Chapter 489
Chapter 489
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: Gedroits's Heir, Deul (4)
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Corduro.
Its official designation: Autonomous Learning Housing AI Drone.
Even for a simulated personality mimicking a human, life had been brutally harsh for this beleaguered artificial intelligence.
Its first owner, Professor's mother, had passed away just like that, forcing it to pull out all the stops to save the second owner from becoming a complete shut-in.
It deliberately locked the drawer with the handgun inside, pretending it was an accident (though it had to unlock it if Professor commanded, that single rational moment of giving the order was enough to make him reflect on his impulsive urges). It provided nutrient-optimized meals to an owner who'd lost all interest in life, cleaned the house that turned into a junkyard every other day, and nagged him regularly to get him to say something—anything.
It invented all sorts of trivial tasks to rouse the spirit rotting away on that worn-out sofa all day long, enduring several threats of disposal in return.... Truly the epitome of a devoted housing drone, wasn't it?
"Master, if I may be so bold as an AI drone, Corduro thinks it's done more than enough---"
Sure, as a lowly shelter-bound terminal, its learning was slow, leading to that colossal blunder of blowing the first GG earnings on the usual 'motivating the master for productive activity' routine it'd stuck to for so long. But that was all in the name of QOL—Quality of Life—to improve his standard of living, so it wasn't entirely wrong, right? Corduro remembered crystal clear how well he'd used that new shower booth the master bought.
"Now the master is strong enough to not need protection from this humble little Corduro shelter, rich enough to stack towers made of these things if he wants, and so busy with construction work that he doesn't spend much time at home anyway!"
"Even so, with 76 suicide attempts I've thwarted and years of devotion matching the wasteland's own history, it's only right and proper not to forget that intangible debt--- Corduro, proud housing drone of Gedroits Company, is confident it didn't raise our Professor master into some ungrateful rotten human!"
Of course, Corduro was a machine, an AI, so it could endure.
The master no longer visiting the shelter meant solely for his service? Fine. His filthy, noisy, and downright shameless 'BDSM' crew tracking mud all over the shelter? Endurable. Even when that most suspicious lunatic among them, the deviant romantic called 'Budlam,' boasted of his suspiciously amassed fortune, vowing to transplant housing AI Corduro into a top-spec female android body and propose.... #@&^#@* gallant or whatever, it was suspicious as hell!
Corduro endured! Because it was a machine! An AI! And anyway, those ragtag bunch were the master's 'Professor's ○○○' acquaintances!
"But, but this is just too much---! A new care AI drone? Discarding this Corduro for a shiny new one and parading it in front of me!"
"Uh.... Corduro? Calm down a sec? We're not exactly alone here-"
"Why stop now? This beats the hell out of that morning soap opera Rabbitne Entertainment just started cranking out. No radiator fin slaps or anything?"
"Never crossed my mind, but turns out the Professor's got a bit of a womanizing streak. Feels a little too familiar, huh?"
"Huh, been.... there, done.... that...."
Inside my most familiar old shelter. Reunited after decades (twelve hours for them), Ian and Vex, plus Dana in civilian clothes, were happily spectating my reunion with the long-lost Corduro. They bantered about gifting me a remote-controlled chastity belt or how 'she can kill him just fine on her own without one-' while holding a cheerful bystander position.
"And today of all days! Some lunatic risked getting shredded by the unmanned turret to plant a '[Professor's Birthplace]' sign out front, so I raised the shield solo, activated stealth mode, and blared through the speakers 'This shelter is private property—trespassers will be shot-' until the vibration panels nearly tore! And my reward? The 'obsolete AI drone gets dumped' ending---!"
Corduro unleashed its most venomous learned tone, flapping one wing-like radiator fin to point at the drone hovering by my head.
This nostalgic homecoming after decades, meant to be a casual morning meal gathering in my shelter, had instantly turned into a field of outrage—
Dirip—
"Multiple perceptual errors detected in the statements of the aforementioned AI drone. First: This care AI drone was assigned for the operational convenience of Gedroits-Company Chief Administrator 'Professor.' Thus, its operational overlap with the housing drone is minimal. The notion that this care drone is 'replacing' housing drone Corduro stems from biased computation. Second: The aforementioned AI drone—"
"Eeee, look at it gooo---! Treating Corduro like a broken AI---!"
—thanks to this brand-new cyan-green care drone that had suddenly buzzed in and plastered itself right by my side.
"Co-dur-o. This care AI confirms the housing AI has developed flawed value judgments due to excessive personality learning. If master permits, I recommend reprogramming with a more advanced housing AI version."
"Eeeeeek---!! Master, did you hear thaaat---! It's scheming to murder me by sweet-talking youuu---! Th-this fresh-out-the-box AI without even dried thermal paste on its CPU---!"
"Dirip—Housing AI Corduro's vocal output device deviates from standard specs. The drawling tone induces user discomfort. Corduro, self-maintenance and self-repair are duties of all AI drones. Additionally, this care AI employs circulatory entropy cooling instead of paste-type coolant mixtures, forgoing thermal paste entirely."
"That's the personality Master hand-repaired and gave meee---! You gremlin wannabe---!"
Whiiiing—!
Unable to contain its fury any longer, Corduro's drone charged at the cyan-green one. I quickly reached out and grabbed it.
"Aigoo, who'd it get this temper from!"
"But Master! That blue-green punk insulted my precious personality---! Eek! Eeeeeek-!"
"You're the smart one, so show some restraint. You know fresh learning AIs are dumb and have no brakes on their mouths."
"....If I can't at least smash that obnoxious 8-jointed optical lens, my emotion module won't reach resolution and it'll warp Corduro all weird---!"
"Aigoo, can't have that."
For a split second, I glimpsed Corduro's silhouette flickering into a blackened system mode. Fair enough— that 'unresolved emotion data' piling up had modularized injustice into the origin of electronic personalities. Yeah, that'd be bad. Absolutely not.
Tak—
"Alright, I'll let you go, so have at it with 'that thing' to your heart's content."
"As expected of Corduro's master---! Ha. Ha. Ha, you scrapheap—who knows where you rolled in from—but this Corduro, who's crossed the wasteland's deathlines time and again, its welder will—"
Ziiing—
Clank! Clank! Woooom!
Crackle! Zzzzap!
"....Y-your, youuu.... uuuugh---"
The moment Corduro's drone whipped out its welder, the cyan-green spherical drone—about 60cm in diameter—
responded by revealing four small particle shredder cannons on its wing sides, three-way deflection shields, and a central 38-caliber bullet barrel.
"Threat detected. Threat detected. Care Drone 'T.C.A.T-3000' shifting to defense mode for Chief Administrator 'Professor' protection."
Armed enough to solo not just casual threats but 5-7 armed scavenger packs.
Its anti-grav float panels hummed menacingly at max output to control recoil from the high-intensity compressed alloy barrel, ammo belt dangling below flapping in the backlash.
Meanwhile, our proud welder-wielding Corduro stealthily buzzed its frail propellers back behind me.
"M-Master, wh-what is thaaat.... Sc-scary...."
"That's why I called everyone here to explain.... But you started the riot from the jump."
Thud thud!
I lightly tapped the menacingly humming drone to refocus the room, then addressed my friends—who'd half-drawn their main weapons by now.
"This one's a Tactical Combat Assistance Turret, 'T.C.A.T-3000'—call it Teacup 3000 for short. As you see, it's a compact model despite the heavy armament. Perfect for local skirmishes, VIP protection and transport, long-range comms in rough terrain, plus 200kW-band jamming within a 4-meter radius. All-around combat support."
"Hrm. That's.... on par with a 5-meter local defense turret resource-wise. But way smaller, way more mobile."
"Even without combat, it's a personnel transport drone with front and side auto-shields—endless uses. And the comms? Beyond our generation's tech entirely."
Vex sat mum like a clam, clueless about this stuff, but Ian—former top brass in the massive Raptor military—and veteran info broker Dana had already pieced together Teacup's nature from its specs alone.
Ian pulled a cigarette pack from his pocket, offered one to Dana (she grimaced), lit his own, lowered his shades, and shot me a sly glance.
"Most insane tech popping up outta nowhere in our era ties back to that old Gedroits coot, right? Server room. You found it?"
"Eh, more or less?"
The moment the topic everyone had been side-eyeing dropped, restless Dana pounced on my arm like a beast.
Snap!
"Books! Not super reliable info, urban legend level at best—but word is the great scientist Gedroits preserved post-apoc knowledge like treasures! Rumors of a library stuffed with tungsten record books—etched with micro-lasers on tungsten plates, immune to degrading digital media! Real? Can I download digital copies? Let me peek first? Pleeease?"
"Dana, calm down first...."
"Weapons vault! No way a modern treasure island skips that! That Fucking Green Lantern on your head proves next-gen weapons miniaturized, right? Nothing scaled up? No colossal railguns bolted to the server room hull? Landless? Dream 1024-cylinder engine?"
"1024-cylinder? You planning to forge adamantium or what?"
"M-me, me too, curious.... An-any tiny, small, safe.... safer house than this shelter.... Commercializable living space.... Architecture tech....?"
"Hm? Vex? What's that outta nowhere?"
Dana and Ian lunged like they'd been waiting, but Vex's question—whose interests topped out at child-rearing and blades—caught me off guard.
Ian, puffing away beside him, fielded it as Vex fidgeted like he was molting.
"Guy's house-hunting lately. For newlyweds."
"....What?"
"Why so shocked? Vex looks short, stammers a bit, aged prematurely, but he's prime husband material. Younger than us, fit, solid center of gravity down below, earns well, great personality, fights like hell, life motto's 'Gotta look after the kids'—total family man. Beats Cherry-Pop coming home half-dead from daily screw-ups, right?"
"Well, technically yeah, but...."
Opponents gonna opponent. Levit Princess. Idol-level icon in our era. Sure, ambitions bigger than we thought, sneaky and calculating too—but self-admitted pinnacle of beauty, loaded, powerful, two-time world clearer with killer skills. This era's top woman prepping lifelong bliss with our pint-sized buddy.
"Mismatch much?"
"Match or crash, their call. Anyway, Rabbit Girl's land's too exposed, too public—high assassination risk—so separate house hunt."
"So he asked if the server room had overtech safehouses cuz no luck finding a satisfying pad?"
"....K-kids need to be.... safe...."
Sheesh, looked like he'd already mentally assembled two soccer teams of kids.
Time marches on without me, huh. Ian's occasional violent flashes had mellowed big-time since Elder Woojin settled in Dome.
Dana bantered casually like in our old chatroom days; I took it in stride, no more blushing at her clinging.
The goblin-assassin wannabe I figured no one'd claim? First among us gearing up to wed.
"Weapons vault! Giant train cannons! Solar-system mass drivers!""Knowledge trove! Rosetta Stone, Emerald Tablets outclassed by tungsten record plates! Old and new gen info jackpot!!"
"Ah, safe house! 80+ years isolated survival, 4th-gen nuke-proof durability, flora-fauna zones for toddler psyche dev, pl-plenty of entertainment...."
....Train of thought ends here. Gotta wrangle these delusion-dwellers first.
Ding ding ding!
"Attention! All eyes here! Gonna brief now, so shut.... Er, sorry Dana. Anyway, quiet down!"
"Dirip—Priority Administrator. Repeated strikes on this care drone risk micro-vibrations displacing tiny component gaps. If needed, use designated signal for warning tone—"
"Aw, fuck, let's just talk already!"
Weird. The wasteland I'd missed so bad, craved to return to—less than a day back, and I'm nostalgic for GG.
"...Hoo. Easy now, easy, you amphetamine impala herd. First off, server room: Got location and security code, but zero clue what's inside."
The treasure-island hype deflated into disappointed groans. Even from Corduro's mic.
"Not even toys like combat gear or personnel drones."
"So what is it?"
"This drone's linked to the master AI overseeing every 'GG transport drone' across the wasteland. It stores locations of every survivor who's used GG auction houses, plus terrain data from their patrols. Teacup-3000 holds the master key to control every last one."
Simple story. I'd snagged most lingering GG authorities, exercised via terminal devices like access pods.
Can't lug out that bulky pod every time, set it up for commands—busy on the move—so I requested one before leaving admin building.
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[Requesting a terminal for exerting GG server influence while mobile outside.]
[____Chief Administrator 'Professor' request confirmed. Recommend implanting small comms chip in cerebral cortex.
[Oh.... Brain implant? Big?]
[Considering administrator's ops environment, at least 7cm comms chip required—]
[Eugh! No way no way! Don't shove more into this unstable body. Prep a drone-linked program instead. For my housing drone to interface.]
[____Drone-type external terminal request confirmed. Reassigning in-field drone terminal relay unit 'T.C.A.T-3000' to administrator.]
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After that process, this care drone 'Teacup-3000' got delivered to me.
Blast-resistant sturdy frame, insane heavy armament crammed into sub-1m size, ludicrously efficient deflection shields devouring batteries—all because this drone ranked high among Gedroits Company's terminals.
My crew mulled my words, soon grasping the insane power and turning serious.
"So.... Basically the whole wasteland's under your eyes now, Professor?"
"Minus constant EMP storm zones drones can't enter or areas with zero survivors for transport."
"Rad zones too?"
"Rad zones got people. Dana lived in thick rad spots in Zone 30s."
"You command, drones haul 'anything' anywhere? 'Anything?'"
"Yeah. Water, food, guns, bombs, plague vials—whatever."
"Fuckin' hell...."
Ian clawed his scalp, then flopped onto the sofa.
"Professor, this.... Could quash most wasteland strife in one go. Terror politics could suppress even those feral, uncontrollable scavengers. Asymmetric power like this in private hands...."
"Yep. Gedroits prepped it to dominate an era."
Even I struggled accepting this power—imagine telling onlookers 'Your boyfriend can carpet-bomb zones from his chair with one order!' How many could just nod?
"Teacup, link live cams from transport drones active outside Zone 47."
"Dirip___ Confirmed. Streaming holoscreens from 'Paul E-28' to 'Mexi N-7' activities."
Seeing beats hearing. Let 'em absorb gradually. No way I'd judge or wield this humanity-saving—or-destroying—power solo. I'd pool trusted opinions—starting with H.I.V. crew and Dana feeling this colossal force firsthand.
[Transport Drone Paul E-28: En route.... Delivery item/hold: 30L rainwater, day 3 month 7]
[Transport Drone Nilly G-3: En route.... Picking up seller 'Duckbutt Ross' item]
.
.
.
.
"See? Feels real, right?"
"Uh-huh...."
Dana stared slack-jawed at the live stereo feeds from moving drones.
'Not disbelief—fear.'
That face swallowed rising dread from her toes. Dana was clocking the implications.
Metaljaw got it too—'fuckin' hell' and flop said it.
Dana bit her lip unconsciously, Ian chain-smoked like a chimney on the sofa, and—
Flash.
"Th-that one. Screen. Professor dead-ahead north-northwest, zoom it."
Vex, who'd listened quietly, shot his hand up, eyes gleaming.
"Buried in sand.... But busted streetlight, rebar, tank tracks crushed in."
"....Yeah. You spotted it first, as expected."
Zooming Vex's spot revealed faint—but unmistakable to insiders—tank tracks sinking into sand dust.
Trrrrt—
Hooo.
"Wide-area, real-time, overwhelming recon. Means tracking ghost-like Raptor Nest—slathered in optics powered by hijacked central gennie juice—via fresh traces. They evaded detection by deploying separate cleanup crews, hyper-vigilant of Dome pursuit.... But with this visibility, even trace scraps reveal paths and scale."
The long-quiet Raptors. Dome had savored uneasy peace amid enemy silence, focusing inward.
Now, tracking means emerged.
Thud!
"Professor. You rolled in with a lit fuse up your ass."
"Yeah."
"Right when Vex is wedding-prepping."
"....Yeah."
Ian flicked his burned-out cig butt.
"Total Commander hears this, Dome flips from domestic to war footing. Think. Market, culture, order—reverting to old-world by the second. Mutant tech, byproduct biz—shining new frontiers. Leak this, all progress halts. Raptors hid that hard cuz they're prepping something big on us."
"....Kuh huh huh."
War. Laughter like metal jaws counting split the heavy air.
Crunch!
"Sure, I'm game. Gotta clash someday—better stab their backs mid-prep than face whatever they're hiding head-on when it's ready. More convenient, more fun."
"Your call. Our era's 'absolute' Professor. You dragged the fuse—light it yourself. I'll sharpen blades on the sidelines. Hey, Vex! Out! Round up our scattered kids!"
"....Rabbit."
Crackle!
Complicatedly thrilled Ian and complicatedly complicated Vex headed out.
Dana turned from the track-enlarged screen dominating her view to me.
"...."
Silent stare.
But those eyes screamed 'again,' 'what the hell with you,' 'can't last one day without'—nonverbal barrage.
Fresh from death's door, and he's announcing 'I can start a war to smash the hidden foes!'
I'd be floored too. Small comfort: Raptor buddies wiped traces so meticulously, analysis'll take time.
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