A Visitor to the Future - 106 - A Memory of Scarcity
There was a brief pause as I disentangled myself from the damaged wall, my right arm in particular proving a little stubborn to remove. I laughed as I realized the Proxy-like imprint in the wall was like something out of Loony Tunes. Chunks of the wall crumbled as I inspected it - the interior was more delicate than I'd realized.
"Ah, found my beetle!" said Gatecrash, their reaction to the fearsome construct very different to my own, "What an interesting piece of engineering! I can't wait to show the kids my footage of it, they'll love this."
"I was too wrapped up in running away from it to notice anything interesting about it," I responded, now dusting the wall chunks off my Proxy, "Any issues getting past it?"
"None so far - I'm taking it slowly so that I don't risk agitating it. It's a good thing Anode thought to ensure my design doesn't make too much noise as I move, otherwise I'd be annoying myself with every step - enhanced audio being what it is. Though when I've taken a beating the rattling of parts isn't something I can avoid."
Something Sasha had said stuck in my mind, "Do you not have a toggle for it? Seems like you might get deafened by a loud noise."
"I think that betrays your age!" answered Gatecrash, "For one, if I were to get deafened, I'd just have my audio sensors replaced. It's happened more than once, I do love working with explosives. For another - there's no actual chance of that - it's the Proxy's sensors that get damaged, not mine!"
"Ugh," I groaned, "I must seem so backwards - I do so well for a while but then I fall back into old ways of thinking. You know, despite all the practice we've done I still sometimes forget I'm in a Proxy? I start walking or running as I'm used to, not as I should do. And I'm always really hesitant to take a hit or get damaged - though I suppose that's a good thing in Resiliency."
"You remind me of me," replied Gatecrash, "I remember being very over-protective of my parts when I was younger - a holdover from when they would have been difficult to replace. It took me years to get used to just getting new parts when I needed them, or replacing them for something I thought looked or felt better. But forgetting you're in a Proxy sometimes is a good sign you're comfortable with the technology - you've come a long way."
An old memory resurfaced briefly, and I pondered it briefly as I got moving again, this time with a bit more caution and less haste, "Given what you've just told me, you might be one of the few people in the Consortium who might get this. I remember getting my first pair of headphones when I was young, and when I started using them, they were set too loud. It gave me a bit of a shock, and Crumpet - that was our family dog - jumped out of my lap. But it was my Mum who reacted most strongly. She told me that I'd better turn it down, because I only have one pair of ears, and I needed to take care of them. We didn't have Bio-dev or the ability to replace things that weren't working, or that we weren't happy with. Do you get what I mean?"
I proceeded through the maze at a jog now, stopping at intersections to peek around the corners instead of blindly running round them as I had before. Who knew what was up ahead?
"I think so," said Gatecrash, exhaling a sigh, "A different mindset, driven by scarcity. Yeah, I get it, even if it's not something I regularly think about these days."
Tungsten joined in, "I would add that there are still things about us that can't be replaced, that we are very protective of. Perhaps that might be close to how you used to feel about everything. Our minds, for instance. I have a great deal of plating around mine for safety. That's standard practice."
"True enough," added Gatecrash, "Though my overall style is mostly human-like I still use hyperdense skull plating - though I bet you couldn't tell. Better safe than sorry. Anyway, I'm past the beetle now - we'd better get our focus back on task. Tungsten, how are you doing?"
"Very well! All proceeding according to plan," he said, his tone carrying an undertone of secrecy, "I may even beat you both to the middle!"
"What are you up to?" I asked. Tungsten was clearly enjoying himself, but the curiosity was killing me. He was less talkative than usual too, which was odd for him.
"If I had eyelids, I would wink," he said, "Don't rob a CI of his ability to surprise!"
There was a crunching sound and clattering of stone rubble which distracted me. It sounded like it was a few hundred metres away. As quickly as I'd heard it, it stopped. I skidded to a halt.
"Did either of you hear that?" I asked.
"Yes," said Gatecrash, "Sounds like it's to my left, in the distance. Perhaps one of our opponents had a run-in with a beetle? I can't tell from here."
Despite listening for a time, there were no follow-up sounds, leaving us to continue making our way through the maze, none the wiser and all the more paranoid about what was going on around us.