2103:08:10:10:02:13

  Though I’d gotten used to being a mole, I was glad the experience was a short one. It took me a little over fifteen minutes to burrow my way to the surface and breach the loosened topsoil of the ground that collapsed during the earthquake. As soon as I did, I immediately transformed myself back to my human base form. Like flicking a switch, mole-me’s senses vanished and the comfortingly familiar human-me’s took their place.

  I looked at the place my creator had built his lair in, or rather, looked at the hole he’d left behind. Looking up from the pit, I could see a large variety of spruces, cedars, firs, pines and maples reaching toward the sky. The roots of these giant trees – along with the remains of a few of the giants themselves – provided an improvised canopy over the hole. The sun, though dimmed by both cloudy weather and the branches and leaves of trees, was still visible. It was high in the sky though not quite directly above me, thus confirming my clock was working as intended.

  Conveniently, many of the roots sticking out of the wall were within my reach, and, after tugging at one of them, seemed strong enough to hold me as well. So I reached up and grabbed the highest root I could find, then began pulling myself up along it. Once I reached the end of that root, I switched to another and continued the climb. I did that a second time, then a third and a fourth until I got to the top. There, I swung one arm up and over and dug my fingers into the soil above. I let go of the root, dangling precariously for a moment before swinging my other arm around to join the first. Once I got a good grip, I dragged myself up and over the edge.

  Save for the noise of leaves rustling in the wind, the forest was quiet. The most immediate aftershocks – if the earthquakes I’d felt themselves hadn’t been an aftershock from another, larger one long before I woke up – had ceased after the third, but the animals must still be spooked since I could see neither hide nor hair of them.

  Which was annoying, because I’d hoped I’d find a bird to mimic so I could get out of here as quickly as possible.

  A lover of nature might’ve described this place as beautiful or serene, but apparently, I was not one of them. The smell of upturned soil, fallen leaves, trees, bushes and grass bothered me, making my nose itch with its strangely sharp smell. It didn’t help I was naked and covered in the stuff. It made my skin crawl, a new sensation I didn’t appreciate.

  In short, I found myself hating the forest.

  I registered that information and added it to my forming personality matrix.

  Unfortunately, it seemed I would have to deal with it, at least for a while. If the information my creator had implanted in me was true – and in this case, it very well might be – I was deep in the heart of the Olympic Peninsula, located in the former state of Washington on the west coast of the former United States.

  That my knowledge on the subject all stated ‘formerly’ was another problem I would have to deal with. Seems like my creator had decided to dump an incomplete historical encyclopedia in me, rather than an incomplete but up-to-date one. Why he’d done so I didn’t know, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he didn’t have one on hand when the earthquake hit. Either way, it was just another thing on the list.

  In frustration, I kicked a pinecone toward a tree, rationalizing it as a plan to startle a bird into flying off so I could mimic it. Unfortunately, all it did was loudly shatter on impact and disturb the silence, the lone noise of the crack seeming to almost linger in the quiet forest air.

  Still, despite the waste of effort, I felt a bit better. Another experience to add to expand my personality matrix: kicking something and watching it break felt good. One of the few positives I’d added so far.

  The moment I did, my Heroic Impulse raised the alarm. That thought – at least as it stood currently – was too broad and generally anti-heroic. It might feel good to break something in a moment of passion, but maybe I should limit it to certain stuff? I wouldn’t want to harm anyone just to relieve some stress. Keep it to the small and unliving, and even then, I should probably find something else to make me feel better.

  I thought it over for a second, then begrudgingly agreed to my – since the Heroic Impulse was as much part of me as everything else – reasoning and altered the experience. Maybe once I became a true hero, I could relieve stress by kicking villains rather than pinecones?

  My Heroic Impulse remained silent, finding no fault in it.

  With that done, I picked a direction and started walking. If only my creator had remembered to install a compass, I would know which way to go, but whatever. Hopefully, the birds would soon come out of hiding and allow me to mimic them. That way, I could get out of this green hell sooner rather than later.

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  It couldn’t take that long for the forest animals to appear, right?

  X

  My thoughts proved to be correct. Less than half an hour in, the forest slowly began to come to life. Birds, rodents and insects scurried about, chittered and chattered to one another and rustled the leaves in the bushes, trees and on the ground. A full hour in, and the forest was practically abuzz with noise.

  Not that it helped my situation any. It seemed my shifter power had both a range and time requirement, and despite my sole power suite belonging to the infiltrator module, it was sorely lacking in actual stealth-based abilities. Not only did I not have any of the more stealthy powers the infiltrator module promised – like an alter’s power to darken my surroundings or cloak myself in shadow, or a master’s power to know how to move unseen – I didn’t even have an accompanying mundane stealth toolset. No how-to on walking quietly, or move stealthily, or guesstimate line of sights, no nothing.

  In short, on the branch-and-leaf strewn forest floor, I was an incredibly loud presence to the denizens of the forest. Every time I spotted a bird or even a rodent I wanted to mimic, they would flee before I could get in range, let alone have the time to mimic them.

  There was only one creature around that didn’t actively avoid me: insects. But even if they would allow me to fly, there was no way in hell I was going to become an insect. Beside finding the thought itself instinctively icky – I added it to the matrix – I had no idea if I could survive getting swallowed or crushed while in mimic form, and I wasn’t eager to find out. Besides, their flight speed would be too slow to be useful, and transforming into one would probably limit my senses too much to find a way out of the Cascadian forests.

  So instead, I just kept walking, thinking all the while on new ways to get out of this place. Maybe I could gather a few bugs and make a trap or something, catch a bird or a mouse that way? But no, I lacked the know-how and I’d rather not get my hands dirty for nothing. Not that they were clean, but at least they weren’t crawling with bugs.

  Not yet at least.

  Maybe I could climb a tree? If I picked one tall enough, I might be able to see where I should go. And if that didn’t work, I could sit quietly and wait for a bird or squirrel to perch on the same branch.

  I mulled it over, trying to see if there was something wrong with it, but couldn’t. It was simple, easy, and foolproof, so climbing it was.

  I looked around for a bit until I spotted an enormous, healthy and sturdy looking cedar tree. Rubbing my hands together, I prepared myself for the climb. I might not have super abilities like superstrength, high jumps or flight, but being an android was by itself already superhuman. How hard could climbing a tree be?

  The trunk of the tree was too broad to just embrace and shimmy up its side, but it was riddled with gaps and growths that made for easy grabbing. Then, once I got a bit further up and the tree started branching out, I simply grabbed and lifted myself on top of one of them, jumped and grabbed the one above that, then the one above that, and so on and so forth.

  Despite tempting fate earlier, the climb was smooth and became progressively easier the further I got. Higher and higher I went, until eventually I couldn’t climb any higher, not without risking a branch breaking and me plummeting to the earth. Unfortunately, I quickly found that even on top of the tree, the forest was endlessly sprawling off into the distance, with no sign of civilization to be seen.

  No matter. I still had plan B.

  I nestled myself between branch and trunk and waited for something to stick around long enough for me to mimic. Birds fluttered about while I sat still and waited patiently. Individuals passed me by near constantly, but none lingered; the moment they saw me – and they all did – they fled as quick as they came, never settling long enough for me to get a hold of them.

  So, I kept waiting.

  And waiting.

  And waiting…

  I sighed.

  There were plenty of birds in my tree, even if they didn’t sit on my branch. Yet even those inside my range, I found my power couldn’t ‘latch on’ to them if they weren’t inside my field of view. It seemed my shifter power didn’t just require one to be within range for a specific amount of time, but I needed to look at them as well.

  Which was a problem, because it seemed like the birds were doing everything in their power to remain out of sight.

  Plain B failed for now, I decided to remain in the tree for a while and take it easy. I wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere, and the air up here was cleaner and less irritating on the nose. Besides, it wasn’t like I needed to eat or drink. Or at least, my body informed there was no such need, even if I could do both for social reasons.

  Thinking about it, how did I recharge? A quick look at the scattershot libraries of information mentioned nothing on the topic. Did I even need to recharge? Had my creator actually done something right and installed a functioning zero-point energy generator in me or something? I tried to see if I could sense it somehow, but outside of my heart, lungs and other fleshy organs found nothing.

  Well, I’ll take it as just another benefit of being made rather than born. I returned to doing nothing.

  My nose itched sharply all of the sudden and I sneezed. Before I could wipe my nose, I sneezed again and again. I looked at the tree in irritation. Even up here, I wasn’t safe.

  Then, another idea struck me out of the blue.

  I stared to the branch I sat on and focused on it with my power. A couple seconds later, I felt my power latch onto it and register the cedar branch as a thing I could mimic. I could take its form and then lure – by doing nothing – a bird to sit on me, and then take that form and finally get out of this place.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, I transformed myself into a tree branch. My senses became scrambled, all of them replaced by the vague sensations of something feeling ‘watery’, ‘sunny’, and, for lack of better words, ‘tree-ey’. Then, not a second later, I felt a sudden ripple pass through my body.

  I transformed back and found myself standing on the forest floor. Apparently, transforming into a branch didn’t mean I became attached to the tree I mimicked it from.

  The experiment had failed, and this time I couldn’t even blame my creator for it. In hindsight, even if it had worked, would I have been able to tell if a bird or squirrel sat on me? That I could even feel anything as my branch-self was surprising in and of itself, but the sense of touch I’d possessed as one was so minor even falling out of a tree did little but inform me something had happened.

  Another problem occurred to me. I switched into mole-me for ten seconds or so – it was difficult to tell as a mole – then switched back.

  I couldn’t mimic something else while in a mimicked state.

  It was disappointing to say the least, and my annoyance at the failed experiment transformed into anger. I kicked a pinecone toward a tree once again, hoping it would make me feel better.

  Naturally, it exploded on impact.

  It didn’t make me feel any better.

  I added that to my personality matrix: kicking pinecones was not a reliable way to deal with my emotions.