~ Chapter 23: Routine ~

[Kardian’s point of view]

This neighborhood had a good amount of Nano-Z which we could hunt down and harvest for their nanocores. During this time, Xerya developed a Retractable Blade for Nataly’s body as well as reinforced my muscle and bone structure. While I believed that my senses could use an upgrade, both her and Nataly were against the idea by stating that such changes should take place at an almost unnoticeable level and not right away so that I could avoid sensory confusion. A state in which I would not be able to properly use my senses or adapt to various intensities of stimuli as a direct result of my brain not knowing yet how to properly work within those parameters, resulting in either pain from overstimulation or the inability to properly register a stimulus at all.

It sounded reasonable, but I still wanted to know how it would be like to hear, see, taste, and smell better than an average human. It was just my one-sided wishful thinking because I did not take into account the consequences for such a change, so I did not pester Xerya about it.

One of the other changes she enabled for me was the Serrated Upgrade, which basically made my Retractable Blade cut better into flesh, bone, and other materials. It was not very good for stabbing actions, but with one swipe, I could greatly injure the Nano-Z. Against a human being, it would leave a gashing wound that would bleed out for far longer than a normal cut.

I also asked Xerya if she could make an upgrade to the Extractor, so that I could use it to stab straight into the Nano-Z’s head and then pull out the nanocore while I was fighting. She was against the idea initially, stating that usually the extractor looks like a wiggly tentacle creature mostly because she was required to dig around and search for the nanocore inside the skull. Depending on the angle of penetration and depth, I do not always land close to the nanocore. That was why, a usual extraction took somewhere around 2-3 seconds while the more difficult ones lasted even 5 seconds. During that time, I would be stuck to the Nano-Z, which would put me into a rather difficult situation.

Nataly also agreed with Xerya on this one, so I just left it as food for thought, in case she eventually figures out something.

One day, when we were returning to our base camp after we finished off half of the building’s Nano-Z, Nataly asked me why we chose to barricade ourselves in the top floors of the building rather than staying anywhere in-between.

To this question, I answered like this “At night, when the Nano-Z enter Rabid Mode, I noticed that they begin to prowl and search for prey to hunt. If they encounter a barricade, they will try, for a while, to take it down. If they can’t, then they just move on. Usually, what happens is that they make a lot of noise trying to do so and end up catching the attention of other nearby Nano-Z. They all get in a fight and by the time it’s morning and the Rabid Mode is deactivated, there are just a few of them left standing. So, in a sense, it’s better to have a barricade placed at a higher floor, where they are unlikely to reach during the night than to have it at a lower floor where even normal Nano-Z during the day could stumble into.”

I then pointed towards the entrance to one of the buildings which we previously emptied out. Before turning in for the night, I barricaded the main entrance, but now it was already tumbled over.

“There are 7 Nano-Z within the scan area within that building.” Xerya informed us.

“In other words, when the Rabid Mode is activated, they move around, prowl and hunt. If they encounter a Horde, they are either assimilated as a part of them or are eaten by them.” Nataly said.

“I know we talked about hordes some time ago, but I still have some questions about them. We saw one back at the Refiller Station that just shred itself to pieces when they turned rabid, but does this mean that it’s impossible to form larger hordes, or do the way the Rabid Mode works changes after there are a certain amount of them nearby? Because, if the latter is false, then wouldn’t that mean that the Nano-Z would eventually reduce their own numbers by a lot?” I asked.

“What you are saying does make sense. I’m not a fan of zombie movies or games, so I don’t know how they are supposed to act out... or rather made to act out as, since this whole ‘disease’ is nothing more than a bunch of killer nanobots gone haywire.” Nataly said.

“I do not have any data regarding this information as of yet, but I believe that the idea suggested by Kardian may in fact prove to be plausible in the sense that after a certain number of Nano-Z gather together, the Rabid Mode simply reacts differently. It would not make any sense for them to be programmed with such a flawed behavior. It would negate the brilliance of the man who programmed us initially.” Xerya declared.

“I guess you are right...” I said as I rubbed my chin. “But there’s no point in mulling this over when it’s not really a problem for us right now. Besides, even if we knew that the Rabid Mode reacts differently in larger hordes, what good would it do for us? There’s no large horde around us, so we are safe at least in that regard.”

“Indeed, however, it does make you wonder about something...” Nataly said as she turned her head towards one of the apartment buildings on our left.

Lately, Xerya has been allowing Nataly to use her neck muscles as well, but the AI is still not willing to grant her back full control.

“Why are there so few Nano-Z around these parts when, in theory, there should have been thousands?” she asked.

“Thousands would make for a big enough horde to endanger even a military outpost.” I remarked and then with a shrug, I added “Maybe they just got hunted down?”

“Then where are their remains?” she asked as she looked back at me.

“Remains?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Bodies, bones, signs of a large battle, stuff like that, where is it? Almost all the apartment buildings where we went to so far showed signs that the vast majority of the people inside had been turned into Nano-Z. Some of them remained locked in their rooms while the others were free to roam outside. Despite this, we have yet to find more than 100 Nano-Z in a single building and just as many bodies of both dead Nano-Z and humans alike. So, where are the others?” she asked.

“This observation is significant. One apartment building with 20 floors and 10 apartments per floor can house anywhere between 200 and 600 humans.” Xerya remarked.

“You are not saying that they formed a large horde and just moved out of this place, right?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“Actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying. If you think about it, every city on this planet has at least 2 million people living in them. If the vast majority of them had been turned into Nano-Z as you previously claimed, then we can expect to find at least 1.5 million Nano-Z in this city alone.” she pointed out and then it dawned on me that I had never actually thought about this matter in this way.

I opened my mouth to say something, but then I closed it again. When I looked back at the bloody street, there were indeed very few bodies left here and just several remains of an unfortunate man that got eaten when he got caught by the Rabid Nano-Z some nights before we arrived here. The amount of Nano-Z that I had killed was probably not even enough to fill three of these buildings. They all had twenty floors, which made it tedious to go in and check every place without Xerya’s handy map and target locator. In this neighborhood alone there were at least 50 buildings like this one, all built at the same distance from one another, and all filled out for the most part.

If I were to start cleaning them up one by one, it would probably take me at least a month if not more at my current pace. Of course, if Xerya improved my upgrades, then that time would probably be reduced to two weeks, but this was also if we did not meet any of those Mutated versions which I was told about. Then I had to account for the fact that the Nano-Z were roaming at night, which meant that while I was clearing the front, they could be gathering into a big horde at my back without even knowing about it.

As reading my mind, Xerya then reminded us of another possibility.

“Considering these factors, then it is highly likely that the areas we previously looted and initially cleaned up of Nano-Z to be completely infested right now by those who migrated at night.”

“Yes, and here’s another wild thought... What if they can form huge hordes and travel around from city to city?” Nataly’s words sent a shiver down my spine.

I couldn’t even dare to imagine how a horde of 1.5 million Nano-Z would look like when approaching the city. If even one of them was startled or noticed a human in front of them, then the entire thing would rush in like an unstoppable tsunami.

“I-I think it’s best if we don’t think about this too much and pray that we won’t have to encounter or worse... deal with such a horrifying thing.” I said as I gulped.

We spent the next two days going from building to building, gathering the nanocores that we needed in order to strengthen our bodies and current implants while keeping an eye out for any suspicious movements. In this area, there were no signs of either raiders or survivors, just of the gruesome battles that took place more than two months ago. The few who decided to stay inside, either died from starvation or in the last moment of desperation chose to go outside and got eaten. It was a bit unsettling to see the remains of humans that were ripped apart because they didn’t have enough time to change.

It was a sight someone could never get used to, and to which I never wanted to get used to. Nataly seemed to be the same in the sense that she believed a bloody battlefield was not something that someone should get used to, otherwise, once the war was over, they would come to crave it and do anything to get back to it. In some situations, if they could not go to a battlefield, they would bring the battlefield to where they were.

Back on Earth, the gangs always had a veteran or two from the army who was dishonorably discharged. They were the type to crave the taste of battle and relished the moments when the gangs took up their guns against one another. Sometimes, it made me even wonder if we were living in the 24th century at all. Although, right now, even prehistoric times would be good. At least then you would just have to worry about people trying to knock you over the head to steal your bananas and not your brain.

One of the upgrades Xerya began to test out was an Exo-Armor, which in theory should have formed as pieces of armor that came out from under my skin to protect my vital points, such as my heart, which when damaged could incapacitate me, or the back of my head, through which one could easily reach Xerya’s nanocore. When she first activated it, the armor looked just like a very thin membrane, but it cracked very fast under impact, and it did not survive a slash attack either. If not for the extensive healing, I would have been bleeding quite bad there, Xerya was not messing around when she unleashed that experimental attack!

If anything, the Exo-Armor was just in an incipient stage and there were many problems with it, starting from the fact that it took too long to form to how fragile it was against any form of attack. It didn’t make sense to invest nanobots in an armor that could be shattered with a fork. Of course, what Xerya was planning for this armor was to make it extremely durable, similar to Nataly’s skin, but something like that was very difficult to make.

In my mind copying Nataly’s tech should have been the easiest thing to do for an AI like Xerya, however, she told me that with the exception of the program that made it work, there was nothing else to copy. The nanobots that formed her implants were all unique somehow and had specialized functions that were not compatible with my own, so she had to come up with other solutions for me, and this was where her trial and error came into being.

Almost an entire week had passed since we entered this residential area and started to harvest nanocores for Xerya. We were growing stronger and even she was getting better at fighting with Nataly’s body, although, she was still far from being considered a force to be reckoned with. I also talked a lot more with Nataly and got to know that she enjoyed classical music as well as punk rock. She was a rebel at heart, but when she was raising her child, a new part of her opened up and new tastes were born. That was why she was chosen as a bodyguard for that VIP. Unlike any other mercenary out there, if it was for her daughter, she had no qualms with behaving a bit more refined and wear elegant dresses which matched her employer’s status.

Each night we got to talk about various things and even exchanged opinions on various matters. I began to enjoy my conversations more and more with Nataly, to the point where I was beginning to feel like an ordinary human again. Even Xerya was curious about some subjects, although she could not yet understand our fascination towards movies and video games.

We gathered a new set of clothes, one that would normally suit us better for a more formal occasion. We also browsed the web almost daily for any interesting news, but almost every site had stopped updating in the last three weeks. The social media was filled with recent posts, but some were fake, placed there by raiders to pull in new victims, while the few that were genuine either showed ways to help others or desperately asked for help.

The sites of the army weren’t any better and retained the same old news as before. No one would even suspect that at this moment they were probably organizing to form a faction of power on the planet. As for help from Earth or the spaceships that were in orbit or docked to a space station, there was no contact with them at all... All communication with them had been completely blocked and even the few special websites that Nataly knew about came back with a connection error.

We were slowly getting into a habitual lifestyle. In the mornings we woke up, did a few stretching exercises, ate some breakfast and then we headed out to kill the Nano-Z who were downstairs at the barricade. We would then move out and begin exploring the area, clearing out one building at a time, going from the ground floor all the way to the rooftop. After we collected all the nanocores we could find, we would then return before it got dark, we would rebuild the barricade and then have a nice chat while Xerya was assimilating the nanocores.

The event that took place on the sixth day would end up pulling us out of our little routine...