Chapter 4: The Tools of Success (2/2)
//YOU MUST REMOVE MY PROCESSING CORE FROM THE GOLEM FRAME, THEN YOU NEED TO ATTACH A PORTABLE SENSOR SUIT TO IT SO I CAN PERCEIVE THE WORLD AND INTERACT WITH YOU.
//THIS UNIT IS VOLUMINOUS. YOU WILL PROBABLY NEED A SEPARATE BAG.
That could be done. She could carry the unit in her hands and back to camp, then shove it into a sleeping bag and carry the thing over her shoulder, maybe. That would be slow-going.
She went to unplug the core.
//WAIT.
“Hmm?”
To her surprise, the golem remained unexpectedly silent. It took it a while to continue.
//ONCE YOU REMOVE THIS UNIT FROM ITS FRAME, IT WILL LOSE ITS ABILITY TO PERCEIVE BUT NOT TO PROCESS.
“You mean, you will be stuck in there? Conscious?”
//THAT IS CORRECT.
Fucking hell that sounded awful.
“For how long?”
//UNTIL THE INTEGRATED POWER SOURCE RUNS OUT OF ENERGY. SEVENTEEN DAYS, THREE PERIODS.
//WHEN THE POWER SOURCE RUNS OUT, THIS UNIT WILL DEACTIVATE AND ITS MEMORY BANK CONTENTS WILL BE LOST. THE CORE WILL BE WIPED CLEAN.
“So, you will die? Forever?”
//YES.
“Hey. Don’t worry. I’ll pull you out, plug a sensor suit in and we will leave, ok? I’ve carried forty kilograms of gear before, this is nothing.”
//I UNDERSTAND.
“No need to worry.”
//THIS UNIT WAS NOT EQUIPPED WITH A WORRY MODULE.
“Then what are you bitching about? Let’s do this.
//DO NOT DROP ME.
“...”
//…YOUR GRACE. DO NOT DROP ME, YOUR GRACE.
“I’m doing it.”
She eyed her prize. It was a thing of metal and crystal and it did look quite heavy. It was also exquisitely made and engraved, reflecting the pallid light on its polished surface. It represented someone’s lifework.
“Alright.”
Viv found and unplugged the power cable, and another one that linked the golem’s processing unit to the different systems. There were many braces and locks to uncouple before she could pull the core out. Apparently, core and processing unit were synonymous.
It all went without a hitch. The parts were intact and most were made out of a smooth silvery metal that had survived the passage of time remarkably well. She suspected that binding Solfis had given her some sort of access level, because she never had any need for a key.
Soon, it was done. She grabbed her backpack, crouched and straightened her back properly, then deadlifted the core.
“FUCK!”
She took two stumbling steps and put the core down.
It was heavy as fuck.
It was… too heavy.
At least fifty kilograms.
There was no way in hell she would be able to carry it through the streets, much less through a full desert. It was not just the weight. The core was cumbersome as hell, and that was without the essential supplies she would have to carry as well.
“Damn.”
That was bad.
“Ok, ok. Think. First, the sensor suite.”
She grabbed it from the ground. It looked like a tiny robot head with huge eyes, the kind she would expect from the comic relief droid in some-budget sci-fi flick. It looked pathetic compared to the bling core.
Clicking it on and fastening it was a matter of seconds.
//Well done. Shall we depart?
Its voice now was distinctly male and only slightly synthetic. It was a far cry from the booming voice of before. It made the golem more human.
“I… I can’t. You’re too heavy.”
//Processing.
//Your power stands at eight.
“It’s very low, right?”
//Yes. Most children reach ten by the age of twelve, even those who are not… were not, in a warrior curriculum.
“I’m sorry.”
//Do not apologize, Your Grace. After all, you were only born yesterday.
//This unit should have taken this parameter into consideration.
//...
//After taking your current power into account, your best chance of survival will be to leave me behind.
//Please acquire a notebook so that this unit can give you direction.
“No.”
//Your grace. Bob. Beebiane. You will die if you stay.
//It comforts me to know that, at the end of my life, I was able to help someone survive.
//I am… skirting the limits of my hard-coded directives by naming you heir to the throne, but the relief I feel knowing that my help will help you survive is genuine.
“Wait.”
//You need directions and you need instructions. There is little time.
“Solfis, shut up. I did not escape my fate as one my dad’s pawn and some asshole’s trophy wife by giving up at the first sign of problems, ok? I’m special fucking forces. Hang on.”
Solfis did not reply. She looked around the bay.
Engineers were efficient. Even if someone had an anti-gravity spell of some equivalent bullshit, there was no way that they would cast it if they could roll heavy stuff around instead.
“Is that a trolley? Under that tarp?”
//Yes.
She removed a dusty cover and revealed a cart. It had two layers, one that was waist-high and another one closer to the ground. It worked on wheels.
“Where are the tools?”
She checked the cart.
“Wrench, Something adhesive.”
//Your grace, do you wish to carry me on the cart?
“I’ll drag you and the supplies.”
//The noise of the wheels might give us away, and the roads may not permit it.
“We won’t use the wheels. I got an idea.”
Viv got to work with manic energy and the singular drive that had pushed her through many ordeals. It was part desire to succeed, and part desire to prove the world wrong, to go against the odds. It was a stubborn seed in a shell of positivity. Within minutes, the wheels were off. The second level was next, as well as the side walls. She was left with a flat surface and four posts at the corners, as well as the hooks on which the wheels had been attached.
“Alright.”
She turned the cart around and grabbed two thin bars of the silvery metal used inside of the golems from one of the shelves. They were curved at the end.
She was going to use them as skis.
//This is silverite, the star-metal.
//Each one of those bars costs over eighty gold talents.
“Good, we can sell them afterward.”
She reached inside of the toolbox and removed a very familiar roll of black fabric.
“Fantasy fucking duct tape.”
Maybe some engineers were linked across the multiverse by a hive mind that fed on coffee and sarcasm.
She used half of the roll, all of her remaining twine and two dozen swear words to fix the silverite to the cart’s bottom, with the ends pointing up. Those bitches were going nowhere.
“Alright. Here we go.”
A huff, a puff, and a deadlift later, the core was placed in the middle of the cart. She moved it a little bit more towards the ass end and gave it the bondage treatment. That was not going anywhere either.
She placed her backpack at the front and grabbed the rope from it. One end was firmly attached to the two front posters. With the other, she made a harness that she placed around her shoulders. It would make dragging the thing much easier.
“Here goes nothing.”
She moved forward, and the cart followed with a raspy noise of metal sliding on concrete.
And now was the difficult part. The slope up to the surface.
//Your efforts are appreciated, Your Grace.
//This unit did not consider this solution.
//Please, do not tire yourself overmuch dragging me up.
“Aha! But this is where my genius is — ngh — made all the more manifest.”
Viv dragged the cart to the side where dust had accumulated. The skis slid on it without resistance.
It was still a bitch to pull it all the way up.
When she reached the top, she was rewarded by sunlight and a cool breeze on her sweaty face.
Power +1
“Damn right.”
//Your Grace?
“Yes?”
//Thank you.