The Station Core: A Dungeon Core Epic (Station Cores Book 1)

by Jonathan Brooks

  “Oooook. Why do I need so much metal?”

  “Most of your manufacturing facilities need metallic components, the first of which will need to be an ore refinery. Even though you can break that shit down and convert it yourself with your molecular converter, it isn’t that efficient. With some well-spent basic metal units, you can expect to eventually multiply the amount that you can get from the same ore by like, fucking, 10 or some shit like that. That means that you’ll be able to create additional facilities that will speed up production for a small fraction of what you’d be able to convert yourself.”

  Milton thought that what she said sounded familiar. “Makes sense – invest in some required stuff at first which leads to other things that make it faster and easier to make something else. This sounds like a common strategy in some resource management games; I can get behind that. Since I need to wait for enough basic metal to get started – which seems like it could take a while – what should I do for the short term? Beef up my defenses?”

  “Here,” she said, before a new short-term quest popped up.

  New Short-term Goal: Go Forth, Young Man

  Since you don’t have a clue what is out there in the big, bad world, use your Combat Units to explore the surrounding countryside and discover what this place has to offer. Although your sensor orbs and drones have a limited range, your Combat Units aren’t reliant on power from your Core, so they can venture much farther. The neural connection allows for instantaneous communication over long distances. Your Communication/Charisma affects the distance they can travel and still communicate with your Core, so increasing this statistic will allow for further exploration.

  - Raise your Combat Level to at least level 6

  - Thoroughly explore 20 square miles of territory

  - Raise your Communication/Charisma statistic to 14

  Difficulty of Goal: Fun

  Timeframe: 6 months

  Rewards: Knowledge of the world. And +5 to Communication/Charisma if you’re into that sort of thing.

  Heck yeah, I can do that.[16]

  Chapter 16 – Puppies!

  Originally, Milton was going to use one of his Lollipop Snakes to explore the surrounding countryside since he already had a plethora of them. But after a moment’s consideration, he brought up his current Combat Unit Status screen[17] to see what how much he had to work with. Since his Processing Power/Intelligence was at 8, he was only using 510 of his 800 maximum Bio Units. As much as he’d like to have another Clawed Badger roaming around, he wasn’t sure if it could operate aboveground effectively. Not to mention he didn’t have enough processing power – but that could be remedied by killing off one of his smaller units. No, he needed something that could quickly explore but also be able to run from danger if it was overmatched.

  Ideally, he would have loved to have something that could fly, that way he could cover much more territory in the same amount of time. Realistically – at least until he got a flying unit – he had to settle for something that was fast and nimble but wouldn’t be immediately eaten up by something larger. His snakes were cheap, but they were so low to the ground that they had trouble seeing their surroundings. His Jackalopes were the same way, having a slight height advantage over the snakes but he still wouldn’t be able to see everything he needed to either. That left two options: the Greywiener and the squirrel. After a quick nanosecond of consideration, he immediately vetoed the squirrel because he still couldn’t think about it without a quick spike of fear. To physically control it and look out its eyes – that was too much for Milton. He would have killed off the one he already controlled but he kept it around because, as much as he hated to admit it, the darn thing was a good scout.

  So, Greywiener it was: not ideal, but he had to work with what he had available. Since they only cost 100 Bio Units and 25 Basic Metal Units, he decided to make two of them and send them out in different directions. After confirming his selection, he watched as his two new Combat Units were pooped out, landing in the water surrounding the bottom part of his shell. Immediately upon splashdown, the two Greywieners started roughhousing around with each other, acting like puppies who just discovered a kiddie pool in the back yard. Milton watched their antics for a couple of seconds before ALANNA appeared in the middle of them as if by magic, splashing, playing, and squealing, “PUPPIES! I LOVE PUPPIES!”

  It was so unlike her that all Milton could do was watch as the tireless ALANNA wore out his new units after about 15 minutes. As they retreated to the dry tunnel outside of the water, the dogs laid down with their tongues hanging out, exhausted from all the playful exertions. Fortunately for ALANNA – who couldn’t be seriously hurt – the Greywieners only nipped at each other during their play, otherwise they could have done some serious damage with the sharp teeth and powerful jaws he saw surrounding their panting tongues. Despite only playing, there were still a couple of superficial wounds on each of his new units, so inconsequential that they had already stopped bleeding.

  “I’m guessing you’re a dog person?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes, I fucking love all dogs, the cuter the better. They’re one of my weaknesses – but don’t tell anybody,” she responded, still with a smile on her face.

  “Well, sorry to tell you, but I need to take these ones away – they’re my new exploration units. If I have enough processing power later, I’ll make you one that you can keep.”

  She pouted at first, but a sly smile emerged under her disappointed veneer as she said, “That’s ok, I can wait. Talk to me again when you have a Biological Recombinator.”

  Milton wasn’t exactly sure what that was supposed to mean, but he told her that he would. He ordered his new dogs to the surface, but they didn’t move. Confused, he connected directly with one of them and immediately saw the problem. Duh! It’s pitch dark down here and they can’t see! “ALANNA, how do I go about getting some light down here? Every time I create a new Combat Unit that can’t see in the dark, they won’t be able to see to find their way out.”

  “That’s easy. Your sensor orbs are equipped with some sweet-ass lighting. Although they automatically scan the surrounding areas with infrared to see, they can also emit a fucking awesome glow that can light up your tunnel. Just space them far enough apart and your whole fucking tunnel should be golden.”

  He took one of his sensor orbs out and concentrated on bringing forth some light. Suddenly, the Core Room was lit up with an explosion of light, so bright that he could hear his Greywieners yelp in pain as they were temporarily blinded by the light. Mentally turning the brightness down, he brought the light level down to a nice, manageable glow that lit up everything in the room and even further into the corridor. He immediately sent out most of his other available orbs throughout the long tunnel, placing them up against the ceiling out of harms’ way. Even though their glow wasn’t blinding, it was enough that there was very little that wasn’t illuminated.

  Directing the slowly recovering Combat Units to the surface, he led them around all the traps, including the spike trap where he realized he needed to use one of his drones to open the side tunnel. Once they were both out safely, he paused for a moment while he tried to determine where he wanted to send them.

  Based on the position of the sun and the time of the day, I’m guessing that East is…that way. So, where should I start? Split them up to cover more ground or keep them together? He finally decided to split them up since he was anxious to find out what the surrounding countryside had to offer. Choosing at random, he sent one to the North and one to the South with instructions to observe the area they were moving through and to alert him if something other than trees appeared. Making their way across the clearing, Milton watched from his nearby sensor orbs as they quickly disappeared in between the trees.

  Piggy-backing in the mind of the Southern Greywiener – which turned out to be male, as opposed to the female one heading North – Milton rode along while allowing him to have the freedom to journey throughou
t the forest without his interference. He wondered why his Molecular Converter had created two different sexes, especially since he didn’t ask for it to do that. Curious as to the reasoning behind this, he asked his resident expert.

  “Unless specified, the system will equally generate both sexes, allowing for potential reproduction,” ALANNA informed him.

  “Wait, wait, wait…they can get pregnant?”

  “Fuck yeah! They won’t do so unless you give them specific orders to keep their numbers steady, and you can dictate how many you want. It’s all controlled by the nanites in their bodies, which automatically reproduce themselves to ‘infect’ any newly-created lifeforms. Essentially, instead of them ‘Fornicating Under the Command of the King”, its more like ‘Fornicating Under the Command of Milton”. Actually, that sounds better as an acronym – FUCM sounds like fuck’em when you say it,” she smiled at that last part.

  His thoughts took some time to get back on track after that colorful explanation. Too much to think about right now. Turning his attention back to his current project, he connected again to the mind of the Southern Greywiener.

  Milton immediately sensed the joy in his Greywieners’ freedom to run and he exhilarated in the feel of air rushing past his face as he ran full-speed, narrowly dodging the various trees that seemed to appear from nowhere. After a couple of minutes, his new Combat Unit slowed down incrementally – only to speed up when he spotted a Jackalope.

  Rushing ahead with even more speed than he had seen previously, his Greywiener crashed into the startled antlered rabbit, catching it with his small, yet powerful, jaws. Crushing the poor creature with tremendous bite force, the Jackalope was essentially decapitated as its body was swallowed whole, its head and antlers left to roll along the ground. Through the entire “hunt” and attack, the Greywiener didn’t even slow down, chewing, eating, and swallowing on the run.

  The whole feeding event happened and was over so fast that Milton barely had time to adjust to the sensations of killing something with his “own” jaws. It wasn’t pleasant, the feeling of a live animal being crushed between his teeth, its frantically beating heart pierced by cracked ribs, and the taste of gushing blood filling his mouth. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much chewing involved and the meal was swallowed within moments – but he could still taste and smell the warm, sticky blood coating his tongue and teeth.

  Retreating to his shell, he gathered himself for a few minutes as he tried to get the memory of crushing bones and blood out of his “mouth”. “ALANNA, is there a way to just see out of my Combat Units instead of experiencing everything they do? One of my dogs just ate a Jackalope and now I can’t get the taste of blood out of my head.”

  “Uh, yeah – what the fuck have you been doing? Do you mean to tell me that this whole time you’ve been fucking feeling what they’ve been feeling? That’ll drive you nuckin’ futs if you keep that up – being inside the mind of simple creatures for too long will fuck you up. Just connect to them and pull back until you’re just looking out their fucking eyes and listening through their fucking ears – that’s all the motherfucking sensations you need. I’m pretty sure you did that with your squirrel at first, so I didn’t bother fucking teaching you that shit, but I was wrong for once – don’t get fucking used to it because it doesn’t happen very often.”

  I think she’s deliberately throwing in the foul language to mess with me – there’s no reason to say the f-word so much otherwise. Besides that, she does have a point – I don’t remember feeling everything that Blood-thirsty Squirrel felt when I looked through its eyes at the Scaly Bear. Now if I could only remember how I did that…

  Focusing on the same Greywiener, he connected with its mind again, still tasting the blood in his mouth. Mentally thinking about stepping back a little, he felt a slight lessening in the tactile sensations he was feeling. Hmm, not enough yet. What was I thinking about with the squirrel…? Well, I’m pretty sure I wanted to stay as far away from that blasted thing, only allowing the barest possible connection to form. Thinking he was onto something, he imagined that his dog unit was a squirrel and he wanted to stay away from it. Instantly, every sensation faded except for his eyesight and hearing. Woohoo! Nice!

  Now armed with a defense against a sensory overload – as well as any stray thoughts from the Greywiener – Milton rode along with him as he continued to run through the forest. He missed the feelings of joy that came from the dog as he ran, as well as the wind rushing by his face, but he felt it was a necessary price to pay to not have to experience eating something so recently alive again.

  Over the next 15 minutes, he hadn’t seen anything different other than boring old vegetation and was about to switch over to his Northern unit when he saw something unusual in the trees ahead. What looked like crude rope made out long strips of dried bark was strung up between the trees, high up in the branches. Milton ordered his ride to slow down as it approached this mystery section, wary of anything and everything. He didn’t want to rush headlong into danger if he could help it, so a more cautious approach was in order.

  Passing beneath the first trees that had the strung rope, he didn’t see anything out-of-place initially. The floor of the forest looked just the same as the rest of the surrounding area, but now that he went further he saw that the rope denoted a ring of trees with the center clear of anything but fallen leaves and scattered bushes. It was only when he looked up that he got his first surprise.

  Perched upon the branches of the trees surrounding the small clearing, the immobile shapes of more than 30 large monkeys sat staring at the Greywiener. They were all sitting quietly, eyes fixated on the intruder – which was rather unnerving. He wasn’t sure if they were dangerous or not, but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out. Telling his unit to turn around, he was suddenly assaulted by the raucous hooting, honking, and screeching of every single monkey surrounding him.

  Frozen in place from the unexpected noise, the Greywiener started shaking in fear as Milton watched as the monkeys launched off their branches, gliding across the clearing above his head with skin flaps that appeared between their arms and legs – like a flying squirrel back on Earth. When they reached the other side, most of them caught branches to stop themselves, but a couple needed to use the crude rope barrier to arrest their momentum.

  Taking direct control of his creation, he started running out of the clearing just as the noise reached an even greater intensity. Instinctively dodging to the side, he just barely missed being impaled by a long, sharpened wooden spear that impacted the ground next to his head. Zig-zagging through the underbrush, he took a quick moment to look up and saw one of the Glider Monkeys armed with another spear beginning to chuck it in his direction. Quickly calculating where it would land when the spear left its hand, he dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the deadly weapon.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t see everywhere at once, so when he took the time to dodge the spear he saw coming, another one struck him on the back leg, crippling that appendage and slowing him down considerably. Reaching back with his head, he gripped the shaft of the spear with his jaws and began extracting it from his leg. Distracted by his current endeavors, he yanked the wooden weapon out just as he observed a rain of spears heading in his direction. Knowing that the likelihood he would escape was slim, he nevertheless tried to run again, still slowed by his damaged leg.

  The first impact hit his lower back so hard that it passed clean through, impaling him against the ground as the point of the spear erupted from his skin and lodged into the dirt. That wasn’t enough to kill him, but the five additional spears that hit him in the back, side, and finally his head were.

  As he lost connection to his unit, he found himself back in his shell, glad that he had learned how to disconnect from all that his Greywiener was feeling, even when directly controlling it. To have to experience the pain and death firsthand would be horrendous – he now knew why ALANNA said that it was a bad thing to do at all, let alone all the time lik
e he had been doing. It was bad enough that he saw and heard it happening; having the memories of the pain that went along with that would break him after a while if it happened consistently.

  As for those Glider Monkeys, he was content to leave them alone for now – he didn’t have any type of defense against them and didn’t want to tangle with them for now. They seemed to have a rudimentary form of intelligence based on the ropes and spears he saw constructed; he was hoping that if he stayed away from them then they would stay away from him. His Greywiener probably invaded their territory and they attacked – he couldn’t blame them from defending their home. He would, and had, done the same thing when he was invaded.

  Putting the Southern direction on hold for the moment, he turned his attention to the North.

  Chapter 17 – Aww…they’re almost cute

  Connecting to his Northern unit, he found it easier to disconnect from her feelings straight-away. The female Greywiener was running through the forest, but at a statelier pace than her counterpart. Milton didn’t know if it was caution or if she had already used most of her energy up from a previous sprint – either way, he was appreciative for the slower yet steady journey through the forest. Not only could he see more details, he could hopefully see danger before it appeared.

  After another 10 minutes of travel, he could feel his connection starting to grow less and less focused. He figured that he was reaching the limit of his communication range and his unit would have to start heading in another direction soon. Directing her to turn Southeast, his Greywiener complied and Milton felt the connection strengthening the further south she moved.