Roland
Elite Warrior
Posts: 95
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Post by Roland on Aug 18, 2009 1:54:38 GMT -6
Roland grinned as his escorts pushed the truck out of the street in front of him. The reason he was grinning was his first view of the City Department of Water and Power.
A quick tally gave Roland a count of 16 floors, and that was just the above-ground, not counting any basements or sub-basements. Most, if not all, of the ground-floor windows seemed to be broken, leaving the ground floor open to the wind. However, he knew this was a government building, which meant it was most likely steel-reinforced concrete throughout the majority of the structure. An idea was forming in the back of his mind, but he bit his tongue, waiting to commit to the idea until he saw the place up-close.
“Alright, boys. Let’s go. Darian wants this done quick.” The 5 men who’d accompanied him nodded, wordlessly obeying him and leading the way towards the building along the debris-strewn streets. Their obedience made Roland smile. Glancing back to make sure Scrap was keeping pace, he followed the men, allowing himself to reflect the meeting that had put him here.
Darian’s first offer had been a lieutenant position, but when Roland had pressed for details, Darian had, after a moment’s hesitation, admitted he had none to give. That alone had given Roland an idea of where to start. By the end of the meeting, Roland had been assigned positions within 3 “divisions” of the New Empire: Research and Development (deemed ‘useless’ by Darian, but which Roland had insisted upon), Recruitment (Darian had been adamant about his involvement in that one), and Rebuilding/Reclamation Efforts (the only area they’d been able to agree on).
This last division had led to Roland’s first assignment, albeit at his own suggestion: a small team dispatched to try and recover a map of the City’s power grid. Roland had reasoned that, if they could find out where the power should be going, they could figure out where it currently was going, and redirect it as they required it. The occasional flickering of the electric lights in the hallways at the Mansion meant that there was still power; it was just horribly unreliable and prone to surges.
That idea had led to a quick brainstorming session, which had eliminated City Hall as a possible target (Darian had scoffed when Roland had suggested it, referring to it as a “burned-out hulk, just waiting for the right gust of wind to push it over”), and led Roland to the Department of Water and Power.
Now, as Roland, his 5 hand-chosen escorts, and Scrap entered the building, he couldn’t stop his grin as he realized his first instincts about the building had been correct. The structure of the building was perfectly intact, aside from the blown-out glass on the ground floor. All of Darian’s intelligence about the area had indicated the building was completely abandoned, which only served to make Roland’s idea even more appealing. After scoping out the ground floor entirely, Roland finally lost his patience, calling over one of his escorts.
“What’s your name?” “Jackson, sir.” “You a fast runner, Jackson?” The young man grinned widely, nodding enthusiastically even as he answered, “I could outrun that ‘bot of yours if you needed me to, sir. Never met another human who could catch me.” Roland nodded himself. “Very good. I need you to run back to the mansion, get a message to Darian. Can you do that?” “Just tell me what to say, sir, and he’ll have it in the hour.” A small grin crossed Roland’s features. “Tell him to pack up everything and everyone. I’ve found us a new home.”
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Roland
Elite Warrior
Posts: 95
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Post by Roland on Aug 18, 2009 1:55:26 GMT -6
Roland heard Darian’s footsteps crunching on the glass long before the older man stormed into the office Roland had found. When the man spoke, Roland smiled as his guess was confirmed: Darian was angry.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Even if you did have the authority to tell me how to run things, where the hell are you thinking we’ll go?”
“We’ll bring them here. This building has 16 floors, more than enough offices on each floor for us to convert to proper quarters, meeting rooms, and my personal favorite,” Roland paused as he pulled a folder out of a filing cabinet, flipping through it quickly before handing it to Darian, “on-site pre-stocked filing system, including maps of the power grid and sewer system.”
Roland smiled slightly as he turned to face his slowly-calming employer, placing a reassuring hand on the older man’s shoulder. “I know what I’m doing, Darian. Trust me, the New Empire needs this. With a change of scenery, change of attitude, we can recruit more aggressively, advance and expand whatever operations you’ve already got in motion, and get this City up and running again.”
Darian’s attention was focused on the diagrams and maps in the folder in his hand, at least until Roland put his hand on his shoulder. Then he found himself caught up in what the younger man was saying, his mind’s eye suddenly filled with visions of a rebuilt City, with the flag of the New Empire flying from every flagpole. Behind him, he could see Roland, while he could envision (quite happily, in fact) the damned AI obeying his every whim, the stupid bowler hat nowhere in sight.
That thought snapped him out of his reverie, and as he handed the folder back to Roland, he couldn’t help but ask where the robot had gone.
Roland chuckled at the question. “He’s downstairs, working on a little project. Come on, I’ll show you.” With that, he led the way out of the office, down a hallway to a staircase behind a now-empty doorway. The horribly-warped door lay crumpled in the corner, and Roland noted with another chuckle the way Darian’s eyes widened at the sight of the door before the two men headed down into the basement.
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Post by scrap on Aug 18, 2009 1:56:21 GMT -6
Scrap sat back for a moment, admiring the work he’d done before trying to start everything up. The behavior still seemed slightly odd to him, but some part of him took great enjoyment in seeing the physical results of his efforts.
When they’d found the old control room, Roland had counted it as a loss, and told him to try and set up an alternate control room somewhere else. However, Scrap himself had seen a great deal of potential in the place, and had asked for 20 minutes to try and get it working. He’d noticed a cable running from the consoles up into the ceiling, and his records indicated it was most likely a dedicated power source to keep the computers online. Heading up to the roof of the building revealed the entire roof of the building was covered in dirt-encrusted solar panels. A grin had crossed his slightly-human features then, and after an experiment that resulted in damage to only a few photovoltaic cells, he found the right frequency to use his sonic emitters to break away the dirt, allowing the wind to blow it away. Now, as he sat in front of the console, he could only grin as the screens flickered to life, and decades-old computer cooling fans began to turn, filling the air with a humming noise that was undeniably mechanical.
A low whistle cut into the humming for a moment as Darian walked into the room. “My my…I am impressed, Roland. This AI of yours sure knows what it’s doing.”
Scrap felt very odd when Darian spoke. ‘Odd’ was really the best word to describe it, and he gave it little thought. He had more pressing, or perhaps more interesting, things to pay attention to. For example, the lines of code running across the rows of monitors in front of him.
“Power has been restored to the control consoles. However, it appears that the system’s memory was erased before it was last shut down. Deliberate human action is likely to blame, most likely an EMP of some sort. The resulting power surge then caused a short in the circuitry, forcing the console to flip the master kill-switch to the city’s power grid.”
Darian paled. “Memory erased? What does that mean for getting things running again?”
Scrap was silent for a moment, before his hands flew to the keyboard in front of him, tapping keys faster than any human could. “With a map of the power grid, it should be possible for me to re-program this console. It is still connected directly to the grid, and the erasing of the console’s memory means any security firewalls and programs have also been deleted, allowing us direct access to the default systems.”
Scrap reached a hand behind him, his other hand continuing to strike the keys and input new code as he reached for the folder in Darian’s hand. When he had it, he brought it back, flipping it open and glancing quickly at each sheet in the file, his memory banks immediately recording the data in the diagrams. “At the current rate of data input, it should be possible to de-activate the killswitch within the next 1 to 2 hours. Until then, we can make no guesses as to the current state of the power grid.”
Darian nodded dumbly, pushing past Roland and heading upstairs. He waited until the younger man began to follow, then spoke to him over his shoulder as he headed back to the ground floor. “That AI you’ve got is something else, kid. I’ve never seen a robot go from useless to damn-near indispensable that quickly. I’m heading back to the mansion, we’re going to start packing things up. Most of our people should be here by sundown. When I get back, I want a report on how the power restoration’s going. I’ll see you then.”
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Roland
Elite Warrior
Posts: 95
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Post by Roland on Aug 18, 2009 1:57:15 GMT -6
Roland’s grin was constant as he scouted out the other floors of the building. Miraculously, outside of the dust, the place was in more-or-less pristine condition. Every now and then, he’d find that a chair or a desk or a computer had been stolen, but for the most part, it was as if all of the DWP’s employees had just stood up and left one day, leaving their offices as though they’d planned to come back the next day.
When he’d gone to the basement, he’d found an even greater surprise: a massive underground storage area, filled with spools of high-voltage cables, just waiting to be installed (and located close to a service elevator; the thing didn’t run yet, but he figured they could get it going again); about fifty walkie-talkies, complete with rechargeable batteries and charging stations; a map and a set of keys labeled ‘front gate’, which, upon consulting the map, he realized would let him into a private parking lot; and to top it off, dozens of shelves full of textbooks and manuscripts, essentially teaching someone how to run and maintain a city-sized power grid.
If and when Scrap got the system up and running, they’d be able to use the service elevator to bring these spools to the surface, and starting running power lines throughout the City. He guessed they’d have to improvise maintenance on power stations throughout the area, but with Scrap walking them through everything through the walkie-talkies, they’d be able to get things running again, at least in a minimalist fashion.
Roland laughed aloud, the sound bouncing off the walls of the underground warehouse and coming back to his ears, warped by the echo, and causing him to stop. The sound had sent a shiver down his spine, and he suddenly felt it was time to leave this place. He’d come back with a group later to try and get the elevator running. He didn’t plan on being alone down here again.
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Post by scrap on Aug 18, 2009 1:58:08 GMT -6
Scrap’s eyes darted from one screen to the next, each of his hands flying across separate keyboards, trying to run and monitor 4 different processes simultaneously. With a thrill, he realized he felt challenged by the act, and pushed himself harder. With too little effort, though, the challenge was gone, and the processes finished running within seconds of each other. Part of him was upset that the challenge had passed, but he shrugged it off. He still had more work to do, and now it seemed that he’d run into a roadblock. Most likely, the EMP that had wiped the console’s memory banks had also fried a few components.
The repair would be simple, he knew. He was fully aware that he was capable of working around the broken parts. However, part of him wanted to try something else, something that any of the humans surrounding him would call ‘out-of-the-box’. After a moment of debating, this challenge-driven part of him won out, and within moments, he’d pried open the panel that hid the damage drives and circuits.
Kneeling down, he realized the damage was far more extensive than he’d estimated. Writing new code to work without the damaged areas would take time, even for him, and the result would certainly operate at less-than-peak efficiency. This was unacceptable. It seemed he’d been right to try and repair the parts, after all.
Reaching into the inner workings of the console, Scrap rearranged the nanites that composed his left arm, from a hand into a shapeless mass, which he pressed against the worst of the damaged areas, a hard drive that had obviously caught fire at some point.
As soon as he made contact, the shapeless blob on the end of his arm flowed over the hard drive, replacing unusable sectors with his own nanites, who would perform the job far more efficiently. Without moving, he directed the nanites to then spread throughout the damaged areas, and silvery tendrils were soon winding their way throughout the console. His right hand, which had been supporting his weight on top of the panel he’d removed, began to spread out over the panel, destroying the panel and using the metal as raw materials to create more nanites, allowing him to maintain his current mass.
In a few minutes, those areas that could be repaired had been, and those too badly damaged had been replaced, instead routing the data through his own systems. Satisfied that the work was complete, Scrap pulled back, ready to break his arm off at the elbow and form a new hand to replace it.
That’s when his plan was forced to change. He found himself unable to move, still very-much bound to the computer in front of him. Stopping for a moment, he tried mentally commanding the nanites to release, instead of the physical act which should have sent the command instantly. It was then that he found the change in his programming.
Somehow, by using his own body as raw material to repair the computer, his programming had adapted itself to run through the computer. If he were to disengage, his programming would shut down his body, leaving his consciousness inside the computer consoles. His programming knew the consoles couldn’t didn’t have anywhere near the memory required for the act, so his ability to disconnect himself from his arm had been, in simple terms, deleted.
A beep from the console above indicated that the killswitch had been disengaged. The power grid could now be reactivated and repaired. However, it seemed, in exchange, he had lost any amount of mobility that would take him from this room.
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Roland
Elite Warrior
Posts: 95
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Post by Roland on Aug 18, 2009 1:58:47 GMT -6
Roland was waiting when Darian returned, over 100 young men in tow with their bedrolls. Roland smiled, waving over one of his escorts, and instructing him to show the men around the building. At Darian’s insistence, the men were assigned rooms in fours, for when they were able to build or steal actual bunks. That was on their agenda for later in the week. For now, they were relocating and getting power back to the building.
“Gotta say, Darian, I’d underestimated the size of your group. Under the circumstances, I’m happy to be proven wrong.”
Darian returned Roland’s grin with one of his own, throwing an arm around the young man’s shoulders as the gang members filed by into the dark offices. As he realized they were still dark, however, his smile faded. “That robot of yours said he’d have things up and running in a couple hours. I’ve been gone for nearly 5. What’s going on?”
Roland shrugged the arm off of his shoulders, leading the way in, talking as he walked. “He hit a snag, had to repair some hard drives from scratch, or something. He was just about to give it a try when I saw your group coming, and I told him to wait until you got here. Talking to him, he thinks we should be able to get the lights turned on right away.”
Heading down the stairs, Roland was grateful that Darian was behind him, and unable to see the grim look on Roland’s face. When he’d found out that Scrap was more or less crippled, he hadn’t been pleased. He just hoped that they’d be able to hide everything well enough for the time being.
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Post by scrap on Aug 18, 2009 1:59:52 GMT -6
Scrap sat back in his chair, thankful that he was still able to rearrange his nanites. Through a bit of maneuvering, he’d managed to shift the computer-fused mass to his left leg, and the way he was sitting, in addition to the length of his coat, served to completely conceal the place where his leg fused with the console.
On the positive side, the computers were running better than he’d ever expected, but every time he hit a button, he could feel the signal go through him, and that little tingling in the back of his mind seemed to sap his excitement every time. Luckily, the sound of footsteps coming into the room kept him from getting too distracted with things, at least for the moment. From the sound of the steps, Roland and Darian had returned.
“Welcome back. As you requested, I’ve readied everything. Preliminary pings indicate that the power station this building depends on is still operating within acceptable levels. Whenever you’re ready, sir, we’ll be able to bring the building online.”
And none too soon, he thought. As the sun was setting, the solar panels began to supply less and less energy to the console, and more and more was being pulled out of him. Once they brought this building’s electricity back online, he’d be recharged, and the console would no longer be dependent on him.
“It’s a thoughtful gesture, robot, but I think we’ve waited long enough. Let’s see if these bulbs still work.”
Scrap nodded. “As you wish. Lifting the power restrictions in 3…2…1…Now.”
The console shuddered for a moment, screens all across it going dark. For that moment, Scrap felt an incredible weakness wash over him as he became the console’s only source of power while it brought itself back into dependency on the main grid. Then the weakness passed, replaced with a feeling of rejuvenation as electricity flowed through him, the console, and the entire building.
Throughout the building, a low hum could be heard, followed by a flickering as the long-dormant fluorescent bulbs were brought back to life. In less than a minute, however, the bulbs were glowing brightly, and the City Department of Water and Power was brought back online.
There was a moment of silence, and then the 3 men in the control room could hear excited shouting from upstairs as the men reacted to the lights. Darian himself kept his composure for only a few seconds before pulling Roland into a bear hug and giving a yell of his own.
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Roland
Elite Warrior
Posts: 95
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Post by Roland on Aug 18, 2009 2:00:14 GMT -6
That night, as Darian and the rest of the New Empire slept, Roland found himself on the rooftop, listening to Scrap’s instructions as he attempted to install a remote control security camera, an exact copy of the 3 he’d already installed on the other corners of the building. Even now, as he looked around, he could see their red lights pointed at him.
Sighing and rolling his eyes, Roland grabbed the walkie-talkie off of the rooftop, and spoke into it. “Look, I know this is important to you, but I got the other 3 just fine, I don’t need your little electric eyes following me around. Mind running me through how all this works again?”
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Post by scrap on Aug 18, 2009 2:00:55 GMT -6
Scrap moved the other 3 cameras with a thought, the view on the screens in the security office changing along with the images in his mind. “Fine. I didn’t mean to cause you discomfort. In my current configuration, I cannot leave the control room. However, observation is an incredibly important part of my programming. By bouncing the signals from those cameras through the control room before they go to the security office, I can continue to observe human behavior, albeit in a limited capacity.”
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Roland
Elite Warrior
Posts: 95
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Post by Roland on Aug 18, 2009 2:01:18 GMT -6
Roland nodded. “So, I take it this isn’t the last time I’ll be installing these things? How many are we going to be putting up, Scrap? Limited supply of these things, even in that warehouse downstairs.”
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Post by scrap on Aug 18, 2009 2:02:51 GMT -6
Scrap nodded in response, not caring that Roland couldn’t see the gesture. “I’m aware. They won’t be needed through most of the City, just the populated areas. Should we continue to expand as Darian is planning to, 1-2 cameras at each major intersection should be sufficient for my purposes. If we can find the supplies for it later on, I might also request a speaker/microphone system installed with the cameras. Of course, that’s assuming that such supplies still exist in a usable form here.”
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Roland
Elite Warrior
Posts: 95
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Post by Roland on Aug 18, 2009 2:03:07 GMT -6
“Right, right. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves on that one, shall we? This one should be good to go, plugging it in now.” Reaching down, Roland found the small wire he’d set aside earlier, and plugged it into the back of the camera. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the red light on the front turned on, and the camera began to move.
“Looks good up here. Everything working alright?”
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Post by scrap on Aug 18, 2009 2:04:14 GMT -6
Scrap couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice as the 4th camera came online, giving him yet another task to occupy his processing power as he dedicated a part of his mind to monitoring the feed. “Perfect, just like the others. You have my thanks for this, Roland.”
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Roland
Elite Warrior
Posts: 95
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Post by Roland on Aug 18, 2009 2:04:34 GMT -6
Roland rolled his eyes, speaking into the walkie-talkie once more before heading downstairs. “Don’t mention it. I mean that.”
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