Tender and her to cut out billets of marsani from the hull of the Hanganathorie. 

Maya’s job was an easy one. Crawl into tight spaces, reconnect cabling, plug in component racks, and clean out any damaged areas. The job was easy and she realized she enjoyed it. There was no thinking involved, just doing. Zono had his holographic form following her around, not saying much just keeping an eye on things and telling her how to fix some items. Maya obliged, thankful to not to be struggling to figure out what the hell she needed to do. 

[Mechanic] Level 5

“Neat.” Maya yawned. She pulled bolts out of a launcher, one of the many that Zono had on the back of his body, or the top, Maya wasn’t familiar with the terms.  

She had seen him launch scores of missiles at Big Snake and now she peered down the tube of one of the launchers.  

Tosmapa Hellfire Launcher Mk. IV - mid grade, Tier 1

“Hellfire? What kind of name is that?” Maya asked as Tender operated a pulley system that lifted the half melted launcher off of Zono’s back. The whole launcher was a loss, therefore it was being replaced. 

Zono didn’t have the capabilities to rebuild a Hellfire Launcher, but he kept a few in his dimensional storage for events like this. He had immediately refused to sell any to Maya, though. Maya’s brief fantasy of Tender’s new mecha drones sporting massive missile launchers was dashed before it could fully be formed. 

“The best kind of name!” Zono cried. “Tosmapa make the best stuff!” 

“Is Tosmapa the species name or the company name?” Maya asked. 

“No comment!” 

As always, the AI refused to comment about the species or company or whomever had created him. There were supposedly fleets of Zono’s out there, but they were all under some kind of gag order. Which was just all weird to Maya. 

Maya stared at the launcher and tried to figure it out. There had to be an autoloader underneath the launcher, it wasn’t a silo like human fired missiles and the firing tube was no bigger than her hand. 

The missiles it fired must be small, she thought as she peered at the weapon. 

Tosmapa Hellfire Launcher Mk. IV - mid grade, Tier 1

Close range rapid defense launcher

Type 3-6 thermal warheads required

Range: 600 km

Accuracy: 85 percent

Power: 100 gens/hr

Modifiable

Evaluation II

“Oh, happy day,” Maya grinned. 

“What’s going on?” Zono demanded. “I’m getting a notification saying you’re trying to steal secrets.” 

‘What? Really? I just got Evaluation II and it notified you I was casing your destroyed Hellfire Launcher?” Maya asked. 

“Tosmapa industrial secrets are held close. Desist in your industrial espionage.” 

“Jesus, it’s a Skill. It ain’t like I can control it.” 

“It’s a Skill, of course you can control it!” Zono snapped. 

“Fine. Keep your secrets to yourself. I’ll make my own hellfire rapid defense launcher, using better type 3-6 thermal warheads!” 

“Gah! Stop that!” 

***

Maya groaned as she settled down onto a chair. She was in the ‘mess hall’ of Shen’s ship. There wasn’t really a mess hall, instead there was Shen’s private quarters that had a quaint kitchen and table for six, but Maya would be damned if she felt comfortable in that space. 

She had commandeered an eight corridor intersection that had somekind of artwork dominating the center. Maya had cut away the artwork, abstract art was not her forte, and knocked out a bulkhead that lead to a holding cell and turned that into a kitchen. A large manufactured metal table had been brought into the center of the room and she had made some bright flowers out of duracloth and set it in the middle of the table. 

The intersection was dead center of the habitat and like spokes on a wheel, the corridors lead to different sections. Maya liked the central placing of the mess hall and spent her off hours in it. It was better than the medical room or the cold sterile holding cells she had been using as a bedroom. 

With Yositari joining the crew, Maya had realized she needed to do something about the ship, either completely claim it as her own or abandon it. The stench of Shen was too great on the place and she didn’t want anything to do with the horrors he had indulged in on his quest to leave the rainbow sky hellscape. 

This ship was a ship of horrors and Maya wanted to build her own. 

But ships didn’t grow on trees. There was the Hanganathorie, but that sad girl (boy?) was never going to fly again. Too much damage and too many years in the dirt. Plus the Hangy was far too massive, a kilometer long and multi-leveled, it was a beast. Shen’s ship was not as large, but not small enough to feel comfortable within. 

Goldilocks would understand, Maya thought as she thumbed through her tablet. Work with Zono had been completed faster than she thought possible. Being a worker monkey had its perks as Zono only trusted her with the most basic repairs and less sensitive areas. He was being shy about his origins and she couldn’t help but prod him on it. But the work was done and Zono had agreed she had fulfilled her side of the bargain. 

Beginning whenever she decided to purchase things, she would be getting twenty a five percent discount on all material and minerals Zono carried. Technically, it was an agreement between the Sullivan Survival Society and not Maya herself. So Bell, Tender, and Nan could buy low priced material off of the barge. 

The negotiations had been long, but they had agreed on it. Mostly due to Zono realizing that there was no other avenue to sell his material goods. She had money, not much anymore, but she still had credits to burn and Zono wasn’t going to reach his quarterly monetary goals and that would make the Tosmapa displeased, or something. 

The subject of having him crawl into the dimensional cage had been brought up, but Maya had already discovered that the limit on the cage size was a hundred feet or about thirty three meters by thirty three meters, which Zono was far too big to be able to squeeze in. 

Tender suggesting they cut off his barge parts was met with horrified silence and outrage.  

Maya chewed on an emergency ration bar and sipped tepid water. She would have given her left hand again for a nice red wine and a greasy cheeseburger.  She understood she could get Nan to make those things, using biomass and medical machinery, but they were ‘expensive’ in terms of biomass. The cheapest and easiest thing they could make were the waxy looking emergency rations that filled one up and kept a SIL alive. 

A single bar could mean the difference between someone living and dying. That thought kept her from indulging in her vices. It kept her from just sitting in her holding cell room and not leaving, it kept her from-

Maya cursed. She drained her cup and picked up her ration bar, heading toward the bridge. It was too quiet. Those were the times when she began dwelling on things far too much. 

She didn’t have to enter the bridge to talk with Veskari, the golem AI was everywhere on the ship. It could see and hear everything, but he was decent enough not to be intrusive. Maya wondered how an entire ship operated under that kind of surveillance. Captain Huvano must have had Veskari spy on everyone, to protect himself and just out of authoritarian slave owning habit. 

“What’s the news, Vesky?” Maya asked. 

“I await the hours until Yositari regains consciousness,” he said immediately. 

Maya paused, chewing on her ration bar. “You guys knew one another before the whole trapped in a rainbow sky hellscape?” 

“Yes. I was Captain Huvano’s personal golem, while Yositari and her people were Huvano’s personal attendants. We both served Huvano for many years, although Yositari’s life span is far shorter than mine.” 

“Hmm.. Sounds horrid. What’s an attendant do?” 

“They ensure that every need of their owner is taken care of.” 

“Gross. No. I’m not asking about that, but… every need?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, I’m gonna toss Huvano’s bones in a blender, grind it to a fine powder, then find a non-mutant cat to poop in them,” Maya declared. 

“That would not be the most efficient use of his bones, Miss Maya Sullivan.” 

“Just Maya. I don’t need titles or honorifics, I’m just a Texan girl trying to survive.” 

“Alright, Maya. The remains of Tier 2 entities are highly sought after because of the concentration of mana within their bones. The higher the Tier 2’s levels, the more they are worth.” 

“Oh?” 

“They are used in some very high grade alchemy potions.” 

“Wait, why didn’t Bell say anything about that? We were literally stepping over the shady doctor’s bones for weeks in the Hangy.” 

“Unknown, maybe he didn’t know.” 

“Right, because Bell is always shy about telling me what he does and does not know.” Maya shook her head, filing away the information. “Alright, now about the Shen’s Ship. What’s our ETA on blasting out of here.” 

“Once some maintenance issues are resolved and a harness or grappling system created to carry Zono, we should be able to lift off in a matter of hours.” 

“We’re all set?” 

“Yes. The ship itself is not well maintained, but the systems are operational, the core is now producing the correct amount of power, and, although crude, the guidance system and thrusters on the ship are operational.” 

Maya looked around the bridge. “We’re gonna need to build a captain’s chair too. What’s with everyone not having a captain’s chair?” Maya shook her head. “Make a note, Tender.” 

“Noted, boss.” 

Maya jerked in surprise. “Jesus, Tender. When did you arrive?” 

“Just now.” 

“Well, make some noise, son. Don’t go tip toeing around this ship, it’s probably haunted enough already.” 

“Alright, boss.” 

“What’s the haps, buddy? Need anything?” 

“I found this,” Tender pulled something out of his dimensional bag. It was interesting watching him do it, it seemed the summoning to the hand thing was a common ability in all bags, not just dimensional inventories. Maya smiled at the thought and then frowned as she looked at the creature in Tender’s hand. “It had a note upon it, ‘Tender, this is your new pal, Pre-Tender. Get it?’.”

“Oh, right. The roach rogue AI.” 

“Rogue AI!” Veskari cried out. 

“Untwist your pearls, Vesky. This little buddy’s got their spine broke and is as much threat to you as a broken backed rogue AI.” 

“That doesn’t-“ Veskari began. 

“What am I supposed to do with this… Pre-Tender?” Tender held the roach up by a leg, with only a half a dozen eyes on his face, there was no telling what he was feeling, but Maya got the vibe that he was not pleased with the roach’s presence. Plus he was holding it as if it were something dirty. 

“He’s your pal. Your bro. Your tag-along buddy.” Maya said. 

“What does that mean?”

“I was thinking about the evolution of rogue AIs after we got to talking about the black goo. They created that stuff to exist in this place, pretty smart, right? Anyway, I had little Pre-Tender in my pocket for ages now, about two days actually. And I got to thinking, what if instead wiping the AI core and slapping on some shiny new code, we instead try to make the little dude learn like you’ve been learning. Maybe tweak the code a bit so they’re not a homicidal maniac?” 

“This is a very, very bad plan,” Veskari said. 

“I agree. We do no know the capabilities of this rogue AI. It may look injured, but it also may be planning nefarious deeds.” 

“I don’t know, maybe a little TLC from their big brother, Tender, will make them see the error of their ways. Maybe all rogue AIs need is a little empathy, a little compassion, a little bit of meeting in the middle.” 

“Unlikely.” 

“Also, I totally forgot I left the little bugger at your work station. My bad. This noggin’ is getting a little frazzled these days.” 

“You need to rest more.” 

“I’ll rest when I’m dead, Tender. Plus, ugh, this ship gives me the creeps,” Maya stated. 

“I do not know what to do with this rogue AI,” Tender said. 

“Teach it. Tell it stuff. Tell it stories, tell it your hopes and dreams, tell it how to fix things and make moral decisions,” Maya said. 

“Is it… is it a pet?” Tender asked. 

Maya shrugged. “Roachy there is what they are. If they want to be something more, then they’ll be something more. But for now, just show it the ropes, don’t give it a functional body, but allow it to communicate.” 

“It seems you are putting an unfair responsibility upon me, boss. Shall I question authority?” 

“You can say no.” 

“I feel you would not like it if I said no.” 

“But you can say no.” 

“I feel that by saying no, I will be disappointing you. Therefore I believe I am being emotionally forced to do something that I am not entirely comfortable doing…” Tender said. 

“Oh, shit. I am being the bad guy here, aren’t I?” Maya said quickly. “Gimme Roachy, Tender. I’ll rear them up real good, I’ll call them my child, they shall carry my name, and I shall live vicariously through their exploits!” Maya picked up the roach AI and held it above her head in the imitation of a Disney movie. “You shall be named Roachy, er, no… Rochi? No, Roci, that’s way better. You are Roci Sullivan and I shall build you a kingdom!” Maya laughed, Tender seemed confused, and Veskari made a grunting noise. 

Quest - A Promise Made

You have promised, Roci Sullivan, a kingdom. Provide one before your death. Due to your Tier 2 status, the created kingdom must be high grade, Tier 1 before death.

Rewards: Loot, EXP, System Boon, System Benefits.

“Oh, shit, Tender!” Maya cried, dropping Roci. 

“Oh, shit, indeed,” Tender and Veskari replied in unison when she told them.

***

“Bell, how we looking at on those looted goods?” Maya asked into her tablet. Her hand was shaking and she was rapidly leaving the bridge. Tender watcher her go and picked up Roci from the floor. 

“I wonder if I can get a kingdom too?” Tender pondered out loud. 

“You’ll most likely have to marry into one,” Veskari said. 

Tender looked down at the roach AI. Nothing had changed about it, but instead of it being labeled as Rogue AI NN4582A, it now named Roci Sullivan. 

“Not my type,” Tender said looking at the rogue AI. 

Veskari let out a squealing peal of laughter that caused Maya to stop as she stalked rapidly away from the bridge. She turned back and shuddered, rushing away once more. 

Bell’s face was on the tablet screen, he gave a confused look at the noise and at Maya’s erratic grip on the tablet.  Sometime over the last few days, Bell had begun using the tablet she had given him. Maya idly wondered what had lead him to give up his distaste for system tech. Regular Bell would have chucked the tablet and refused to admit it existed. 

Maya shook her head and looked down at the tablet again. He was in bed, Nan’s orders still held him in the medical room until she was confident there were no lasting damage to him. It still shocked Maya somewhat to see his gaunt grayish face, Nan said he would regain color and vitality soon, but for now he was still weak and sick. 

“I undervalued the price of the items when I said nine million, it’s looking close to eleven million. Although, there are three items where the enchantment is beginning to fail. If you can find someone to repair them, then they could be sold at full wholesale value. I have also decided to keep two items for myself.” 

“Cool. More money in our pockets. As I don’t know anyone who can fix enchantments, I suppose we’ll just sell them as is.” Maya laughed hysterically and looked over her shoulder.  

“Is something the matter?” Bell asked. 

“What? No! Nothing! Just- Nothing!” 

“Alright, Maya.” 

“Is that Maya?” Nan’s voice said off screen. 

‘Yes.” 

“Inform her that Yositari is regaining consciousness.” 

“Heard that, Nan. I’m detouring right now.” Maya glanced over her shoulder and picked up her pace. 

/Author's Note: 

I will be condensing and combining the previous two chapters, Core of the Problem and Black Goo, they touch upon the same-ish topic and I feel that it was too 'padded'.  Therefore, a new chapter to cleanse the palate.