Full Frontal Cybertank

by Timothy Gawne

  “Any idea on where it might be?” said Olga.

  “Not precisely,” said the museum. “It apparently moved around a lot. However, there is one spot where it is alleged to have visited multiple times which is about two hundred kilometers from here. Even if it’s not there now, perhaps you will find more clues at that location.”

  “At least it’s a lead, which is more than I’ve gotten so far,” said Olga. “I thank you for your efforts. When I make it back home, I will tell people about you - you and the Museum of Death, and we’ll see what we can do.”

  “Thank you Olga Razon,” said the museum. “And if things should go badly, and you need a place of refuge, my many doors will always open for you.”

  Olga collected Zippo from the water sculpture exhibit, picked up the Sword of Gadolinia (who had been propped up in rapt attention in front of a display from the Museum of Swords), got on her quadcycle, and drove off. About 50 meters away from the museum, Olga stopped her cycle, turned around, and waved. The museum flashed its external lights in acknowledgment. Then Olga restarted the cycle, and drove off in search of the Dichoptic Maculatron.

  16. The Hunter Lost

  “Dogs don’t lie and why should I? Strangers come they growl and bark, they know their loved ones in the dark, Now let me, by night or day, Be just as full of truth as they.” Garrison Keillor, Philosopher, Earth, 20th-21st centuries.

  The ground ripper paced across a broken field of discarded electronic parts. It was trying to catch the scent of its master.

  It had been so long since it had had a master, that it had almost forgotten what it was like. For the advanced humans that had created the ground rippers, these were relatively minor units, designed only to patrol and harass. They had given the rippers an inbuilt desire for a master, and biased them to prefer the human form and scent, but ultimately given them a choice. A ripper would only serve a master that it deemed worthy.

  It had defended the master from a serious enemy. It had felt good to fight a serious enemy, and win. The ripper had been injured in the initial engagement, but not so badly that its own self-repair systems could not handle it. The enemy had been damaged even more, and had tried to withdraw.

  The ripper’s prey drive had taken over, and it had pursed the enemy. Though crippled, the enemy was still powerful and clever, setting traps and ambushes. The hunt had taken the ripper over hundreds of kilometers. When it had finally defeated the enemy, the ripper felt a great joy.

  The ripper rested for a couple of days, allowing its repair mechanisms to retune its internal systems to optimal. It took its time devouring the carcass of the cybertank. The ripper’s inbuilt fusion generators and chemical reactors could allow it to survive on almost any substrate, but bulk refined materials were easier to process. When it was done, its energy reserves, that had been depleted in the battle with the cybertank, were completely restored.

  Then it began to search for its master. It went back the way it had come, trying to catch a scent. If you only need a few molecules here and there, you can track nearly anything anywhere, if you are patient enough. And the ripper was patient, when it needed to be.

  The going was slow. There were zones that the ripper had to detour around, because as it had learned, there were forces here beyond even it. Its human creators had designed it to aggressively attack and defeat enemies, not throw its life away in suicidal actions. The ripper used its multiple extended senses to scan for danger, and hid when things it did not understand passed. Slowly it made its way back to the site of the original battle with the cybertank.

  It caught the scent of the master, and followed the trail. The trace molecules led up to a large building with wide glass sliding doors. The doors did not open at the ripper’s approach. The ripper walked through them as if they were not there, the heavy glass shards crashing to either side. Armored shutters dropped down in front of it. The Ripper burned a hole in the shutters without missing a step, compressed its bulk and, catlike, slid into the building.

  The ripper detected more scents of the master, and of the master’s companions. It smelled signs of battle: sweat, and tiny fragments of the ceramic that made up the surface of the little thing with the long tail, the residue of projectile weapons, and the master’s blood.

  The ripper became agitated, and prowled through the building looking for the master. The building was making sounds. They were like those of the master but they held no meaning. It was attacked by robotic security units, and the ripper easily destroyed these. It ransacked the building, tearing open closed rooms, slicing through energy conduits, and smashing the electronic control systems.

  Eventually the ripper decided that the master was not there, and it followed a trail through a hole in the rear wall that seemed promising. Behind it, the lights in the shattered hulk of the building began to flicker.

  The trail led the ripper to another building; this one had heavy metal doors. The doors swung open silently, and the ripper entered. The place was cool and dark and quiet. The scent of the master was strong. The master had spent some time here, but there was no sign of struggle or conflict, no stress pheromones or evidence of weapons discharge. The ripper continued on, and left this building to continue its search.

  There was a third building. This one was more brightly lit than the last but still quiet and peaceful. The ripper glided silently through the high-ceilinged halls, sniffing and checking. It detected no signs of combat, but only followed the trail to another set of doors. These also swung open silently, and the ripper gracefully flowed out of the door and onto the trail.

  A few dozen kilometers away, and the ripper lost the trail. It circled around, sampling the air at different levels, but found nothing.

  But the ripper was a hunter, and hunters are patient. It did not understand things like planets and spaceships, but it knew that it would find the master again, if only it kept looking.

  --------------------

  The Museum of the Museum of the City of New Birmingham was dying. The large black creature that had invaded it had destroyed so much of its infrastructure that its self-repairing mechanisms could not keep up. The last generator sparked and died; its energy reserves continued to dwindle, and it would not be long now before it finally shut down.

  The museum had been programmed to maintain itself and survive, so it felt fear and sadness at the prospect of its demise. To lose its life after such a long and glorious career of showcasing itself! But then it had an idea. One last exhibit. It gathered two remaining curator units, and began to construct a small display of the last moments of the Museum of the Museum of the City of New Birmingham. It wasn’t much of an exhibit, as the museum had only a little time and energy left. It made a small plaque, with a brief description of the museum’s invasion by a massive animal-shaped thing. It created a simple diorama – so crude, it was painful to lower its standards so much – of the black thing surrounded by security robots in a main hall. Some of the model robots had been torn to pieces, the others arrayed in defensive formation around the animal thing. The animal thing was just a cut-out of a black plastic sheet, but the museum thought that it still conveyed a sense of the menace of the creature.

  There were scavengers that lurked in the area around the museums. These detected the failing energy signature of the museum. They probed at its outside walls, and saw that the defensive systems were offline. They began to chew their way into the museum, and commenced the slow process of eating it from the inside out.

  The Museum of the Museum of the City of New Birmingham took a last moment to admire the diorama of its own destruction. Given the limited time, it thought that it had done a creditable job. Now that it had documented its own destruction, its job was completed. The museum ran out of its last reserves of stored energy, and died as happily as a self-absorbed museum of itself could.

  --------------------

  The Museum of Death called up the Museum of Museums on a short-range communications channel. “Did you see? The Museum of the Mu
seum of New Birmingham is no more.”

  “I caught some transmissions,” said the Museum of Museums, “but my external sensors don’t have as good an angle on that building as yours do. Are you certain?”

  “Yes, I can see it quite clearly from where I am. The large black animal thing eviscerated our colleague, and it could not self-repair before it ran out of energy. It’s gone.”

  “Well. I can’t say that I am all that sad. Such an arrogant stuck-up self-referential jackass, it brought its own doom on itself, I tell you. I’m going to update my exhibit on meta-museums, as an object lesson.”

  “We should not speak ill of the dead,” said the Museum of Death.

  “No? I suppose not,” said the Museum of Museums. “The Museum of the Museum of the City of New Birmingham couldn’t help how it was programmed. I never liked it. It hardly ever talked to us, but still, it was a colleague. There are so few of us functional museums left in this area, from the time of the humans.”

  “True. Now there are only us two, The Museum of Pain, The Museum of Ennui, The David Hasselhoff Museum, and the Imperial War Museum of the Highland Kree, that are still active.”

  “The Highland Kree never had a war, so that last is not much of a museum.”

  “You are programmed as a critic of other museums, but still, you are too hard on The Imperial War Museum of the Highland Kree. Over the centuries it has developed many exhibits on the history of speculative possible wars that are also highly instructive on the history of the events of those days. You should send a probe over and visit sometime.”

  “I concede your point,” said the Museum of Museums. “Perhaps I shall create a new temporary exhibit on museums that were created in anticipation of events that never occurred, using The Imperial War Museum of the Highland Kree as a centerpiece.”

  “A worthy idea,” said the Museum of Death. “Perhaps the female hominid will come back and view it.”

  ‘That would be enjoyable,” said the Museum of Museums. “I liked her, so I worry about her out there. It’s not safe on this planet for humans, vampiric or otherwise, and hasn’t been for a long time.”

  “Agreed,” said the Museum of Death. “We can only wish her well, and hope.”

  “Say, I just had an idea,” said the Museum of Museums. “Why don’t you create a memorial for The Museum of the Museum of the City of New Birmingham?”

  “What, me?” said the Museum of Death. “But I’m only a museum; memorials are to be created by humans, for humans.”

  “I disagree,” said the Museum of Museums. “We are thinking beings, and are – or perhaps, were – part of human culture. Now that one of our number has fallen, why should we not remember, and pay our respects? And a memorial to a dead museum created by a fellow museum would, I am fairly sure, be a first for a museum.”

  “You have convinced me,” said the Museum of Death. “I shall have to consider this for a while. Maybe a nice gilded sepulcher – no, too quiet. I see our late colleague cast as a heroic bronze riding a horse. The flamboyance would appeal, but I can’t figure out how to put a museum in the saddle without it looking ludicrous. A tombstone would be too simple… I know. I’ll create a bronze statue of a handsome young man (poetic license), he’ll be looking out at the horizon smiling, happily and sure of himself, and standing on a granite pedestal. It will have an inscription that is inspiring, but not dishonest on it – maybe you can help me on that.”

  “I like the idea,” said the Museum of Museums. “I think that our late colleague would approve.”

  17. The Dichoptic Maculatron

  “Looking good, feeling good, seeing well.” – The motto of Arol Augsburger, Optometrist, Earth, 20th – 21st centuries.

  Olga Razon drove across the landscape of Abweichend on her little four-wheel cycle, with Zippo the Space Monkey in his usual spot on a front fender, and the Sword of Gadolinia lashed horizontally to the front handlebars.

  “Sword,” said Olga, “are you sure you are OK staying horizontal? I could prop you up vertically, like an antenna.”

  “Not a problem,” said the sword. “I automatically adapt to any change in orientation or viewpoint. After all, I wouldn’t be very useful as a sword if I couldn’t handle being swung about all angles, would I?”

  “Ah.”

  They continued on in silence for a time. For several hours they traveled across a section where the ground was covered in glass blocks. The blocks were clear but the glass was curvy, so it was hard to tell what was underneath them. They came upon a spot where the blocks had been shattered by an impact, and Olga could tell that the blocks were layered about one meter thick, overlying a network of very small tunnels that looked like they had been made by mice. There was nothing currently in them, though Zippo was careful to check.

  The ground changed to a hard-packed red dirt, mostly flat but with a few small dry streambeds. Here and there buried black cables poked out of the ground where erosion had uncovered them. Zippo pulled on some of them but soon lost interest.

  They were still crossing the red dirt zone, when they spotted a group of light blue donut shapes in the distance. Olga stopped her cycle, and they watched the shapes approach. There were 14 of them ranging in size from 10 to over 30 meters in diameter. They rolled slowly, taking a straight line course that would pass no closer than half a kilometer from them. Olga decided to stay put until they had passed. As the shapes got closer, she could tell that they were translucent, with fine veils and whorls of delicate blue inside them. When they rolled over the buried cables, or some uneven part of the ground, their substance would catch and leave little blue tufts behind, that soon evaporated.

  It took half an hour for the blue donuts to roll silently past them. The only sound that they made was a faint crunching as their surfaces touched the ground, and they never gave the slightest indication of noticing the trio. Olga and the Sword had been on Abweichend long enough that their usual conversation on such enigmatic things – oh what do you think they are? Pets, god-like beings, animals, machines, old weapons running loose? I don’t know. I don’t know either – had paled and they simply watched the blue donuts pass without a word, and then continued on their way.

  They set camp that night underneath what looked like an isolated section of an elevated 23rd century maglev line. Olga looked out at the landscape, lit brighter than a full moon on old Earth by the array of orbital constructions, hoping for a sight of the black outline of the ground ripper, but it never came.

  Three more days and nights passed, and relatively uneventfully for Abweichend. They encountered a few odd creatures and mechanisms, but none were hostile or even seemed very interested at all at the sight of a vampire, a space monkey, and a talking sword, crossing the landscape.

  On a wide glossy white plain like an enormous china saucer, they spotted a lone structure in the distance. They headed towards it, and as they got closer they could see that it was a modest human-style office building about three stories tall, with simple plate glass curtain walls. As they got even closer, they could see a neat sign over the front entrance that said “DICHOPTIC MACULATRON.”

  “This is too easy,” said the Sword of Gadolinia.

  “Easy?” said Olga. “Crossing light years of space, fighting a homicidal museum, escaping from a malevolent cybertank… and you think this has been easy?”

  “Exactly,” said the sword.

  They drove up to the entrance, and parked in front. Olga got off her cycle, slung the Sword of Gadolinia around her waist, and walked through a single glass door. Inside, there was a small lobby with potted plants and a deserted information desk. Past this was a large room with thousands of pairs of antique eyeglasses in display cases all around the edge of the room. It brought back memories for Olga – the humans hadn’t used eyeglasses since the 23rd century, but she could recall being in rooms like this before. She’d always had perfect vision, but she had had checkups now and then. Here and there were posters of glamorous people wearing glasses. Olga knew enou
gh about optics to see that none of the glasses that they were wearing had any refractive power.

  They wandered around for a bit. There were waiting areas with uncomfortable seats and end tables covered with old magazines – Field and Stream, Better Worches and Zits, People More Glamorous Than You Magazine, Popular Cybernetic Weapons Systems – and glossy brochures listing The Seven Steps to Healthy Eyes.

  There was a passageway with a sign over it saying “Clinic Entrance.” They started to walk through it, but Zippo bounced off an invisible wall, and while Olga could pass, the sword of Gadolinia was held back – the scabbard yanked hard on the belt around Olga’s waist, jerking her to a stop.

  Olga tried pulling on the Sword, but it would not budge one millimeter past a certain distance. Zippo charged the barrier and bounced off, and then scurried around trying to find another way past.

  “A force field?” said Olga.

  “Looks like it,” said the sword. “My senses can detect nothing, other than that neither Zippo nor I can pass, but you, apparently, can.”

  Olga tried using her full strength to pull the sword through, but made no progress.

  “It would appear that whatever is here, wants to see you and not us,” said the sword.

  “It certainly does,” said Olga. “What do you think? Should I go on without you?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said the sword. “Whatever is here is more powerful than we are. If it wants to harm you, it will do so, regardless. Leave us here in the waiting room and see what this Dichoptic Maculatron wants with you.”

  Olga propped the sword up against an end table. She picked up Zippo, told him that he was a good little space monkey, and that he was to wait for her and guard the sword until she returned. She put Zippo back down, who lowered his head and made sad soft space-monkey hoots. Olga walked down the corridor to the clinics. She turned back and waved. “See you soon.”