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Buried city part 2 back up

Apr 26th, 2020
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  1. Buried city part 2
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  3. The Bio-scans of the bone fragments, skeletal remains, and few mummified corpses not only revealed their relative age, but absolute relative to now. In this dry climate these remains have remained mostly preserved for over a century. Whomever these aggressors were they clearly never occupied this area after their attacks; if anything given the crude structure of the apparent war machines and methods their intent had been to both terrozie and exterminate. If anything as far as she can speculate given scenarios from a context her mind knows despite no memories before the day she emerged here; the most likely scenario is this city was used to demoralize this side of the conflict, a show of terror and power. Possibly even to demoralize this side by showing them their own military would abandon them when faced with these aggressors. That is to any of their forces able to see what was happening yet unable to assist. However the other mystery remains, the damage on the machines. The bodies may be over a century old, and the chemical residue shows several of the machines were dispatched nearly as long ago, however many of those far outside the city showed damage of very different weapons, matching her own weapon, and with a signature showing them to be only a few decades old.
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  5. She has even examined the building her pod appeared in the lobby from, it busted through the floor and seemingly even drilled through concrete, assisted by tiny machines much more complex than anything else she has found, save herself. Whatever she is, she is not from these people, their city was simply, built above her. So too her examination of their remains, they had roughly the same shape she does, but unless she was created in the image of some imaginary creature or divine beast their apperance and hers are distinctly different. Locating images stored within their homes she has found what they looked like alive, from the skeletons she could determine they were only half her height with shorter arms and legs relative to their bodies than her own, with one fewer digit on each hand; her feet however come to points and do resemble the foot wear these people wore. They however had larger heads relative to their bodies than she does, no hood or anything like she has on her head, instead sporting long flopping ears; and their faces drastically different. Her memory banks click and give her a word, "rabbit", but also a word, "cartoon" and bring up flashes of images that sort of resemble these life forms, but would be highly exagerated. She knew the names of their vehicles, as types, but a closer examination brings up nothing but "archaetypal" images in her memory bank.
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  7. She pauses before the pod, an emotion she hadn't felt till now, fear. What if she climbs inside only to emerge again later with no memory. Clearly she existed before, or at least in some way as her mind is filled with recognitions of terms, language, and nouns for the various things she has seen, even dubbing the giant machines as spider-walkers with jet turbines on their feet to chop up people. However touching the side of the pod the capsule closed and descended into the ground. Hovering against the cylindrical walls she followed down into the darkness, the blue lines of her body lighting up as a response. Several hundred feet down the pod enters a wide chamber and light is everywhere. The walls are metallic, lined with lights, computer terminals and massive monitor screens. A quick scan indicating this tech matches her own body and the pod, far more complex than that of the small people or the murder machines. At one terminal is a place indicating a hand print, hesitant given her hand before blasted the leg off a giant defunct robot she slowly puts her hand down, however the print is indicating her left hand, her right had fired the weapon. Switching hands the monitor flashes on and her memories since coming to the surface are suddenly accesible on the screen, and a cross-reference option appears. She cross-references the machines; they are known; "Mecha-Nation", anti-biological terrorists, omnicidal maniacs. Their machines are crude, explosive fuel sources, poorly shielded electronics, most even susceptible to water or even overheating without air to blow over their circuits with little fans. Only their primary servors are advanced and protected properly; focusing on mass production and terrorzing while they kill organic life. A whole catalogue of (known) machines they use come up, including the ones she saw, given crude names by those that encounter them like sweepers, walkers, harvesters, and so on. She can even see so many she didn't see, a jet turbine with treads that just rolls around to suck things into it, spinning horrizontal blades on wheels, the same but flying around, a flamethrower on wheels or legs, and so many more.
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  9. However something else, the images she sees are not the creatures whose bodies she encountered, she sees images of organic beings in cities, organic versions of herself; their doorways larger, their vehicles more recognizable. She tries to cross-reference the creatures's bodies and bio-scans; but all she recieves are images of rabbits and an even smaller techno-organic pet labeled as a "comfort companion" its bipedal, but barely over a foot tall and not listed as any more intelligent than a dog or cat. She presses on, finding a calendar, her bio-scans indicated that whatever conflict killed the city above had happened a hundred years ago, however what she finds for how long ago she was "produced" is significantly longer, so much so the computer inquiries if there has been an error. To her surprise the computer is connecting to other computers, a network of locations like her own. The monitor changes, she sees on the screen something like her, but blue and silver, sharper pointed fingers, and her hood is loose, longer, and wavier, "hair" is the word that pops into her mind finally recognizing it. Images flash in her mind, a world, humans; wars, pollution, space exploration, the creation of artificial life in so many forms, the humans retreating to space, the people like her the Andros, claiming the Earth; restoring the environments as best they could, introducing techno-organic copies of lost life to kick start the ecosystems, building massive structures above ground and below. A war with the more crude machines; then...burying their cities beneath mountains, under the ocean, retreating to let life go as it wants; and that's it. Nothing about the crude machines returning, the comfort companions evolving, all she speculates.
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  11. "Sister," says the individual on the screen, "connection indicates your memory is fine, you were in stasis too long, your internal clock is conflicting with the lack of external experiences. It will catch up. Do not fight it. To answer your inquiries, the creatures you found deceased are called Chokota; they are not extinct; they are one of the four primary sapient life forms that inhabit this planet. The city above your location was lost during an event when a rival sapient species the Kachinka unknowenly found and restored a Mecha-Nation production system. A number of us awoke to dismantle those as our surface spies detected them. Unfortunatly it seems your surface spies system looks to have been damaged so nothing alerted you to wake up. Although that being damaged should have. I suggest checking your base systems."
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  13. "Understood," she says as she disconnects from the computer. Her mind is still buzzing, indeed she has felt it part of her pushing back against these memories and recognitions. She moves over to another terminal, one only connected to internal systems. The surface spies, or observation system looks to be working, however shows it wasn't working for a very long time. Seems it was deactivated and only recently came online, starting up her ascent to the surface as a response to detecting the Mecha-Nation remains. However something had deactivated the system, blocked their deployment, up until a few weeks earlier. She knows though they should have transmitted what they saw to her before waking her up; although the lag from the timelapse may also be causing bugs in this system.
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  15. She ascends the vertical shaft out, hovering up the walls, commanding a door to close behind her as nanites construct a mechanical shaft inside the dug out one to ease her return and coming and going from her base. The city above is how she left it, now having connected with the system that part of her mind has listed its self as a priority boot up allowing her to detect what she should have been able to detect before, her surface observation drones. She concentrates, there are three active, to the north, too far away; they should only be in this valley observing the area, they are in darkness, sounds of chattering, grinding sounds and some beast huffing. Then suddenly light, a tarp was covering them, they are inside bars, tied down with chains, their oval almost egg like white frames are being poked at by the walking stick of a living Chokota, its body covered in brown fur, yet also wearing loose green robes. It is speaking to another, younger looking one in yellowish brown leather pants and vest, its hands indicating something away from there as it too speaks. Given the context she can deduce they found the drones, deactivated and moved them, somehow reactivating them.
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  17. Her first priority however is the drone production and distribution plant; which was kept seperate from her base chamber for security purposes. It should be just in the mountains. Not a long walk for her. She's been this way before, she found settlements here before, but where the trees begin to become denser, however she stopped before just at the top of this mountain overlooking the city and valley, where she had found the mangler, the giant machine that these people had managed to take down themselves; but judging by the skeletal remains, the people that came this way didn't make it. She looks to the more dense mountains further away, there must be a large water source up there, perhaps, there were survivors from the city who kept going. After all she saw through the eyes of the spy drones, living small creatures. She closes her eyes and concentrates, movement and darkness, of course, they are being transported, some simple conveyance is moving them, by the sound and motion her mind brings up a wagon pulled by a horse or ox; although she knows they are not. She is accessing something else, the machine's are tied down with chains but they can detect their distance off the ground, the denser matter below the relatively thin material they are on, its not even three feet; something else. She can. Sudden splinters of wood, fabric, and the tops of trees, all three drones have broken free, the chains falling away. The chains were strong, but they were still only bolted down to a few inches of wood. The drones are coming back her way, she can see the mountains, the tree tops, and the small fuzzy creature whose wagon she just damaged scrambling about. The wagon was being pulled by some animal she doesn't have in her personal databases, some new life form. The drones fly high, the mountain range she is heading towards has a lake, and she sees it, the tunnel that should lead to the drone production plant has many of these Chokota as the other individual called them, digging it out, carts full of material, a mine shaft.
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  19. She orders the drones to head to the city and hide on one of the taller abandoned buildings to await further orders as she continues on foot, much slower, taking in the sights, but locked onto her destination. She isn't really in any hurry, the drones are recovered, the plant however still seems to be offline, however its internal security is at this range checking in as fine only deactivated on production systems. Had she gone this way before among the trees she is certain she'd had still believed the people were all dead, she sees no signs of anything beyond small animals, birds, arthropods, and the occasional deer; or something that looks like a deer with a beak and long tail with a feathery tuft on the end. That is until nearing the lake, a dirt road connects to what appears to be a small town by the lake side filled with the same small "Chokota" she saw before through the drones, and not far off from the town is a mine shaft, its not exactly on where the port for the drones would be, but isn't far off. She makes it a point to avoid these people as by zooming in she can see they seem to lack any significant technology, appearing even less advanced than the city.
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