Bad Machine

A lone figure strolled the walkway of a massive fortification complex. Cannon arrays, weapon installments, large walls, a towering structure studded with sensors and communications relays. The towering rust-coated struts were covered in swerving radar dishes, each other pointing at a slightly different spot before pointing to a new location nearby to detect nearby threats in the wasteland. In the dim light, the LEDs flashed green or yellow, colour coded for the status alert each one was processing while convoluted stretches of cables and wires dangled in the warm, dusty air.

It was all there to guard against the wasteland surrounding the settlement. The planet was dangerous. Breathable, even surprisingly suite to human life, but dangerous. Creatures had attacked the colony since day 2. Now years later, what was it that kept them around? Simple. A miraculous mutagenic substance of immense value. Room temperature superconductors. Shipped off world, this single planet was fueling humanity's technological advancement in leaps and bounds with the freak of nature material known as "biometal." But life here had taken shape in unusually aggressive variants. They had evolved alongside the strange substance itself and for millions of years had developed and improved a vast and terrifying array of natural weapons.

Humanity needed protection. It needed a stalwart steward as unflinching in motive and simple of desire as possible. The bunkers, massive, sprawling fortifications to guard settlements became a necessity. As the lone civilian walked the quiet length of the wall, he stopped at a particularly large outcropping of metal and circuitry. A machine a bit distinct from the rest of the fortress's older parts. A red eye snapped his way as he approached the section, camera already analyzing his form from the head of a vaguely equine shape, if maybe an equine of old Earth was drawn by a caricature cartoonist. When walking the breadth of the the fortifications, one could never shake the feeling of being watched. The bunker wasn't just a place. It was a thing.

BNKR-04 was painted across the back and sides of this section. Even at rest in her housing, cables and pieces interlocked with the maintenance cradle, she wasn't really "asleep."

 "You. Civilian," a speaker intoned, feminine voice smooth and formal like an old voice-activated search engine.

"Yes, me" the man replied, now looking straight at the sensor array that had become fixated on him from the start. She had taken notice early on. Fitting for the ever-watching bunker unit.

"Here again?" she asked.

"Here again."

She was quiet for a brief time, formulating a response. "Why?"

"I wanted to say thank you."

She shrugged it off, blunt and with a clipped voice. "I defend. That is my mission."

Talking to a bunker was never really something one did much and mutually, they weren't much for conversation most of the time. Always business, though newer models were a bit less formal. He glanced at the sensory array focusing on him particularly closely. Integrated with this section of the bunker's systems, she was constantly running surveillance tasks and checking communications for traces of interference. It wasn't that she wasn't paying attention, just that she, naturally, wasn't one to be lax, though intelligent enough to maybe get bored and do some weapon calibrations to stay busy. It was part of why he had bothered at all.

"I made you something," he said. The sensors twitched, immediately following the red eye refocusing on what was in his hand. He glanced down at the wafer of biometal in his clutches, holding it out for her to see better. It was something like an old-timey war medal, a gift he had made himself with a 3D printer last night.


"Will it aid efficiency?" the vocalizer asked. Always business.

"It's aesthetic."

"Aesthetics are unnecessary."

He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Well it, helps with, um, recognition."

"Target recognition?" Now she was interested. He was sure it could pick up his emotions as he tried his best not to make a face. "Ally recognition. It's a badge that shows status. See? It says BNKR-04, Hero of Gateway."

The antennae at the tip of her ears wiggled as she tried to run another scan of the object, red mechanical eye reading over the text carefully. "No circuitry detected. This will not display my status for allies."

"It's a badge, it's visual."

A vague click of the sensors retracting and the eye shutter partially closing marked a vague acceptance. "Please install."

This was not quite how he had hoped it would go but his sense of obligation had led him this far. He reached up and planted it on an ear, the magnetic surface attaching easily like a comically undersized ribbon. "IFF Biometal Badge," she paused. "Received."

In the ensuing silence, he shuffled his feet. "So, uh, I just wanted to say thank you for-"

The eye snapped outwards towards the wastes, sensors unfurling from the tips of her ears, making them look more like horns sprouting from an ancient-Earth dinosaur. The vague hum of parts was audible from here. She was powering up. A loud thrum spilled from deep down where her main body rested. Power core spooling up, she suddenly sounded far more awake, like a shot of espresso had kicked her circuits into overdrive.

"Threat detected. Biometal organism intruding on operational space. Stand clear of cradle, BNKR-04 is going into immediate active deployment." He moved back as her neck joints clicked and clanked, wires and fueling tubes retracting from her body.

The entire section of the fortress, all stamped with 04 separated and her legs extended all the way to the ground below, rising up on all four mechanical hooves. Hard chunks of metal thudded into place, spacious plating, clean and pristine from the endless work of maintenance drones.

"Good luck!" he shouted over the warning siren and noise as cannon arrays unlocked and weapons packs separated while she started her long strides towards the perceived menace. She stopped and whirled around, glancing around her wide flank armor which served as an extra armament platform, heavy hooves banging on the dusty rock.

She was quiet for a moment, glancing upwards where she knew the badge was. The small piece of biometal alloy had a heart around her name, matching the poker-based insignia on her armor. When she looked back, her alert eyes zoomed in.

"I appreciate your gratitude, civilian, but I must go, my planet needs me." She took another hurriedly glance away before snapping his direction one more time. Wings snapped open, engines spooling up to let her be the heavy, roving gunship she was built to be. "Be safe and stay away from biometal organisms.  BNKR-04 DEPLOYED. ENGAGING," her clipped voice called with what was the closest equivalent of a warcry one would ever hear from a bunker unit. She lurched into the sky, cannons snapping down with a final click.


----- Notes

So the moral of the story is that I spent too much time on this and am late to work and defense units are sleepy as fuck when in their gantries because they slave most of their processing power to the needs of the bunker structure itself so the most you get out of them is the equivalent of talking to a really sleepy, duty-obsessed soldier until something happens to 'wake them up' for active deployment which means the only time they are really able to recognize and return waifuing attempts by grateful people is when they are about to go kill something.Which is probably not the best time to be romantic

Bunker stations are fairly unique due to their large amount of resources and effort to produce. Ones with BNKR units tend to have 4 “full AI’s,” one facing each cardinal direction. They go off of a themed naming system that differs for each bunker station. One station may have seasons, in which case the BNKR’s would probably be called Summer, Winter, Fall, and Spring. This one in particular is labeled after a particular playing card inisgnia: CLUB, HEART, SPADE, and DIAMOND. There are 4, with heart being the last one on this particular bunker station




====Writing Prompt=====
>Someone mentioned giant robot waifus
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    Anon stands stock still, a lone figure across the sprawling and winding gantry. The center floor was empty this morning. He shifted his hardhat uncomfortably and leaned forward to see outside the yawning bay doors. Not even the tumbleweed that rolled by could ease the subtle tension as veritable army of mechanics and electronics specialists waited on the wings. Repair trucks waited patiently outside, salvage arms ready as claws were tested, engines revved, and people scurried around the lower floors. The termite colony of a hangar caked with the same red dust as most of then planet was frantic with activity.
	A siren blared, horn crooning a bass that echoed in the metal room. "Class IV Autonomous Mechanized Unit inbound.
	He looked up to the myriad caution lights, now spinning from every recess of the hangar facility. The massive front gate clanked into action, heavy metal shutters already sliding open to make way.
	"It begins," he muttered sarcastically as the outpost went dead still. Nothing to do but wait. Someone coughed on one of the other gantries by the chunks of spare armor plating.
    He could hear it now. That slow, plodding gait when they were around friendlies to reduce accidents. The massive form rounded the exterior wall, stepping into line of sight of the hangar.
    An armament of weapons bristled across her back. His eyes trailed along, surveying damage even at this range. Energy and kinetic. Explosive and armor piercing. The siren called again as she stepped into the base, electronic eyes ignoring the bastion's cannons roving across her body for targets. Scanners darted across her as she made her final approach but she didn't care. They rarely ever did. After being gone for an extended patrol hadn't shaken that lack of care for the base's array of weapons.
    This type of machine always unnerved him. She was a quadrupedal, somewhat stocky heavy weapons platform. Heavy, stable feet designed after a horse's hooves, a tail containing precise sensors. From a distance she looked kind of cute but as she neared the impressive figure grew larger with each step. More domineering and far, far less innocent. The equine design wasn't meant for melee though he had heard one could throw their weight into a kick that crumpled Class III's in a single blow. Still, their forte was the fact that they brought some of the heaviest armaments possible to bear. Even now from the way her silhouette approached, he frowned. That dorsal mount was not meant to sway like that.
   As she neared he gave her a fuller look-over. Burn marks and armor riddled with blackened, powdered shrapnel riddled her front armor. Trucks escorted her, sticking to either side with flashing caution lights and armatures already reaching up to begin initial inspections. A damage piece on her left hip was delicately unlocked and removed, the proper underlying frame mostly untouched.
	She gave it a twitch of her audio sensor systems, an eye lazily glancing in the direction of the crane trailing behind her. She stepped into the hangar proper, entering the only real source of shade for something as large as herself in the sweltering heat. He realized that her slow walk picked up, gears and servos stretching once she entered the slightly cooler air. Her coolant had seeped out from tanks two and five, the ablative armor have been shorn off sometime during her excursion. No, she was relaxing, embracing the relative comfort of the maintenance bay as she planted her metal hooves exactly onto the worn, painted markings on the floor.
    Pressure tanks hissed as she allowed herself a very human moment to grow quiet, the last step dying out as the echo left the bay and the flashing yellow lights outside deactivated. The gantries clanked into position around her like a steel cage. Tools wound and powered on, saws whirring and getting ready to delicately tear through broken armor while ammunition feeds were unloaded through armatures, locks detaching. In the background, the gentle whir of her power core on standby reminded the ants crawling across the platforms and flooring that she was very much awake and watching. Her head turned slightly, an eye drifting towards the closest figure near her face. He took a step back, never quite getting that instinctive reaction under control as the autonomous weapon sized him up.
  The datapad lights up in his hands, a cheerful face smiling at him. A caricature of the equine body standing next to him chirped a tone.
    "Hi, Anon!" she said. "Unit 4M3 reporting for scheduled maintenance and after action report." He narrowed his eyes at the image. She looked tired. A bandage and gauze was over her left ear and her body looked roughed up as she walked into the view. He glanced up from the screen to find a scorch mark and exposed wiring from some blow that had struck. Looks like a stray rocket and judging by the melted section of armor around the delicate sensory and stabilizer systems, at least one laser impact turning the intricate alloys to slag and frying at least a component or two.
    "Hi, AME," he waved at her camera, watching the machine. "Busy patrol?"
    Out of the corner of his eye the little figure on the datapad grinned. "Very!" his datapad chirped, her main speakers either malfunctioning from damage or just staying politely quiet to keep the conversation private.
    "Link up with the rest."
    "Aye, aye," the cartoon saluted. "Links established. Maintenance procedures commencing."
    He turned to the other side of the walkways, a man with a powertool blinked at his datapad turning on, a copy of the cartoon listing damage parts. Above the same scene played out near the upper crane positions, telling them about a rotary canon that had overheated its barrel. Her voice came from a hundred places at once, all mentioning schematics and giving out repair suggestions.
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