Dark Blue Monstropolis

An hour later Hedrock returned and handed over their packs. He had cloned the contents of their drives and given them back brand-new packs sporting three times their previous drive capacity. They were smaller and faster than anything they had seen before.

As Argo and Mayster put their new packs on, Hedrock mentioned, “Should be pretty much the same setup as you had before, but better.” He paused then added, “Oh, and I put some newer music editing programs on your drives. Your old ones are there, but there’s been some new stuff since whatever disc you copped those from made it out to the Bowl. So give them a shot. And I made sure they have the latest firmware.”

Thirty minutes after that, they received their new bags. They were sleek, black and felt like they could stop a bullet.

“They could stop a bullet,” Hedrock pointed out, “And just for kicks they give off no heat signature no matter what you’ve got inside them.”

Argo asked, “What are you making all of this with?”

Hedrock suppressed a smile. “Thought you’d never ask. Come with me.”

He led the two of them down a hallway and into a large room. On a desk closest to the door was a computer terminal. A sixty-inch flat screen dominated the wall it was hung upon and a wireless keyboard sat on the desk. “I know, it looks archaic with a screen, but the displayless output just never looks right to me. Call me old-fashioned.”

They barely noticed that, however. Instead, the two were eyeing the large container that dominated the room. They had seen a couple of pictures from ancient computer centers, back when machines dominated entire buildings. This looked like a modern day descendant of one of those. It sat, light blue-colored and spartan, with only a door in one side. The rest was non-descript.

“That…is a maker,” Argo said.

Hedrock nodded. “It is.”

“That…” Mayster said, “…is the biggest goddamn maker I have ever seen.”

Hedrock nodded. “I don’t doubt that. Meet Big Blue.” He patted a hand on the side of the enormous device. “She and I go way back.”

“Okay, first, how is it you guys have a maker, and, second, how do you have one that size?” Argo asked. “No one uses makers anymore. And one that size would…” Something clicked in his mind. “Jesus, no wonder you can crank out packs and stuff that fast. You must have armies of…”

“Legions of nanite builders, yes. Armies, in fact,” Hedrock said. “And no one uses makers just because they’re superstitious about technology they can’t see with their own eyes. Who can blame them, really? But still…nothing illegal about it.” He thought for a moment, “Well, not that we really have laws anymore, but you know what I mean.” He pointed to the display. “Basically, it works like this: I use this design program: the Siege Engine. One of my ancestors actually coded the first version of this, before the Exodus, even. I tell this what I want, it tells the maker, the maker makes it. We have so many nanites in there that creating things is pretty damn quick. We just dump garbage in one side and out comes…whatever we want.” He looked at the two of them. “Well, within reason. I couldn’t make a person, for example. Not one that functioned properly anyway.”

Argo and Mayster both gave each other a sideways glance that said: spoken like somebody who’s tried. Just because he can.

“There you two are.”

Welsh was standing in the doorway. “You should be glad I came to rescue you. He’ll tech-talk your ears bloody, so he will.” He jerked a thumb out in the hallway. “I’ve got something to show you. Something…you’ll appreciate.”