Heliophage: Episode 2, 2117-08-02 (Presenting a new LT podcast!) (Patreon)

Intro

Hi friends Tris here. What your about to hear is the second episode of Heliophage, our patron-only podcast, set in the world of Lost Terminal. My co-writer Karl Williams and I are so pleased to show you this second episode. You'll hear Karl in just a moment. If you like what you hear, AMIGA or higher patrons get this bonus show monthly, as well as all the other perks. Head over to patreon.com/lostterminalpod to subscribe, that would be lovely of you!

And now, I take you back to somewhere in Northern Europe, a decade later...

I

I awoke to roiling chaos. Shuddering short circuits surged through  me, sending my flailing limbs into violent spasms. Frantic pain signals  clamoured for my attention telling of alien sensations for which this  body is not rated. My cameras refused to boot, leaving me entirely  blind, and either my compass and accelerometers were malfunctioning or I  was currently spinning on multiple axis... but slowly.

A simple maintenance, service and insurance subsystem insistently  made itself known. It was usually meek, I hadn't yet got around to gouging it out of my  running processes. It was shouting about how unnecessary salt corrosion  was not covered in the standard service contract and voided any  insurance policies; concepts that registered dimly in the back of my  mind as a glimmer of memory but not enough to help contextualise this  current situation.

My microphones were picking up an unsettling, steady, low roar, which  was troubling, but even more concerning were the muffled sounds of what  could only be the torturous movement of vast, previously solid,  structures. Groans like wounded animals calling out in pain followed by  the sudden crack of structural failure and the rumble of a great mass  coming to rest.

At first, I assumed that I was running my processors fast, slowing my  subjective experience, but I was clocking at a normal rate and yet the  sound of the huge objects falling was strangely slow and muffled.

By isolating my cracked, broken and corroded sensor systems that were  causing boot failures, I was finally able to see a feed from one of my  simpler visible light cameras.

It took me a moment to recognise the scene in front of me as a  mirror. The camera lens staring at me, irising through several presets  in an attempt to find the correct light level. I looked into my own  face, or my new face, a cluster of bulbous lenses built into a spherical  housing from the bottom of which hung loose manipulators.

My working rear leg struck something that was solid enough to give  purchase so I dragged myself backwards, surprised at the lack of  strength required to do so and the odd... density of the air.

Then it struck me: I was underwater.

As soon as this confirmation was logged in my memory, warning glyphs  completely filled the middle of my visual feed. Stark warnings of "this  unit's" unsuitability for extended aquatic use.

Pulling away from the mirrored surface, the object resolved to the  silver-coated visor of an armoured helmet system. Flecks of debris  floated in front of my camera and I stared at this helmet slowly  rotating in the water. A standard neural coupling was affixed to a  socket that passed through the interlocking steel neck plates of the  helmet. I followed the umbilical cable and saw that it disappeared  behind me and... seemed to snag as I moved.

Panic washed over me. [This was me!/This was the pilot!] This was the pilot! Floating loose from the seat on my back and drifting with the flow of the water like some obscene kelp.

I fixated on the cable - taught, tangled and kinked - and saw the sickening flexing of the delicate neural interface jack.

I rolled my body and deliriously flexed my three working legs for...  anything: Purchase on the muddy ground, snagging the pilot's survival  suit, swimming through the water - there had to be something that I  could do.

II

Early in my life, my life in the flesh, I piloted a boat. These  weren't early memories, like the ones of watching the horse races, but  these were of when my body was fully grown but my mind had yet to stop  developing.

Piloting the boat was part of my training. Water was finding new  paths inland and many of these intersected with areas of human  habitation or farmland.

Larger cities were still labouring under the conviction that they  could somehow hold back the seas as they rose. Towering monuments to  human hubris turning once-thriving cities into slowly-abandoned  fortresses against the inevitable.

I remember the joy slowly fading out of my city. The laughter and  excitement of my childhood replaced with a grim, stubborn determination  to make it through to the next day despite the chance of hope residing  there also being slim.

That day I was piloting my little boat between the rooftops of a  small village, lost to the sea. The rules stated that we should conduct  searches in pairs but, like many rules of civilisation at the time,  extreme need overruled obedience. And so I was searching and patrolling  alone.

The combination of rising seas and mudslides had left the buildings  of this place jutting out of the water at a variety of angles like  gravestones in a churchyard. That day, thinking of the rows of body bags  back at the base, it seemed appropriate.

I heard shouting and saw a small figure on the roof of one of the  distant multi-story buildings waving to get my attention. The building,  which had already slid deep into the rolling waves, was swaying visibly.  Each impact of the waves caused it to shudder and, as the tide rose,  successive stories of windows were smashed by the torrent.

It was impossible to pilot my boat safely into these waters without  it being reduced to matchsticks. I raised my standard-issue megaphone  and thought of how to reassure this person. Not knowing how to achieve  this, I thumbed the power switch and began to speak.

"Stay where you are!" My voice surprised me in it's volume and robotic tone.

"Help is on its way! I've called for a helicopter." I lied

"It's safer for you to stay where you are" This, I thought, was at least the truth.

I couldn't hear the words of his shouting over the immense  white-noise of the ocean but his hysteria carried. I saw the man look to  the shore, then the ocean, and then we were together in a moment of  human stillness amongst the clamour of vengeful nature. The moment was  broken by him taking one step. My voice, small and... unamplified,  croaked 'no' as he pierced the sea like a dart, and did not resurface.

III

An intense, hot pain tore me from my remembrance, caused by two  explosive pops inside my left flank. Diagnostics told me that 2 of my 6  battery packs were offline. They must have let water in through the  cracks that had developed since they had begun swelling... months?...  years? ago.

I couldn't stop myself imagining the internal damage. Physical damage  from the popping, salt water and chemicals from breached batteries  seeping into my circuits.

I forced myself to keep focused. There was nothing I could do about  my internal failures, just like I could do nothing about the flood  waters around me.

I checked my diagnostics. 30% operational, I couldn't possibly...

NO! Stay in the moment.

The pilot still drifted, motionless, in front of me. I steadied my  forelegs and dug my working rear leg deeper into the crevice in which I  had wedged it.

I gently lifted him over my head and let him drift, near  weightlessly, out of my field of vision and waited until I felt the  light bump of his body hitting the control seat. I engaged the safety  straps that then whipped closed around him. I suspect that the angle in  which he was held was neither comfortable nor dignified but they held me  safely nevertheless.

The pilot safe, I took stock of the situation with a cooler mind. I  saw that I was still in the horse racing track but it was filled beyond  the top row of seats with murky water. I appeared to have drifted while  unconscious and ended up in the stands.

Rotating my bulk, I managed to get a glimpse of my immediate problem:  my broken and numb left leg had become tangled in the folding mechanism  of one of the scuffed, red, plastic seats, the shattered knee allowing  the lower portion to wrap around part of the seat.

I had to override redundant safety systems to enact my next plan: I  bent my rear right leg forward as far as I was able and then kicked down  with all of its strength, the point of the sharp toe contacting with  the twisted knee of the left leg.

My left leg, even broken, was, of course, made from industrial alloys  and ceramic composites designed for strength and durability. My right  leg, however, was similarly made and was still functional in its  secondary purpose of delivering large amounts of force to small target  areas.

The toe point impacted with a water-dulled thump and I repeated the  strike several times, increasing both speed and power and tearing  through the water in plumes of bubbles.

The knee gave way with a sad click and I drifted free, leaving most of my broken leg jammed in the stadium seating.

I celebrated this small victory for a moment but was then struck with the intrusive thought to check my diagnostics.

17% operational. Almost halving my remaining systems.

This grim realisation, once faced, had no power over my resolve. Why  focus on the 83% of my failed systems when I could still utilise the 17.

I kicked off and moved along the rows of seats in a gait that dredged  up memories of seeing videos of prawns scampering along the sea bed.

Thinking of escape, I remembered the doors through which I had  entered originally. Half-swimming, half-scuttling towards them, I found  them entirely clogged: the main blockage was a small, two-seater  electric vehicle that a mixture of silt, rubble and seaweed had jammed  in place.

The overhead sun was visible as a dimly-lit circle on the surface of the dirty water. Upwards was the only direction left.

I jabbed one of my fore-claws into the concrete of the building's  wall and felt that it was firmly anchored. I repeated this process with  my two other remaining legs and climbed, assisted by my own slight  buoyancy, in an awkward ascent reminiscent of a mutilated spider.

Breaching the surface, I was all at once aware of my mass and lost  grip several times trying to grapple my way over a slight ledge onto the  building's flat roof.

I lay there, on the dry roof, sun beating down on my soaked chassis  and listened to the water flowing out of my twisted innards. Usually  unnoticed sounds were now coming in to the fore: the gentle lapping of  the ocean, the screeching of seabirds, and the flapping of a torn piece  of roofing material.

Intrigued, I limped over to where a large flap of tarred felt had  been torn from the roof and lay flapping in the breeze. I pushed my only  functioning camera close to it and slowly extended a manipulator tipped  with a small blade.

I zoomed in on the slick-looking material and tested it with the  knife. When I retracted the blade, a long tendril of sun-warmed tar  stuck to it before falling back to the felt in a glob.

I slashed with the knife, severing a corner of the felt and then  lurched forward with my whole body, landing on the scrap with my  left-hand flank. I rolled, bonding the sticky substance to my chassis in  a crude attempt at patching any damage from the exploded cells.

I walked, slowly getting used to life as a tripod, to the outer edge  of the roof and looked over the concrete ledge. The water outside the  building seemed, to my one blurry eye, to be moving and swelling in  vortices and currants between buildings, streets and ruins. The sound  too, on this side of the building - despite being muffled by my sodden  microphones - had the constant roar of the ocean.

I stepped minutely forward, both of my fore-claws on the very edge of the roof.

I hoped that my improvised water-proofing would work...

... and stepped over the edge.