Ch6 Travel Rations

I spent the next few hours searching the underground area, as well as a four block radius around the underground entrance, for discarded ‘coins’. In total I managed to find two more Half Dollars, seven Quarter Dollars, and four One Dimes. I’m not sure how much the One Dime is worth, but it is smaller than the other two types so I assume it is worth less. I was trying to find something I could buy, but the food items seemed rather expensive. I had around three dollars if I was counting these right, but it looked like most food items were three to six dollars at a minimum. I might only have barely enough and I wasn’t sure how bad getting it wrong would be.

While I stood in front of a ‘Puzzle’s Pretzels’ trying to decide if the nutrient-to-coin ratio was high enough, I detected a shift in the behavior of the drones around me and glanced over. Coming along the walkway, with its forelimbs shoved into its coat pouches, was a drone wearing full coverings and a hat, but its main feature was that its face was heavily modified. There was an extra pair of eyes, next to the normal pair and set farther along the sides of its face, and instead of skin it used green chitin that left it without the extra airway most drones had.

What drones there were (the crowd had strangely died down after the initial rush) noticeably edged away from this one when they saw its face, was it dangerous? Probably not considering the drones weren’t running for their lives, but I noticed the reactions varied from purposefully ignoring the drone to arranging their faces in a way that reminded me of the yellow-fur’s snarls. Maybe this was a variety of drone that belonged to a different hive? If there was a different hive with chitin covered drones I would prefer to disguise myself there instead, chitin was a better defense than skin. I decided to follow it, being careful to not fall into line-of-sight of the extra eyes.

It headed directly to the ticket dispensers, bought a ticket, and then headed for the rotating bars. The bar devices were managed by a security drone, if I wanted to follow the anomalous drone I would have to buy my own ticket. I approached one of the ticket devices and scanned the symbols. Tickets were “$2.50” which if I was translating correctly was just about everything I had saved, I wouldn’t be able to buy one of the interesting foods. Bleh, this wasn’t really a choice, information and a possibly more lucrative environment were better than a small morsel of food.

But still, those ‘pretzels’ had smelled great.

I deposited the coins and touched the same symbols as the drone had until a ticket popped out. As far as I could tell it was just a thin piece of semi-organic material with a few symbols on it, but after the coin incident I kept my micro-units to myself.

The bar device was almost self-explanatory, and after swiping my ticket I pushed through before following after the drone. Past the bar devices the underground room slowly funneled into a large corridor. Along the sides were more pathways with steps that led to a second level even further below ground, and it was one of these pathways that the drone descended down. I quickened my pace, I didn’t want to lose track of it.

After coming to the bottom of the steps the new area was definitely set up as some kind of transportation hub. There were sitting areas for the drones and a designated platform area for them to stay within. On either side of the chamber were tunnels carved into the earth, with metal rails embedded into the ground that extended off into the darkness. Drones were standing along one side of the chamber next to one of the tunnels, most likely waiting for a transport device. The chitin-drone went to the other tunnel and sat down to wait for the transport. Other drones gave it a wide berth and I followed their example to not stand out.

I waited among the other drones and eventually a transport showed up, proceeding down the tunnel at impressive speeds for something that size. The transport device was made of multiple metal rooms linked to each other, each room had both places to sit, and places to grab and brace along its interior, and two sliding doors were embedded into each one. When they opened several dozen drones exited the device before those waiting entered, the whole process taking less than five minutes. Drones truly took their transportation seriously, this device could probably move hundreds at a time if necessary.

I glanced at the chitin-drone again, it hadn’t moved and its bubble of privacy was intact. Continuing to track it could get somewhat difficult if all the drones avoided it, trying to get closer would be noticeable. I did my best to appear like just another waiting drone until a transport arrived on the opposite side two minutes later.

This time only a few drones boarded the transport, including the chitin-drone. I entered the same room as it, all the seats faced forwards so I picked one near the back of the room where I could keep line of sight on the drone without turning my head. After a few minutes the doors closed and the transport was on its way.

It was a remarkably comfortable ride, but my favorite part was the automated ‘map’. Above the door was a map of the transport path, and every time the transport came to a stop the point representing the location lit up. From the time it took between stops I estimated it would take perhaps two hours to reach the end of the destinations, which considering our speed meant this transport traversed vast distances. This hive was large!

The drone stayed in place throughout the trip. At first new drones entering at the stops would instead leave to one of the other rooms, but as the stops passed by a few drones started to occupy the same room.

After the most recent stop things were going as normal until the door behind me opened, and four drones came from the next room over. At first I believed they were just another group of drones trying to find better spots, but as they passed by some of the drones got up and left to the room behind me after the group passed. The looks on the passengers’ faces as they left the car hinted that this new group was trouble.

Which turned out to be a true prediction.

“Thought I smelled something disgusting, how many times we gotta tell you freaks not to… well well well, if it ain’t the king of cockroaches himself. Long time no see Jasper.”

“Oh, uh, hey there Frank, how’s it going?”

“Much better all of a sudden, got time to chat?”

“Well you see I was just heading home now actually, got thi-“

“Oh no no, you can’t leave so soon. We haven’t seen you in ages. Stay and talk a while.”

The conversation continued like that for while. From what I could gather the chitin drone called Jasper was some kind of resource gatherer/supplier, but he wasn’t supposed to be operating, or even be, in the territory of these drones, and this wasn’t its first offense. This was an interesting piece of information, I had assumed that all drones work in groups as part of a faction, but it appeared that wasn’t quite true. The soldiers had used strength in numbers, the structures and devices suggested large work-forces were required, and even the singularly strong individuals like the Guardian had given up advantages to prioritize helping others of its faction. This ‘Jasper’ appeared to have been operating only for its own benefit. Alone.

Which means it had no one who would cause a fuss if it went missing.

Unfortunately it looked like this prey was going to be stolen, the leader of the group was just talking so far, but its underlings looked ready for a fight. From what I could understand the leader was insisting that Jasper come to their place for a friendly “visit.” Even with my incomplete grasp of the language I could hear the threat in its words. Damn, I didn’t enjoy having a meal snatched from me, especially after I already used up my pretzel money.

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“You find something interesting?”

Oops, one of the subordinate drones spoke, had it noticed me? Hmm, no it looked like it was just generally addressing the drones in the room, maybe one of them had been staring. Some of the drones who had been sitting near me decided to leave. Should I leave as well? I didn’t really want to, I was getting a lot of new information and the drones weren’t much of a physical threat to me. While the weapons and coordination of soldier drones was a frightening foe, my estimate of a normal drone was only about equal to the weaker organisms I faced during combat testing.

The subordinate drone began to walk down the isle, and the few passenger drones who had still been sitting near me decided to leave at that. They left out the back door and suddenly it was only the hostile drones, Jasper, and myself. Maybe there was opportunity here.

The subordinate drone stopped as it reached me and said, “Why don’t you leave too eh? But leave your money, this ain’t a free show.”

My money? It meant the coins? No, I didn’t feel like doing that.

“I don’t have any money.”

It didn’t seem to like that.

“Heh, no money? You sure about that?” at this it reached into a pocket and pulled out a small, unknown device. I almost got worried before the device clicked and a short metal blade popped out of the top. “Maybe I should take payment out of your hide instead?” it said.