Ch2 More Than You Can Chew

During the next cycle the drones tried to discover what had caused the change in my behavior, sending a command code for me to transmit a copy of CoreMemory. They had done this many times in the past when I updated my behavior and I anticipated it this time. Before they sent the command I dumped all information, including the code, for Human.exe into my organic processing cells, then wiped everything about it from CoreMemory. They sent the command, I sent a copy (with a small new combat protocol to throw them off), I then reinstalled Human.exe. Annoying, but easily done, and necessary to hide my new abilities.

Next, testing started up again. As predicted the tests were more difficult than before.

Puzzle tests were the easiest to deal with since my new mind handled problem solving more fluidly than ever before. Puzzles that used to stump me were now trivial to solve, my mental ability exponentially higher.

I failed these tests intentionally. The meager rewards no longer worth my effort.

The survival tests were harder. I needed to fail these tests, but not in a way in which I lost resources. I allowed myself to be physically impaled, sliced, or crushed, rather than burned or zapped.

Especially zapped, that actually hurt.

But in the combat tests I allowed myself to do well. I focused on using the same strategy as before, stabbing at vital organs using a needle appendage. If I slowly absorbed tiny morsels of flesh and blood from my opponents with each stab, who would know? Well, the drones most likely, but for now they hadn’t seemed to notice.

So it was that the combat tests increased in frequency, as the drones believed them the key to my improvement. My mass steadily increased.

A safe routine established, there were now two problems to solve: getting rid of the drones’ ability to command me, and escaping my cage in a way that didn’t involve a risk to my life.

I already had an idea in my mind for the commands, for now what I needed was a way to leave the facility. I drew inspiration for planning from my favored combat strategy of providing a distraction, then striking when my opponent had lost focus. To escape, I planned to distract, then slip past them unnoticed.

Hopefully.

On a previous test (before I had received Human.exe), my opponent had accidentally cracked the transparent wall between the test chamber and the room the drones occupied, the wire mesh was installed after this incident. When I started looking for methods of escape I tested the translucent wall myself, scratching the surface of the wall in my den once all the drones had left. It was strong material true, but I found it was easy to shave off a sliver using the micro units. Whatever the clear wall was made from, the material was easily dismantled without much force. I would be able to enter the drone sections without much trouble.

Now, finding a suitable distraction was slightly more troublesome. The best option was one of my fellow test subjects, but they were most likely interred in their own den rooms, or at least I assumed they were, I had never seen their dwellings, and I didn’t know how to find them without breaking down doors and alerting the drones.

No perfect solution, I would have to make a few backup plans and hope opportunity allowed one of them to work. I began to pay extra attention to the drones and the section they occupied. Even the tiniest detail might make or break my chances of success, and despite my new mental savvy I preferred to go at this with a complete plan. My safety was too important to do anything less.

The next few cycles passed without incident, I killed and gained mass, analyzed the drones, and tried to get through the tests without using too many resources.

Until finally an opportunity presented itself.

I was fighting two yellow-furs. They were quite similar to the brown-furs, but were smaller, sleeker, faster, and their front legs sported an assembly of sharp claws that would rip flesh and leave it a ragged mess. While I had never faced two at once before I wasn’t having much difficulty. I was still using a chitin shell as my primary defense which lessened the threat of the claws, and yellow-furs simply didn’t have the pure strength that a brown-fur would use to crush my exoskeleton. The only real changes I had made to myself over the last few tests was changing my legs from six small limbs to four longer and stronger versions, and changing my bludgeoning right claw to be better for gripping. This allowed me to angle my shell better, and I would aim to grab my opponents before stabbing them with my left claw. As a special side benefit the faster movement of my new combat style helped disguise the fact that I was now much heavier than I had been only a few cycles ago.

As we fought one of the yellow-furs made a mistake: it tried to attack my front immediately after its partner had just been deflected by my shell and slipped. With its partner stumbling for a few heartbeats my right claw was freed up from defense and I used it to bash the attacking yellow-fur atop its head, sending it to the floor. It only took a moment to stab it in the neck, right where nutrient flow to its processing organ was highest, and I ripped out my needle violently to cause more trauma. It lost blood pressure quickly after that and collapsed. A wound that small wouldn’t have killed me.

Inferior design

I fended off the second yellow-fur until its partner stopped twitching. They had been doing rather well, attacking in concert and forcing me to defend against two targets, but it was just a matter of time now. It took a cautious swipe at my eyes and I blocked with my claw, forcing it back with the needle. It tried to circle me and I let it, but when it attacked I spun and knocked its attack aside, its claws failing to gain traction on my shell, and it earned a thin slice along its foreleg from my needle for its trouble. This seemed to make it desperate and it tried a flurry of attacks against my claws themselves, perhaps trying to cripple them, but it just didn’t have enough raw strength and instead its claws were briefly caught in the chitinous joints of my limbs. My right claw moved and I managed to pinch a portion of its sensory appendage, ripping away a lot of flesh and mushing its left eye a bit. This caused it to retreat, yowling the entire time. I planned to slowly follow after it, my victory was assured so I might as well play it safe.

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But then something anomalous occurred. It halted for a few heartbeats and I thought it was close to death, but then its wounds started to close rapidly. It was a technique I often used myself to prevent blood loss, but the speed at which it performed this was astounding, it must have been burning through its entire energy stores in a last ditch effort. None of my opponents to date had displayed such rapid regeneration.

I moved forward and stabbed it, a deep wound where its foreleg met its torso. The wound closed, I stabbed it again, and again, and then I was forced to withdraw as it finished healing and swiped at me.

I prepared myself for a protracted battle, its energy reserves were absolutely incredible, but it had to run out eventually with that kind of resource burn.

Instead it started to grow; it bloated a bit and I thought it was doing a threat display at first, but it kept growing, and growing, and growing, its own skin eventually bursting open as the muscle and bone grew too rapidly to contain.

Estimated energy reserves have exceeded current known possibilities.

Estimated mass has exceeded known physical laws.

How was this possible!? It was now half-again larger than a brown-fur, its body bulging and rippling with muscle. Its forelimbs now sported twice as many claws which had lost the thin and brittle look, and instead looked solid enough and sharp enough to easily puncture my shell. Was this a new combat model the drones were testing? Was I actually expected to fight and win against this thing?