Mask of Humanity

Nicolai turned away from the collapsing shrine. With his internal system complete at last, it was time to leave the cave—which was no longer a cave.

The clean, well-lit, secure, secretive bolt-hole he'd imagined upon first finding this place had come into fruition by a longshot. The walls were squared and solid, and had Rituals scrawled over every inch. These were to reduce Aura ripple leakage, though in a refined way. These rituals were made to try and draw Aura in, while also blocking Aura and ripples from leaving. Over time the Aura in the cave just stacked up, until it reached a kind of maximum saturation and the rituals were no longer strong enough to pull more in.

It was all lit by strip lights installed into the stone roof. His work and equipment storage area was larger and better equipped, meanwhile at the other end of the large room there was a large, square security door which led out into the expanding mines. A pair of automated carts moved between the mines and the Assembler's attached processors, shifting materials back and forth, and the Assembler was always at work as it refined collected rocks and ore. To one side was a large metal bin, which another automated cart was filling with Oma crystals.

He'd found it more effective to have these carts collect materials from the mining bots below, then return up here, rather than the bots always having to come back and forth.

Those mines now also linked to the entrance tunnel in which he'd dropped three collapses, via another security door. It was where he was having the bots dump the waste from the Assembler—crushed rock, mostly—which handily also allowed him to tighten those tunnels. The first section before collapse #1 was now not a tunnel but a hallway, large enough for one bot to pass through, as the bots had stacked crushed rock to either side and he'd had concrete poured through it to help it set. From there the construction bots had walled it and added in lighting, plus more doors.

The crack where he'd once entered now had another security door, which met the corridor they'd formed. At the end, at the first collapse, was a security door where the bots had dug through the collapse.

Through there was a less settled area, which was still having refuse dumped to tighten it. A tunnel had been mined through collapse #2, and even now the bots were busy at collapse #3, which led to the outer world.

In the corridor near to the door leading into the main room of his base there was a shower unit set into the wall. It was a high-pressure rapid cleaning shower which was loaded not just with water but also cleaning solutions. Its primary purpose was to remove any biological contaminants.

This served multiple roles. Not just stripping anything of the outside from him before he returned to his sanctum, but also stripping anything of himself before he went out.

The warning that Scoundrels were able to create phantoms, and spawn these near to those they hunted, so long as they possessed an item or biological material from a target, remained in his mind. So long as he remained sealed in the skinsuit and wasn't injured, he wouldn't have to worry about accidentally leaving hair, spit, blood, or anything else out there. But traces of any of these or other bodily waste might be on the skinuit and his other equipment from time within the base. He intended to do his best to clean himself and his equipment each time he left, to reduce the risk he might leave a part of himself out there.

Nicolai had optimised his gear. This had mostly involved removing everything unnecessary from the Big Mouth Symbiote. When he'd first arrived here, it had been at capacity.

He'd now removed everything which wasn't of immediate use. Space within the Big Mouth was mostly taken up by his modified M99, the Lasrgun, ammo, explosives, a few droids who'd packed up into metal squares about the size of a small backpack, and also some bulky drones.

The drones were a new creation. His standard reconnaissance drones were attached to the hooks from the Warden's chains, which covered his skinsuit as usual. The drones in storage were larger. One particular group of them were effectively flying assault rifles, each with multiple powerful rotors and four clawed legs.

He hadn't tested them in real combat yet, but he anticipated that these drones would perform best when able to land on a solid surface, which they would anchor to. That way, they could fire full-auto for continuously without needing to compensate for recoil. They were able to fire while airborne, but only a couple shots at a time as they needed to adjust for the recoil after each burst.

Each drone only carried 120 rounds of 7.62, which weighed slightly under two four pounds. Any more than that and they flew too slowly to be of use. In his tests he'd found that they were sluggish in the air to begin with, but became increasingly quick and nimble in the air as they fired off their ammunition. At the same time, as they fired off their ammo they also became less able to deal with recoil, as the lower weight gave them less mass with which to soak it, and thus became more reliant on anchoring to something.

He had four of the drones in the Big Mouth, and held high hopes for them. He was even considering selling them. This was another area where he had utilised to Assembler to work around Heaven's balancing attempts.

Gun drones naturally existed on Earth. In fact, those in use were significant better in every respect than the basic ones Nicolai had created. It was possible to buy a low-end Personal Defence Drone which would outshoot and outfly the ones he'd made for little more than the cost of say, four basic recon drones.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And yet, they were not listed in the Market. Nicolai guessed this was because Heaven had predicted that if it sold these, then all Earthers would utilise them in as large number as possible. Cultivators would struggle when every human they faced had multiple drones firing powerful rifle rounds at them, especially when many shields were directional. Hunter-killer drones served a similar purpose, but Heaven had permitted them—at a high cost. He guessed because they were single use, whereas a gun drone could be used until it was destroyed.

Nicolai felt the system may have over corrected, considering the existence of Symbiotes like the Silver Net. Still, he wasn't the one overseeing things, and he supposed the Silver Net was much less mass-produced than drones.

Nicolai pulled his thoughts away from matters of Heavenly balancing. It was time to leave his home.

He headed over to the Infiltrator, and there was a quick shuffling of Modules. Cyberwarfare, Threat Analysis, and Aiming, who'd been practising their control of the bot's Soul, alongside creating Orbs, returned to him. Legal took their places. Any of the Modules were capable of operating the Symbiote on their own, and he felt that Legal was one he could most afford to spare. There would be no need for it where he was be going.

Since joining the Slayer's Guild, his Mark had gained numerous new functions, some of them passive. One of these had activated not long ago, pinging him. It was his Slayer's Prey check, which triggered if a creature worth hunting was in the nearby area.

There was a Gorothune nearby, a Spirit Beast. They were typically Tier 1, preferring Earth-type Symbiotes. This particular Spirit Beast had been listed in the Slayer's Guild. The Gorothune's heart, he knew, was an especially prized refined materials.

The sound of his soft footsteps rang off the walls of the tunnel, as he stepped up the final few feet toward the final blockage. Here a mining bot was slowly digging through the last portion of the collapse that blocked his way to the outside.

He reached into a pouch, retrieved his shimmer poncho and slung it around himself, releasing its flaps to cover his lower body and activating it.

Beside him the mining bot took hold of a chunk of rock then shifted backwards, pulling it free. Light poured in through the opening.

Hunkering down, Nicolai peered through. He saw the dim interior of the cave exit, which was now far smaller. It was now just a little secluded area beneath an overhang, rather than a proper cave.

Keeping low, he crept out. Crunching from behind told him the mining bot was moving the chunk of stone back into position, resealing the hole. It would continue to work there for a while, ensuring the seal was airtight and solid. When he returned, he would order it opened once more. All the bots and software in the base was keeping quiet over Local, but when he returned and gave the proper signals, they would respond.

He sidled along the wall then peered out, into the jungle. His base was inside a hill and the earth sloped away from him, dotted by trees. Aa3fter about a hundred metres the jungle started in proper. A buzzing profusion of vibrant plantlife, tall trees crossed with hanging vines, chirping and shrieking and distant bellowing filtering through his Skin Suit helmet's microphones and into his ears.

Hidden in the shimmer poncho, he activated the Lurker Symbiote to hide his Soul Sense. It was also able to hide some small ripples from Symbiotes use, so long as he kept that very minor.

He floated into the air and towards the trees, then spent a few minutes checking the nearby area. Once he was sure there was nothing near but a few animals, he released drones to perform a more thorough check.

Some of those animals had clearly noticed some signs of him. A blue-furred monkey in a tree was sniffing at the air, confused. He knew it was smelling the interior of his base. Machinery, oil, chemicals.

The monkey started squealing and fled into the jungle when Nicolai removed his poncho, standing on the ground below it. He knelt on the ground and tore into it with his hands, then rolled in the dirt.

He spent some time doing this, covering himself in the stuff of the jungle as much as he could. He would've done the same to the shimmer poncho, but it wouldn't work properly if it was dirty. He'd kept it in a sealed container while inside which should hopefully mean it hadn't been soaked in too much of the smells, anyway.

While he'd worked to cover himself in dirt, the drones, directed by Threat Analysis, had been thoroughly sweeping the area. He wanted to accomplish more than just hunting today. He also wanted to continue investigating the area around his base. He had already checked everything within a mile of it (he'd done that before even killing the bear), but he wanted to map the wider area, too. Everything within 10 miles at a minimum, had to be known to him.

Nicolai moved off deeper into the jungle, travelling slowly and silently for some time. He didn't encounter anything troublesome, and after some time came to a large, burned out tree. He'd found this when he performed his check of this area, before killing the bear.

The tree was hollow toward its top, the result of a fire which had consumed its middle. No animals showed any interest in it, which made it useful for his purposes. After using his bionic eye and the aid of Simulations to map the inside of the tree, he reached into the Big Mouth and pulled out a drone.

This was the other type of drone he had been creating. It was a larger variant of the common recon drones. It was mostly the creation of the Assembler, though the high quality cameras it bore had been bought from the Trade Link. The main reason for its increased size, was so it could hold a bigger battery, but its more powerful rotors and greater weight also meant it could fly in much windier conditions, and at a higher altitude, than normal drones.

He took out one more of these drones, and after a moment sent both humming into the air. They split, moving in opposite directions.

The two drones would fly over everything within a 10 miles radius of his base and take detailed recordings of it all. He anticipated that the vast majority of those recordings would show unbroken jungle, but if there was anything else around, they should pick it up. Groups of people living somewhere, for instance, would create activity that would be easily noticeable.

It would take a few go overs for the drones to scan the whole area. Ten square miles in every direction was a lot of ground to cover. They'd do it section by section, and when running low on power they'd return and hide themselves in this hollowed out tree. He didn't want them returning to land outside his cave, as if he was unlucky and someone happened to be near, or if someone caught one of the drones and dug through it to find where it was programmed to return, they would obviously investigate. Until he'd set up proper defences and monitoring systems around his base it was best he stay as low-key as possible.

He checked his map, found the location of the Gorothune, and launched himself up towards a tree. Within, the Modules interest tightened, as he and they experienced a kind of nostalgic. They were leaving to search and eliminate a Target. A familiar setup. The eagerness tingled his body. He hoped it wouldn't be too easy.