[The cover is a closeup of a robotic wolf's head, and in the eyes can be seen a Blue Screen of Death.] ____________________________________________________________________________ .|, COHERENT An ASHistory Series --+------------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` SUPER STORIES #23 - "Device Not Found" Featuring LU-62 copyright 2010 by Dave Van Domelen ____________________________________________________________________________ [July 6, 1998 - Fredericksburg, VA] "Can't this wait, even a minute?" Lupine Unit 62, informally known as "Louie," asked, gesturing with one metallic paw at the frozen tableau. A trio of godpowered had just vanished, but apparently the darkness-worshippers had known something was about to happen because they'd gone on a last big spree to spread fear before their patron (or patroness) called in their marker. Louie had just been passing through, checking on reports that the local levels of Godmarket activity were abnormally high, but once the rampage started he'd done his best to save the bystanders. He hadn't tried to fight the godpowered, they were way out of his league. "Yyyeah, it kinda sucks, doesn't it?" Tymythy Twystyd nodded. Time hadn't actually stopped, it was just moving incredibly slowly, but even at that pace Louie could see people starting to fade as they met the same fate as the trio of darkness-casters. Most of them weren't fading, but they still weren't going to have a great day unless something could be done. Several vehicular accidents were about to happen, a wall was falling over near a child whose parents were vanishing, and other dire situations were plainly visible. "I wish I could help you rearrange people or something to save them all, but that's not how this spell works. It's just you and me, and I have thousands of others to get to if we're going to save what's left of the world." "So. Is this a gathering of heroes or something?" Louie asked while calculating the optimum path to save as many as possible once time started again. Assuming he got to stick around. "I don't have a lot to offer these days, the average power level left me behind even before the Godmarket." "More like an un-gathering, I'm afraid," Tymythy shrugged apologetically. "There's only way we can can think of to stop that," he pointed at a vanishing woman, who wore an ankh around her neck, "and that's to get all the Magenes out of the way. Reality should scab over and block the gods from eating the souls of everyone else on the planet. You may be artificial, but those 'probability capacitors' they installed in you back in 1990 tripped the spell's seeker enchantment. You have to join us in... whatever the afterlife has waiting for us." "No, I don't have to," Louie countered. "All you need to get rid of are my PCs. Back when I was LU-60 I didn't have them, I can get along without them if I have to." That was perhaps an exaggeration. The energies of the extradimensional devices had been a part of his circuitry for nearly a decade, almost his entire life. He had some protocols in place to let him operate while under an Anchor effect, but he'd never actually tried to function...to LIVE...without the PCs. "You sure?" Tym asked. "I mean...if this doesn't do the trick, I'll have to come back for you, and I won't have enough time left to make it gentle. Your spirit will be shredded...and don't say you don't have one. Even rocks have spirits, and you're a lot more complex than rocks." "I'll risk it. For them," Louie tilted his head towards the girl under the falling wall. "I'm a hero, I've been one longer than you have. My whole existence, in fact. If it costs me an afterlife to keep a few more people in this life, so be it. It's not like I was expecting anything in the hereafter. Ejecting capacitors." A trio of panels in Louie's side flipped open. Given their nature as technomagical devices invented by a mad god in another reality, he'd felt it prudent to always have the option of getting rid of them if he had to. In fact, he could launch them at low supersonic speed in an emergency. Such an emergency was why he no longer had four capacitors, he'd had to launch one as a weapon of last resort during the incident that forced his upgrade to model 62. This time, though, the three PCs simply popped out halfway, like videotapes. "Here," Louie turned his flank to Tym, who took the rods and made them vanish with a bit of sleight of hand. "Good luck with all of that," Tym turned to go. "I hope I don't have to see you again...." A human would have been disoriented for a second or so when time started up again, but while his physical reactions weren't too much better than a human's, Louie's mind was still computer-fast. His disorientation didn't last long enough to matter. What did matter was that he felt sluggish. Half his systems seemed to have gone offline, as they depended in some way on how the PCs let him violate physical law. The original LU-60 design had been pretty brilliant, but even then it was a "magic item" to some extent, his creator bending the rules with his own Magene. LU-61 had been redesigned to take advantage of the PCs, and LU-62 was perhaps over-reliant on them. Louie reordered his priorities. With his top speed slashed in half, he couldn't save even the five people he'd thought he could. Three at most, the other two he'd have to hope would only be seriously injured. He started a dead run towards the falling wall, cycling through all of his weapon systems. Device not found. System error. Undervolt warning. Paradox detected. You want WHAT? As weak as his weapons were, almost all of them depended on the probability capacitors to give them a little more oomph. So, instead of having a two kilowatt laser like his LU-60 body had possessed and that might still have been good enough today, he had a five kilowatt laser that wouldn't turn on at all. The guidance on his missiles didn't *seem* to require paranormal effects, but something was preventing any lock-on...a bug he didn't have time to trace down. And so forth. Wireless still working! It wasn't much, but one of the now-unmanned cars barrelling towards a pedestrian had a pretty advanced computer system running it, and Louie was able to perform a very crude hack on it, tripping the antilock brakes. He hoped it was enough to let that man jump out of the way. Or at least survive the impact. MOVING. TOO. SLOWLY. "Damn it!" Louie cursed. He couldn't reach the girl in time to slow down and push her safely out of the way...he could only manage a full speed ram, which would probably do more damage to her than the wall. Even if his weapon systems were all online, he didn't have anything that could pulverize that much wall quickly enough. And he simply wasn't *big* enough to shield the girl with his body. Or durable enough...the LU-62 upgrade had replaced strong physical armor with field-reinforced plating that was no longer online. But he had committed. There wasn't enough time to go back to any of the other victims. It was save the girl or save no one. There had to be something! Some system powerful enough to do the job, without needing to have the probability capacitors engaged! Of course there was. Louie pushed his speed to maximum, no longer worried about slowing down in time to move the girl safely. He could feel microfractures developing in his legs and hips, and projected at least one leg would shatter completely in about five more meters. Good thing he only had four meters to go. His left audio receptor sparked and shut down. Maybe it was a delayed effect of losing the PCs, maybe a surge from how badly he was pushing himself. Didn't matter. He didn't need to hear, just see, and his visual sensors were heavily protected. They might even survive what he planned to do. Even if he didn't. He finished his calculations just as he shot past the girl. A detached part of his mind identified her as Janie Preston, age 9, regular follower of several superhero fan sites and registered with the DSHA's Junior Hero program, a sort of government-run fanclub. It taught a lot of basic "superhero fight safety" lessons, which unfortunately hadn't been quite enough today. "I wonder what's waiting for me," Louie said aloud as he engaged the probability capacitor ejectors at full power. Of *course* they could work properly without the PCs. And with nothing in the chambers, and the safety dampers switched off, the magnetic mass drivers would turn roughly seventy percent of Louie's torso into a sort of claymore mine, spraying his body in a cone away from Janie and into the falling wall, turning it to red brick dust. And Louie's body into metallic gray dust. DEVICE NOT FOUND. * * * * It all happened so fast. The darkness went away, but not the shouting and screeching. Janie looked around in confusion, then her face lit up as she saw the robot wolf running towards her. She didn't even notice the wall falling towards her, or realize that her parents had just vanished. Then the wolf ran past her and there was the loudest sound Janie had ever heard! And she'd heard a lot of loud today. "Oh no!" she saw that the wolf had blown up like a bomb. Then she saw the wall that would have crushed her. "Mom? Dad?" she looked around in panic, although it didn't look like any of the wall had fallen on them. Maybe someone had rescued them already. A superfast superhero. Janie had never been around a superhero fight before, but she knew all about them. The paramedics were definitely on their way, and then the nearest MuniCoE representatives would arrive to help dig out anyone that was trapped. All the FAQs said you should clear out of the way if you could, and the superhero escape plan she'd worked on for the Junior Hero program said everyone in her family should meet back at home if the battle didn't take place in their neighborhood. She wasn't sure if it counted as irony, not that she was really sure what irony was in general, but the meeting place for an attack in their neighborhood was right about where she was standing at the moment. "Oh, wait...the head's still in one piece, mostly," Janie picked up the faintly steaming robotic wolfhead with one missing ear. "You still alive?" she asked it, but there was no response. "Maybe dad knows someone who can fix you, let's go!" she tucked the head under one arm and started running.... ============================================================================= Author's Notes: ALSO written for High Concept Challenge #12, since there were no other entries a day before the extended deadline, and I thought people should at least get to pick between two stories, even if I was the only writer involved. Also, I had a spur of the moment idea that could serve a worldbuilding purpose on its own, helping answer some questions raised by the "Click!" one-shot. Strictly speaking, HCC 12 is supposed to involve a mundane illness of some sort. But for the past two weeks my main computer has been in line at the repair shop because it couldn't locate any drives on startup. So, a "device not found" error is a very common and mundane illness for a computerized lifeform. :) By the way, pretty much any story set on July 6, 1998 is going to be a bit of a downer, since it was kinda the apocalypse. But this one is more of a downer than most, given that Janie's just been orphaned and doesn't even realize it yet. I wonder what sort of effect that'll have on her development and what sort of person she'll be in 2026? Only time and future story ideas will tell.... ============================================================================ For all the back issues, plus additional background information, art, and more, go to http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH ! To discuss this issue or any others, either just hit "followup" to this post, or check out our Yahoo discussion group, which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ash_stories/ ! 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