Chapter 261: The scavenger.
As the system was not alerting her to any danger, she shook off the feeling and continued on. Just ahead of her was a pod that was half buried in the ground. Some wires were sticking out of it like someone had pulled them out.
[Transport pod.]
"Can it be repaired?"
[Yes.]
She took a closer look at the pod. It was red in color with yellow marks across that had been scorched. As it was already open, she knelt and took a peek inside Most of the inner parts had been pulled out. What remained was a melted data core and rusted fusion coil.
She pulled it out of the ground, waved her hand and sent it into the space.
That feeling that she was being watched grew stronger, forcing her to turn around and scan her surroundings. Once again, there was nothing. Just wind that was sending trash flying slowly in the air.
Her eyes glazed over a still standing comms tower in the distance.
"System, scan again for danger." She stood nervously, one hand holding a dragonoid as she watched the distance.
[No danger detected.]
Sunshine tilted her head. Maybe no danger but someone or something was definitely watching her. If it had no plans to approach her, she would not bother with it. Her time on the world was limited anyway. It was better to spend it scavenging than nosing around.
She was right. In that comms tower, five figures crouched in silence. They wore patched suits that were fitted together from scavenged parts. Over their head, they kept on full masks that helped with breathing. The masks were cobbled together from old drone parts. They were shaped like insect heads and blinked red around the eye area. None of them had seen a newcomer in years. And not one that had unfamiliar technology.
Mostly, they had not seen someone with a working teleportation beacon in a decade. So, they watched her.
Sunshine meanwhile walked on, boots raising dusty ash in the air. She passed a hill of mirrors, their silver surfaces shining like liquid.
[Solar panels.]
She stopped and turned around. The solar panels she was familiar with looked nothing like silver mirrors. But they were probably stronger than the ones the used on the base. So, she sent a few into her space. The wind stirred the dust around her as she did that, and something groaned in the distance.
A red eyes monster came at her from the distance.
She fired her dragonoid quickly. "I am armed and dangerous," she shouted.
The monster came to a stop and the fire of her weapon died down as well.
[Host, that is a drone. Or was a drone.]
Her heart calmed down. The red eyed drone which resembled an insect head was now partially melted. "You should have said something earlier." She told the system.
[There is a collapsed drone factory ahead, do you want to take a look?]
"Of course I do." She was already walking fast as she answered. If she had better drones that could survive the claws of the watchers, she would have gained another advantage.
She found the factory, following the direction of the system. The drone factory was a collapsed building, most of it anyway. But, there was a part which appeared to have been repaired. A path led inside but it required crawling, which she did.
To her surprise, the inside was well maintained. Assembly lines looked reassembled and dormant broken drones were piled in heaps on the floor. One was even whole, with that insect head and limbs that were folded.
"This looks to me like someone’s collection." She mumbled. "I will take a few and leave behind something."
This world had many useful things. Rather than make enemies, it was best to make friends. So, she took one pile of broken drones and left behind a pile of snacks from the repair mall food court.
Initially, she was going to leave behind food from earth but fearing the possibility of it being traced back to her world, she changed her mind.
As for the snacks from the food court, they were from different worlds. How could anyone guess where she had come from basing off of that?
She was about to leave when she saw something else. A brown long sleeved shirt hanging from a hook. It was the flickering which appeared and disappeared quickly that caught her eye.
Sunshine marched over and took the shirt down.
[Defensive Iron shirt.]
"Defensive Iron shirt. What is that?"
[It is a liquid metal shirt made from a flexible iron variant that only exists on this planet. The iron is blended with other materials, nano scale threads and adaptive fibers.
It is technology that is smart enough to detect threats and trigger stiffening that protects the body of the wearer.
It can also adjust thermal conductivity to keep the wearer warm in cold and cool in heat using phase change gel that is applied to it physically.
Other functions are camouflage, health monitoring and telemetry.
It comes in different styles and colors, it is soft like the cotton on your world but stronger than steel. It does not require washing because it self cleanses.
Any other questions?"]
"What is telemetry?" She frowned.
"It is the science and technology of remotely collecting and transmitting data from one location to another for monitoring, analysis or control."
Sunshine sent the shirt into her space. "System, I need more of these. Scan this world and find more of them. As long as they can be repaired, I am willing to collect them."
[Reminder, you have twenty minutes left.]
Sunshine looked at the watch on her wrist. She could not believe that it was almost time to return to earth. She could have sworn that she had been on this world for less than ten minutes so far.
[Scan.] She insisted.
[Already done, there is a pile in the scrapyard behind this factory.]
She hurried this time, crawling her way out to the surface. Her boots crunched glass as she ran to the scrapyard.
It was bigger than she expected. A field which stretched out for miles with nothing but junk that had been abandoned. To her eyes, someone had been taking care of it because a path had been carved through.
It seemed like the junk was being separated into different piles.
Ignoring all the other interesting things, she raced to the area specified as Iron junk by the system. She sent every iron shirt marked the system into her space.
[Five minutes left.]
She stopped collecting iron shirts and sat down on a steel bucket. Taking a deep breath, she lifted her mask briefly and sipped some water. Then, she unwrapped a protein bar and took a bite.
"Pa, pa!!" She spat it out.
It tasted like nuts and chocolate dough. She threw it on the ground just as the space opened up and swallowed her.
The disturbance was gone. Survivors emerged slowly from their hiding places. Some came from holes in the ground and others from behind piles of junk.
A child picked up the protein bar she had dropped on the ground, removed his mask and took a bite. His eyes widened and he passed it to the woman next to him.
She sniffed it first and took a bite as well before passing it to a little girl with a scar.
"She left food." A man shouted from the entrance into the drone factory.
The survivors looked at each other and rushed over. It had been so long since they last saw anything like real food. More than food, she had left them with hope.