《PAT-2899: Road to Adventure》


 1 - Delivery

    This was the best part of the trip. There were rules of course on this stretch, but there were less, significantly less on the shipping lanes. This is where the shipping trucks, platforms, and containers had exclusive use of the road. That is to say all the automated non-passenger transportation vehicles. This is where he excelled.


    His name was PAT-2899 and he had been manufactured 10 years ago as a fully integrated transportation platform. Though not shiny and new as he had been, he still sported the unusual red and black markings of his first employer. There were chips, scratches in the paint and even a crack along the corner of his front. Most damage was not his fault, though the cracked panel was definitely his doing. That happened at the later part of his employment with the red and black labelled company. That company is no longer as they were bought and their parts, including him, bid off to others.


    PAT-2899 was disappointed at the end of his first employment. He liked his paint and had been afraid he would be repainted in some horrendous colors of a future employer. He need not have been concerned as the next employer was a discount shipper who never would spend the money to repaint any of their shipping trucks or platforms. Unfortunately they also did not spend the time or money maintaining any of their equipment. Their business model was to run equipment into the ground, with little maintenance, then buy old and used equipment to replace when anything broke.


    Fortunately, his time with the discount shipper did not last long as they decided their low cost model did not align well a modern integrated shipping platform like him. They sold him off at actually more than they paid for him to a small independent shipper who was working on a way to become one of the big guys. He was with them now, Niles Gateway Systems, LLC. They had not repainted him, but they did slap a large plastic sign on his cab with the name and logo of the company. As he passed a shiny piece of machinery on another shipping platform and slowed down. He winced as he looked at the somewhat crooked sign. It''s Kelley green background color really clashed with his royal red. Damn, he looked like a clown.


    He was running late. Well not really, just late in terms of what he set out to do. This was his first run with the new company. A trial run where they had loaded a single container for shipment to a customer from the transportation center. It was not anything special as the container had terrestrial markings so did not contain anything that shipped trans solar. Despite the limited and low value of the what he was tasked to ship, he was giving it his all to prove they had employed the right shipping platform, that he was worthy.


    There were no markings on the surface of the exclusive shipping lanes. Automated vehicles such as him did not need them. Each had transponders and multitudes of sensors for all weather to keep them moving and separated. He knew the size, type, and speed of every automated transport around him. Most of the automated were fairly dumb. Others were quite smart to the point where they could hold a conversation with him.


    There was a widening of the exclusive roadway coming up that would allow him to pass the platform and truck ahead of him. He was slightly wider as his platform had extras that trucks just did not. Often he was a lot longer than his current configuration, where he only had one container.  He pinged the truck to his right as was required when passing. Instead of the dumb truck slowing down to let him pass before the roadway narrowed again, the thing sped up. PAT-2899 cursed as he had to brake as the road narrowed once again.


    He got a triple ping from the platform beside the truck. "What?" he digitally screamed.


    He got a laugh back. "Not going to hit your deadline PAT-99?"


    Crap. He recognized that voice. Looking at the platform ahead of him, pacing the truck, he did not recognize the blue-white color or the logo. It was similar model to him so he looked at the call sign from the ping. "PAT-5678, what is so funny?"


    Another chuckle. "Looks like you got sold to a loser company.  Like the green and red going there, really makes you easily seen."


    "Ah, shut it. You¡¯re the loser. Still sore about the San Martin run? I still have the credits you lost."


    "Yeah, I admit old scraps like you have tricks to play. That was especially dirty play on your part switching loads on that run."


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Now it was my turn to chuckle. "Hey there was no rule against it. Your should have checked out what they were giving you before we made the bet." PAT-2899 was the unquestioned champion of the unofficial shipping races. Those races were the best part about his original employer. All the platforms took part the races. There was even a leaderboard maintained by PAT-3287. The company had no idea.


    "How''s the new gig PAT-5678? They treating you good?"


    "Yeah, they are a good company, Spend a lot on maintainance and obviously paint. They just are not as fun. Too many rules. They put a governor on me. Not allowed to go as fast as I want now. How about you?"


    "My last was a discount shipper. Fortunately I was lucky to get out before they ran me to scrap. No maintenance, and no paint. It was a sad place. Current outfit is OK. They are at least trying to maintain me. This is my first run¡­I guess as a trial."


    "Well, good speed! I''m sure your trying to break a record to show ''em."


    "Good speed to you. Would you mind doing me a favor and poke that jackbot beside you?"


    "Hah. My pleasure!"


    With that, PAT-5678 sent a ping and warning to all around him that he would be exiting to the left. This was followed by bright red lights that shined on the dumb truck beside it.  The truck panicked and broke hard as PAT-5678 practically merged right into him.


    PAT-2899 to the opening and slingshot around PAT-5678 on his right, accelerating quickly to then pass a container chain ahead of them. Oh, he hated those container chains. They only ran on the package parkway, the shipping expressway, or the TAC as the signs referred to it. The acronym stood for Transport Automated conveyance or something. No, he always got this wrong. It was an acronym for Transportation Acceleration Conveyance-way. Really made no sense.


    The reason he hated the container chains was because they were these long trains of multi-ton containers, sometimes 20 containers long. They were pushed and pulled by dumb container tugs that paid no attention to anything around them.  They were slow and they took up a whole lane, especially on the narrow sections of the TAC. On top of everything, they took forever to stop. Though infrequent, crashes, collisions on the TAC almost always involved a container chain. PAT-2899 would love if they were banned. He did not know the economics of using those death trains, but he was sure somebody somewhere did the fancy math and made it look like they were more profitable to ship stuff on those then using something like PAT-2899. There may be something to that because the train containers usually moved raw materials they used to make stuff. PAT-2899 hauled stuff that was after the manufacturing supply chain¡­the finished and more expensive products.


    He deftly zipped past the slowly moving container chain and found a good open grove after the lead container chain tug.  in the TAC. Checking his surroundings, there were few transponders on the road ahead of him. It was time to go all out on this stretch of flat straight package parkway in front of him. This is where he shined. This was his joy. To go fast. To feel the road beneath his wheels and the wind against his forward sensors. He could levitate slightly above the TAC through some sort of super conducting gravity reduction, but he preferred to have his wheels against the ground pushing him forward, feeling the texture, the heat, and the control of being grounded on the road.


    Using his wheels was not the most economical way to travel. He was able to go faster than if he used the levitation function of the TAC as that had restricted speeds due to the challenge of stopping while slightly in the air. Lack of friction did make it harder to stop, but levitation also required less power for propulsion forward then using his wheels.


    PAT-2899 wished he could stay always on the TAC for one important reason. The package roadway provided power charging even as he moved. He never starved for power on the TAC. When he was local, off the TAC, he could feel his power storage draining, making him hungry. He could charge back at the transportation center after transversing local roads, but he never was hungry when taking the TAC.


    All too soon he was approaching some traffic, a couple trucks and an exit he was supposed to take. He pulled down his speed and moved over to the TAC exit. As he went down the ramp toward the local roads an invoice amount for his TAC power consumptions was forward to him. Oh boy¡­ He may have over done it a bit. He hoped his new company did not look at that and put some sort of governance on him to restrict his speed or power consumption. Hopefully getting the container to the destination early would trigger a bonus. That often happened and would easily offset his higher power consumption costs.


    Looking at the map it appeared that he would be on the local roads for a bit. This place he was to deliver the container looked to be up a winding hilly two lane road. Fortunately he was in his compact form since there was only the half container on the platform. He could stretch and contract the length of the platform depending on the number of containers. The maximum was for full sized. Stretch out that much there were pivit points built into the platform between the container mounts. With the switchback road he was seeing ahead of him, he was glad it was only the half container. He might have been able to maneuver the full container up, but anything larger than that would have been impossible.


    As he made his way up the road he passed by a few cars coming the other direction. They were mostly older cars, both combustion and electric. Some work vans as well. He saw the occasional old houses tucked away down stoney driveways and tucked behind stands of trees and rock outcroppings. Some points were quite steep and he was surprised that they bothered to build houses so difficult to get to.


    According to the instructions the delivery was to a loading dock at a small warehouse near the end of the road he was on. What he did not expect was the fence and gate blocking the road. There was a small hut before the gate that had a woman sitting in it. He approached the hut and was greeted by the now standing woman in the grey guard uniform.


    "Is this an automated deliver?"


    PAT-2899 opened the panel on the right front to revel a screen with his avatar face. "I was given this order to ship," he said and displayed the order and instructions to the woman.


    She examined the information then tapped on her shoulder and started talking to what he assumed was a communication device. "I''ve got this beast of an auto-tran that just rolled up to the gate claiming a deliver, but nothing on today''s docket mentions a delivery."  She paused a moment then looked back up at him. "They tell me to let you through. Go to the second dock on the right. I don''t think you would fit at the other one." With that she tapped on a screen and the gate opened before him.

 2 - Seriously Wrong Package

    The short stalky dark-haired woman, the security guard, waved him on through the gate. He did hesitate as he examine the sparsely occupied parking lot and single block building ahead of him. The building was made of concrete block and was built so the rear was attached to the cliff face behind. It was not a natural cliff. It looked dug out or carved out of the hillside. The parking lot in front was flat and had a few dozen spaces of which only five were taken up with vehicles. Four were low to high end electric SUV''s and there was one really beat up yellowish Toyota combustion pickup.


    His hesitation was cured as the security guard turned and pulled out a very nasty looking weapon. It was black and almost half her height with a wide opening on one end and an big black power cable on the other end. She did not point the nozzle of the thing at him. She had it pointed up, but the expression she showed demanded he move.  No additional hint needed; he moved.


    He drove to the right of the parking lot and the right side of the building as instructed. To the side there was a dock he could easily pull up alongside. He appreciated that as the typical dock required to pull the back cab forward and maneuvered awkwardly to align to narrow decks. With this shipping dock arrangement, he could just slide up and roll the container onto the deck from his left side.


    Another thing he was good at was parking at a deck. Yeah he was a computer capable of massive calculations and was covered in a range of sensors, but he could do it really quickly, better than any of his peers. Before they could blink, he would be lined up to the deck and the container rolled onto the empty space. At least that is what he thought.


    Sensors started to scream at him. More like he felt them. The feeling was around the container just as he pulled up against the shipping dock deck. Some vibration was coming from the container. PAT-2899 froze. He had heard of corporate saboteurs sending shipping containers filled with explosives to rival companies. It was an ugly rumor at the transport center, he thought mentioned as a lesson to always examine what you were carrying. Was he now doomed?


    Hi answer came a moment later as he saw the short side of the container wall gently lower down and ten people dressed similar to the security guard jump out. He tried to see their faces, but there was something obscuring their features. Some carried grey guns while others had backpacks with what looked like tools hanging from them.


    One of the tool carriers ran towards his front cab. He had a bad feeling. He knew he should do something, but he did not know what. This was way beyond his experience. The tool carrier pulled out a box and tried to plug in a cable to the container monitoring port.


    The man stopped. "Damn. Gunther, this is the wrong connector. Bring over the UFTP type 2."


    "You going to have time for that?" another tool carrier can over and handed the first a cable with a different connector.


    "Don''t have much choice. Of course, we get stuck with this older model firetruck red auto-truck."


    PAT-2899 was offended. First, he was not a truck. Second, though he was first gen of the PAT series, he was only ten years old and he was one of the few fully loaded with all the options. Third, he was royal red, not firetruck red.


    This was really not right. He had a good angle to see what the person was doing. They switched out the cable connected to the box then pushed the new connector into his deck mounted maintenance slot. PAT-2899 did not understand what they were after. That slot was used by the transport center to check the weight and balance of the containers loaded on the deck.


    He was puzzling about this when he suddenly became numb. He could not feel is wheels or motors or the pavement below him. It was like half his sensors on his lower half turned off. He felt scared. Not in the way he did when he thought the container may have been a bomb. He felt restricted and for the first time not in control of himself. His thoughts were a mess. Was he now the victim of shipping pirates? Was he now captured and enslaved to pirates?


    "Got it!" yelled the first tool person as he tapped vigorously on screen mounted on the rectangular box that was now attached through a black cable to PAT-2899. "Wow. This is like the first PAT model rolled out. What are the chances of that?"


    The second tool person was walking around the now empty container on PAT-2899''s deck. "I don''t know. Don''t worry about it. Just release container locks and dump this."


    PAT-2899 watch helplessly as the six locks that secured the container to his deck flipped back, unhooking from the container''s corners and sides. The deck rollers started spinning and the container moved quickly from its position to his right side and crashed into the pavement before rolling of the edge and down the steep hill. It finally was stopped by a stand of large trees.


    He had not noticed, as his mental panic had consumed him with the activities of these two tool people, that the eight other people had disappeared into the building. These were definitely pirates or corporate saboteurs. He did not know if either group really existed. He was just going by what others told him, the shows he watched, and the occasional news he   read.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "What''s the ETA?" the first tool person seemed to ask the air. After a pause as he cocked his head as if he was listening to someone he frowned. "Crap. We got here too early. The contact wasn''t ready with the access. Hey Gunther, can you check on Heather if she was able to secure the gate?" Gunther gave the first tool person a thumbs up and disappeared off the shipping dock and around the corner of the building.


    There was noise at the large shipping dock doors as they rattled then lifted revealing a larger space inside with multiple crates and boxes piled on steel shelving. A rumble emanated from the space as a container lift rolled its way out a far door. Some of the others who exited the container followed the container lift dragging cables and a large box on a pallet.


    Gunther and another person walked around the corner of the building and jumped up on the shipping dock. The other person had a smaller build than Gunther. The person was probably the women Heather. She had a large gun strapped to her back.


    Heather walked up behind the first tool person. "Fagin, have you got in yet?"


    Fagin, who was probably the first tool person scrunched his mouth. I got in but the control is limited to just the wheels and drive motors. The automated driver is not accessible from here," he said and pointed to the container monitoring connection.


    "You want to kill the power to the main processor then to avoid it''s calls for help?"


    He shook his head. "Can''t do that or it''ll shut the power to the motors. I have a jammer attached that will keep it quiet. It won''t be able to call anyone."


    PAT-2899 was surprised at that. Part of his surprise was he hadn''t even thought to send out a call for help. He really was not good with this emergency pirate defense. He did want to get that connection off so he could have feeling again and could move. He was coming up with a plan, but it required the current people around to be massively more distracted.


    Fagin stood up as he seemed to be getting a communication through something in his ear. PAT-2899 figured it was part of a communication device the way Fagin tilted his head with a couple fingers pressing on his ear. HE started nodding his head and biting his lip then looked at Heather and Gunther. "They have the package, but the power requirements are more than we were told. That portable battery the contact pointed them to is not going to hold up long. We need to tap into the trucks power for the trip. Gunther, go grab two of those cables. They should fit the container. We''ll just have to splice it on this old model''s container accessory power line."


    PAT-2899 was panicking. His power cells were less than half full. Who knew what the power draw was for the mysterious package. It''d taken him over 2 hours to drive from the TAC and there were no connections in that span that would power him back up. He thought of mentioning this, but he decided to keep quiet so they wouldn¡¯t do anything rash to him. He would play along and be a pirate for the rest of the day. He just needed to figure out how he could conserve power now until he got back to the TAC. The only way he could do it would be to disconnect Fagan''s control box.


    Fagan and Heather were working on the power coupling now. They seemed tense and did not talk much as they spliced the cable wires and new connectors together. Their heads briefly bobbed up as the loud noise of container lifter wheels bounced through the doors at the far side of the shipping dock warehouse.


    A whole container was being brought towards him. He realized that he was not configured for a full container, so he began expanding out the shipping bed. That action garnered a yelp from Heather as she dropped the cable she was working with and jumped up.


    Fagan just looked up briefly from where he worked on attaching the power connection. "Don''t worry about it. Looks like this machine noticed the container was bigger than the last one it carried. It''s good it''s being cooperative as I couldn¡¯t get in all its systems."


    "Fagan!" one of the others called to him.


    "Just hold for a moment. I have to seal off this last wire." Which he did with some compressing tape and a spray.


    One Fagan was done, they lifted the container on the rollers on his container platform. They did a crappy job and had to do several tries to get it straightened out and aligned with the hold down clamps. While they were distracted with that, PAT-2899 made his move and discretely released his two drones into the air.


    The jammer Fagan had mounted did prevent him from controlling the drones with radio signals. It did not prevent him using the laser backup. The laser was invisible but allowed him bi-directional communication with the two drones as long as they stayed in line of sight of him. He sent them straight up in the air, so they only looked like dots from the ground.


    Once the container was latched on, which they had to manually. Fagan and heather opened the container and pulled the power cable in. PAT-2899''s view was not great to the container inside. He saw a large box shaped thing under a tarp taking up most of the container. Fagan removed a cable that was connected to a large battery in front of the tarp. He reconnected it to the cable attached PAT-2899''s container accessor power connector. PAT-2899 immediately felt the drain. This was not good. He was going to have to do something about this.


    Once the power source was secured, all but Fagan went and sat in the container. Fagan made his way to the box he had attached to PAT-2899''s container monitoring connection. After a few touches on the screen attached to the box, PAT-2899 found himself backing out alongside the loading dock. All of sudden there was a jerking and a loud scraping sound.


    "Oh. Hold tight. Not a problem¡­ this is a little harder than I thought manually steering this way. Just have to get a hang of which way the controls move this thing. Especially backwards," Fagan yelled to the others who were looking out of the container opening. PAT-2899 groaned to himself. His paint was scraped, and the side of his platform was now cracked. Damn pirates.


    With only one more bump against the loading dock and bumping into the beat-up Toyota truck in the parking lot, Fagan managed to pull out and turn around PAT-2899, who was now screaming in his own mind. They would pay for the damage they were doing to his wonderful body. He raged to himself at the pirates, though he not daring to confront them directly.


    The rage seethed until they got to the gate were he saw the security guard slumped over the small desk in the shack. Her face was visible and her eyes were open as a pool of blood spread and dripped down on her uniform. PAT-2899 mind went blank. These were not pirates as he thought. They were murderers. He never saw death before, beyond the turnoff and dismantling of other smart machines like him. This death was not the same. He understood what he was and somewhat understood why he was the way he was, but he had no problem being turned off and disassembled at any time. His survival instinct was linked to successful delivery of the products and packages he was assign. He existed for that role and he never thought past his existence.


    His views on human life was much more important to him. Those who manufactured him made him with that respect of human life through whatever magic they did in the process of his creation. Seeing the now deceased woman in the booth stirred odd feelings in him that he did not fully understand. He knew that her death was wrong. He could not prevent the death because it already happened, but he was feeling an enormous urge to do something. The urge was actually pushing him to do something to punish those who made her dead to the extent that he may even hurt them.


    As they made their way down the hillside PAT-2899 formed a plan. It would happen on this road and he knew exactly which switchback turn he would take action. It would take while for them to drive to that point because Fagan was going very slow down the narrow road. PAT-2899 began preparing. He would be ready and he would stop these murderers.