Work Text:
The sun was scorching down unto the bleached hills and valleys below. Drilling operations had long since been abandoned, leaving behind intricate tunnels and machinery. Truly a wonder, indeed. Why would anyone leave such a thing behind? He supposed it was one of two options: resources were drained and they had no further use of the area (but then why not pack up the machinery? Too wealthy to care?) or a force caused them to leave (but what would be powerful enough to scare them out?). No one explanation left no questions, so no one answer could be leaned upon (much to his annoyance).
A faint whir cut through the relative silence. The various Solus units that called this area home paid the sound no mind, accustomed to droning hums from previous inhabitants. Beetle Guards lifted their heads, but disregarded the presence (pure disinterest? Lack of clear threat? Poor eyesight, maybe. He’d look into it eventually).
The source of the whir, a transport drone, began making its descent. A figure hung by an arm from the drone's claw, about 80kg judging by the sag rate of the fall (determined by the arc, of course). It swayed in the gentle breeze blowing over the area.
Once securely above ground, the drone dropped the body. Some standard suit, a nobody. Still might have information, though. Operator would make sure of that.
He placed his hand over the control panel cover of the drone, the familiar feel of static shooting through his arm not bothering him. [Mission complete. Good job, CHIRP. Resume previous objective. Remain vigilant of calls, disturbances, and threats. Dismissed.]
CHIRP, now pleased with another successful mission, flew off once more, leaving Operator with the body. It was a nice challenge, working into CHIRP's code how to snap the necks of anything detected as humanoid. Sensors, code, he needed to add a spinning feature of some sort to CHIRP's claw. Always more to design, more to tweak, more to perfect. He'd type up a blueprint at some point, store it in his memory like all the others.
But he turned his attention to the body. Unsophisticated. He'd handled much more technologically advanced machinery than this. The scraps could prove useful, at the very least.
His claw buzzed as it came around to the body, locating the helmet and grabbing firmly before twisting and wrenching. The tear of insulating fabric and flesh succeeded the snap of bone. It was always easier since he taught CHIRP and CROSSHAIRS to dispatch. And he only almost lost his head seven times. He'd take it over having to hear the screams and pleas personally.
The claw then cooperated with his hand to wrench open the suit, Operator splitting his attention and optics to allow his hand to take the now torn clothing to investigate while his claw checked the body. Scraps, mostly. Always comms. He learned not to mess with comms. Whatever was on the other side of the frequency knew to send guys, and they destroyed his lesser drones last time. Even one of his equipment drones, the bastards. So he's had to do without it.
Right when his hand finished its search, his claw did too, compiling their findings in a central pile. Not much. Considering the minimal time investment, it was tolerable. A glance over the nearby area told him what to do next.
With some shoving of his foot, the body tumbled from the floating island into the endless abyss below. He couldn't care less. His claw grabbed the haul and stored it in his coat. He'd have to categorize all of that later.
That's fine. He had time.
Turning back to the area before him, a short scan told him that DOC was nearby. He brought his hand to his mouth(? Mouth area?) and sent a small pulse, alerting the nearby healing drone. It flew over, finding the familiar hand on its control panel cover. [Take SAVIOR to BASE: IRON ALLUVIUM.] And he quickly attached himself via claw as DOC ascended and departed. Maybe he'd re-code that procedure. He’d see.
After a good fly, he touched down in a small cave. Accessible only by either a meter-wide hole at the ceiling(? Could it be called that?) or a larger opening in the side of the island (for easy drone entrance) was a base of sorts. DIY computing systems made from scrapped parts, healing pods for the drones, even a small oil recycling and refining machine to keep his joints up to his high standards. It was cozy, one of his more fleshed-out bases considering the lack of material.
Operator placed his hand once more over DOC’s control panel cover. [Mission complete. Good job, DOC. If HEALTH < 100%, go to HEALING STATION and initiate ATTACH. If/once HEALTH ≥ 100%, initiate PASSIVE STATE. Dismissed.] DOC immediately followed procedure when the hand fell away, whizzing to one of the healing pods and parking into the slot. The machine immediately began supplying healing. It was truly a wonder, how Operator managed to implement a Bustling Fungus into such a controlled technological environment. The rest of the items he’d found around would have to be studied for possible usefulness. Another task added onto the endless list. Never had Operator ever claimed he had nothing to do.
But he logged onto his computer system. The familiar login screen was displayed.
__
\
|| _
<|| /|
___________________________________________________________/|| |/
/ //o|/\/\/\/\/\|||/\
/__ USERNAME: __________ PASSWORD: __________ ___\o||||||||||||||||||/**\
\ /o||||||||||||||||||\**/
\____________________________________________________________\\o|\/\/\/\/\/||\/
\|| |\
<|| \|_
||
__/
He was proud of that one. He’d seen devices from some of the humanoids he’d looted contain something they called “ASCII.” Drawings, but with text. It captivated Operator. He knew text. He could position everything right. Swords, skulls, he even typed some of the pictures of fauna he’d seen on devices.
Upon entering the login, his home screen greeted him, alongside a Beetle in the background.
__ __ __
/ \ / \ ____ | | ____ ____ ______ ____
\ \_/ // __ \| | _/ ___\/ _ \ / \_/ __ \
\ /\ ___/| |_\ \__ ( <_> ) Y Y | | ___/
\__/\__/ \____/ |____/\____/ \_____/ |__|__|__| \____/ /\
)/
_________ __
/ _____/ _____ ___ _ |__| ______________
\_____ \\__ \\ \/ /| |/ _ \_ __ \
/ \/ __ \\ / | ( <_> ) | \/
/__________ (_______/\ _ / |___|\_____/ |___|
_______________
___/ \_____
__/ ________________ \___
/ ____/ _ – ____ – _ \___ \___
/ /_ / | / \ | \ \_ \
/_/ \ \_| \____/ |_/ \___/\___/
\ \
| _|
_| __ / \
| \__ /, \
| \_________________/ \ \
| \ | |
/ | | |
/ _ / _ / /
_ /_ / / /
/ \ _ /_
/ |
The beetle was his favorite creation. He didn’t see the little ones often. Beetle Guards wandered the area often, but sometimes he saw a Beetle Queen flanked with the tiny ones. He was always more of a technician than a biologist, though.
With a few clacks, a document appeared. A spreadsheet, one highly organized. Operator took a cord plugged into the computer and plugged the other side into his head. He figured out how to physically log his thoughts onto a device, so a simple deduction of what a piece of scrap was could be quickly sorted digitally as it was sorted physically.
And he did such, emptying the scrap from his coat into a pile on the floor and beginning to log. His head buzzed with that familiar static sensation. He didn’t know why the transferring of thoughts to text caused such a feeling, but he didn’t dwell on it.
There was so much to do. So much to explore. So much to design. So much to create.
And so much to redact. So, so much to redact. Sentients were always so pesky.