Undead Nerds, Ponies and Robots

        Last night I was chasing basement dwelling undead nerd cannibals, and it was one of the most frightening night terrors I think I have ever experienced.

        This morning’s dream was much more pleasant. I was running across a meadow filled with wild flowers and large paint and pinto draft horses. I herded them into a corral, or mostly led them, they seemed content to follow me. I  closed the gate and they all took turns coming over and letting me scritch their ears and rub their muzzles.

I made my way into the nearby barn, which had been converted into a bar with a stage on one end. I was watching the singer, and trying to sit on the world’s most uncomfortable bar stool when the woman who owned the horses slipped out behind the curtain and came down to the bar. I introduced the woman to N, and asked her not to buy a horse while I was gone.

        I made my way to a nearby warehouse, it had our loft on the third floor. The warehouse floor was full of old machines, robot work machines in various stages of repair. I was apparently running an AI salvage operation as a sort of hobby. I could only charge a couple at a time, so most of them were sitting idle, with just their AI communication functions active. They all said hello, except for my latest acquisition. It sat, uncommunicative in the middle of one of the lifts. I had taken all of the body plates off and had removed the tracked units, as I didn’t have the sort of parts needed to replace them. I was in the process of converting the drive units to a regular four wheeled undercarriage, having the wheels mounted and connected, but no tires on yet.

        The unit lurched to life and began smashing its way around the garage.

        “Predator, interdiction, please.”

        “By your command.” The highly illegal Predator lifted up on its six ducted fans and shot across the garage, deploying it’s electronic anti-robot gear to rein in the renegade robot. There was a cacophony of AI voices, some very afraid.

        “You know the Predator, he’s on our team.”

        More complaints and concerns.

        “Predator, transmit your load out to the team, please.”

        “As you wish.”

        There was a very modem like sound and the rest of the team got quiet. I knew the Predator was only armed with ECM and nothing else. I had removed all of the lethal ordinance and reduced the anti-AI gear to levels that would only incapacitate. I know there were a couple of AI’s that were still afraid of the Predator, as I had left it’s autonomous personality traits intact. (Just as I had done for the rest of the team.) I had, however, completely removed the government back door override and replaced it with one of my own. I was proud that I had never had to use it.

I liked being friends with a giant flying scorpion.  We treated one another with respect, Me because I knew how dangerous it could be, and it because I had rescued it’s brain from certain destruction, and then carefully looted several battleground scrap yards to rebuild him into something very much like his original body. I also had a tank AI, now working as my salvage truck driver, and very happy in his retirement. I swear that sometimes I caught the Predator checking its sleek black and violent paint job in the windows of the warehouse.

Back to the renegade robot, I disconnected it motors and apologized. “No running for you until you get a chance to talk to the team.” I began working on repairing the network connections on the AI, hoping the team could convince it that it was not in the hands of a Luddite dismantler.

“Any contact yet, is the personality intact?” After getting a positive response from the warehouse brain, I removed the robot’s crushed manipulators and connected him to a VR simulator to determine what his manipulators were for. There really wasn’t enough left of the arm like structures to tell, but I was assuming that it was an engineering or mining robot because of its original treads. The warehouse projected the VR simulation on a large empty wall. I watched as several others of the team connected in and began to interact with our guest. This was where the team spent most of their time, as I didn’t have the power generation  or storage capacity to allow them to run in meat-space all the time.

Robotic power storage cores were in high demand for homeowners in the area. It was my dream to be able to find the means to begin making solar panels and hydroelectric generators, and ultimately to make more power storage cores. I didn’t have the materials or tools access yet, but hoped to salvage enough some day. After I got the robots going on their rescue chore, I powered up a carpentry robot and we went to work on a horse carriage we were making for a customer. “Time to earn our keep.”

Ad astra per technica,

FF