System log: The Bunker, Site 3

  Solar Calendar: Year 2249(?)

  Current status: Active repairs, D.M.H.E.L.L. protocol active

  Log 13

  The start of the fourth day brought forth a great deal of activity and noise in the facility known as Site 3, much to the shock and mild irritation of the Roadrunners who were startled awake. Unknown to them, the drones under Gamma’s control had managed to finally finish the bulk of the foundational repair work beneath the facility, which meant many were now free to ride the elevator and assist in the scavenging of the matriarch tremor worm’s metal corpse. The sight of the humans scrambling around their cots like headless chickens for several minutes before regaining their wits invoke the minor emotional response from the program’s file/Emotion, amusement.exe. It wasn’t as if Gamma hadn’t taken their limiting human needs into account; the program had allotted exactly eight hours of sleep to the humans before the drones began making a racket. The D.M.H.E.L.L. protocol suggested playing an audio file, bugle.sfx, but the program had decided against it.

  Regardless, the group of human runners appeared to be extra grouchy as they prepared their morning meal, beef and cheese by the looks of it, and watched with a lack of amusement as the continual horde of drones flowed in and out of the mall lobby. It was this moving barrier that had prevented the group from rushing into better cover positions during their initial panic, and one that continued to trap them in their makeshift camp.

  “Blasted bots,” the boss grumbled as he sank his trusty spork into his meal bag. That had been one of the nicer things he’d said so far this morning by Gamma’s estimate.

  “Where the hell did they come from?” Ryan asked, a mix of nervousness and annoyance in his eyes. The big man had been extra jumpy that morning at the sight of so many autonomous machines moving around, though this did little to impede his eating ability.

  “Somewhere inside that elevator,” Dina pointed out with a roll of her eyes. “Kind of obvious, isn’t it?”

  Predictably, everyone turned to look at Sloan. The younger man paused with his mouth open, a sporkful almost at his lips. He shrugged sheepishly. “I can’t suggest anything better,” he said dryly as he swallowed his bite of food. “I’m a techie apprentice, not a know it all.”

  “Some of your compatriots think they are,” Ryan grumbled under his breath,

  “True, but it is always amusing to see them try to fumble their way through unfamiliar situations,” the boss noted dryly. “Not that our group has ever kept on anyone whose head is too big to take out of their ass.”

  “Not something I wanted to picture over breakfast boss,” Dina complained, the two twins nodding alongside her in agreement.

  A notification was delivered to Gamma, who processed it in several nanoseconds before activating the loudspeaker in the lobby.

  “Attention repair crew,” came the robotic voice. “Please listen to these important announcements. A new project has been completed in, fabrication room 1. A patient in the, medical, center, has completed their treatment. Please report to these locations as soon as possible.” Ending the announcement, Gamma directed the next elevator to pause. In the mall fa?ade lobby, the humans had visibly perked up.

  “Alright, guess we’re putting off cleanup for a moment.” The boss said, getting up. “Looks like a lull is coming up in the line of drones. We can squeeze past the line if we go now.” The other human runners scarfed down the rest of their breakfast and hurried past the few drones waiting for the elevator to the other side of the lobby. It didn’t take them much time to reach the medical center after that.

  They found Hank still floating in the heal tube, looking remarkably healthier compared to when he first entered. He appeared to be still asleep, until the group moved closer. As if crossing an invisible line, Hank’s eyes slowly opened and blearily moved over to look at the group. He gave a weak wave at them.

  “Hey, guys,” came the sudden and unexpected robotic voice from a speaker. “Good, to, see you all, again.” He seemed to frown for a moment. “Sorry, the speakers, are, need a little more time to, warm up, I guess.” Evidently, whatever was detecting his words wasn’t quite up to snuff either. According to Gamma’s logs, the patient communication system was very low in maintenance priority and hadn’t been worked on in five years. The program didn’t bother raising the maintenance priority level.

  “So,” Hank’s robot assisted voice continued, “how long, was I out?”

  “This is the fourth day since we entered canyon,” the boss replied, a relieved smile on his face. “You had us a bit worried for a while old man.”

  “Three days? Wow,” Hank weakly shrugged. “Doesn’t feel like that long, to me. Just feels like I, had a pretty good nap. Anything, interesting happen?”

  “We’ll fill you in properly later,” the boss shook his head with a weak smile. “It’s been, very eventful. Any chance you know how long you’ll be floating around in there?”

  Hank shook his head. “I, haven’t heard or seen anything, about that yet,” he said. “I imagine, though, since I’m awake, it won’t be, much longer. I certainly don’t feel, any pain. Far from it. In fact, I haven’t felt, this good, in years.” There was a pause before the older man continued to speak. “But, I’m still, a little sleepy boss. Talk, to you all, later.”

  The sleepy eyes finally closed once again, and no more sound came over the speakers.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Looks pretty comfy in there,” Ryan couldn’t help but note. “Think we should try a turn later boss?”

  “Sure, next time you get shot then,” the boss said, getting a good laugh in at the larger man’s sheepish look. “Alright runners, now that we’ve seen our fellow is on his way to recovery, shall we go see what the fuss is all about up in the fabrication room?”

  As the humans journeyed back to the mall lobby, Gamma felt a rare sense of anticipation from its file/Emotion module. The humans would soon be seeing the programs first custom made design intended for human usage. Would they like it? Would it suit their needs? Gamma wanted to know. It really, wanted to know. File/Creativity and file/Design seemed to be peeking over file/Emotion as well, causing a good deal more processing power than necessary used as the program watched the runner head up to the second floor.

  The boss Captain Donaldson led the way of the runners as they entered the fabrication room once the latest group of construction drones finished their resources deposit and left. The group looked around collectively, but saw nothing obviously different. Gamma timed the reveal just as one of the humans was opening their mouth to ask the obvious question.

  With a hiss, a previously unseen door slid open on the side of one of the fabricator machines, releasing a light mist as a metallic, human shape was carried out and deposited gently onto the floor. The arms and load lifters quickly retracted back into the fabricator, leaving the humans with the unexpected new design.

  The metal humanoid machine stood tall at a little over two meters. Technically, it was 7ft tall, but this was because these fabricators only made things in terms of the old American measurement. Initially, the machine was a mix of silver/grey metal intermixed with sky blue under-armor and gold trim, but the colors shifted visibly to resemble room’s general surroundings just enough to bled in if one wasn’t paying attention.

  The outer armor was trim, yet dense, giving the entire machine an oddly ‘elegant’ feel that contrasted with the thing’s overall thick bulk. There was a clear lack of decoration to the piece as well, with every stylish groove, glowing light, and rounded edge a clear part of the machine’s function. The only thing out of place, then, was the odd blue plume on the head clearly built in a very old, but very recognizable cartoon bird hairstyle.

  “Is that, some kind of knight armor?” Ryan asked the obvious question. “With, roadrunner hair?”

  Sloan was already drooling over the machine as he ran over every surface with his scanners and terminal. “It’s amazing is what it is!” he declared happily, wiping his mouth. “This thing’s amazing!”

  “You said amazing twice,” Ryan snorted, though the larger man clearly was as equally intrigued. “So, what do you think techie?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? It’s power armor! Runner power armor!” Sloan announced in excitement.

  Donaldson tilted his head with a small frown. “Does that mean anything? Isn’t power armor, power armor?”

  “I mean, not exactly,” Sloan rambled. “It’s like ‘all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares’ thing. Anyone can wear thick metal moved by simple hydraulics and call it power armor, sure, but that doesn’t make it practical. I’ve only ever seen power armor made for strength and endurance, like what the waller guards wear or at construction sites, but this isn’t like those! This was made with the needs of runners in mind!”

  “Sooo,” Captain Donaldson mused. “It’s fast and can carry a load? Alright, how do you use it?”

  As if to answer his question, and in truth that’s exactly what Gamma was doing, the metal humanoid suddenly hissed and opened up in front of the runners. The head and torso flipped upwards, while the arms and legs each opened up to reveal space for someone to enter. While no instructions were provided, verbal, written, or otherwise, the straps around the joints indicated what one needed to do to done the suit.

  “Boss, can I go, please?” Sloan practically begged.

  “As our main techie-”

  “I’m just a tech assistant!”

  “-I need you to be ready to provide technical support in case anything goes wrong,” the boss finished through Sloan’s interruption. “If you’re wearing that and something goes wrong, none of us here will likely have the skills to help get you out.” Gamma calculated the chance of a catastrophic failure it couldn’t resolve with the P.M.S. Knight to be infinitesimally small. Though, not technically impossible.

  “Let me do it then,” Dina spoke up now. “You can’t risk yourself sir. Your leadership being lost would doom all of us here.”

  Gamma was starting to get annoyed at the doom and gloom. Why hadn’t they jumped into the cool piece of tech yet? What was with their lack of impulsive excitement? The suit was perfectly designed. . .

  “Fine,” their boss relented. “Go ahead Dina. Let us know if anything goes wrong.”

  The younger woman nodded, then shed her exo-suit and cautiously approached the waiting mecha. The open suit of metal waited for her. Dina carefully slid one foot after the other into both legs, secured her waist, and then slipped her arms into their respective slots. Once she was secure inside, the torso and head closed with another hiss, locking Dina inside.

  At this range, Gamma could see the human woman’s reactions once sealed inside. At first, her eyes darted everywhere in the darkness until the Knight booted up its systems for the first time. Instantly, her eyes were captured by the screen inside the helmet coming to life, revealing the outside world in far greater clarity than she’d likely ever have seen. She was so distracted, she didn’t notice that within the tightness around her neck from the inner armor, a small device pinpricked the back of her neck and entered her spinal cord.

  “Dina?” the boss called out cautiously. “Everything alright in there?”

  The woman clearly wasn’t sure how to respond, but reflexively moved her arm to tap her chin. The power armor knight suit moved with her motion almost seamlessly, its metal finger tapping the bottom of its helmet. Blinking, clearly taken aback, the woman began to experimentally move around.

  Thanks to the hidden bio-signal reader Gamma had just inserted into Dina’s spine, the armor was able to detect the nerve signals controlling movement coming from the brain, and react in accordance with her desires. When she took a step, the suit moved with her. When she turned her head, the neck jointed rotated alongside her. The seamless benefit of this form of person-to-suit communication was that the armor would never move in a way the wearer’s body couldn’t, which did theoretically mean greater use from riders with greater flexibility, though the power armor would hit its limits before the human body in that regard.

  Dina, as she moved the fabrication room in her new suit, was clearly enthralled by the suit, to the point she stopped paying attention to her fellow runners.

  “DINA!” the boss yelled, causing the power armor suit to jump to attention alongside its wearer. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m great boss!” Dina announced excitedly. “Honestly, I think I’m better than okay even. Look at this!”

  To demonstrate, the woman leaped into the air, touched the high ceiling, and landed without losing her balance, though the force did cause the room to shake from the armor’s weight. Gamma marked the unintentional damage and assigned a maintenance bot to repair the damage to the facilities underneath. Such superficial damage did not require a full shutdown, but the program was paying close attention now to what Dina did next.

  “This, Knight apparently, feels amazing!” Dina continued happily. “I’ve never felt better! I think I could take on a while pack of stalkers alone in this!”

  “The readings from this, Knight, was it? Amazing!” Sloan announced, having said the word ‘amazing’ once again to general amusement. “It’s moving in time with her motions with no lag. I think I’m detecting a weapon-”

  “Let’s go outside before we test anything else,” the boss quickly intervened, thankfully saving Gamma from having to take drastic measures.