The Miner

….Warning! Power Drain Acceleration…

…Warning! Recommend Reduce Energy Consumption…

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Are you going to give me a boost or…wait. I can't talk but you know what, it's ok right now. Marshmallows are so fluffy and tasty. Just chew….and chew and chew…and..yeah. I was a bit disconnected right now. Mmm. Fluffy.

My leg relaxed and my body shuffled back slightly so there was less strain. It felt better. The sensation of not having control over my own physical actions was fine…everything was fine. Oh..so fine. Great, I'm great.

My arm that had been raised lowered down towards my lower leg and as my fingers or the robot drone equivalent did a little bit of magic, I felt a sudden release. A disconnect of sorts. Ah, there goes my body. Hah. It popped off.

Lighter, my body immediately felt lighter. The part of my leg and foot that had been trapped in the wall was no longer part of my overall body, that was the best I could guess from the sensation without moving my head though.

System? Campos? Never mind. Fluffy. Flu-ffeey. Marshmallows are so fluffy fluffy.

….Warning! Artificial Dopamine increases Host Psychological Stability…

….Warning! Forced reduction in Host Endorphin Control…

….Warning! Positive Reinforcement Techniques are Highly Effective!…

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Chewy. Chewy.

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….Warning! Artificial Dopamine increases Host Psychological Stability…

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…Campos System Designate 1.1 Initiating Manual Physical Override of Host System..

...Partial Operational Control Restored to Host System…

…Artificial Dopamine/Endorphin Sources Reducing to Base Level…

….Reduction Complete….

….Warning! Effective!

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My mind which had become mostly mushy was clearer but in trying to exert physical control I only felt an absence. In a way, this felt similar to sleep-walking but I was fully consciousness the entire time.

One of my legs was detached. No pain, just an awareness of a space where it ought to be. Rocks and dust lay ahead, not that I was able to turn my head in any way. This would have disturbed me if I had been a human but for now it was peaceful just lying down.

[I want a physical status up-update. This is still my-my body. It-it get hard to think sometimes.]

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My other arm released the ground before reaching my other leg it was also detached from my main body. The view in front of me from my restricted position was still the building with walls and a roof. Yay, it still existed. Good, good. Gonna get that power source. Get the job done. Yes. Yesyesyes.

This time my body felt even lighter with two detached legs. A fun benefit of being a robot is remove body parts of your body without issues. Go time!

Pain. No pain. I don't feel pain. I'm not flesh and bone. No. Paaiin.

I raised my arms again extending them as far as they could go. Two arms swung forward and gripped the ground before a minor screeching noise hit my ears or what made them up in this body.

The view in front of my lenses lurched forward as I began crawling forward my body bumping across the solid rocky ground in front of me. This would be a great time to have some fast upbeat music to listen to. A real superhero moment!

Each time a metallic arm reached out and dug into the ground before pulling hard made my mind feel better. If dirt swimming wasn't a thing before then it was now. I ignored the rocks and dirt hitting my face, it could always be smoothed out later. This was a priority.

Moving closer to the structure I saw that it was actually in a lot better condition than I had originally thought, if that was medium-sized that I would love a larger version. Just a bit more crawling…

...Warning! High Power loss imminent…

…Emergency Reduction of Campos 1.3 Scaffolding System…

…Power Conservation Mode Enabled…

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[Vincent? You there? Thanks for the assist. I can take it from here now. I can talk again. Really. I'm fine. Just give me back some control.]

Arms stretching forward, grabbing the rocky ground, and sending small clouds of dust across the ground was a severely interesting situation to be in.

Before I left my planet and came to inhabit this new strong robotic form and the bizarre virtual reality escape room there was a concept of self-driving vehicles. Autonomous ones were only beginning to become popular but the software had been full of so many glitches and people hacking them that the production and development had slowed down.

Sitting there working on your next web serial while the car does the work for you of taking you towards your next location sounds interesting for some people. Not when your vehicle almost ran someone down and they decided to send you into a lake as revenge by taking control of your steering remotely.

For me personally it was boring, I like to have more control of where I would be heading. Dusty and scratches formed across my metallic form, and I was sure that I'd at the least need a new paint job and a polish to be back to factory condition. Pristine metal. Precious metal.

[Shiny and fresh. To the ends of the world. Vincent? System? I'd like control back again now. I can do this.]

But this was a case of not having any physical control at all, sort of refreshing in a way but tedious. I was able to feel enough of the constant bumping and dragging without any physical pain that should have accompanied it.

[Hey evil god, you there?]

For whatever reason, the ancient evil god that was called Vincent had hijacked my essential operating systems and had put me on a dangerous mission to reclaim the magical treasure that would be mine alone.

A new power source. Now that would be a good idea for a web serial, maybe a fantasy involving monsters and dungeon cores. Nah. Real life was far stranger than make-believe. If I got back to that lovely escape room with the typewriter and computer, I'd be giving up some time to do some writing.

There was plenty of space on those bookshelves for a few more books as I recalled. The scraping noise brought me out of my thoughts and carried on with some small wear and tear. My head was turning but barely and without any control on my part.

[No pain no gain.]

My lenses appeared to zoom in closer towards the entrance to the building, it was only five metres away now. I instinctively knew that my 3D scanner had been activated without my direct permission, it was fine for me as long as the job was getting done.

The sensation was like my human eyeballs moving around the place trying to focus on a particular object, a slight strain but necessary. Grasping forwards one of my metallic hands grabbed part of a large door that an attempt had been made to break open. The surface was overlaid with scratches and scorch burns.

I yanked it open ignoring the sound that it made as it crashed into the ground. I felt the tremor which passed by as my body was forcefully pulled onto a red-painted concrete surface. I enjoyed the feeling of a touch of colour after the bare grey of the rocky surface outside, my poor legs must be feeling lonely by themselves, but I'd get back to them soon enough.

[Not long until we are reunited again. System you there?]

No response came, I guess the power levels had run down to the point that it was sustaining my consciousness and running those weird-sounding protocols. So with that, I studied more psychology.

The red concrete flooring was covered in wooden crates. Huh. I didn't expect wood to be a thing on a space moon or wherever this place was but why not. They came from space trees or harvested from a planet that was far greener than this boring place. I felt my 3D scanner activate again, and close, the battery should be traceable at this point.

My arms twisted around and shifted my body scraping red flakes of paint off the floor and headed towards one box in particular. Although it wasn't too different in appearance from the other crates except for a stencilled dark green image on the front. The logo stamped on the side simply showed two letters OM. A company name perhaps.

My past was my past, and this was my present, the lack of bodily control that it was. The box got closer to the vision of my scratched and damaged lenses until it was directly in my face. One arm raised in the air before I felt a sudden shudder through my form and I had either taken damage or my power supply was severely running low.

Either way, it was necessary to check out my current status. I was trying my best to keep a relaxed mindset in the circumstances.

-Power Supply (Battery Pack 6% - Partially Damaged)

-Drill Unit (59.5% Damage -Temporarily offline)

-3D Scanner/Detector Lenses (Screen - 47% Damage)

-Mechanised Shovel (49% Damage -Temporarily offline)

-Drone Arms/Legs (68% Damage -Partially offline/Disabled)

-Internal Ore Processing Unit (30% Damage -Temporarily offline)

-External Mechanical Tool Set (52% Damage -Temporarily offline)

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Yeah. A whole six per cent power was making me a little bit more concerned, at least I'd be powering down with a smile on my face.

Not a big fan of my body being taken over and controlled but I understood that it was for my benefit. Good old system trying its best to keep me alive and running. The rest of my equipped items had suffered more damage due to the whole forced crawling on the ground with no attached legs. Work, just a bit more.

[If I don't get to say thanks system, then you've done a great job with me. I just wish that I got to go back to that virtual reality escape room again. It's been fun.]

The last thing before I passed out was my arm grabbing onto the large wooden crate with the green stencil on it before it tumbled onto the ground spilling out its contents on top of me. The weight of the heavy boxes hurt.

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-New Power Cell Inserted and Activated

-Full System Diagnostic…delayed

-Emergency Repair Sequence Activated…In Progress

-Initiate Video Game Style Mode Sequence..

-Residual Original Memory Adaptation

-Creating…System Support

…Loading Personality…

…Supplemented Background Story…

…Psychotic Break Self-Repair Routine Continuing…

…Enabled…

Time Until Completion: 7700 Hours – Error Corrected

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…Autonomous Overmind Orders Currently Active…

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v Current Danger Unknown ×

v Current Date Unknown ×

v Autonomous Mining Operation Offline ×

v Locate Base and restore to full Operational Status ×

v Enable Fully Autonomous Personality Profile for Drone √

-Initiate Tutorial Game Mode in Response

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…Remove full level of consciousness control…

….Checking Cotard Delusion protocols…

…Correlating Dysmorphic parameters…

….Creating behaviour support imitation program…

…Initiating Campos stability Protocol…

…Memory Deletion in Progress….Completed…

…AMT Test Initiated…

…Mining Drone Start-Up Initiated…

…Powering up….

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A voice was shouting at me, but I was at the bottom of a well. The sound echoed off the walls and made me aware enough, but I remained in total darkness.

The last words I caught were 'conservation mode.' A form without consciousness, but a mind that was listening. Huh, is this what being in a healing coma feels like? Different, not bad, just different. I'd be stuck like this until the system was prepared to restore my mind to that mining drone body. In the darkness of that deep well of consciousness, I pictured my body.

My human body, when I had woken up in the fancy escape room, had it been copied over directly or was it only my mind? A physical representation of my embodied self. The whole funny thing about the situation is that my life back on my home planet had been relatively smooth.

I'd never been through life-threatening trials before like being stuck inside a desert struggling to survive or crashing a plane into the ocean desperately searching for a beacon of hope while eating fish and filtering saltwater.

Nope, it had been a case of work in my mining job, checking the machines and calibrating them after each project. Then getting paid my salary and spending time in the small bakery I owned drinking buckwheat tea and eating delicious Bakewell tarts made by a lovely one-armed chef. His name. His face or her name. Hmm. Never mind. It would come back to me if it was important. Still, it was positive judging from the voice of the system that echoed quietly around me.

It still flowed over me calming me down and making plenty of questions make more sense than they should have. I wished that I had recognised the signs earlier on, it would have made what happened next a lot easier.

There was a certain peace floating in an area of darkness where you were left alone with your thoughts. For me, this place was a refuge of the mind, for my soul. The opportunity to be left alone and isolated was nice for a short time. The entire space around me as pure emptiness, peaceful.