Chapter 15: Accumulated Problems

It happened suddenly, like all misfortune is want to do.

 

It had been while I was walking at a leisurely pace through the forest, carrying Elspeth the Alolan Vulpix on my shoulder. I’m still not sure if that was the best name for her, but she chose it, so…

 

Back to the misfortune. She had yipped to me, grabbing my attention. I had been walking under the canopy of the forest trees when she wanted an apple. The only one visible to both her and myself was a single, red, crisp fruit, and higher than either of us could reach by ourselves. The adjoining branch too thin for Robin to climb along.

 

Despite my misgivings about using precious battery life on frivolous things, she convinced me with those precious eyes. I definitely did not fold under the slightest pressure. I extended my Octillery Arms and reached for the apple.

 

That’s when it all fell apart…

 

Right as the arm was about to pluck the apple from the stem, a deluge of error messages assaulted my brain through the neural interface. To Elspeth’s dismay, the claw snapped around the apple, turning it to apple sauce, then shaking vigorously and collapsing to the ground.

 

Conversely, the other arms went crazy. Another two went limb. One started flailing around, one of three tips extended in knife mode. Three of them just started a game of three-dimensional snake in the air, creating a veritable gordian knot.

 

Then the last one shot through… Let’s see… One, two, three… Okay, the last arm impaled four trees, sending wood shards flying everywhere.

 

Meanwhile, Elspeth went through a range of emotions. First, she was sad. Presumably because her apple got sent to the past tense. Then, she was as confused as I was over the arms fanned out of my back going wile. And finally, terror…at the piercing job my arm gave the local forestry.

 

Anyway, it was at that point that I thought that I should probably set up camp for the day, despite sundown not happening for another five hours, to perform some diagnostics on the arms. So, into the woods off the road I went!

 

And now I sit on a tree stump—one cut by someone else, not me—carefully undoing the hundreds of metal fasteners like bolts and screws holding the arms together after issuing a ‘Damn it! Shut down!’ command to the arms, forcibly stopping all processes. I released the other three pokémon to comfort the shellshocked Vulpix, but she’s still staring off into space.

 

I throw down my tools into my lap and release a heavy sigh. “Okay. Elspeth. You’re wondering why my arms have so much power behind them.” Her eyes move the slightest towards me, so that’s as good an answer as any. “Well, really, it’s a combination of ego and protection. There’s this inventor, Clemont, and he makes some pretty good inventions. However, out of his hundreds, many of them end in explosions, and he’s lauded for his failures. I wanted to upstage him by making something that would last.”

 

I gesture to the metal spaghetti sprawled around camp. “Lot of good that did me.” Picking up a flathead screwdriver, I turn back to my work. “Another thing is my safety. I put off the question of becoming a trainer for the longest time because…because… Well, I’m not really sure why… But I knew that if I had an entire team in the Pokémon Center, then I would be a walking target otherwise. These arms were meant to be a deterrent.”

 

I nod to the side a little. “One would have to admit, though, that they held up pretty well. Took a few direct hits from a Garchomp’s Hyper Beam.” I peer at the burnt circuitry. “I thought that I had repaired everything after that event, but evidently not.”

 

With some pliers, I carefully pry the control module from its socket. I put on some glasses with adjustable magnifying lenses, looking closely at the scorch marks. “Some systems failed, and the AI in charge of each arm decided to keep things going by placing the failing functions on other systems. Works pretty well, since I put a few redundant systems in place, until a certain threshold is reached where every system continues failing, and failing, and failing.”

 

I set the chip down in a plastic container. “It’s evident that I need to upgrade the existing parts for these arms. In the process, I can work on the other upgrades I wished to implement. I can probably work on my other projects, too. Some of the things I want to do though just aren’t feasible with our current understanding of science… Simply elementary.”

 

I forcefully shove the thousand-dollar paperweight off my lap and walk over to the slowly recovering Vulpix.

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“Vul?” She tilts her head as I pick her up and hold her eye level with me.

 

“As someone once said, ‘Elementary means that very little is required to know ahead of time in order to understand it, except to have an infinite amount of intelligence.’ I could do with an infinite amount of intelligence right about now.”

 

Setting Elspeth down, I walk back to the stump to sit on and pull out my notebook. “First, have any of you ever heard of Rubber Duck…lett theory?”

 

“Dra!” That’s…a no? I think?

 

“It’s this thing where I just talk out loud to something that resembles a face to work out my problems. Typically, talking helps people realize mistakes, so if you four could just periodically respond, I would appreciate it.”

 

“Bee?”

 

“Good enough.” I jot down the first thing in the notebook. “I’m going to restrict every function in the arms except weight support. These things quite literally weigh a ton when unpowered, and I will not be able to lug them to a city if they can’t carry their own weight.”

 

“Pix!”

 

“Mmhmm. Yeah, I’ll have to see if the next city has an electronics store. All the chips were custom made, but I could fix them if I had a workshop. I could, in the meantime, rip apart a bunch of electronics to make replacements.”

 

Hazel just grumbles or something.

 

“I’ll also need to check my e-mails…for a thing. I could also look into the Reflection Cave quartz. I heard that it was slightly different from normal quartz, but there was nothing of note to be found. I highly doubt it. If I play it right, it shouldn’t be too expensive to buy some samples.”

 

“…Vulpix.”

 

“I could also work on upgrading the arms themselves. They currently have a titanium-tungsten alloy for the outer shell. I could perhaps thin out the shell and replace it the empty space with a lattice of carbon fiber. I wonder…if I could…create a liquid crystal…Hmm… No, I need to analyze the quartz first before I get ahead of myself.”

 

“…” I look up, waiting for the response.

 

“Ooof!” 40 pounds of steel roll into my stomach, knocking me to the forest floor. “Alright, Hazel. Enough thinking for one day.”

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