Our initial departure, scheduled for 6-o’clock, began as outlined. The EMP field around the perimeter walls proved to be enough of a nuisance for the creatures to stay put within the estimated radius. Approaching the mark, several skerrels were sighted but they avoided us thanks to the distributed EDFs.

Our scanners further identified the same crobs. Their migration stayed within the projections and their locations have been submitted to the labs. Any other nuisances were kept at bay by the EDFs for the next half-klick.

Beyond that point we encountered a new species. Current breeds are estimated to be pig, boar and some form of rhinecors. Their specifics and scanner info have also been sent to the labs, however the vital information is their charge and their...ability. With their size and mass, bulldozing two or three, fully outfitted, men is a simple task and once on the ground their hooves easily pierce holes in the armour and through the body.

The part warranting the most caution is their ability to release EMP bursts. The current cause is unknown, but it is powerful enough to knock out our EDFs and several other components. The group had two males and one female which rushed at our group and was dispatched on the spot by my command. This was deemed necessary as our equipment was rendered non-functional, there was no information on the new species and my squad was placed in danger.

Due to our actions, the nearby wildlife was drawn to our attention by the noise and we retreated. When we were 250 metres out, we encountered another species. Current breeds are assumed to be a turkey, peacock and an unknown mutation. In our rush, we had scanned the single specimen and the scanner warned us of lethal radiation emanating from it.

I personally did not wish contamination of the surroundings and shot it twice, just to make sure. This knocked it out and we walked around the specimen due to the radiation. However, by the time we were about to leave, a high-pitched screech came from behind us - it was the same specimen I shot. I want to add that the scanner stated that vital signs were seconds from lethality following my two shots.

This led the labs to hypothesise it had a regeneration and radiation mutation - nicknamed ‘Radioactive Abomination of a Turkey’ or ‘RATs’, rather straight forward. As for the initial species, they were nicknamed ‘Berserk EM Pigs’ or ‘BEMP’ for short.

Thankfully our squad arrived without casualties and health scans showed no anomalies.

4th Expedition’s Scout Report - Group 4X323A:

********

I scanned the other robots in a panic after realising the two of them were not around me. The ones in front, no, to the right, left?

I turned backwards once more and found them talking with the other group of three. ‘Thank god.’

Nicks had his eyes locked onto me. When our gaze met he shook his head and yanked Gash’s shoulder. Gash glanced over and gave a cheery wave after which the two turned, facing the other robots once more.

With short goodbye waves all-round, they broke off and walked back towards my position. However, as they trotted back their eyes were looking elsewhere.

‘Hey, what happened?’ ‘Send one metre.’ They finally came within range.

There was a long minute of silence as we kept our pace.

[Nothing... did anything come up while you were walking?] I could not tell who asked the question, but it felt like there was more to the message. ‘Did they notice my distracted self before leaving for the other robots?’ Perhaps I did not respond to their messages while taking the quiz.

‘So do I tell them about the entire action list? Or not...the way they looked at me before suggests some mistrust rising and joining up with the other group of three to leave someone who keeps secrets…’

No, that line of thinking would not get me far.

‘Yeah, remember how I could do the private message and add ally? Well I managed to find an information menu, this one talked about coding and basic programming. I had no way to tell what was going on while reading through it though…’ ‘Send one metre.’

They took a quick glance at each other and I worried they would use private messaging, but remembered that only I had access to the commands.

[See? I told you it’s nothing to worry about! He’s just caught up reading some programming and whatnot.] Gash said.

Nicks gave me a final look over and proceeded to walk beside us.

‘Anyways, I’m going to keep reading as it's more interesting than walking, if something comes up, give me a pull.’ ‘Send one metre.’

‘The last idea of a pull came to me after seeing Gash do it to Nicks.’

With lack of response from them, I opened up my command list and activated ‘Create New’.

[1. Edit an existing command.

2. Create a new command based on an existing command.

3. Create a new command.]

‘I have no idea how to create my own, but let’s see what it’ll look like, number three!’ I accentuated the last number in my mind for clarity.

[Attention: Creating a new command is blocked until further notice.]

The warm-blue message popped over the previous three options after a moment. ‘Blocked until...by whom? Whatever, I’ll take a look at how the existing ones are made and then try to make modifications...baby steps it is. One!’

With my message acknowledged by the system, a new pop-up appeared,

[Warning: The changes that are made will be permanent.]

So if I mess something up, it will be final. Great. Once the message faded away, the same list of commands popped up. I did not want to fiddle with the more complicated ones, such as examine and scan. Instead, my choice was made when a command I did not see before showed up.

Send Message

Convert the last thought into ASCII, the distance determined by the breaking point of a unit of distance.

The whole, send one meter, has gotten beyond unbearable. ‘Let’s see if I can tweak it somewhat.’

‘Edit: Send Message.’

A new windows flooded my vision again, but this time, it was...it was… The name was right there… a console!

It had a black background and various coloured texts, but they were not random. There was a pattern to it. As I skimmed through the code, the colouring began to make sense. Brown for instance variables, italicized blue for others, plain italics for single method calls, etc.

Thankfully, the code was not a complete jungle of a mess like some of the examples provided, this one was clean and to the point. I was not sure when the entirety of this code was called, but it always checked the last five words for ‘sent’ and a unit of distance, ranging from a centimeter to a kilometer.

It would then take this distance and convert it to metres, which is then plugged into an equation to alter the...lambda of the...carrier wave…? ‘Why exactly?’

As if sensing my utter confusion, the console disappeared to be replaced by yet another message.

[Chose the wolf hiding in sheep's wool, as predicted. Before you can modify any communication commands, another test is required. Proceed now? Yes/No]

So now I was playing straight into someone’s plan? Great. ‘Yes.’

As before, a blue and white wall of tiny text covered the majority of my vision, being just translucent enough to keep track of where I am going. I went over the information regarding communication engineering, per the title stated at the top, and realised this was far briefer compared to the depth of information regarding coding.

It went over how the information is passed through radio waves, with their wavelengths, or lambdas, modified to become unreadable beyond a certain distance. Moreover, the amount of information passed is often dictated by the baud, which is basically bits per second (a character is 1 byte = 8 bits).

And so the flood of information filled my brain, even if I did not fully grasp the concept, it stuck, and I could recall the information word for word. However, this took time, much like flipping to a page and scanning it for the information needed; which made itself prevalent during a test with an identical structure to the one before.

It took me two tries, but I was deemed ‘passable’ and allowed to proceed. Armed with a basic understanding of radio communication, I set out to make the ‘send one metre’ command less annoying.

The one idea I had about it is to set a default distance to be used every time and a single word, ‘send’ will be used to indicate the request for sending the message. As I was working on this ordeal, a problem came up. Should I say send in any circumstance, the program will think I mean to send everything beforehand, which is false.

‘So then, how should I fix that? Adding a second word ‘message’ after ‘send’ makes my work barely worth the effort. Oh! I just add a check to see if there are any words following ‘send’. If there are, do not send the message, if there aren’t, then send it!’

With the minor kink out of the way I spent the next unknown amount of time coding away, stripping the old code and refactoring it to work how I wanted it.

Even then, I could accomplish this because most of the technicalities, mathematics and formulas for the wavelengths and conversion of thought to text was handled by the system, all I had to do was re-organize and add some of my own touches.

And so came the moment of truth.

‘Set Send Message Distance: [One metre].’

That was the first part, setting up the default distance, and the last, was to test it out.

‘Are we there yet?’ ‘Send.’

With the message sent I scanned the surrounding robots to see if there was any reaction from them. None of them even stirred, which meant it either worked or did not.

[Mark, buddy, of course not. We’re still walking, are we not?] Sure enough, Gash was right. However, since he responded, and the other robots did not react, it could only mean that the entire day’s worth of effort was not for waste.

The one thing I did not catch at first was that we were traversing through a forest once more, not the lifeless earth from before. The sun was also three-quarters of the way across the sky which meant we had two to three hours of daylight left.

After a few more minutes we arrived, or at least I presumed we did. There was a collection of...traders set up in makeshift shacks made of pristine metal sheets.

[We have arrived. You have one hour to trade anything you have. Return to this spot on time.]

I watched as the duo walked past a tree but did not appear on the other side. Gone like the wind.

The traders were all various shapes and sizes of metallic bodies, not a single one of those ‘human’ in sight. There were about five buildings set apart by ten metres intervals at odd angles. I followed Gash and Nicks over the beaten down foliage into the second nearest shop, each group went into a different one.

[So what kind of goodies should we get?] Gash asked while rubbing his hands together.

‘Not sure, let’s look around first.’ ‘Send.’

With nothing more to say, we pushed the first door open and were greeted by a cheerful voice.

[Greetings! Come in and look around, do let me know if something catches your interest or need assistance.]

The three of us looked at each and nodded, seemed like we all received the message.

Me and Gash were about to head to a nearby wall and examine the trinkets hanging off of it when Nicks walked over to the trader and asked.

[Is it possible to have our bodies repaired? And if so how?]

[Why of course, any trader must come equipped with basic repair na-drones. I see that you are carrying spare parts with you, that makes the repair fee trivial. You can choose to have the required energy siphoned off, or provided by me for an extra cost as well as the repair material either provided by you or me for, of course, an extra cost. And a final use fee that I assure you is cheap beyond measure.]

The three of us looked at each other again. What the trader said made sense, but there are four others and we could be getting ripped off…

‘What would the fee be?’ ‘Send two meters.’ I had to resort to the old version of communication. As he received my message, a striking green glow came from the trader’s eyes.

[If all of you were to be repaired, you would need around fifty percent of one of your’s energy, one-and-a-half arms and one leg. That would cover materials and energy. The fee would be a quarter of the other leg.]

Having someone give half of their energy is a lot-

[Can we split the energy across the three of us?] I was not sure who asked but it mattered little.

[Of course you can. How about this, since this is your first time shopping, I’ll even throw in three solar packs that can charge about five percent of your energy source during the day for the entire leg? This will leave you with fully restored bodies, a method of energy gain and half an arm.]

The offer did not sound bad, reasonable, considering how crucial energy was for us. Oil level has yet to drop a percent so it was not an immediate concern. Before my group could mess it up, I spoke up.

‘Is it okay if we browsed some of your wares before making a decision?’

[Go right ahead, if you decide to buy something else on top of the previous offer I will provide you with my very own card that will let you contact me and provide exclusive discounts in the future. And let me tell you, I rarely give those out. Just make sure to make your decision before walking through the door my dears, or else I may just forget any offers.]

And there’s the catch. The last part made it clear to us, either accept the offer, or worsen our relations…

The three of us grouped up and walked over to the opposite corner of the hut to discuss everything.

[The offer sounds decent. Let us try to get something else and leave. If we are cheated, that is fine. But the potential discounts and connections are a worthwhile investments.] The cool-headed tone of the message told me it was Nicks who spoke. In truth, I had similar opinions and Gash agreed with Nicks as well.

The three of us split up and took turns examining each wall that had different guns, swords, and other sharp objects hanging. There were some chips in display cases next to the wall along with complete parts, such as hands, feet, fingers, eyes and so on. Nothing seemed to catch my attention until I found a simple, neglected crate in a corner filled with old, rusted rubbish.

Some hole-riddled elbows, knee-pads, random ammunition. But there, at the very bottom was something different. It was the first time I saw something like it but the feels of nostalgia was choking.

[Scanning….object identified: ER-Drive.]

As I held the drive in my hands, a green glow covered it in equal rectangles that moved across its surface.

[Scanning code….Estimated Storage: 256 Terabytes. Required: 2 Petabytes]

More messages came up but I had no clue what the meant. Required storage for what? Either way, I will try my luck and take it. The notifications have yet to fail me, might as well trust them.

Gash and Nicks did not find anything that caught their interest so we approached the trader and asked about the previous deal.

[That junk? I’ll just throw it in there free of charge. So then you agree to the before deal, yes?]

We did not have a leader so we all nodded.

[Great, in that case place all your parts on the counter and the first person up can place their finger right here.] The trader pointed to a small opening on the counter. I guessed it was for the energy.

Nicks and I were hesitant to volunteer for something like this but Gash had no problems walking up there and jamming his finger in. With the parts on display on his counter, the man pressed a few buttons under his counter and waved his hands in the air a bit.

I was not sure what purpose it had, but before long another clicking noise echoed and a stream, or cloud, billowed out from somewhere and covered Gash’s injury. At the same time a part of the cloud branched out to the spare parts and surrounded them as well.

The cloud grew thinner and more translucent as it split but the results were mesmerizing. As the foot dwindled, Gash’s own injury was being repaired in moments.

Then it was Nicks’ turn who had only minor marks scattered all over the body. Then came and went my turn. As expected, the majority of the resources went towards repairing my heavy damage but in the end it was worth it. Or so I hoped.

After it was over, the trader handed us the solar panels that could be plugged into the back of our head and attached on top. They were circular, with a handspan in radius.

With our stuff ready, the trader leaned in and spoke once more.

[Of the hundreds that came, you are the third to ask about splitting the energy source. Others would coerce the weakest link into taking the hit or rarer, decided a fair way of randomizing the poor lad who took the hit. It is good to see some consideration for once and I am thankful for trusting me, but do not do so easily to others, not when your body is a resource mine waiting to be extracted.]

As the message came across, he outstretched his arm with a small, metallic disc that he passed to Gash.

[One more thing, attach this somewhere visible, they will help distinguish yourself.]

He passed us three simple ties. One red, blue and green. We agreed that I would keep a red one around my left bicep, Gash would have a green one around his right bicep and Nicks would have the blue one around his neck.

This way we could tell each other apart and make it more difficult for others to impersonate us.

With our bodies fixed and having some useful gear, we stepped outside the old shop.