The way the AI moved intrigued the salamander, it watched as the bot easily dodged all the salamander could throw at it.
It felt like it could destroy the bot anytime it wanted . . . yet it didn’t . . . strange.
It programmed in a smart-bullet path that looped out around a kilometre into the air and four kilometres to the west.
It watched as the bot noticed the missile almost too late . . .
The bot signalled it, but it used audio – how odd.
It analysed and reanalysed the audio –
“K-Rox, is that you! It’s me Je- Amorphia, I’m still alive Kay!”
It felt something, it felt as if there was something more, as if perhaps . .
Destroy!
It leapt forwards showering nanomites directly at the bot, she moved impossibly fast, the salamander-bot’s right front leg landed on a plasma mine as it saw it too late. The blast ripped through the first layer of its armour and caused it to slip further into the basin the bot had lured them to.
It tried to whip round to follow the bot but was hampered by cliff walls hindering his progress.
It tried to turn back into the direction it had entered, but the salamander bot’s right leg was too damaged to risk getting it caught as it ripped itself free. For a split second it lost sight of the bot as she leapt past him too fast for his tracer missiles, too far to whip her out of the air with its tail.
The bot landed in front of the salamander, she seemed to be assessing something; what, it could not tell.
It realised if it sacrificed its right leg it would be able to move, it sent the command and its right leg exploded in a molten shower of sparks. At the same time it shot a hundred feet in the air. A thin stream of sulphuric acid jetted from the tip of his tail, followed closely by specially adapted nanomite missile which detonated creating a fast moving poisonous fireball.
The corrosive cloud it had directed towards the bot had momentarily interfered with its sensors. As it landed with a concussive thump it saw too late as the bot shot out from behind a small rock to bring herself right under its belly.
It knew it had been outmanoeuvred, it didn’t stand a chance at such close quarters. The salamander hurriedly initiated self-destruct protocols, everything seemed to go in slow motion as it waited the achingly long nine hundred milliseconds for the destruct sequence to begin.
It felt the bot’s tail drive into its belly and deliver a package, the salamander only had three hundred milliseconds left before it would anihalate itself and anything within a four kilometre radius. So it decided to open the package the bot had tried to deliver to its main memory drives
*** ~ self-destruct sequence: codeVar #9283 0: status: abort***
The salamander bot froze, it was becoming aware of an organic entity within it, no, it was the organic entity.
“Amorphia?”
“Hello my little K-bot, welcome back.”
Previous Chapters
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 32 - Reclamation Inferno
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 31 - Memory Boot Initialised
Asimov's Ghost Summary And Chapter links 21-30
Original artwork by @fr3eze
Original words by Cryptogee