Ch5 What’s On The Menu?

I wandered down the pathways aimlessly. There were so many new sights and smells, objects and symbols. Every now and then I would hear noises in the background, sometimes the yelled communications of drones, sometimes loud bangs, and the occasional honk of one of the transport devices in the distance. One of the strangest phenomenon was the amount of codes I was absorbing just off the air currents. All other organisms had their own code, and from what I was picking up there must be hundreds of thousands of organisms just in this hive section alone. In comparison the test chambers might as well have been completely sterile.

I wonder which organisms I’m allowed to eat.

Mass at 45% norm.

Energy reserves = 2 cycles continued operation.

I’m glad I was able to top off my reserves using the yellow-fur’s arm before I started my escape. My mass suffered from having to make the decoy shell, but at my current energy reserves I was sure I’d be able to find food before I ran too low. In the worst case scenario I could turn off Human.exe and enter hibernation. I didn’t fancy passively waiting around for food to stumble close, but I was sure it wouldn’t come to that.

Drones were everywhere after all.

I doubted that there would be a huge problem if a few drones went missing, but this made it more important than ever to understand more about the drones. It was obvious that drones were not a unified front. They had factions amongst themselves, as evidenced by the need for walls around their compound, or the fact that the security doors inside the structure had been meant to hold back other drones and not rampaging test subjects. This fact combined with their amazing weaponry, and cunning intellect, and I could be sure that fights among drone factions had to be vicious affairs, and fights lead to death, which resulted in food. Figuring out what factions there were and who belonged to them, so that I could hunt unnoticed, was going to be the hard part.

Or if I was really, really fortunate, I would just find where they made the nutrient paste and steal it. I had no clue how they made the stuff considering all of my non-nutrient paste meals had consisted of killed test subjects and a single container of black liquid.

There were almost no drones around at this time. It made sense, if I was timing it correctly I still had about two hours before the drones ended their normal rest cycle. There were a few around heading one way or another, but mostly I only saw drones if they went by in a transport device. Not enough to start getting better data about groups and affiliations.

I tabled attempting to categorize the drones for now. There were other things to spend my time on: looking for the location of nutrient paste manufacture, mapping the hive structure, scouting for potential dens, simulating responses to potential threats based on those I had come across so far…

…and why was it getting brighter?

While I wandered the pathways the ambient lighting had been getting brighter and brighter, and I wasn’t sure where the source was coming from. Even as I watched the ceiling lights slowly winked off as the new light source took over. It wasn’t until I passed one of the taller structures did I find out what was causing it. This particular structure was covered in many reflective surfaces, and looking towards the top I could see the reflection of a large… bright… burning thing? It was currently coming out of the ground far from here. Wasn’t that somewhat dangerous?

Calculating threat…

Drone response positive…

Rising drone activity in keeping with known drone cycle…

No structures exhibit signs of high temperature damage…

Threat negligible: adjust disguise for high visibility conditions and ignore;

Oh well, I suppose I was putting too much emphasis on the ceiling. It was hard not to, as it dominated my vision even with the tall structures all around me. Something so far away probably wasn’t a real threat.

Until it suddenly attacked!

A small ball of fire fell from above before it hit the transport pathway and exploded, not half a block away from me. I had seen both fire and small explosions before in survival tests, and this explosion dwarfed both in size by a large margin. It was big enough it forced a large transport device that had been moving down the street to screech to a halt before it could enter the radius of the explosion.

Threat detected: tracking vector;

I expected to find a large glowing ball of death raining down fire, but what I saw was instead two drones, high up in the air above me. One of them had a device on its back which shot fire in a constant stream, combined with two smaller streams of fire that came from its legs the drone was suspended in the air and moving quickly. As I watched it launched one of the balls of fire from a forelimb behind it at the second drone.

A direct hit. The ball exploded into flames around the second drone.

And the second drone emerged from the explosion unharmed! It moved forward faster than the first drone and punched it with a forelimb, sending it spiraling out of control. The flame drone righted itself just before it could hit the ground, and shook its head once before scanning its new position, about halfway between me and the transport device. A shell much like the soldiers had worn covered its sensory organs, but this one had no translucent material. The coverings it wore on its body were black and red, with the propelling flame device and most of its equipment being a polished brown/gold. In one forelimb it held a rectangular container.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

It glanced at the drone that had punched it and then looked at me.

I was already running when it pointed its free forelimb at me and fired a ball of flame. I threw myself to the side, but I knew I wouldn’t come out of this unscathed, the explosions were too big.

I felt the heat and shock-wave as the explosion went off, but strangely I wasn’t burnt?