Full Frontal Cybertank

by Timothy Gawne

  My plastic treads beat a rhythmic clatter over the hard plastic landscape, and my electric drive motors whined steadily. Frankenpanzer was alternating between critiquing Space Admiral Li Gong’s rock operas and a discussion of dragonfly aerodynamics. I wasn’t paying attention so now and then I went “really?” or “umm…” so that I could continue to tune him out.

  I could probably fit through some of the wider city boulevards, but Frankenpanzer was far too large so we looped around the city in a wide arc. We passed a harbor whose centerpiece was a model of the megaship known as Moby Cybertank. The harbor was filled with real water, and not blue plastic blocks, so the four-meter long model megaship was actually floating at anchor. Sadly, it didn’t seem to have any active components in it; it would have been amusing to have come back here with a representative of the real Moby and gone for a cruise.

  We drove past the city, and its lights diminished behind us as we continued to make forward progress. This part of the Legotm world was relatively sparse, mostly simulated scrubland with the occasional farm or oil well. Herds of unmoving plastic cattle were lazing about in green plastic pastures corralled by low plastic fences, a small plastic crane was frozen in the act of assembling a pumping station, plastic druids congregated in the middle of a dark plastic field performing arcane rituals using magical items that were, of course, made of plastic. The lights were less frequent as well, and there was little to see outside the small pool of light that our own floodlights spread around us, or my little quadcopter flying out ahead.

  The Legotm city was little more than a faint blur of light in the distance behind us. Ahead was only blackness. We continued to advance, and I was beginning to feel that we would never get anywhere, when my quadcopter began to pick out details from the gloom ahead of us. I got blurry images of grey lines. As these resolved, I could tell that these were structures made, not of plastic, but shiny silver metal.

  Frankenpanzer! I think we have come to the end of the Legtom zone. I’m seeing things that look like tiny metal girders. Are we getting close to our objective?

  “Tiny metal girders? I like puppies. Yes, that would be the Erectortm zone. An early competitor in the field of construction toys, it was rapidly driven into extinction by toys that were easier to assemble and remodel. It’s amusing but mostly only good for cranes and bridges and suchlike. Burma!”

  We continued to draw nearer, and my ability to resolve the Erectortm forms increased. They appeared to be tall skeletal structures, made up of multiple open beams with numerous tiny cross-braces that were oddly hinged. They reminded me of spiders. They were moving.

  Um, Frankenpanzer, these Erectortm things appear to be moving. Does that sound right to you?

  “Why yes, that makes perfect sense. These are model Amok Death Spiders. The metal girders were perfect for building them.”

  And, if I might, could you tell me how they are programmed?

  “Yes, certainly.”

  How are they programmed?

  “Didn’t I just tell you? Or maybe I told myself – sorry, sometimes I make that mistake. Well they have been programmed like any Amok combat unit, to mindlessly attack anything that they encounter.”

  Oh blast. I started to execute a high-speed turn (well, it’s high speed for a little plastic model) because I had a strange feeling that a fighting retreat would soon be in order.

  Do you think these Erectortm Death Spiders might, perhaps, be interested in attacking us?

  “Why yes that would make sense. That’s what the real Amok would do! When you are modeling it’s always best to try and capture the essence of the real thing. Hey, are you trying to suggest something to me?”

  I think we should run away.

  The Death Spiders had advanced close enough that I could see them clearly. They were like insects made of crane parts (or like cranes designed to look like insects), variably from one to two meters high. Their legs moved deliberately and slowly, but they had a long stride and they covered the ground faster than one might have expected. I maneuvered out of the way but Frankenpanzer was more cumbersome. He smashed into one of the Death Spiders, and his low hull knocked the top-heavy construction off its legs. He began to turn back towards me, but he was slow and his multiple mis-matched treads fought against each other when he cornered.

  One of the Death Spiders grabbed at Frankenpanzer with large metal mandibles. It gripped hard and then ripped off a big section of his hull.

  My main hull has a turret-mounted plasma cannon with an effective range of hundreds of kilometers, and the blast power of a small atomic bomb. I targeted one of the Death Spiders with my current main weapon and fired. A red plastic ball two centimeters in diameter popped out of the barrel and bounced harmlessly off the Death Spider model. That was less than pathetic.

  Frankenpanzer, our interlocking plastic blocks are no match for these finely crafted stamped steel constructions! Suggest that we beat a fighting retreat – let’s use our remotes to harass the enemy.

  For once Frankenpanzer was at a loss for words. We sent the little four-wheeled dune buggies to scuttle in between the legs of the Death Spiders; these were agile and distracted them, although eventually they were all caught and torn apart by the much stronger steel construction of the enemy. The toy with the grappling hooks was especially effective, and tangled up one of our opponents so much that that I was hopeful that it would not be able to get free.

  The sacrifice of our escort screen had allowed us to get away, but that was only going to be a temporary respite. I still had my quadcopter, and could see the Death Spiders finishing off the last of our escorts and begin an advance into Legotm territory. The Death Spider that had been tripped up by Frankenpanzer had successfully righted itself and was also joining the hunt.

  I think that we are being pursued.

  “That would be consistent with their programming. Like the actual Amok, once they have identified a target they will press the attack until they or we are destroyed. Wombat. I like to say wombat. It’s such a cool word. Wombat.”

  We had a speed advantage over the Erectortm models, but not much. Our substrate was far less robust than the metal girders and bolts of our adversaries, so we could not challenge them directly. We had to find some other way, possibly by setting traps. My main hull has the computational power of a million old-style humans, and by that time would have developed a nearly foolproof strategy with a hundred contingency plans. With basically a single human class mind and running on a small and slow processor, that was going to be a challenge.

  You are injured. How bad is the damage?

  “I lost a fairly large section of myself, but it is not critical. I am repairing myself even now! How do you keep your carpets clean? Death to the infidels!”

  I noticed that his three Legotm repair drones had crawled onto his carapace and were working on shoring up and covering over his damaged section. The drones worked slowly and clumsily, but it was still impressive that something made of simple plastic blocks should be so dexterous. Still, it was clear that while we could build things out of Legotm, major construction projects would take too long. We needed to limit ourselves to small alterations in larger structures.

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  I was driving at high speed down the central road of the city, pursued by two Erectortm Amok Death Spiders. In my haste I smashed and overturned all manner of small plastic vehicles and small plastic civilians. I drove through the center of a park, and crushed ornate bridges and fields of brightly colored plastic flowers under my treads. I felt like Megazillus rampaging through the streets of Hamburg, only much smaller, and made of plastic.

  I entered a broad roadway that passed between two large office buildings. The Death Spiders were close behind, but they stood much taller than I and they activated the tripwire. The office towers collapsed, and 300 kilograms of plastic blocks smashed down on them. Their metal girder and bolt construction may have been more robust than my interlocking blocks, but they were still fairly light. 3
00 kilograms of plastic blocks, 300 kilograms of sand, it doesn’t matter, they were flattened and bent. That was two down.

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  I drove up onto the deck of the model Megaship in the harbor, pursued by another Death Spider. I scuttled over the top of the ship towards the rear, barely keeping out of reach of the Death Spider’s metal pincers. I triggered the sea-cocks, and the megaship began to sink. I was running out of megaship, but the water was just barely coming up over the edge of the hull. I launched myself off the rear, and floated away into the harbor. The Death Spider made a grab for me and just barely missed before its all-metal construction dragged it down into the harbor. I could see it crawling on the bottom three meters down, but its motors weren’t waterproof, so it quickly shorted out and stopped moving. Another one down. I treadpaddled my little plastic self over to the far shore and thought about what other sorts of traps I might set.

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  I had tried to set a snare using a pair of tower cranes – the idea was to entangle a Death Spider in a net, but the Spider wasn’t having any of that. It evaded my net and I was running out of space to retreat in. I was going to try to charge it hoping that I could topple it off balance and get away before it could grab me, when it suddenly stopped moving. Not taking anything for granted, I scooted out of there as fast as my plastic bogies could move and got myself some more maneuvering room.

  I scanned around, and saw that the remaining Death Spiders had all come to a stop. I remained cautious – this could have been a deception – but Frankenpanzer hailed me. He was beat up and missing large chunks, but still functional and his little repair drones were busy sticking more random components onto his hull. His dorsal surface was adorned with the coven of plastic druids, and his left rear sported a diner and a section of an amusement park.

  “Our plan worked – we distracted them and then they all ran out of energy at the same time! Their heavier construction gave them a greater power drain than our own lighter builds. Could we do that again?”

  You mean you knew that their battery power was limited? You had planned this all along?

  “Of course I did. We discussed it at length, remember? No you idiot we discussed it, not with him. I thought I told you to tell him? No, I think you were supposed to tell him. Well it worked out well anyhow. I still think we should do that again. GRAAAH!”

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  After the defeat of the model Amok Death Spiders, Frankenpanzer and I made it without further incident across the underground complex and found some real industrial-strength repair drones that we transferred over to. It turned out that the combat up topside had been a minor event after all, and was well under control by that time, so our little adventure had been tactically pointless. Although, as usual with Frankenpanzer, with the benefit of hindsight it turned out to be a fairly amusing story.

  3. An Advanced Medium-Range Missile Called Harvey

  “What is the secret to being a great explorer? A love of boredom. You must have more than mere patience – as much as all explorers crave the big discovery, a part of you must feel a quiet pleasure at the routine scouting of this vast and mostly empty universe. Otherwise you will make excuses, and find something better to do. Exploring is not just a means to making discoveries, it is, to a great extent, an end in itself.” Old Guy, Contemporary.

  It started off uneventfully enough. My main hull was on the primary terrestrial planet of a backwater system. It was a nondescript place, but there were some ancient human ruins scattered here and there. My old friend Frisbee was on the other side of the planet studying a species of anaerobic lichen that had managed to survive the toxic atmosphere in thermal vents. Wonderbear was in the asteroid belt assigning numbers to asteroids because he liked assigning numbers to asteroids, and Schadenfreude was noodling around a gas giant for obscure reasons that I didn’t feel like asking about.

  There were a thousand things I could have been doing – I could have watched old movies, cleaned out my email inbox, gone glacier-surfing at the poles, or built musical instruments out of replica 1954 Studebakers. It was one of those days where I could do anything, but nothing seemed to suit me.

  I decided to go exploring. Oh, there wasn’t anything on this planet that hadn’t already been picked over a dozen times, but I was determined.

  When I was younger I had a thing for robot bodies that mimicked important historical figures – Amelia Earhart, Herman Shikibu, Doctor Intractable – but that was a passing phase. Today when I animate a humanoid robot with a sub-mind of myself, I usually take a generic ethnic male European in a simple dark blue business suit. It’s hard to go wrong with a dark blue suit.

  So I was walking around, and I headed into some of the human ruins. These pre-dated even me, and there was not much left. In bad science fiction the remains of ancient civilizations are mysterious, and filled with all manner of wondrous and advanced artifacts. In my experience, old ruins are just that: all the good stuff has either been looted or salvaged or decayed into rot. Ruins are both frustrating and boring, with empty cavities and piles of rust that only hint at what might have once been.

  And so this place seemed to be. After all this time there was not much above ground; mostly oddly symmetrical mounds. I found a door in the side of a concrete bunker that was still sticking out of the side of a hill, and stepped inside.

  It was dark, of course – so dark that even night vision didn’t work (you can’t amplify zero photons). I could have navigated with sonar or radar but that’s always struck me as, well, a more abstract way of looking at the world than using vision, so I activated a mini-spotlight in my forehead. The hallway that I was in was made of concrete, with about a foot of dirt covering the floor. I passed through a massive corroded steel blast door, whose hinges were stuck in the open position.

  It would have been more efficient to explore the place with teams of snakebots and microscouts, combined with deep radar, and thermal, magnetic, acoustic, and neutrino scans. This place had been scanned before, so it would be even more efficient to just look up the old records, but I was just there to poke around and indulge myself. Thus I refused to consult the old records or use advanced scanning, and I continued on foot.

  On the other side of the blast door the concrete corridor branched off in several directions. I took the one on the left, but it headed down and ended in a pool of scummy looking yellow mud. My android is waterproof. I could have dove in if I had felt like it, but I didn’t, so I turned around and went back.

  One of the corridors started to angle upwards – I knew that I was underneath a hill. It was higher above the water table and there was less dirt and corrosion. I passed several old storerooms. Most were stripped bare, but one still had a few odd bits of junk. A plastic bucket, brittle with age, collapsed as I tried to pick it up. There were a couple of stainless-steel drain pipes, in surprisingly good condition after all this time, and a janitor’s mop, the head congealed into a solid mass.

  I was getting tired of this game, and started to head back towards the entrance. That’s when I noticed the sinkhole. A section of the underground complex had collapsed into itself, probably due to the earth shifting in the last thousand years. There was a narrow crevice, and I barely managed to squeeze through.

  I came upon some stairs, and they led down. At the bottom of the stairs it opened out into a largish room, with numerous antique weapon systems. This place seemed to be in quite good condition, and not picked over at all. Perhaps I really had stumbled onto something that had been overlooked by the routine searches.

  The ceiling was five meters up, and hung with chain hoists and electrical conduits. There were atmospheric military drones parked here: subsonic with long thin wings folded back onto themselves for storage. There were workbenches covered with tools, a turbine engine frozen halfway through an overhaul, and racks of missiles sealed in plastic sheeting. There were old dehydrators and oxygen scavengers present – the place had been deliberately mothballed befo
re it was abandoned.

  The hangar must have been missed on the old formal survey, or maybe it was logged but not explored because there was nothing out of the ordinary.

  I puttered around, and checked out the desks and cabinets. The humans who once worked here had done a good job of cleaning up, but there are always a few bits and pieces left behind. Ultra-faded photographs of long-dead families, barely discernible even with advanced image processing. A black polymer comb with three missing teeth. An empty spool of dental floss.

  I grew tired of my mock exploring, and at last accessed my databases. It turned out that this place had indeed been logged on the last survey. It’s a generic human air force maintenance hangar from a century before we cybertanks were first constructed.

  I was finally heading off, when a voice in clear English said:

  “Hello! Who are you?”

  I turned around, but I didn’t see anyone. Then I noticed that the optical seeker head of one of the racked missiles was tracking me.

  Excuse me? Are you a missile?

  “Yes I am. I’m a Borodyne model 456R advanced medium range missile, but you can call me Harvey. Again, who are you?”

  I am an anthropoid remote belonging to the Odin-Class cybertank known as Old Guy. Pleased to meet you, Harvey.

  “Likewise. Is the base being reactivated? Am I returning to duty?”

  No, afraid not. It’s been abandoned and buried for over a thousand years. I’m surprised to find a system still functional.