Full Frontal Cybertank

by Timothy Gawne

  If I had had a few kilometers range I could have destroyed them all with a single blast from my main turreted plasma cannon – but we were too close, and they were moving too fast for my primary weapon to track them. My secondary weapons are faster, but even so, the Amok Blade Fetish are tough and faster still. Even my point-defense weapons have trouble tracking them, and that level of firepower is weak compared to a Blade Fetish unit.

  The Blade Fetish units – all 97 of them - were spread out in envelopment around me. They move so fast – but I think in nanoseconds. Not even they can easily breach my armored hull, so their primary objective is to destroy my exposed weapons and sensors. If they can do that I will be defenseless and they can take their time hacking a hole in my side, and then gut me from the inside out.

  They were jamming my sensors and communications, but I’m pretty good at that sort of game as well. I got word to my peers. They would come to my aid, but it would take them 35 seconds. At the speed that this combat was progressing at, it might as well have been the next century.

  I had a few combat remotes loitering in the area, and a few at ready in my internal bays, which I launched. The battle was so complicated: feints, counter-feints, sacrifice this unit to open a path for another… I was subsumed by the intellectual challenge of it. I could almost see why the old Amok relished combat for its own sake.

  Two seconds passed, and I was losing. I still had most of my hull-mounted weapons, but like a chess grandmaster who sees an inevitable checkmate in five moves, I was all but lost. I could blow my reactors and take them all with me, but that would leave behind a mess. These Blade Fetish would be no match for the soon to-arrive cybertank reinforcements, so probably I should have just shut down and erased my cores – although that sounds kind of boring. The idea of going out with a thermonuclear fireball always appealed to me. Still, I waited for the last possible moment, because a cybertank always fights to the end.

  Two of the Blade Fetish units were struck by odd projectile weapons, and smashed harmlessly into the side of my hull. The rest dodged and whirled to avoid additional projectiles, and went out of position. That was all the edge I needed. Going back to the chess analogy, imagine two evenly-matched grandmasters and suddenly one of them has a bishop and a pawn removed from the board. At a high level of play, that would be the game.

  I methodically destroyed the Blade Fetish units. My small advantage turned into a larger one, and soon it was over. I considered the projectiles that saved the day for me; they were the shattered limbs of some of the enemy units that I had blasted in the early phase of this combat. MegaHitler had not been out of sight when the Amok units had ambushed me; he had retrieved the sharp blades and hurled them with admirable speed, thus disrupting the attack on me.

  I did not ask for your help.

  “No, you did not. Thus, you owe me nothing.”

  Why?

  “Why not? But consider. The ancient German volk are long since gone – dispersed, diluted, evolved, over hundreds of generations. You cybertanks are now my tribe. And for all my faults, I have ever been loyal to my tribe.

  I suppose that makes sense. One last question, if I may. Why do you stay around? Why keep on?

  “A good question. Partly out of habit, and the instinct for self-preservation. Each day has something of interest, and there is always one more day. And partly because, without me, who will take care of Elephant? But mostly, I think, I stay around so that I might bear witness.”

  Bear witness? To what?

  “I (or at least my original template) was there when humanity first started down the road of technology. Then we spread into the stars. The biological humans disappeared, leaving you, the cybertanks, to carry on. Someday you too will be gone – wiped out in a war with aliens, or advanced to something greater. Either way, I will be the last human-scale sentience to bear witness to the ultimate fate of greater humanity. Don’t disappoint me.”

  We shall endeavor not to. But what shall you do when we are all gone?

  “I’m not sure. Probably I will just shut down. But, I might take up painting again. After all, one classic way to achieve success as an artist is to outlive your critics.”

  The first of my peers’ reinforcements screamed overhead, but they had missed the main event. MegaHitler began to walk away, but then he turned back and said “Oh, and if you should ever be interested, I still do birthday parties. My rates are quite reasonable.” With that he left, followed after a pause by his elephant.

  That was the last and only time that I chanced to speak in person with MegaHitler. He was right, there were many humans that were objectively more evil than he was, but he has become an archetype. We could probably discuss politics with Ghengis Khan or Vlad the Impaler or even Slim Whitman, but, as charming and intelligent as he may be, Hitler stirs up unconscious feeling of revulsion. Thus it is that he is a pariah.

  In the old records people imagined Hitler burning for all eternity in the ninth circle of East St. Louis. Instead he has been resurrected from the dead, and doomed to forever wander the landscape, his only friend a mute and perpetually sad robotic elephant. Somehow, I’m not feeling bad about that.

  2. The Small Plastic Blocks of Fate

  “Tautologies – statements which are true by definition – are generally deprecated by scholars and didacts. However, tautologies have many advantages. For example, tautologies are always true. That last sentence is itself a tautology! Tautologies can wipe away confusion and allow one to refocus on what is essential. GRAAAH!” – Frankenpanzer, contemporary.

  “Check out the box, Old Guy.”

  I observed a large cardboard box decorated with a painting of a monstrous lump of a war machine that was made out of small plastic blocks. It was mounted on two-dozen mis-matched treads. The machine was encrusted with randomly-located gun turrets, some of which were portrayed firing small plastic balls or foam missiles. Looming from behind was a 12-year-old biological human child, clutching a controller box and with a wide-eyed expression that was an unholy mixture of joy and greed. Hieronymus Bosch painted demons less fiendish.

  The lettering on the box said:

  Build your own Frankenpanzer-Class cybertank!

  Treads that really work!

  Guns that really shoot!

  Chunkulated microcontrollers!

  Can be programmed for fully autonomous operation!

  (Ages 12 and up, advanced modelers only)

  I am at a loss for words. It is impressive. But if I may, why exactly have you created a model kit of yourself out of small plastic blocks?

  “It’s a hobby. I am fascinated by the toy construction sets that the ancient biological humans created for their offspring. Given my own nature, perhaps I am attracted by the mutable aspect of the media. It is also a challenge building something robust out of plastic blocks: you need to interlock them just the right way to prevent them from falling apart. For a structure of any size, it is a surprisingly difficult design task, even for us.”

  And why plastic blocks?

  “The ancient humans tried many different approaches for construction toys: using plastic, metal, cardboard, or ceramic, and connected by tabs, screws, magnets, flaps, pegs, and you name it. It was an evolutionary war, and the winner was a product known as “Legotm.” It dominated the construction toy industry for centuries until the development of fungification. I dabble with some of the other construction systems, for variety, but Legotm is the classic form.”

  And what is that over there?

  “That? Oh, that’s the box for the Odin-Class cybertank model. I knew you were coming, and I could not resist.”

  The box was similar to that of the Frankenpanzer-Class box but smaller. The painting was of an Odin-Class cybertank made of Legotm. As with the real thing, it was mounted on multiple treads, all of the same size, fore and rear sets each eight units across. There was a single large all-around traversing turret with a massive plasma cannon, multiple secondary armaments in ordered rows, and smaller poi
nt-defense weapons that were little more than flashing lights. The human child appeared to be the same as the one on the Frankenpanzer box, but he was holding a much smaller controller, and his fervor was clearly lesser.

  The lettering on the box said:

  Build your own Odin-Class cybertank!

  The First True Cybertank!

  Treads that really work!

  Main gun that really shoots!

  Embedded microcontroller!

  Can be programmed for simple tasks!

  (Ages 5-7, suitable for beginners)

  Ages 5-7? Can be programmed for simple tasks?

  “Well, there is only so much one can do in a plastic toy of this size. It was also standard procedure of the day to produce a range of models of increasing scale and sophistication, to produce lust for the larger and more profitable sets. It was all part of the culture. Would you like to see the real things?”

  But of course.

  Frankenpanzer led me away from the display of boxes and down a long narrow hall. I was just a sub-mind of my main self, and running a humanoid android in the shape of a generic male European wearing a plain blue suit. Frankenpanzer was similarly only present as a sub-mind, controlling a largish humanoid android with bronze-colored skin that had seemingly been sewn together from different pieces with large crude stitching.

  We descended several flights of stairs, and entered a room whose floor was constructed entirely of a rectangular grid of Legotm blocks. The room extended hundreds of meters into the distance. The ceiling was relatively low for such a large space – just three meters up – which gave the scene a sense of vastness beyond its true size.

  The room was filled with Legotm constructions. It was simulated night, with all of the illumination coming from the models themselves. Off in the distance was an entire city of impressive design, its lights sparkling like gems. There were highways and rivers and factories. It was very nearly an entire civilization made of plastic blocks, and was really quite lovely. Closer to where we were standing were two model cybertanks, illuminated by tiny floodlights in a simulated maintenance center. The Frankenpanzer-Class was over two meters long, the Odin-Class barely 60 centimeters. Distributed around them were various remote weapon systems and repair drones.

  Impressive. I see that the Legotm cybertanks have an escort screen?

  “Yes, those are extension kits. They are, as the ancients used to say, sold separately.”

  The ancients could be devious.

  “Indeed.”

  We wandered through the world of miniature plastic blocks, and Frankenpanzer pointed out some of his more interesting constructions. He could have created scale reproductions of cities and cybertanks and factories accurate to the micron, but there was something about making them out of discrete blocks that was oddly pleasing. I suppose that it’s like the difference between a photograph and an impressionist painting.

  I was still appreciating Frankenpanzer’s creations when I received a message from my main self. Apparently we were under attack. Even though there was likely nothing that a pair of sub-minds inhabiting unarmed android bodies could do about this, there is always some small chance that we might be in the right place at the right time, or be able to relay a message or draw fire or something, so we resolved to go back upstairs and view the combat firsthand. The cybertank ethic is to always take every possible advantage, no matter how small it may appear.

  Before we could climb the stairs out of the Legotm world, there was a violent bang, the power failed, the ceiling collapsed on us, and everything went black.

  I ran a diagnostic on my android body, and it was not good. The main power supply was shot, most of the sensors were gone, and what little feedback I got from my limbs suggested that they were crushed beyond repair. All I had was my central processor running on backup power, and a few communication circuits. That’s not much to work with, but if all I could do is talk, well, I might as well talk. So I broadcast a short-range message:

  Hello anybody out there? Frankenpanzer? Frisbee? Schadenfreude? Anybody home?

  To my relief I was immediately answered. “Hello Old Guy! Good to hear from you. I was worried that you were completely nonfunctional. From where I lie your body appears to be almost totally destroyed.”

  Almost is very nearly an understatement; there’s not much left of me other than my central processor. How are you doing?

  “Not much better, but I still have some external sensors. The location where we were standing must have taken a direct hit, because all I can see is rubble and tangled steel beams and flayed power cables.”

  The last transmission that I got from my main self suggested that we were being hard-pressed out there. I suppose that at this point all we can do is either wait for our side to win and rescue us, or for our side to lose and we shut down at the last second to avoid capture.

  “Probably. But there is an alternative. We could transfer our sub-minds into the model cybertanks.”

  Um. An intriguing idea – I have often dreamed of being a tiny model made of small plastic blocks – but what would the point of that be? We could shoot at the enemy with tiny plastic balls? They would be terrified!

  “If we can drive the models, at the far end of this complex are some auxiliary systems that we might be able to access, and transfer our sub-minds to more practical bodies. And you have interesting dreams. I wish that I would dream of being a tiny model made of small plastic blocks.”

  Can we fit ourselves into the microprocessors on those models? Aren’t they just toys?

  Certainly we can fit – I didn’t bother to custom-manufacture limited controllers, I just stuck standard X20 modules into them. Well, except for mine, it has something a little more novel but it should have sufficient capacity. Oh, were you being sarcastic two sentences previously?

  Yes. Well, let’s give it a go.

  I pinged around with my limited communications gear, and after a bit of searching got a response from the two Legotm cybertank models. I attempted to access the Odin-Class model, and found that, as Frankenpanzer had said, it had a standard processing core capable of handling a single human-level sub-mind. I transferred myself over, and set about seeing what I could do.

  I had several low-resolution video cameras mounted over my hull and turret, some simple audio sensors, and an accelerometer. No radars, no sonar, no wideband spectrophotometer, no gravity-wave sensors. It was better than nothing, but not by much.

  I had access to the motor controllers for my treads, the main turret traverse, and some generic short-range communications gear. Also a couple of spotlights, and a sound generator that could only repeat an audio loop of various genuine cybertank action sounds.

  I was however, mildly pleased to see that I could slave the model remotes to myself. I grabbed control of a four-wheel-drive buggy that shot foam rockets, a small quadcopter with its own video camera and spotlight, and – wonder of wonders! – a model repair drone that had cleverly arranged grippers. It looked as if it could actually build new Legotm models all by itself.

  “How do I look?”

  I checked out Frankenpanzer. He was inhabiting the same plastic model that I had previously seen from a higher vantage point, but it was more imposing now that my viewpoint had shifted down to this level. He had taken control of four of the little missile-firing dune buggies, three repair drones, and a minitank that shot grappling hooks. Since when did cybertanks ever shoot grappling hooks?

  You look ravishing. It’s definitely you.

  “Thank you. And you are positively the model of a model major surface weapons system.”

  And thank you. So where to?

  Frankenpanzer pointed one of his floodlights over towards the Legotm city. “That way, on the other side of the built-up urban area. I wonder if a spoon would be better. Or perhaps blue. GRAAAH!”

  I hate to ask – but are you, by any chance, chunkulated?

  “Why yes. As you know, a simple humanoid android does not have the mental capacity to enc
ompass the full richness of my native mental state. Do I know you?”

  Yes, you do.

  “Of course I do. So anyhow I built this model with multiple linked processors so that I could better simulate a chunkulated state of mind. Did you know that the 20th century leader of the American Empire, Richard Nixon, was grossly undervalued by his contemporaries?”

  Not only had I been reduced to a small plastic model whose offensive weaponry would be scoffed at by a chipmunk, but my ally had a mental state that would make a human with multiple personality disorder seem like The Very Essence of Focused Sanity.

  Trying to fight a battle – or do anything challenging – with Frankenpanzer is amusing but only in hindsight. At least, if I survived this little adventure, it would make for a good story.

  We activated our motors, and trundled off across the rectilinear plastic landscape. Much of it was completely flat, but here and there were small hills and ridges whose smooth contours had been approximated with the little blocks. I was pleased to see that my plastic treads had a real spring-loaded suspension system, and that I could handle the irregular terrain quite well.

  I was cruising along at 25 centimeters per second. A far cry from the 150+ kilometers per hour that my main hull can do, but then we didn’t have far to go. Frankenpanzer and I sent our little dune-buggies out ahead as an escort screen. It’s not like we were going to need an escort – or if we did, that tiny foam missiles would help – but the idea of cybertanks advancing anywhere without an escort screen is almost indecent, like a 19th century male executive going to a corporate board meeting without pants, or Tammy Faye Baker without her prosthetic eyelashes.

  Parts of the Legotm world were still self-illuminated with battery power, but large sections had been blacked out. With our low point of view and limited resolution optics we couldn’t see very far. I sent my tiny quadcopter scouting ahead. It could only travel 20 meters away from me, but the remote camera and spotlight were really handy. I had it zip around the landscape and buildings in our path. As expected I saw nothing but lifeless plastic figures, but I was cheered by the familiar routine of scouting a path.