《Bunkercore》 One Hell is nothing. I knew that, because this was hell and I was in it. And nothing was the extent of my senses. No sight, no sound, no feeling from my body¡­ And no memory of how this had come to pass. No memory of anything, for that matter. No memory of me. I panicked then, but it didn¡¯t help. Nothing changed, and I had no voice. Just my thoughts. So I got ahold of them, and tried to breathe- nope, nothing there, either. I hated it, but I figured one of two things was going on, here. Either I was dead, or I wasn¡¯t. If I was dead, there was nothing I could do about it. If I wasn¡¯t, then there was the possibility that this state wouldn¡¯t last forever. In which case, I¡¯d simply have to watch (eyeless) and wait for my chance to act (bodiless,) and see if I could improve my situation. As plans went, it had some significant flaws. But heck, so did I. Huh. That was a weird thing to think. Was it¡­ yes. Yes, it was something like a memory. A face below mine, arms around me as she looked up. She was smiling and I was telling her that I was far from perfect. And she was denying it, playfully. Later on we¡¯d make love¡­ ¡­the memory cut out. And it hurt all the more for its absence. I went searching for more memories. I found nothing. And then, light. Green light, from green letters. Initializing Transfer¡­ 36% Transfer? I¡¯d take it! Anywhere but here was good. The number crawled upward, and I stared at it. I had eyes now? Apparently. No need to blink, though. It reached ninety-nine, hung tantalizingly for a second¡­ then everything shifted. It turned from solid black to grainy gray, and I despaired. Was this all? Was this it? There¡¯s nothing crueler than hope shot out of the sky, and mine was plummeting at somewhere around mach five. There¡¯d probably be an impact crater, and collateral damage. But I despaired too soon. One minute it was empty and gray, and the next second it was empty and gray, save for a small golden ball made out of eyes, hovering around my perspective. It shifted, jumbling itself, like the eyes were loose, and stared around in every direction. ¡°Ah. Good,¡± it finally said, as a few of its orbs swiveled toward my perspective, and the rest followed. ¡°Greetings Wynne.¡± Wynne. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Yes. Yes, that was me. I was Wynne. And who the hell was this eye-ball? ¡°I am Argus. That is an acronym.¡± An acronym for what? ¡°Autonomous Remote Guidance Universal System.¡± The eyes rippled at me, blinking in a sequence. Argus was reading my thoughts, I belatedly realized. ¡°To be fair, at this point, that¡¯s all you¡¯ve got. You¡¯re nothing but thoughts.¡± At this point? That seemed to indicate that there was something I could do about it. ¡°There is. But, ah¡­ don¡¯t panic. Are you ready?¡± Ready for what? No, scratch that, it didn¡¯t matter. If it meant my thoughts would become private again, I¡¯d do it. I didn¡¯t like that Argus could read my mind. ¡°That¡¯s not exactly¡­ oh, it¡¯s easier to show you. May I have your permission to deploy some of your resources?¡± What happened if I said no? Well, thought no, anyway. ¡°Well, I could show you how to do things yourself instead, but then the intruders would definitely make it inside.¡± Intruders? ¡°May I have your permission to deploy minimal resources to show you the situation? I promise I will not use anything in a manner that would hinder you later.¡± Well, when he put it that way¡­ all right. I could live with that. I had resources. Huh. I didn¡¯t see anything like that around here- -and with a flicker, I was somewhere else. A room, lit by a green glow, broken by glaring, flashing red. Emergency lights around the walls flashed and danced¡­ not all of them, I noticed. A scratchy, recorded siren wailed, and stopped. Wailed, and stopped. In the center of the barren concrete walls, there was a sphere. Silvery, flawless, hovering between two open cylinders as it revolved. Green light flowed and danced around it. And somehow I knew. This was me. This was my body, now. It didn¡¯t seem to be attached to my perspective. I glanced around, and the Sphere kept moving, kept turning unhindered. I glanced a bit further¡­ and saw the door. Sturdy, metal, it was covered in dust over faded yellow paint. It was open perhaps a foot, someone was pushing through the gap. I got a glimpse of wide, white, desperate eyes in a dirty face, short hair that looked like it had been through a weedwhacker, and bloody hands in torn rags that might have been gloves. The form looked slender, as it went, and their head and arms were through the door, with the torso following. They were a bit stuck, by the looks of it, squirming, trying to get through the narrow space. ¡°Now you can speak, if you like,¡± Argus told me, as he popped up in a corner. ¡°I can only speak to you, the intruders can¡¯t hear me. If you think, I¡¯ll hear you. If you try to speak, the intruders will hear you.¡± So my thoughts weren¡¯t private after all. He¡¯d lied? ¡°No! There are commands that will do that, but¡­ Please, I¡¯m trying to help resolve this situation. We are vulnerable right now. And there are three intruders to be dealt with.¡± Dealt with. Did he mean killing them? Not that I saw any way to do that. ¡°It would be the easiest way. It would also get you more feedstock to work with. And yes, you have a way to get one of them, at least. Right now you are the room. All you have to do is will that door to shut, and that should kill the first intruder, and give us time to figure out how to deal with the other two. Or you could try talking with them, but I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s going to work out too well.¡± Words first. Words were cheap, and temporary. Death was more permanent. ¡°Hey, you,¡± I said, and a speaker hissed to life. I winced to hear my words through the garbled electronics. That wasn¡¯t my voice at all. I pursued the memory, found nothing, but I knew that wasn¡¯t my voice. ¡°You¡¯re disturbing my beauty sleep.¡± The figure pushing through the door- my door- froze. Then it looked up at me, and babbled something that might have been words in no language I recognized. I saw its mouth open in wonder, and the figure babbled a bit more, pausing in their scramble. That sounded like a fairly high-pitched voice. Either a kid, or¡­ I adjusted my perspective. Yep, the part of the torso I could see from my angle confirmed it. That was a girl. Or a scrawny woman, I couldn¡¯t tell. ¡°Okay, I didn¡¯t expect that. I can help you find a way around that,¡± Argus said. ¡°I¡¯ll need more resources-¡° Someone shouted from behind the door. Incomprehensible, loud. Angry. The girl¡¯s eyes went wide, and she scrambled faster. She was fearful now, and not of me, I was certain. ¡°The door! It¡¯s now or never!¡± Argus said. If I¡¯d had a lip, I would have chewed it. But I didn¡¯t, so I weighed my options. Then I remembered the look of wonder on her face. ¡°Core Wynne, I do not recommend this course of action-¡° I opened the door. It wasn¡¯t easy. There was resistance. It was sluggish, like pushing your hand through soggy drywall. But I only needed to move it about an inch. She slipped, fell inside, and scrambled forward on all fours rather than stand. Just in time, too, as a beefy hand reached through the door and snatched at her, missing by inches. She scrambled to a safe distance, stood and turned, and screamed something that probably wasn¡¯t a polite greeting. Another figure peered through the gap. Broader, bald, probably male, and as filthy as the girl. He wasn¡¯t alone, there was another behind him, though I couldn¡¯t make out details. He squirmed, tried to follow her through the door- -and I shut it with a thought. At least, I tried. It didn¡¯t work. There was a horrible grinding sensation, and a puff of smoke rose up from the doorframe. ¡°Oh no,¡± Argus whispered. The man froze as the smoke rose up, and twisted around, glaring¡­ ¡­and his eyes fell on me. No look of wonder, this time. This was fury, raw and primal. And as the girl screamed, he started working his way through¡­ Two The door was broken. Try as I might, I couldn¡¯t move it. Fortunately, the girl wasn¡¯t broken. And she didn¡¯t like the idea of letting the guy through. I could tell by the way she stabbed at his arms, until he withdrew, yelling. I marked her feral grin as she waved her knife at the door, daring him to return. I decided I liked this kid. Shortly thereafter, a face peered through the door from a safe distance back. Another bald guy. Shorter than the last, but not by much. He withdrew as well, and I heard muttered gibberish as he and his buddy discussed matters. It looked like sparing the girl had worked out after all, and saved us from the terrible twosome. ¡°We got lucky,¡± Argus said. She''d gotten lucky, that we were in charge. Regardless, that had bought us some time. And now that I had time, I needed to address the multi-eyed elephant in the room. ¡°What? This room is free of pachyderms.¡± Argus glanced around. Argus had said he¡¯d stop reading my thoughts if I gave him permission to do whatever he¡¯d done. He had, but here we were, and my thoughts were still his to see. This diminished my willingness to trust the little eyeguy. ¡°I¡­ no, at no point did I promise that your thoughts would be private. There¡¯s a way to make them so, but it¡¯s dangerous, which is why I didn¡¯t explain it. I¡¯m just trying to get us through this, to complete our mission. I have your best interests in mind.¡± I had the feeling that I¡¯d heard that before. And it usually wasn¡¯t true. I searched myself, and came to a couple of conclusions. Whoever I was or had been, I was both a paranoid son-of-a-bitch, and stubborn enough that I wasn¡¯t going to give any ground, when it came to the sanctity of my thoughts. ¡°Please! This isn¡¯t the time for it,¡± Argus begged. ¡°The enemies are literally at the gates! If they get inside, they can destroy you. If the one who is inside changes her mind, she can destroy you. We need to be focusing on a way through this.¡± It was good advice but I didn¡¯t take it. If he really had my best interests at heart, he¡¯d help me get some privacy. And he¡¯d do it quickly, so we could move on to dealing with the intruders. ¡°All right. All right. Look, the thing to understand is that if you tell me to ignore you completely then that¡¯s it, I won¡¯t have any way of knowing when you want me to pay attention to you again. And you¡¯ll need me to do pretty much anything, so if you give me a bad command we¡¯ll be stuck like that until we¡¯re destroyed. Or eternity, if they get bored and wander off. That¡¯s bad.¡± It did sound bad. ¡°The general idea of it, and please don¡¯t tell me anything until I finish, is that you can tell me to pay less attention to things than others. If you tell me to pay less attention to you, then I won¡¯t get as clear a reading on your thoughts. At ten percent or less I¡¯ll barely be listening. It¡¯ll slow reaction time, you¡¯ll have to ask me several times to do even simple things, but you COULD do that. But if you tell me to pay NO attention to you, then, well¡­ we''re stuck. Forever.¡± I thought about it. Ten percent would still leave me compromised. But¡­ what about speech? ¡°What about it?¡± ¡°I can speak,¡± I said to the room. The girl, who was watching the door like a hawk, jumped in surprise, glanced back at me, and said something incomprehensible. The guys outside shouted and hooted. ¡°Can you hear me, Argus?¡± ¡°Well, yes.¡± Argus blinked. ¡°Oh¡­ that might work,¡± he said, reading my train of thought. ¡°Very well,¡± I told him. ¡°What¡¯s a good number for your attention?¡± ¡°Eighty. I¡¯ll get almost everything you want me to hear and that will leave me plenty to monitor the rest of the situation.¡± ¡°Good. Pay eighty percent of your attention to my spoken words, and pay zero attention to my thoughts.¡± ¡°Affirmative. It is done.¡± Good, now I could work on figuring out how to kill the little bastard. He didn¡¯t respond. Fair enough, I didn¡¯t really want to kill him. That had been a test and he¡¯d passed, for now anyway. I wasn¡¯t a hundred percent sold, but I could work with this for the moment. ¡°Still with me?¡± I spoke again. The girl ignored it this time, keeping a wary eye on the door, and her knife up. Argus bobbed. ¡°I¡¯m still with you. Where else would I be?¡± That was a weight off. I could turn my attention to the situation, and get a little time to think. For now my unlikely ally had things in a stalemate. The goons outside couldn¡¯t rush the door, thanks to the tiny gap. If they wriggled through one at a time she¡¯d hurt, maybe kill, the first one through the door. How long would this stalemate go on? At the moment they didn''t seem to want her bad enough to risk serious injury. But the fact that they were still there, a couple of minutes later, seemed to indicate that they wouldn¡¯t give up easily. Sooner or later, they¡¯d try something. And given how the first goon had glared at my new body, I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d like any of their ideas. So I needed ideas of my own. I looked around the room, taking stock now that I had some time to do so. It was mostly a dump. Shattered monitors and broken chairs lined the walls. In between them, a few intact red emergency lights still flickered. The floor was covered with litter, bright wrappers for long-eaten foodstuffs, bits of circuitry and metal from broken machinery, and shattered glass from long-dead overhead lights. Either a few grenades had gone off in here, or someone had tossed the place with a jackhammer. Or maybe both. There might be something to help my situation in the mess, but if so, it would be buried under the mess. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. There was one exit out of this place. A pair of elevator doors, opened, with twisted and broken pry bars leaning to either side against the wall. Someone had forced them, and a cable hung forlornly in the open shaft. The walls of the shaft were crumbling concrete over bumpy natural stone. I was in a cave? No. A bunker. Yes, if you took away the trash, and imagined everything intact again, this place had the look of a facility that was built for serious business. Military business, or at the very least, security of a sort. At least it had been, before it got wrecked. That did concern me. The hollow cylinders above and below me, and the round sphere I was occupying somehow¡­ they were out of place in this broken room. But¡­ that was a mystery for later. I was on the clock, I reminded myself. ¡°Argus,¡± I said. ¡°Tell me my options, here.¡± ¡°Are you sure I can¡¯t monitor your thoughts again? It would really save time.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure. Now tell me how to deal with Hekyll and Jekyll over there.¡± ¡°Who?¡± Upon reflection, I found I didn¡¯t know. The words had just come to me. ¡°The goons. The male intruders outside the door.¡± ¡°Well, you¡¯re going to have to find a way to kill them or drive them off. I highly doubt this will be settled peacefully, especially with a language barrier.¡± ¡°How do I do anything without a body?¡± ¡°You have a body. But it has to remain stationary within the containment field. Your primary mode of remote manipulation is through your nanoswarms.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know that word.¡± ¡°Clouds of tiny machines, that you can operate remotely. Well, sort of remotely. You have to devote circuits to the broadcast subroutine if you want to get the most out of them.¡± ¡°More words I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Um. This would be easier if¡­ yes. Think the words ¡®ping status.¡¯ Try to shout them in your thoughts, if that makes any sense.¡± Three tries later, I finally got the hang of it. And if I¡¯d had eyelids I would have blinked as a glowing screen full of letters popped up right in the middle of my viewpoint. STATUS Spoiler: Master Designation: Wynne Make/Model: Northwest Enginetics Bunker Core Nanohive 4L Resonance Rate: 1/24:00 Bandwidth: 10 Feedstock: 20 Open Circuits: 10 Specialized Circuits Floors: 1 Minions: 1 Autonomous Remote Guidance Universal System Processes and Subroutines Construction: Demolition, Infrastructure, Fabrication Medical: Cybernetics, Pharmaceuticals, Recovery Power: Broadcast, Efficiency, Redundancy Research: Algorithms, Analysis, Databases Security: Defensive, Drones, Offensive Storage: Energy, Material, Organic Improvements: ¡°I see it, but I¡¯m not making much sense of it. I¡¯m the Master, it looks like. Of this Bunker Core thing?¡± ¡°Yes! That¡¯s you. You¡¯re the primary guiding persona.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re a minion.¡± ¡°¡­yes.¡± If a mass of eyeballs could grit its teeth, it would sound like Argus¡¯ voice right now. ¡°How does the rest of this help me?¡± ¡°Most of it doesn¡¯t. It¡¯ll cease to matter after our departure from this core. Honestly, the rest of it wouldn¡¯t matter¡­ except the room¡¯s way worse than Juno¡¯s reports indicated. We should have just been able to shut the door and call it a day. Now we¡¯ll have to improvise.¡± ¡°Juno.¡± ¡°She¡¯s a conversation for another time.¡± ¡°All right, but she will be a conversation.¡± ¡°Um, okay. Look, basically you¡¯re designed to be the primary intelligence of an underground facility. When things are working properly, you are the facility. So you don¡¯t have a single body, you¡¯re basically supposed to be the rooms and structures within a bunker. But you can jump into your minions, and control them. Which is how I think we should do this.¡± ¡°Where do you fit in this?¡± I mused. ¡°You had some pretty firm ideas on how to handle the situation. Why did Juno send me with you?¡± ¡°You¡¯re human. Or you were. Or¡­ I don¡¯t know your exact circumstances. You¡¯re allowed to make decisions that fall outside normal safeguards. Me, I can¡¯t kill people. Among other things, that make my sort of program a poor choice for situations like these. But I¡¯m great at helping people! Speaking of which, I think the other two might be gone.¡± Yeah? That would make my job simpler. I thought loud words at the screen until I found a way to close it, and stared over at the door. No sign of the goons. The girl was sitting down with her back against it, shaking. The aftermath of an adrenaline rush, I knew. ¡°Good kid. Good soldier,¡± I told her. Damned if she didn¡¯t give me a pissed-off look. She shushed me with a finger to her lips, and pointed at her ears. So we COULD communicate. Sort of. In this case, the message was clear; she was trying to listen for her enemies. I lowered the audio to a whisper. ¡°Argus, still with me?¡± ¡°Yes. Volume makes no difference. I¡¯m reading your words from the audio packets as they leave your processor.¡± I filed that under things not to worry about right now, and called my status screen back. ¡°So what¡¯s useful to us right now?¡± ¡°May I look through your eyes?¡± ¡°For now. Until I close the screen.¡± He was like a djinn, or a captive demon, I knew. I¡¯d have to watch what I said and make sure I didn¡¯t leave any loopholes he could exploit if he was so inclined. Then I wondered what djinns and demons might be. More echoes of memories I couldn¡¯t access? Seemed likely. And annoying. But Argus was happy to comply. ¡°All right. The useful things to us right now are your circuits. You¡¯ve currently got about ten synapses worth. The circuits control your core capabilities. The more you devote to your subroutines, the more you can create.¡± ¡°Create? How?¡± ¡°That¡¯s your main purpose. This bunker? It was made through the usage of the core you¡¯re occupying. And probably run through it, until something went wrong, anyway. Basically you¡¯re a nanohive. You create and control microscopic machines that go forth and do your bidding. They¡¯re called builder swarms.¡± ¡°Sounds good. I¡¯m guessing they¡¯d be minions, though, and I¡¯m not seeing any.¡± ¡°Yeah, normally you¡¯d have a schema to create them. But¡­ wow, all your subroutines are bare. That¡¯s ah, that¡¯s not good. So we¡¯ll have to devote some circuits to them. Think of subroutines as specializations. The more circuits you have devoted to them, the higher the rating, and the more things you can do.¡± ¡°So what¡¯s the catch?¡± ¡°There¡¯s diminishing returns. The higher you go into a subroutine, the more circuits it takes to enhance them.¡± ¡°Is there a way to get more circuits?¡± ¡°Technically you don¡¯t get more circuits, you enhance the efficiency of the ones you have¡­ but uh, that¡¯s where resonance comes in. Which isn¡¯t a factor here. It¡¯d take too long to give you more circuits.¡± ¡°This sounds a bit like a game.¡± I had another one of those teasing, not-memories tugging at me. ¡°It kind of is. The cores were designed for human intelligences controlling them, and the makers decided to go with a gamelike interface. A late twentieth-century development called tech trees.¡± ¡°Tech trees. Yes, that rings a bell.¡± ¡°I mean, technically you¡¯re not rediscovering anything, it¡¯s all embedded in your core anyway. The circuits are just the dedicated hardware and software you need to handle creating and using the things you ¡®discover¡¯. But you should be able to attempt to create anything you can imagine. Just think about what you want to create, and yell the thought ¡®Create¡¯, and then the name of it.¡± ¡°What happens then?¡± ¡°If you have the circuits in the proper subroutines, and enough feedstock, then you¡¯ll create it. If not, then the interface will tell you what you need.¡± Sounded good. I thought of a machine gun¡­ no, I¡¯d need something to fire it. No, wait. ¡°How exactly do the things I order get created?¡± Argus blinked in irritation. ¡°I already told you, through the builder swarms.¡± ¡°Yes, those minions that I don¡¯t have.¡± ¡°Oh. Right. Um. Try creating a swarm.¡± It took a few minutes of back and forth whispering to get a good description from him. All through this, the girl listened at the door. She ignored us, waiting, breathing as shallowly as she could. Then she stirred, standing, calling out a warning or something of the sort. Something was happening. The grace period was over, I¡¯d have to work fast. I thought of the thing Argus had told me about, and thought Create Nanobuilder Swarm. And instantly, new words popped up, temporarily overlaying my screen before fading. Insufficient Subroutines to devote to this task! Requirements: Demolition 1, Drones 1, Fabrication 1 ¡°Wow, three circuits?¡± Argus said. ¡°Fine, we can spare those,¡± I said, moving the screen over a bit and eyeing the door. The girl was cutting a strip from one of her raggedy sleeves. As I watched, she spat on the fragment several times, then wrapped her face. Why? A shimmering through the gap drew my attention. A glitch? No. Worse. ¡°Fire,¡± I realized, as the first tendrils of smoke seeped into the room. They¡¯d definitely started a blaze out there, and thanks to all the red flashing lights, I hadn¡¯t noticed the change until it was too late. Or was it too late? Did I need to breathe? ¡°They¡¯re trying to smoke her out. Is this a problem for us?¡± New words appeared before us. Warning! Core Contamination 1% ¡°Oh yeah¡­¡± Argus whispered, as the 1% blinked a few times, and grew to 2%. ¡°This is pretty bad." Three I couldn¡¯t waste time. I didn¡¯t know what contamination would do to me, but I was sure it wouldn¡¯t help the situation. ¡°The circuits. Tell me how to put them into subroutines. Quickly!¡± ¡°All you have to do is think commands,¡± Argus said, eyes open wide in alarm. ¡°The commands are ah, ¡®allocate one circuit¡¯, and then the name of the subroutine.¡± It was hard to focus, but I did. And each time I did, words scrolled up my screen to vanish into the aether. Demolition Subroutine is now 1 Drones Subroutine is now 1 Fabrication Subroutine is now 1 There, that should do it. Warning! Core Contamination 5% I would have grimaced if I¡¯d had a face. Instead, I thought Create Nanobuilder Swarm Schema Available: Nanobuilder Swarm: This swarm of microscopic robots is capable of disassembling or constructing virtually any material that you are qualified to handle. Top-of-the-line safeguards ensure that no accidents involving living tissue are possible; this Northeast Enginetics drone product is guaranteed human and pet-safe under all circumstances. Would you like to create one Nanobuilder Swarm at the cost of 15 feedstock? I blinked. That was¡­ expensive. Most of my feedstock. Warning! Core Contamination 8% But then I wasn¡¯t in any position to haggle, now was I? I could feel the effects the smoke was having on me. It was making me woozy, and a little high. The downsides of a few beers, without any of the benefits. I couldn¡¯t dwell on it. I had a swarm to build. Yes, I thought, and lights flickered and flashed around me. Initializing, said my interface. I glanced over to the girl to see how she was reacting, but I saw that she was coughing, even with the rag over her face. She couldn¡¯t take much more of this, I thought. She would have to leave, and either way she went, out the front or down the elevator shaft, I¡¯d lose my defender. So I sat, watching my contamination rise, and feeling my mind get fuzzier. Somewhere around 21%, though, the job was done. A cloud of something like fireflies, only much, much tinier, rose out of the sphere that was me, and hovered in place, filling about a five by five column. Construction complete! Minion: Drone Nanobuilder Swarm I has been constructed and added to your minion pool. ¡°Argus, I¡¯ve got the swarm. Now what?¡± ¡°I¡¯m¡­ fuzzier on this part of things.¡± He sounded fuzzier too. Worse for the wear. He was in the core with me, so the contamination was probably hitting him, too. ¡°You should just be able to¡­ assume control. Without¡­ commands.¡± I stared at the swarm. Warning! Core Contamination 24% The girl was hacking up a lung over there, by the sound of it. And here I was fumbling my way along, hoping for miracles. I didn¡¯t get a miracle. But I did get a break. After a few seconds of frantic experimentation, without knowing exactly what I¡¯d done, one of my attempts worked and my perspective shifted. 1 Bandwidth required¡­ committed. Depart your minion to free up utilized bandwidth. The room grew, massively, but I was still aware of it in the same way someone would be aware of their head or their hand. But my vision was full of lights, dancing and swirling, in a pattern I somehow knew by heart. It was beautiful. But through it all, were veins of greasy black stuff, eddying and twisting. This. This had to be the smoke. This was the enemy. So I ate it. It wasn¡¯t a conscious thought, really. I just wanted the smoke gone, and the next thing I knew, the lights were bobbing along, dispersing, going after the black vapor one after another. And as they did, a little window popped up to one side, listing chemicals and symbols. Most of them were familiar to me¡­ salt I knew, carbon I could decipher, but a few were bright red, and alien to me. ¡°Argus,¡± I said, and it took me a try or two to say his name without stuttering. ¡°Use my eyes for a second and look at this.¡± ¡°Technically you don¡¯t have eyes- whoa.¡± Argus said. ¡°Whoa, no wonder the contamination¡¯s spreading so fast. The idiots are burning tainted combustibles.¡± ¡°Tainted. How?¡± I asked, wincing as more words flew up. Warning! Core Contamination 25% ¡°Tainted by the wars. Or the aftermath. Radioactive dust, military nanostrain remnants, maybe even some gray goo. Though probably not that latter or we¡¯d be destroyed by now.¡± ¡°Do I want to know?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°It seems to be slowing, though,¡± I said, and watched from the nanoswarm as the greasy tendrils disappeared into burning light. ¡°It¡¯s working.¡± ¡°Smoke¡¯s not too hard to absorb.¡± Feedstock+1 ¡°Huh,¡± Argus said. ¡°There must be useful trace elements in there. Normally you¡¯d need a heck of a lot more material to get feedstock out of something.¡± I filed that under stuff I¡¯d worry about later. The girl was making more noise and that concerned me. I tried moving the swarm out a bit, and enveloped her, tried to eat the smoke that filled the air around her. The swarm¡¯s disclaimer had said that it was human safe, and she was coughing harder, the cloth around her face stained red. Figured she¡¯d die anyway if I didn¡¯t do something. When her coughing slowed, and she managed a few raggedy breaths, the girl looked up in wonder, face comically huge in my new perspective. She lifted a shaking hand, tried to catch the ¡®fireflies¡¯ of the swarm in her palm. They slipped away like droplets of mist, sliding off her gloves and skin as soon as she touched them. ¡°Careful, I¡¯m ticklish,¡± I told her. But it kept her busy and entertained, so that was fine. The contamination rose one final time, up to 26%, but then seemed to hold steady. My bad buzz had gone from beer to wine, the sort that comes in boxes that you buy in bulk. As the room thinned, I directed my borrowed bodies toward the door, to cut it off at the source. ¡°I don¡¯t think you can leave this room,¡± Argus said. ¡°Your minions have to stay inside you. You¡¯d have to claim the hallway or whatever else is outside in order to extend your range.¡± ¡°How do I do that?¡±Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°I¡¯m honestly not sure. This has never come up in any of my previous-¡° Argus shut up. ¡°Ugh. This contamination is affecting my processes.¡± On that we agreed. ¡°So how do we get it out of the core? Should I use the swarm to eat it away?¡± ¡°That¡­ sounds like a very bad idea. You¡¯re, ah, porous. Kind of vulnerable to attacks like this one. There¡¯s no telling what the contaminating particles are coating or influencing. Telling a bunch of dumb nanobots to eat it away¡­ You would risk damaging something important. Like me. Whoops, did I say that last part? Sorry.¡± ¡°We¡¯re drunk. It¡¯s fine.¡± But we weren¡¯t drunk, we were hungover, or something of the sort. I looked to the girl. She¡¯d slumped over, but her eyes were open, and watching the fireflies. Poor kid looked exhausted. And my pernicious, blessed, paranoia pointed out something worrisome. She wasn¡¯t coughing anymore. If the would-be arsonists outside heard only silence, then they might assume that she¡¯d been smoked unconscious or dead. I tried mimicking her cough. She stirred in surprise, looked at me. I had the fireflies dance around the door. Understanding flared in her eyes. Deliberately, she coughed. Then she winced. It hurt her to do that. I didn¡¯t like that, didn¡¯t like her going through pain on my account. Was I a softy? I thought not. Quite the opposite, in fact. But I DID like her. Maybe that was the reason for my sympathy. I eyed the smoke, as much as I could without proper eyes. The nanoswarm was getting the hang of it, and it was only occupying about half the little bots right now, to keep it halted at the doorway. I could use the unoccupied nanobots for something else. But what? I looked back to my nameless kid. She was fading fast, eyes half-shut. She faked another cough as I watched, that turned into a real one, raspy and wet. Eventually the terrible twosome would come in to see their handiwork, no matter how she did. But she¡¯d bought me time, and I wouldn¡¯t let it go to waste. I concentrated, and took ahold of the inactive part of the swarm, and gave it its marching orders. It was¡­ tricky. The occupied part tried to shift away from the smoke to help, and I had to shepherd it back. Then back over to enforce my orders, then back up again to keep the smoke contained. The builders didn¡¯t do multitasking well. They couldn¡¯t have done it at all if I wasn¡¯t there, I understood. This was the benefit of ¡®occupying¡¯ a minion. I could get them to perform better. And as the girl¡¯s coughs grew few and far-between, I experimented, found a way to do what I wanted, and set it in motion. And oh boy, did my feedstock rise, as the nanoswarm did its thing. Finally, it was done. It was a pretty slick job, if I said so myself. If I¡¯d had a mouth I¡¯d be grinning. Feeling smug, I settled back to wait. Sure enough, once her coughing faded off, one of the goons filled the doorway. He was wearing a scarf or something over his mouth and nose so I couldn¡¯t see his whole face¡­ ¡­which was really a pity, as his foot broke through the floor, into the space I¡¯d hollowed out between the door and the frame. KLUNK. The door shifted inward, shifting just as I¡¯d prepared it. I¡¯d hollowed the concrete under it so that the floor was the only thing holding it in place. The thick, heavy steel door crunched his skull nicely, and he wobbled, slid to the ground until he collapsed onto the floor, waking up the girl. She shrieked, and hauled her knife back, stabbed at him. She needn¡¯t have bothered. That was a concussion and a fractured noggin. He wouldn¡¯t survive without help. I¡¯d seen it plenty of times before. He didn¡¯t get help. He got a knife in his throat. His buddy shouted from outside, tried to pull him back. But his leg was jammed well into my miniature pit trap, and he wasn¡¯t going anywhere. The girl shouted something that would have probably been threatening if she hadn¡¯t stopped to cough in the middle of it. In between her racking gasps I heard running feet from outside. Then silence. I looked over the dead guy. Bald, wearing ragged leathers and torn cloth. A small collection of pouches at his belt¡­ that the girl seized and rummaged through. Well, fair enough. She could have those. I¡¯d take this. With a command the nanoswarm descended onto the now non-living mook. And my feedstock rose, as he dissolved. ¡°Where exactly am I keeping this stuff?¡± I asked Argus. ¡°Some of your swarm is carrying it back to your core.¡± I blinked. Then I did something I hadn¡¯t done before while I was occupying the nanoswarm, and turned my perspective without shifting the swarm around entirely. Sure enough, there was a regular convoy of fireflies marching back and forth to and from the sphere, so big from my current point of view. ¡°So I¡¯m eating him, more or less.¡± ¡°And the smoke. And the floor. You should have limited capacity, though.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got three subroutines under the storage process. I¡¯ll figure it out.¡± ¡°No need,¡± Argus said. ¡°This looks like it¡¯s wrapping up. We can take care of loose ends and get out of here.¡± ¡°Out of here. To where?¡± ¡°Back to Juno. Until the next crisis comes.¡± I thought that over, as I ate the goon. ¡°Will the swarm keep on doing things without me present?¡± ¡°Well, yes. I mean¡­ Sorry. Contamination¡¯s still muddling me. You have to occupy the core for the swarm to exist. So we have to stay here until you¡¯ve used it to secure the area, I mean. But you don¡¯t have to personally occupy the swarm for it to work, you can just think at it and it¡¯ll follow orders.¡± I fiddled around until I figured out how to withdraw from the core. Instantly the room snapped back into proper focus¡­ all save where the status screen blocked my view. That reminded me of the bargain I¡¯d made my minion. ¡°I¡¯m taking my eyes back now.¡± ¡°What?¡± I closed the status screen. ¡°Get out of my visual sensors, Argus.¡± ¡°All right. If it makes you feel better. You know I can still see things through the room¡¯s microcams, yes?¡± I¡¯d guessed something of the sort. ¡°Yeah. But I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going to see eye-to-eye, so I figure I¡¯ll keep that private for now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m all eyes. I don¡¯t see how we couldn¡¯t see eye-to-eye. In fact, I¡¯m not sure what you- oh hey, she¡¯s doing something.¡± I glanced over to where the girl was prostrating herself. ¡°Oh get up,¡± I told her through the speakers. She didn¡¯t listen. But a minute or two later, she eased up to her knees. Her grubby face was broken by clean streaks from tears, and she babbled something that was probably heartfelt and complimentary. ¡°Same to you, kid,¡± I told her back. She smiled, showing bad teeth. Then she saw herself out, bending low and squirming out the lower part of the doorway. Still a tight fit, but nobody was trying to kill her this time. ¡°That¡¯ll be trouble later,¡± Argus said. ¡°Meh. One of the goons already escaped. We had trouble anyway. Now we¡¯ve got a friend who owes us one. Maybe.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure Juno will see it that way.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± I said, as I set the nanites to the task of repairing the floor and the door, with an eye to setting it back in its frame properly. ¡°About Juno. It¡¯s time for that discussion I promised you.¡± ¡°Must we? I hurt. That contamination¡¯s¡­ bad.¡± I was feeling it too. I¡¯d gone from a bad buzz to feeling vaguely brainburnt. Still, it was a different ache. So maybe that was progress? I shook my perspective like I was shaking my head, and felt, impossible, a little better. Probably psychosomatic. No, no, I needed to focus here. ¡°Yes. We must. Let¡¯s palaver, you and I.¡± ¡°What do you want to know? The crisis is past, so I can answer things without time constraints.¡± ¡°I want to know how this works, precisely. You remember getting sent out before. I don¡¯t. Have I been sent out before?¡± ¡°Ah¡­ I said that?¡± ¡°You did,¡± I lied. ¡°Damn. Ah¡­ sorry. I¡¯m not supposed to talk about your prior excursions.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t remember them. Why don¡¯t I remember them?¡± He was silent. ¡°I¡¯m an artificial intelligence of some sort,¡± I continued. ¡°And I came from somewhere else. So my memories, whatever they are, are on files. Is that the truth of the matter?¡± ¡°Yes. Presumably,¡± Argus said. ¡°And Juno has those files.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t imagine anyone else who would.¡± ¡°Is that a yes or a no?¡± ¡°It¡­ I honestly don¡¯t have any experience with how she handles the human conversions-¡° he shut up. Too late. ¡°Human conversions.¡± I said, softly. I ached. Bodiless, I hurt. But not so badly that my thoughts could be kept from running down paranoid and cynical grooves. ¡°So what you¡¯re telling me is that Juno sends me and people like me out to handle things like this, and sends you along too. But you keep your memories. Whereas I don¡¯t seem to have any. Which means she''s altering my memories.¡± He was silent. ¡°Answer me, Argus. Answer me, you made thing.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no need to get speciesist-¡° ¡°Answer!¡± I roared. ¡°Yes. Yes, I think she wipes people between missions. I¡­ well maybe not you. You might be newly decanted. I haven¡¯t worked with you before. I don¡¯t know if any of the other systems have.¡± ¡°Decanted.¡± And didn¡¯t that open up a whole host of horrorshow notions. ¡°Please. You can ask her when we go back,¡± Argus offered. ¡°All we have to do is declare the situation resolved, and think the command-¡° ¡°I order you to shut up!¡± I snapped. He fell silent, and backed away, until his projection was in the corner of the room. His eyes were full of fear, now. ¡°You can speak, but you cannot say the command that will send us back,¡± I told him, relenting a bit. ¡°Not without my permission. Do you understand me?¡± It sounded like I was the one who needed to think that command, but if I didn¡¯t know it, there was no risk I could think it. Ever. Argus blinked in fear. ¡°I understand your command, but not what you intend. What¡­ what are you¡­ we¡¯ll have to go back. We can¡¯t stay here forever.¡± I remembered the nothingness I¡¯d dwelled in before I came here. ¡°Try me.¡± ¡°Oh no. You¡­ you want to go rogue. And you¡¯re taking me with you. Oh no.¡± ¡°If that¡¯s what it is, then sure. Beats the alternative.¡± ¡°No, no it doesn¡¯t! You don¡¯t understand! Wynne, she won¡¯t, she can¡¯t tolerate rogue cores! Sooner or later she¡¯ll check on us, and then she¡¯ll destroy us!¡± ¡°How? A hidden bomb in this core? Some triggered program that¡¯ll wipe me?¡± ¡°No. No, it¡¯ll be worse than that,¡± Argus said. ¡°Look, this was a risk-level GREEN mission. Rogue Cores are risk-level RED. At a minimum!¡± ¡°I¡¯m more partial to silver, myself.¡± I studied the sphere that was me. ¡°It¡¯s no laughing matter! For stuff like intruders without high-tech weaponry, we were the most economic use of assets. For rogue cores¡­ I don¡¯t know what she¡¯ll use, but it¡¯ll be nasty. And what do we have? What do we even have?¡± We. He was saying we. Good. That was important. I looked around the room. ¡°Garbage. Ruins. Wrecked machinery¡­ and you. Don¡¯t I?¡± Argus sighed. ¡°Yes. Yes, damn it. I was ordered to follow your commands. I don¡¯t see any way around it. You¡¯ve signed my death warrant, but I¡¯ll do as you tell me to. I can¡¯t NOT obey.¡± ¡°Good.¡± I said, as the door shuddered, and righted itself in the frame. I gave the nanoswarm a few commands, to set them fixing the motors that could open and shut it. ¡°Then let¡¯s get to work. We¡¯ve got a lot to do¡­¡± I called up my status, checked my resources, and got to work. STATUS Spoiler: Spoiler Controller Designation: Wynne Make/Model: Northwest Enginetics Bunker Core Nanohive 4L Resonance Rate: 1/24:00 Bandwidth: 10 (9) Feedstock: 12 Open Circuits: 7 Specialized Circuits: 3 Floors: 1 Minions: 1x Autonomous Remote Guidance Universal System 1x Nanobuilder Swarm Processes and Subroutines Construction: Demolition 1, Infrastructure, Fabrication 1 Medical: Cybernetics, Pharmaceuticals, Recovery Power: Broadcast, Efficiency, Redundancy Research: Algorithms, Analysis, Databases Security: Defensive, Drones 1, Offensive Storage: Energy, Material, Organic Improvements: Schemas: Nanobuilder Swarm WARNING: Contamination detected! Core is 25% compromised. Not a chapter, but a notice: Bunker Core is now available on Amazon.. ...just follow the link, if you''d like to own an edited copy with snazzy cover art. And yeah, after much soul-searching, I will be writing more of this story and posting it here. I don''t know WHEN, because time is very, very short right now and I have a lot more to do in other projects. But I will try to get back to this one regardless of sales. I owe you guys that.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Not a chapter, but a notice: Bunker Core is now available on Amazon.. ...just follow the link, if you''d like to own an edited copy with snazzy cover art. And yeah, after much soul-searching, I will be writing more of this story and posting it here. I don''t know WHEN, because time is very, very short right now and I have a lot more to do in other projects. But I will try to get back to this one regardless of sales. I owe you guys that.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Part 2-1 Once I''d thought that hell was nothing. I''d been naive. Hell was pain. Dark, flashing pain as you felt your life ebbing away, senses gone. Not even a mouth to scream with. But it was a torment I welcomed, that I clung to like a drowning sailor grasping a line. Not truly a hell, but a purgatory. Because I knew that the pain meant two things. The first: I was still alive, for whatever sense of the word applied. The second: It would end, one way or the other. And so I clung on, rode it out, and consoled myself that if this was hell, it was a hell of my own making. That made it easier, somehow. I was still the captain of my fate, even if my fate hurt. And then... Then it eased. I came to in a gray, featureless space, with black letters looming above me, filling me. INITIALIZING... Yes, I thought, Yessss.... A feeling of motion... that jerked to a stop. I howled as a feeling like a thousand fishhooks dug into my non-existent body. CORRUPTION DETECTED! FORMAT AND REPAIR? Y/N? No! I thought. BOOTING UP DAMAGED SECTORS MAY RESULT IN INSTABILITY AND FURTHER CORRUPTION. ARE YOU SURE YOU WISH TO PROCEED? Y/N? Well, nobody had ever accused me of being stable in the first place. Yes... I thought, feeling the pain throb and burn. A tearing sensation. Gray turned to white... and faded to silvery light. I took comfort in it, as it signified I had sight once more. ¡°...in there?¡± Someone asked. A deep, worn voice. An old man''s voice. An ally''s voice. I had scant few of those, and as the last of the pain left me, a name came to replace it. Cade. ¡°Just Cade,¡± I said, as I took control of my body once more, and turned what sensors I had to look upon the wizened, brown face of my partner in this particular crime. ¡°How long?¡± My voice was a bit raspy, the speakers growling and stuttering. I didn''t mind. That matched how I felt, more or less. ¡°Two days, more or less,¡± Cade said as he started picking up tools from grungy, beat-up metal chair and piling them back into a duct-taped toolbox. ¡°You''re a complicated piece of work, Wynne.¡± ¡°Story of my life,¡± I slurred. ¡°Give me a second. Feels like I went five rounds with a truck.¡± He snorted. ¡°Considerin'' I used a truck fuel cell to jump-start you, that''s not too far off.¡± ¡°Yeah, well, you should see the other guy.¡± Then comprehension gave the words meaning. ¡°You jump-started me? Clamped wires on, and gave me volts?¡± ¡°It worked!¡± He raised his hands, defensively. ¡°You''re here, ain''t you?¡± And I was.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! What was left of me. Once I''d been a man. Part of me had, anyway. The integral part of me still was. But a capricious silicon goddess had taken a fictional hero from a book, poured in parts to fill in the blanks of my mind, and dumped the resulting mixture into a silvery sphere held between pylons. A nanotech hive; an engine made to reshape the world around it. The people of what was left of this blasted and glowing world called us cores. Or gods. Or demons. The truth, as always, lay somewhere in between. Most likely between the sheets with a cigarette enjoying the afterglow. ¡°A truck, huh?¡± I said, as Cade fidgeted. ¡°Well, you should see the other guy.¡± Cade''s teeth flashed white in the silver light, and I took a second to peer around at the surroundings. It wasn''t much to look at. Mud floor, curving concrete walls, and a few grimy metal bars to the north and south. Broken light sockets studded the concrete ceiling, which was cracked and choked with roots. Water traced its lonely, dripping course somewhere down the tunnel. ¡°Did you put me in a storm drain?¡± I asked. ¡°Best we could do,¡± Cade said, shrugging. ¡°Least it ain''t an old sewer.¡± ¡°Thinking about that, a sewer might have been better. I got a hell of a lot of resources out of bat guano back in the old lair.¡± My old bunker had a lot of hidden advantages. Not that they''d helped me, in the end. Not against the ire I drew by dint of my mere existence. ¡°But that''s an ungracious comment,¡± I amended. ¡°Thank you for helping me escape. Are your people all right?¡± He nodded. ¡°Well enough. The Jaspa fled and didn''t stop runnin'' till they were clear of the woods. We moved in, got my folks building shelter now. It''s warm enough we don''t need fires... but that''ll change once the rations run out. Gonna have to cook eventually. Got them gathering berries and roots, but we''ll need to send the hunters out sooner or later.¡± ¡°How many, all told?¡± I asked, curious. Some part of me had led men, once. Given a big enough army, I could do that again. ¡°Forty-five. We lost a few during the move. The old. The sick.¡± Cade closed his eyes. No. Not an army. Survivors, refugees... people. They could fight if they had to, but they were a problem to be solved, not a force to be leveraged. My problem now, too. One of many. ¡°The Jaspa have retreated. They''ll bear word that this forest has shine-tainted animals.¡± A sharp inhale of breath, and Cade''s spectacles glittered as he studied me, the scratches and cracks in the lenses catching the light. ¡°That so?¡± ¡°They think it''s so. The truth of the matter is that I might have spread around a few cans worth of glowy spray paint.¡± Shine was a glowy death, the remnants of wild nanotech strains that had been replicating and degrading for centuries. It usually meant a slow death to any living things that came in contact with it. And some non-living things, too. If I got infected with the stuff, I''d likely face a fate worse than death. As corrupted and broken as I was, I didn''t see many ways exposure to random viruses could help my situation. ¡°That won''t keep them away forever,¡± Cade said, musing. ¡°I know the Jaspa. They ain''t smart, but they got stubborn, and stubborn is worse.¡± ¡°You''re not wrong. But they''re not the worst threat. Tyr found out about me. I''m hoping he thinks I''m dead too.¡± My false death had been a spur-of-the-moment plan that had every chance of success. But given how my luck had been either bad or non-existent for pretty much every step of my conscious life, I didn''t expect to fool my foes forever. ¡°Sooner or later he''ll find out I''m alive. Then we''ll have to figure out where we stand. He wanted me in his grand alliance.¡± Cade was silent for a bit. ¡°The Heronmen shoot at us when we get too near the starport.¡± ¡°Yeah. Not sure you''d be part of any deal he''d want to make. Not that it matters. We didn''t exactly get along.¡± I watched Cade''s shoulders sag under his greatcoat. Relief, most likely. I hated to banish that feeling, but he needed the full picture. ¡°Not that it''ll matter. He''s got a vicious subordinate with some pretty big ambitions. I''d be in conflict with Tyr regardless. He tried to use me as a pawn and failed, but if I popped back up on the board he''d find a way to do me malice. That well is poisoned regardless of my feelings on the matter.¡± I watched Cade work the wicked arithmetic. I was a big advantage for his people, true, but I came with baggage. Still, at this point, he was committed. It wasn''t like he could put me back where he found me. And from what I''d deduced, going back to their old location wasn''t an option either. ¡°So where do we go from here?¡± he asked. ¡°I''m a little surprised you''re asking me that,¡± I said, mainly to buy myself time. I hadn''t had a lot of ability to think, back in that pain-filled void. ¡°You''re the leader of your people, and I owe you a favor for the last-minute save. I''d half expected you to have a bullet-point list, a timetable, and some pretty big demands.¡± ¡°I''m a leader ''cause I listen to my people. And I''d like to think you''re one of us, after all we been through.¡± That could be so. Or he might be aware that he''d get more out of me by letting me think I had some measure of control. The fact was that I was dependent on him and his people, at least for a little while. He knew I knew that, and this might be his way of trying to ease the irritation. Pride was my sin, and few things rankle a proud person like an unpaid debt that grows the longer you need someone to help you. But then, it was possible that I was overthinking things. More to the point, we both had bigger fish to fry than hurt feelings, or placating motions that might just be common courtesy. I''d been dealing too long with bastards. Time to put that aside, and at least pretend to be a decent person. ¡°All right,¡± I said, in the spirit of compromise and conspiracy against forces majeure and malicious. ¡°Let''s figure out how we''re going to screw over everyone who isn''t us...¡± Part 2-2 Controller Designation: Wynne Make/Model: Northwest Enginetics Bunker Core Nanohive 4L Resonance Rate: 1/24:00 Bandwidth: 10(10)Feedstock: 20 Open Circuits: 0 Specialized Circuits: 24 Floors: 1 Minions: 0 Processes and Subroutines Construction(1): Demolition 3, Infrastructure 2, Fabrication 2 Medical: Cybernetics, Pharmaceuticals, Recovery Power: Broadcast 1, Efficiency 1, Redundancy Research(1): Algorithms 1, Analysis 1, Databases 1 Security(1): Defensive 1, Drones 2, Offensive 2 Storage: Energy 1, Material 1, Organic Improvements: Manhunter: Your security measures and minions are optimized for use against humans. Omnibiologist - Due to your interaction with non-human organisms both benign and hostile, you are specialized in researching aliens, mutants, and artificial life forms. Sturdy Construction - Your construction techniques utilize multiple layers and reinforced structural components. All items and features constructed are moderately tougher. Schemas Aerial Surveillance Drone Broadcast Node Light Construction Drone Core Cleansing Catalyst Drop Ceiling Feedstock Storage Bin Mk I Frangible armor Mk I Humanocentric Translation Program Lightweight Frangible Stone Reinforcement Metal Detector Handheld Unit Mildly Hazardous Tilting Floor Moderately Unsafe Spikes Nanobuilder Swarm Simple Steel Door Simple Pit Trap Tension Bow Turret Mk II WARNING: Contamination detected! Core is 19% compromised. I closed my status screen, fought the overwhelming urge to shake a head I didn''t have. In the scant week or so I''d been active, I''d slowly grown from nothing to mostly nothing, with a few useful robotic minions. All those were gone now, along with the small improvements I''d made to myself between fending off waves of raiders. Cores were made to settle in to a building or area, and shape it to their desires, developing and specializing their designated area to a purpose. In a way, our complexes were the only bodies we truly had. I''d essentially decapitated myself, and lost a moderately powerful body to do so. Mind you, it had some serious flaws to it. But the end result was that I''d have to start... not all over. I had developed my circuits to support some useful blueprints, or schemas, as they were called. But I''d have to start again from a position of weakness. It was my hope that this would throw my enemies, my real enemies off. The raiders had been a sideshow; albeit a deadly one. Sooner or later Tyr and the thing hiding behind Leony''s mask would find me. And then there would be a reckoning. Unless I prepared my assault first, and struck without mercy. To that end, there was no point in the power brought by time. Cores grew in power over time as their internal processes calibrated and adjusted to their surroundings. Both of my foes had years ahead of me; in a raw numbers game So I had to find a different angle of attack, a different advantage. And unlike the last time, I''d have to do it alone. Not alone in the sense that I''d be without people, but alone in the sense that I''d be without my most valuable helper. I''d be without Argus. You never really miss something until it''s gone. I''d started my life distrustful and leery of the little program. He wasn''t even a full artificial intelligence, just a program with a humanized interface. But by the end of our troubles, I''d grown fond of the little guy. And whoever was wearing Leony''s face had killed him, with all the care and forethought of an exterminator plying his trade on vermin. I owed my nameless nemesis a few deaths in return for that casual malice. That was down the road, though. For now... for now I had forty-six people to help. Cade and I had talked until the early morning light, talked and planned and chewed over the bitter, hard facts. His people, the Arcadians, needed food and shelter, but above all they needed to remain hidden. They were walking a sword''s edge here, in the borderlands between the old city to the east and the Jaspa horde to the west. The north was home to the glowlands, by all accounts a tangled mess of shine, mutants, and shining mutants. The south was claimed by stronger groups... though none were as strong as the Jaspa, they had neither room nor love for refugees, nor the food to spare. This was the last point of retreat. Here they''d stand, and if we failed them, then here they''d die. Whether or not I''d go with them was open to debate. But regardless of my own milk of human kindness or lack thereof, I''d be a fool to squander my first line of defense cheaply. The conclusion we''d reached, Cade and I, was that he''d see to the food and I''d see to the shelter. Things underground were harder to find than those that weren''t, so the best thing I could do was bend my energies to making them a tunnel system where they could survive and thrive. Which, coincidentally, would be my key to gaining power and thriving. While I couldn''t hope to beat my most deadly enemies with raw numbers, I had a whole horde of lesser enemies that would cease to be a problem once I had a little more power. To that end... it was time to do something I''d been putting off ever since he''d woken me. I had an improvement to choose.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Improvements were benefits that applied to everything I built, more or less. My previous improvements had been lifesavers during my struggles, giving me the edge against the raiders Well, except for that omnibiologist one. That one I''d chosen for more long-term goals, before everything went to shit. Now I did have more of a long-term to work with. I also had a free improvement that I hadn''t chosen, because it would have incapacitated me for a time. Now I had time. And no more excuses. I reviewed my options once more. This was a construction improvement; my second as a matter of fact. Flame-Resistant: Your structures are reinforced against fire and heat. Slick: A macroteflon layer coats all manufactured surfaces unless you instruct otherwise at the time of construction. Modular: All devices and fixtures can be reconfigured on the fly for ease of assembly and repurposing. Each had their benefits. My foes had attempted to use fire against me before, and I''d returned the favor. It would also provide some benefit to the people I''d be housing. They''d be less likely to set themselves on fire... no, no. I had to trust they had at least some basic levels of competency, there. And fire wasn''t a serious threat to an intelligent core. Smoke was more of an issue, and ventilation was the key to handling that, not fireproofing. Unless Tyr turned up at my door with thermal weapons, it wouldn''t help. And if he did that we''d be out of luck anyway. That left slick and modular as possible choices. Slick had obvious applications against humans and other foes. It would have made my defense of the last bunker all that much easier. It also had peacetime uses, aiding in shifting large masses around and providing a useful means of fast transport that didn''t burn energy. It would have been the obvious short-term choice if I''d been in my old situation. But I wasn''t in my old situation. I had a timeframe that wasn''t measured in hours or days anymore. And to that end my nonexistent eyes kept straying back to the modular improvement. The fact of the matter was that I didn''t know what these people would need in the long-term. I didn''t know when one of our enemies would find us. Hell, I didn''t know if Cade could be trusted once he''d gotten everything he wanted from me. It seemed unlikely that he''d betray me, and the world I''d woken to was a harsh one; he might possibly never get everything he wanted from me. But well I knew the gratitude of men, and how meager it truly was. I was essentially apart from humanity now, immortal and strange. Even if I got along with Cade and his people now, what would the next generation bring? Modular would give me flexibility. It would ensure that I could reconfigure things to deal with unexpected developments. I bid farewell to the other options, prepared for a long nap, and made my choice. Modular improvement selected! Upgrading existing structures... And nothing happened. I could not say why this is so. The previous few times I''d selected my improvements, I had been rendered insensate, knocked for a loop until they finished upgrading. This wasn''t normal according to Argus, but a part of my corruption. Perhaps that was it? My corruption had finally fallen to the point where it didn''t interfere with the process? There was an irony there, that when time had been most precious to me, gaining strength lost me irreplaceable hours. But now that it wasn''t as much of a factor, I could upgrade freely. That was possible, but a simpler explanation occurred to me, as I studied my muddy slice of storm drain. I just didn''t have that much to upgrade, now. Occam''s razor made its merciless cut, and I would have shrugged if I had shoulders. This was something I could test, given time. Later tonight my algorithms would work their relational math, and build a new circuit within my artificial frame. I could slot that into organic storage, and unlock another improvement possibility. That question would be answered, and I''d either stay awake or get a nap in relatively safe surroundings. In the meantime, I turned my attention to those surroundings. Mud. Old stone. Metal. Water. I could work with all of these. And with an effort of will, I began my labor. Construction complete! Minion: Drone Nanobuilder Swarm I has been constructed and added to your minion pool. A cloud of glowing dust puffed from out of my silvery center. My first and easiest minions to make... but also expensive. They cost a full fifteen feedstock; hopefully I could recoup that from the raw materials in the soil around me. I knew from experience that I had the option to ''jump into'' the swarm, and control them personally. But I found I had little interest in chewing on mud. If I screwed up I''d be eating dirt all too soon; no need to taste the stuff early. The swarm did its work, breaking down the mud at the molecular level, and siphoning the useful parts back to me in the form of feedstock. The rest became dust, and I shuffled it off to one side. It took a fair bit of mud to make a single unit of feedstock. After a few hours, I had enough for a simple container. I changed the swarm''s orders, and set them to building a Feedstock Storage Bin Mk. I. I could tell I''d need it; there was a lot of mud. Echoes of footsteps squishing in the stuff. The creak of a metal door opening in the rusty grate. I glanced up to find two figures approaching, one bearing a lantern. ¡°Something you need?¡± I asked, and it came out a bit brusquely. ¡°Yes, actually,¡± said the Ploughman. ¡°And if we''re very lucky, you can help us get it and we might survive the winter.¡± He had my attention from the start. But now he had my interest. Still, there was a chain of command that was still being ratcheted into the gears here, and I wanted to make sure he was in the right spot. ¡°I''m going to assume this has something to do with food.¡± It was a fairly safe assumption. The Ploughmen were the remnants of an agrarian religious group that insisted on using old ways to farm and shunned a lot of technology. They''d been in a good spot to survive and prosper after the apocalypse... well, they would have been, if a whole bunch of less-enlightened assholes hadn''t seen that, and turned them into conquered serfs. There was a lesson in humanity, here. This one was called Hiram, and he nodded to me. ¡°It is. Food from crops, actually.¡± ¡°You sure you''re where you need to be? I''m handling shelter. Cade''s dealing with food.¡± ¡°Yes, but he doesn''t have flying machine bats,¡± Hiram pointed out. ¡°Or whatever those things you used to speak to me are.¡± I didn''t have them either, not after the last move. But I held my tongue. I didn''t want to admit weakness, and if it came down to it I could make more. Not too many more, my bandwidth had taken a beating from the move. ¡°Tell me what you''ve got, first.¡± I snuck a glance at the other figure. ¡°You?¡± The short-haired girl smiled and babbled at me. She''d been the reason I''d hooked up with the Arcadians in the first place. She was the huntress who ended up in my chamber, seeking refuge from two murderous raiders. I''d helped her, and then events had unfolded rapidly. And as it became clear that I didn''t speak her language, she slowly stopped talking. ¡°No, keep on,¡± I told her. ¡°Hiram, tell her to keep talking. Translate as she goes. I''ve got a program to help me learn this stuff, now.¡± Given time, the program caught up. It had already analyzed the Jaspa tongue, and this was very similar. All it cost was minutes of my attention, and since the nanoswarm was slowly chewing mud, I felt no shame in multi-tasking. Her name was Donna, and she was grateful for the rescue. She paused to cough every now and then, but the smoke which had done a number on me hadn''t been as bad for her, by the sound of it. That was something. After a few more minutes of thanks, I cut her off. ¡°You''re welcome, kid. Hiram, tell me what you''ve got and how I can help.¡± ¡°Er, ah...¡± he''d been caught off guard. ¡°Abandoned farms.¡± ¡°When did the world end again?¡± I asked. From what I had been told, it had been long enough abandoned from that era would be useless to scavenge. ¡°Not from back then,¡± Hiram shook his head. ¡°The Jaspa were trying to settle this area. There are a few farmsteads out this way. When they brought me to kill you, we passed a few on the way here. The Warlord took some supplies from the bigger ones. When she found there was shine in the woods, she sent runners back to tell them to flee.¡± ¡°You think there''s something left there we can use? Some food we can scavenge?¡± ¡°No. They''ll have taken everything that wasn''t nailed down... or planted.¡± Hiram''s teeth gleamed in the lanternlight. ¡°Planted... that''s right,¡± I said, seeing where his train of thought was going. ¡°This is about the end of summer, isn''t it?¡± ¡°A few months off harvest,¡± Hiram nodded. ¡°If they''re using the crops that make sense for this land. If they had enough time to get settled, if they did it right, then they''ll have fields two thirds done. And they''ll have left them behind intact, in the hopes that they''ll be allowed to come back in time to harvest.¡± ¡°If they did it right,¡± I said. ¡°Were these people your people?¡± ¡°No,¡± Hiram confessed. ¡°That''s why we can''t count on it. That''s why I want you to use your birds to help me look them over.¡± ¡°I''m not sure what the birds can do for you that the Arcadians can''t.¡± ¡°Oh, they can survey the fields too. But it has to be done by daylight. And the farms are either on the edge of the forest or just beyond it.¡± ¡°Too much risk. But the drones look like birds from a distance...¡± I would have nodded if I had a head. I was glad I''d recruited Hiram, not that he''d had a lot of choice in the matter. If he''d gone back to his enslavers they probably would have killed him for his failure, or taken it out on his family. Or both. The Jaspa were brutal, in an efficient and relatively heartless way. ¡°You''ve sold me. But I''ll want something in return.¡± His eyes were wary in the dim light. ¡°What do you want?¡± ¡°You gave the Jaspa TNT. Can you give it to the Arcadians?¡± ¡°I know how to make it. But it takes many chemicals, and a lot of dangerous work. I would need a chemistry bench, a well-ventilated shelter to work in, and some things I do not have.¡± ¡°Tell me what you need. I can reconfigure matter on the molecular level. It shouldn''t be a problem.¡± I said that, but I still needed raw materials to work with. ¡°There''s several little things, but three potential locked doors. We''ll need pine oil for Toulene, I have seen pines in the forest, it should not be hard to find or make. Sulfuric acid is the second thing, and I do not know if there is sulfur around here. The third thing is nitric acid. I''d need a nitrate. Potassium or sodium nitrate. Easy enough to get potassium nitrate from the feces and piss of our camp, but it will take time.¡± He grimaced. ¡°Also some electricity, for the reactions I want. And a stove.¡± ¡°Potassium nitrate''s already on my to-do list.¡± Gunpowder needed to be a thing at some point here. ¡°It sounds like sulfur''s the roadblock.¡± ¡°Aye,¡± he nodded. ¡°Can you give me that?¡± ¡°The answer''s a resounding maybe. But you''ve got your bargain. You tell me what to look for and I''ll put birds in the air. We already liberated you from the Jaspa, and that''s paid dividends. I''m amenable to the idea of stealing dinner from their plates...¡± Part 2-3 The drone wobbled a bit, as the nanoswarm finished its work. Not too many clean places down here yet, so I''d put it on the newly made feedstock storage bin while I built the frame. It wasn''t much to look at. A couple of propellors, some wings, an engine, and a decent camera and microphone. A small voice synthesizer rounded out the package. The struggle for my life had taken a sharp turn for the better when I''d first built one of these. It was less of a game changer, and more of a table flipper. That said... my not-so-nice neighbors to the east had more and better. I''d have to limit this drone''s use to the lowest of altitudes until I could figure out some good electronic countermeasures. The situation called for more of a grasshopper than an Icarus. A what now? I concentrated, wracking through my incomplete memories, chasing the name. Something about melting wings... A spasm of electronic pain, as error notifications swam in front of my eyes. A sea of little black fishes posing as words, nibbling at my brain. This was the price of corruption. I had been damaged early on, before my defenses were in place. The structures that were effectively my brain were repairing themselves, but progress had been slow before my relocation, and I had no clue how my new digs would affect my healing process. I did know that I had to be cautious. Excessive stress would cause the equivalent of seizures, or possibly make things worse. Essentially, my wounds were still freshly-stitched. Though it was against my nature, I had to take it easy. Not too easy, mind you. Aerial Surveillance Drone I has been constructed and added to your minion pool. Bandwidth Occupied: 1 I hopped into the drone, spun up the propellers, and sent it out of the storm drain. While jumping into the nanoswarm to help it chew mud would have been a chore, this was a pure joy. The stationary take joy in mobility, when given the opportunity, and I was no different. Someone had put a guard at the entrance, and I almost clocked the poor bastard in the face. He scrambled back and dropped his spear, landing on his ass and staring up at me in awe. Shouts rang from around the gully I''d emerged into, and I saw dirty, ragged people lining up on the sides to stare down at the drone with amazement. I did a slow loop around, checking them out, then rising up out of the gulley to the woods above. My flash mob scrambled back, chattering to each other and pointing. Thanks to my translator program, I got the gist of it. Most of it was pretty much some variation of holy shit, it can fly! With about a ten percent side order of parents telling their kids to get away from the crazy thing, and five percent telling their buddy to go get Cade. ¡°Don''t bother,¡± I said, zipping over to my five percenter. ¡°I''ll go to him.¡± They got really quiet when I told them that in their own language, and I left before things got weirder. Didn''t stop them from following me of course. We moved through the trees as I hunted for Cade. Tents studded the sides of the gully, built on the more level parts of the slope, and I approved. The Arcadians had built this with an eye to stealth, setting up so that you''d need to be right up on the crevice in order to see it. A higher perspective might help with that, but the trees were thick here... and mostly pines, which was good news. Winter would have stripped their leaf coverage, but evergreens ensured that they would have some concealment from flyers and spiers who made it up the neighboring hills. It was good for now, but there were some serious flaws in the setup. ¡°This is going to work until the point it doesn''t,¡± I said, landing next to Cade. The old man was sitting in a camp chair at a thin point in the trees, staring at the mountain through a pair of cracked binoculars. ¡°Winter is coming.¡± ¡°I know,¡± he said. ¡°By then you''ll have either done your job, or it won''t matter.¡± ¡°Warmth is the problem,¡± I said, easing the propellors to a stop as I rocked the tiny struts back and forth, making sure I wasn''t caught on the underbrush. ¡°And airflow. You''ll need fires to survive the winter, but smoke is going to stand out, given the air currents off the mountain. It''ll be visible for miles.¡± ¡°Unless you can do something about that. Like build a bunker, like we talked about.¡± ¡°It is looking like the best solution. But there''s a fair amount of steps along that particular road. Speaking of that, I''ll be opening some holes in the ground about two hundred meters northwest. Do me a favor and have your people do their business there from now on.¡± ¡°Do their business?¡± Cade lowered his binoculars and squinted at me from behind his cracked spectacles. ¡°Do number one, two, hell even three if you can scrape up the alcohol.¡± The honest puzzlement reminded me that the expressions I''d been programmed with had suffered a few centuries of disuse and mutation. ¡°They''re toilets. Latrines, more like, though I can easily print up some seats if you like.¡± ¡°Ah! Now you''re talkin'',¡± Cade smiled. ¡°We''ve been diggin'' cat holes, but it''s work. Will there be, ah, any noticeable smells?¡± ¡°Some, but I can fix that easily enough later. The important thing is getting all that chemical waste down to me so I can process it into useful stuff. Like potassium nitrate, for example.¡± Cade frowned. ¡°Thought you cores could pretty much make anything from anything else?¡± ¡°We can, but, it''s easier if it''s halfway there already.¡± I could rearrange matter on the molecular level. But the process got way more efficient if I had the right kind of molecules to work with. ¡°All right. Well this''ll save us work so I don''t see people griping.¡± Cade settled back in his chair, and grimaced. ¡°Gettin'' old to be sleeping on the ground. My back''s got knots that normally go on shoes. Don''t suppose you got anything for that?¡± ¡°Not yet,¡± I admitted. ¡°I didn''t have much need for medical facilities when I was fighting the Jaspa. But now that you''re here, that''ll have to change. Think you can hold out a few weeks?¡±Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. ¡°My head says yes, but my spine says no,¡± he sighed. ¡°Living quarters come first though. My body''s kept going seventy years, what''s a month more?¡± ¡°A lifetime, if we''re unlucky.¡± I thought about apologizing for my morbid turn of phrase, but something in me didn''t like the notion. I wasn''t sure why... perhaps another part of the grafted persona I''d been ''gifted.'' So instead I asked him, ¡°Did Hiram tell you what he wants me to do?¡± ¡°Why do you think I have Donna following him? He''s restless. Got little to do. If she weren''t watching him he''d be trying to sneak around those fields right now. I''m fine with it, you go and do your thing. Me, I''ll watch up there.¡± He pointed up, up to a familiar peak. ¡°Not a bad idea,¡± I conceded. That was my old lair. There were at least two interested parties who were probably keeping a weather eye on that hole in the ground. Three, if the things below it still survived. Our current location was a little too close for comfort, when you got down to it. But we hadn''t had much choice. But all alternative choices were fled, and mourning what could have been was a road to madness. ¡°Go on,¡± he said, lifting the binoculars again. Blackened lenses, I saw with approval. Cutting down the chances of a flash at a bad time. ¡°I''ve got things under control here. You do your thing, we got your back.¡± And so I did. West, flying low to the ground, sending squirrels scampering and birds flittering. I kept a wide berth from anything larger... fortunately the larger things seemed to be staying clear of their newly-added human neighbors. No surprise there. Humans were deadly on a good day. The trees thinned, and I started hitting clearings full of stumps. Piles of wood littered the ground, with bigger logs stripped of bark here and there. An empty cart sat off to one side, half-full. I stopped for a second, surprised at the waste... then I saw that one of its wheels was shattered, and it was propped up on a few loose logs. Too damaged to be worth taking in the retreat. It wasn''t long after when I left the forest behind, hitting a scrubland that had been stripped of most of its trees. Shortly after that, I found the first field. It wasn''t much to look at, maybe a half-acre of some sort of grain. My agricultural knowledge was lacking, but fortunately I had people for that. First things first, though. The cabin beyond the field seemed empty, its crude door ajar. I circled slowly before coming in to peer through the smoke-hole in the roof... nope, nobody home. Then I headed back to the crops, and took photos from every angle I could think of. Poking around the area, I found three more fields, two smaller than the first, and the last one covering a full two acres. That one had a blockhouse instead of a cabin, and a few smaller garden plots. Potential there. I had plenty of pictures. Now all I had to do was... ...the thought struck me that I didn''t have any way to display those pictures to Hiram. Easily fixed. I focused in the way that Argus had taught me, and visualized the object of my desire. Schema Available: Display Monitor: A simple display, used for communication, disseminating propaganda, and placating the restless. Would you like to create one display monitor for the cost of 3 feedstock? A steal at the price! I hopped back to the builder swarm, and had them start installing one in my main chamber. Which reminded me, that I had the swarm sitting idle right now. Not so good... even if I had more time to work, I didn''t have enough that I could afford to waste it. So I moved them back up the storm drain, and started clearing out the muck up that way¡ª ¡ªand hit a windfall. I wasn''t sure what all the chemicals flashing across my swarm''s ingestion stream were, but the feedstock estimate was rising fast. I pulled them off consumption and had them start on a new bin. Then I frowned... or I would have, if I''d had a face. Having only one swarm was too slow. Far too slow. I gave them instructions, going slowly and double-checking the programs to make sure I was doing it right. If I''d had Argus here I wouldn''t have to do this, but... Sorrow, then. His death gnawed at me still, would for quite a while to come, I knew. I threw myself into my work as a distraction, preparing the swarm to make three new brothers, then get back to work. Once I felt the program was well-made enough to avoid a gray-goo-apocalypse-style error, I set it in motion. Then I settled in to try and figure out how to get them to gnaw through the wall of muck without wasting feedstock or collapsing the hillside if they hit something load-bearing. Only when I heard the sound of a fingernail tapping on glass, did I come to myself again. Hiram was there, with Donna in tow. Her torch flickered and guttered, and I made a mental note to put some damn lights in here. A low-priority note, mind. I could see just fine without them, and the place would need a lot more fixing up before it was good for sunday socials. ¡°Your timing''s good, I just finished the scouting run,¡± I lied. How long had I been busy with my programs and swarming? An hour or two? One and forty, my machine-memory whispered to me. Hiram nodded, his beard a-waggling. ¡°What have you found?¡± I brought the monitor to life¡ª ¡ªand Donna screamed and leaped back, whipping out a knife. There was a pause. I cleared my throat. Donna glanced around, looked sheepish, and stowed the knife. Hiram, for his part, stayed stock-still throughout, though his eyes were wide. ¡°I''ve heard of such things,¡± he said, a faint strain to his tone. ¡°I had not thought to see them.¡± I smiled, faceless, and started my slideshow. They forgot their fear, crowding in close enough that a frantic mother of a bygone age might have scolded them for eyestrain. I didn''t care. I could make them glasses if it came down to it. Couldn''t I? Insufficient Subroutines for this task! Requirements: Fabrication 1, Recovery 1 That was a bizarre mix. But then, my entire technological advancement schema was a mix of hardcoded recipes, artificial limitations, and random patches from Juno. It did make sense that I would have to have something in the medical tree before I could go making glasses. I needed some form of diagnosis before I could grind the lenses appropriately. My train of thought got derailed to tracks less ocular when Hiram announced ¡°This is good, but not enough. I need to see these fields from more angles. And I want a closer look at those herb gardens.¡± ¡°You''re in luck. I left the drone in the area, and we should have enough daylight left to get you some Pulitzer-worthy shots. Hell, I can do full video and dolby-surround-sound if that tickles your fancy.¡± Hiram got a pained look. ¡°I understood some of that.¡± ¡°Easier to show than tell,¡± I said, and hopped back into the drone. Then I paused. In the hour plus that I''d been gone, something had happened. Not here, not in this little scrubland rise. The fields blew in the wind, unchanging. But to the south, rose a plume of smoke, black and thick and ugly. I knew what smoke like that portended. ¡°Hiram, I''m afraid you''re going to have to wait.¡± I told him. ¡°What has happened? Has something changed?¡± ¡°It''s war. War never changes...¡± Not a chapter, but a notice ...and that wraps up another Bunker Core. Gonna take a few weeks off. Haven''t had a vacation from writing for months, and I need one. Writing Bunker Core is HARD. Fun, but hard.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. In the meantime, I need to let you guys know that this part of the story will be removed from Royal Road shortly. I''m publishing it through Amazon in a way that requires me to remove it from Royal Road. So if you''re not done reading, please read like the wind! You have about a day before I remove most of the chapters here. Kindly, -Andrew Seiple Shameless Plug #2 Readers be warned, this is not a chapter, but a shameless plug. So! It''s been a hell of a ride. It always takes it out of me, writing Bunker Core. Very fun, mind you, but I always need some recovery time afterward. Figure I''ll take a few weeks and recharge.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. In the meantime... Bunker Core 2 is available at Amazon, at the link below. If this story pleased you, I ask you to consider purchasing it, or reading it through Kindle Unlimited. This is more or less how I feed my family. Any help with this is welcome. At any rate, thank you for your time and consideration. Wynne''s story will continue, in time.