“Yeah that,” Vargr agreed. “What the fuck are you doing here? Hey? Wait on.” He held up the hand holding the meat and jiggled it while eyeing Cyn. “This proves you’re on our side? Doesn’t it?”
No one answered, and since the critter also remained silent, Cyn decided to speak.
“We’re going to let you go, Little Mo. You are to stay with me. Okay?”
“Yes!” it sang.
“Orm?”
He jiggled the reins and Toother opened his large, lethally toothed mouth and dropped Little Mo.
The thing landed on its small legs, springily.
She felt as if she’d been handed a golden ticket to a candy shop. This Little Mo must know her, and so it must be able to help her with her past.
Surely?
“Why are you following me?”
16
Little Mo adjustedits position to check her out, its front legs rising and the currently green visor of lights blinking excitedly… well it looked excited to her. Cyn found herself smiling and wondering if the critter could understand human facial language. Maybe it could?
“I follow you because it is a primary directive; a directive ranked the same as my self-preservation directive. I must remain intact to report.”
Right. That gave rise to a whole slew of new questions. “Can you tell me why me? Why am I important? Oh, and how long have you been doing this?”
“I do not know why I am to follow you or why you are important.”
“And the other? How long? Who are you to give this data to?” Of course, there was another, even better, question. “Who told you to do this?”
“I have followed you since you left Big Daddy. The exact time is not retrievable because of my memory deficits. I am to give the data to Big Daddy, and Big Daddy also told me to follow you, Cyn.”
“Big Daddy? Who is that? What is their real name?”
“You have a sugar daddy you didn’t tell me about?” Vargr nudged her ribs.
Little Mo continued, ignoring Vargr’s question, which made her feel ridiculously smug. “Big Daddy is the real designator. There is no other name for the vehicle.”
“Big Daddy is a vehicle?” Her frown was born of annoyance. Though… “Where is this vehicle? Do you know where it is now?”
“I do not.” Little Mo’s limbs slumped. “I can no longer report as directed. Memory loss has taken that information from me.”
“Oh. Crap.” It could’ve been a trove of data, if whatever computers it must hold still functioned, and if they could get them going.
“Big Daddy will not be happy with me.”
While she’d interrogated the little AI, Maura had come closer, and now she crouched behind Little Mo, peering at something on the behind area of its metal chassis. She ran a finger along the domed steel. In the flickering light of the campfire, Cyn thought she spotted blue writing there, in capitals. The patchwork colors of rust, the scrapes and corrosion, had faded and camouflaged much of the text.
“MAELSTROM,” Maura said, rising from her crouch. “I thought so. This AI was part of Dr. Nietz’s last project.”
“Us? The Beast Horde project?” Rutger tucked his thumbs into the waist of his pants. His shirt had gone missing. For a tight second she registered the droolworthy ridges of his abdominal musculature, before she metaphorically slapped herself.
“You weren’t the last. There was another nanomachine project, and this was it. Very secret and a last resort.” She looked to Cyn. “If Little Mo was a part of it, and it was programmed to follow you, then you were a part of it too, my dear.”
Another brick in the wall of her past.
“Then I do have nanites. I’m like you.” She gazed from one beaster to the next. “I must be.”
