Argonauts 2: You Are Prey by Isaac Hooke

Author:Isaac Hooke [Hooke, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Goodreads: 34426299
Published: 2017-02-27T17:00:00+00:00

fifteen

Shaw zoomed in on the plain below. It had been two hours since Rade had escorted Surus to the cave entrance, and there had been no sign of the Green, or the Hoplites Surus promised to rescue.

“Shaw, are you still reading us?” Rade sent, as he did every fifteen minutes or so.

“Loud and clear,” Shaw replied.

She gazed at Unit A beside her. The robot had come up with an idea to bring Harlequin back online. It involved removing Harlequin’s damaged battery pack and replacing it with two cells extracted from the Centurion’s own pack. TJ handled the actual extraction and reconfiguring, as Unit A had to be shut down during the procedure.

The associated chest plates from the jumpsuits of both Harlequin’s and Unit A’s jumpsuits lay on the black rock of the plateau beside each of them. The torso portion of the cooling and ventilation undergarments had been shifted upward, revealing the belly regions of each subject. The artificial skin on Harlequin’s abdomen had been cut aside, and a panel was open in his chest, revealing the inner circuits. Unit A had a similar open panel, though there was no surrounding skin to speak of.

TJ had already removed the battery pack from the Centurion and used the surgical laser in his gloves to peel away the shell. He had broken out two of the individual cells within and placed them in a protective wrap of low-tech electrical tape.

TJ set the jury-rigged pack inside Harlequin’s chest piece, but didn’t connect it. He returned his attention to Unit A, taped up the original battery pack, and then shoved it back into the slot in the Centurion’s abdomen. TJ shut the panel, then his eyes defocused behind his faceplate as he accessed the remote interface and booted the robot.

Unit A sat up.

“So, how do you feel running at half power?” TJ asked.

“Why would I feel a change?” Unit A replied. “To assume so is to assign anthropomorphic qualities to a robot. My energy levels will simply deplete all the sooner now.”

“Of course we’re going to assign human qualities to you,” TJ said. “We made you in our image.”

“It kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Unit A said. “What the robots created by these aliens must have looked like when the species was in its prime.”

“Probably like giant beetles,” TJ said.

“Unit A, how long will your battery last?” Shaw said. “Does the twenty day estimate you gave us before we opened you up still apply?”

“I have reassessed.” Unit A rolled down its cooling and ventilation undergarment and started to reattach the chest plate of the jumpsuit. “I believe the battery will last at least thirty days. Maybe longer. “

“That long?” Shaw said in disbelief.

“Yes,” Unit A replied. “I plan to operate at eighty percent efficiency, and slowly shutdown unnecessary subsystems as the weeks pass. I plan to constantly adjust my power levels every day to extend the duration, and I will shutdown entirely when I am not needed.”

“I can see that working,” Shaw said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.