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Scavenger: Part One

By Cimmaron Spirit

Commission for Giza

**WARNING: This story contains: female nudity, soft vore, transformation, nanobots, cyborg, feelings of sexual gratification (but not sex itself) and a big-ol nuclear apocalyptic wasteland. If none of this interest you, or you don't like it, then bugger off. Otherwise, enjoy!

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There had always been rumors of a big military base nearby, one that had been abandoned to the dust and winds of the wastes for many decades. If there had been survivors, they had fled in the aftermath of The End War, melted in with the few survivor communities that survived with the destruction of Civilization, or just died out.

For Stormy, it was as good a place as any to search for salvage.

The female grey wolf padded over miles of desert with a large leather backpack, a dusty grey and blue coat that was once from two different outfits stitched together, black pants ripped and torn at the knees and frayed around her ankles, and heavy military issued combat boots that were a couple sizes too big. Under a pair of often repaired sunglasses were two dark blue marks under her eyes, all that could be seen with the old military helmet and the handkerchief over her mouth as well. She looked much like any other scavenger in the god-forsaken wasteland.

Stormy had traveled the wastes for as long as she could remember, searching for electronics, scrap metal, sources of water, old junk or fabled riches that anyone could want: the later two were often interchangeable.

"Just got to find enough to pay Jack," she muttered to herself, with a resigned sigh. Jack was a nice enough fox to his friends and those that worked for him, so long as you didn't get on his bad side. His bad side... the heads of those that crossed him were hanging in his main courtyard, a grisly reminder of who commanded the largest group of mercenaries in this part of the Wasteland, and what happened if you didn't pay his hefty prices.

Stormy reached into a pocket and pulled out a ratty piece of paper with a crude map drawn on it. She had crossed that river (or what was left of it), and went past Giant Wolf Mountain (that was a weird name for a place, but whatever), and then into the old forests before you would finally find the military base. Most of those old forests had been clear cut before even the war during the race for the last resources on the planet, and what was left had been buried by sand and dirt. Every so often, a stubby tree trunk would poke out of the desert around her, mixed with the ruins of cabins, cars, billboards and construction equipment.

"It was most likely totally buried," Stormy muttered to herself as she folded the map and put it back into her pocket and continued trudging through the wastes. "But it's my last chance."

She could already feel Jack's goon's breathing down her neck. If she didn't find something, anything worth at least half the debt that she accumulated, her head was going to end up on his wall. And Stormy liked her head where it was right now.

So on Stormy walked. Vultures circled overhead, unbothered by the searing sun while looking for their next meal. Brown and tan rabbits bounded away from the few patches of grass that clung to life when Stormy walked past. Scorpions, snakes, coyotes, and a menagerie of other creatures all wandered the sands, eeking out a miserable existence where they could, living one day at a time.

Just like most people in this wasteland, Stormy included.

She paused only long enough to have a bite to eat, some jerky from who knew what kind of animal that she bought at the last town she was at, Morning Springs. Where they got that name, Stormy didn't know. There was a source of freshwater there that did come from a spring, which was all the more reason to set up a town there. Maybe they got there early one day and decided it was as good a name as any. Who knew?

Lost in thought, Stormy suddenly tripped on a metal outcropping. She stumbled, the half eaten hunk of cooked meat thrown from her hand as the wolf tried to regain her balance. Stormy fell to the ground, but managed to get her hands under her. Surprisingly, the sand felt smooth under her hands: normally it would be rough and gritty and full of stones and such. But this felt soft and gentle, and was a much brighter yellow than the darker grey she was used to seeing.

She pulled herself up and went to the sign, with an encircled star out of the corner of the metal. She got to her knees and started digging through the sand and grit (it was the regular grey, and unpleasant dirt, which confused her), until she uncovered most of the sign.

THIS LOCATION IS TOP SECRET: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. US ARMY.

"Well, this must be it," Stormy muttered, before standing up, brushing the sand from her clothes, and looking for that piece of jerky. It was too expensive, too precious, to just abandon, even if it was going to be covered in dirt. With a small cheer, she found the meat, and after brushing it off, continued eating. Her mouth tasted like sand, but it was better than going hungry.

In front of her was a vast field of the soft, yellow sand. She could see the boundary were there two met, and she began to follow it, looking around it all. Pretty soon she realized it was a big circle, at least half a mile or so in diameter. There was nothing inside the circle. It was just a pure, flat, yellow surface.

"This is strange," Stormy wondered. " If this is where the base is, then where is any of the buildings?"

She continued to survey the area, trying to pick out something, anything that could give her a clue. But there wasn't even an old tree trunk, car, shed, or rock anywhere. As if it had all been picked up and taken away. But who would do that? What value was there in just rocks? There were rocks all over, so who took every pebble, every stone from this circle?

For the next hour or two, Stormy kept wandering through the circle, trying to find a clue on how to get into the base. The area was too weird, too out of the ordinary to not be the military base that she was looking for. The old man that sold her the map said that many scavengers had tried to find this base for several generation but could never find it, before they gave up and tried elsewhere.

Maybe the base was long gone, having been scavenged and torn apart? Maybe it had been destroyed, and this sand was the radius of where the bomb that blew it up landed? But then how did the sign survive? There were so many questions, so many possibilities. But she had to find it. She had to find the base, and then something in that base. Her continued existence depended on it.

Stormy was growing frustrated and angry as the sun began to set in west. But she couldn't stop now. She turned around and began to march off again when she realized that her footprints were gone.

She blinked, bending down. She had just walked there. She had just turned on her heel there. And yet, it looked perfectly flat and smooth. There was nothing.

Curious, Stormy took a hand, and pressed on the sand, making a rather deep handprint. She pulled her hand away, and watched in amazement as the ground almost as quickly lifted up and erased it. How had she not noticed that earlier?

She scooped a handful of sand and set it in a pile to the side. The small hill instantly began to deflate, and the valley filled up until it looked like neither existed. She did it again, putting the hill on the other side, and once again both leveled out after a single eyeblink.

"Okay, this is too freaky. Something has to be here," Stormy declared. She began to dig with both hands, making a small hole that got wider and wider, deeper and deeper. She panted heavily, but couldn't slow down: if she stopped, would it just fill in again? So she dug and dug and dug and...

Then there was nothing. The rhythm she had built up didn't stop so easily, and her next swipe at the non-existent sand suddenly made her tip forward and fall into the hole she had dug.

"Ahh!" Stormy cried out, flailing as she tried to grab something, anything as she fell into the void, the hole she had dug sealing off and leaving her falling into darkness...

"Omph!" Stormy cried out as her body landed, face first, on pitch black solid rock. She groaned, slowly moving her arms, then her legs, and her neck to confirm that none of them broke or were injured. She must have fell a good twenty or thirty feet, but except for the air being forced from her lungs, she didn't feel sore.

The wolf groaned, sitting up. She blinked her eyes, but there was literally nothing down here, no ability to adjust her eyesight for the darkness. She carefully slipped her backpack off, and began to rummage inside until she found a flashlight. It was old, the plastic long since cracked and broken, and a carved wooden case allowed her to hold it. She shook it a few times, a magnet and coil system having long since replaced batteries that were long dead and garbage until the LED light came to life.

"Alright then," Stormy said, climbing to her feet. "Let's see what's down here. And how to get out."

Stormy moved the light around the walls and the floor. Everything was so... smooth. Perfectly flat. Not a single imperfection. A dark grey stone color. That was strange, especially for something that had been buried for untold decades now. If it was cement, water would have made it buckle and crack. Animals should have dug through it. It had no reason to be so flat: nothing human could have accomplished this. There would have been tiny, barely noticeable imperfections. There should have been something, anything.

She took a few careful steps forward, her light shining the way. It was also so quiet. Only her footsteps and her breathing could be heard. It was spooky. Too quiet. Nothing was ever this quiet.

A few more feet ahead of her, and then there was the first sign of something different: a wall. A lighter grey wall from the floor below her. She shook her flashlight a few more times, making the dim light dance around the cave, before she started to follow the wall.

She went around one corner, then another, then another, doubling back on itself in a couple of places. Stormy stopped, and knocked at the wall. It sounded like concrete, but it was as good as new, better even. She had never seen any concrete that was close to looking this fresh and new.

This cave, these walls, the sand... all of it was too weird. Too creepy.

But she continued. She had to find something...

Then there was a door. Just... there. A door. Not actually even a door, just a doorway, the door having long since been removed for some reason. She took a step through the doorway, and through the darkened hallway.

Suddenly, lights flashed on, making Stormy cry out and drop her flashlight to cover her eyes as they were blasted with light.

"Ow! Fuck!" Stormy cried out. "No warning, eh? Whoever did that, it's not funny!"

But there wasn't an answer. It was still quiet, just her breathing and the soft electric buzz of lights that, by all rights, should not be working.

Finally, Stormy caught her breath, opened her eyes, and realized she was standing in a corridor. A brightly lit, white walled, white tiled corridor. She took a deep breath, picked up her flashlight and put it away, and began to explore this weird place.

There were more doorways down the hallways, all without their doors. It seemed weird, strange. A house without doors. Or windows; there were places where glass once would have been, but they were gone now too. She glanced into the rooms. All of them were empty, though beside the door each room was marked out with painted letters. "OFFICERS QUARTERS." "ENLISTED PERSONNEL QUARTERS." "MESS HALL." "QUARTERMASTER'S OFFICE." "ARMORY." The last one was just as empty as the others, much to Stormy's disappointment. An intact weapon from before the End War would fetch a pretty price indeed.

But why was everything so clean? Why was there nothing at all? There should have been something. Anything!

And it was so clean. Something that would have been underground for so long should have had dust and sand filling every corner; the walls should have been cracked, paint peeled off. There should have been even a old paper poster on the wall. But she saw nothing.

Did they start building this only before the war and then left it to be abandoned? And why was it so far underground? There were more questions to be answered, and few ways to answer it.

She found an intact staircase, and on the second floor she saw more hallways and rooms. With a groan, she continued. There had to be something down here, right?

She finally saw something other than hallways and open doorways in the Generator Room: Five generators. But none of them were running. That was odd: how were the lights on if the generators weren't running? Were the lights running on really long lasting batteries? And what happened if they went out? That question made Stormy shiver. The last thing she needed was to be trapped underground forever with no way out.

But then she saw other rooms with objects in them, mostly offices and laboratories. Unlike every other room, they had lots of things inside them: microscopes, papers, even computers. It was still impeccably clean, but whatever had cleared the rest of the bunker out, they left the sciencey stuff. She entered one of the laboratories, and picked up some of the papers. They looked like they had been printed earlier that day, not a hundred or so years ago. But they were full of numbers and test results and memos and formulas which all went above her head.

"Would somebody want these?" Stormy asked herself. The microscopes, maybe, but they were pretty large and bulky, so not so easy to take with her. She went to one of the computers and hit the power button. The black screen flashed to life, white words and code on black, before a blue screen with "US ADVANCED WEAPONS RESEARCH LABORATORY."

"Well, hello there," Stormy smiled. Advanced weapons, eh? That would get anyone's attention. Just one blueprint for a weapon from before the End War, and she would be set for life. Jack would really like that.

Though, depending on the weapon... would Stormy want Jack and his thugs to have it?

Did she really care? So long as they didn't use it on her, then she could give a rat's ass about what else they do with it.

She had seen computers before, but hadn't seen one work before. Stormy tapped a button on the keyboard, and a box came up asking for a password.

"What is a password?" Stormy asked. She had never heard a computer asking for something like that. A lock? How can you lock a computer?

There was a crash somewhere in the building. Stormy jumped, all the fur on her body standing upright.

She listened, her triangular ears twisting back and forth. She didn't hear anything, but the buzz of lights, the hum of the computer.

Stormy finally let out her breath, and turned back to the computer. She tapped a few keys on the keyboard, and several dots filled in the box. She pushed the larger enter button, for the box to turn red.

"Huh," the computer illiterate wolf said. "Well, maybe there is something else I can find."

Going through the papers and other documents in this lab, and the other two next door, and finding more incomprehensible papers and yet more computers with the same password screen, Stormy sighed.

"Well, now what?" She groaned, tossing the papers on the ground. "If I don't find something soon, I'm dead."

Stormy walked out of the last office and turned down the hallway to see another doorway, this time with a door in the way.

"There were no other doors here... what is in there?" Stormy wondered, walking up to the door. She grabbed the door handle and tried to open it, to find out it was locked.

"Of course," she muttered, before reaching into her backpack and pulling out a couple bobby pins and got down on her knees. She stuck both ends in the door and began to wiggle them back and forth...

Snap! Stormy paused. She pulled out one of the bobby pins, then the other, only to see that the ends were gone. Snapped, broken... chewed off?

Pulling it closer to her eyes, she looked closer only to see the bobby pin in her hand began to slowly dissolve as she held it.

"Ah!" She cried, dropping the pin onto the floor. The halves of little rusty metal bobby pins seemed to vanish almost instantly as soon as it touched the floor.

"What the hell was that?" She cried out. She took a step backwards from her lock pick tools, before her foot slipped, and she found herself tripping and falling backwards. With a groan, she sat up, and looked at the boots, to see that the rubber and steel of the bottom of the boot was gone. Vanished.

"What the fuck?" Stormy shouted, jumping up as her boots fell off her feet. "What the hell is going on here?"

Was this whole place toxic, covered in acid and dissolving everything? If so, she had to get out of her before she was turned into nothing. She turned around to sprint out...

To run face first into an eight foot tall metal robot. It was basically a humanoid robot with no features other than a shiny silver body and the few lines where the parts of its body had been put together.

"The subject has arrived," the robot intoned in a calm, static filled male voice. It reached forward and grabbed hold of Stormy by both arms, and easily lifted her off the floor, making her backpack fall off during the brief struggle.

"Hey! Let go of me! Who are you? What do you want?" she said, trying to struggle out of the robots grip.

"The subject has arrived," the robot said again, and began to drag Stormy to the door she had just tried to lock pick earlier. As the robot approached, the door swung open.

"What are you are doing?" Stormy screamed. "Let go!"

"The subject has arrived."

Stormy was trapped. This hunk of metal, the only other thing other than papers and computers in the entire building, dragged her into the room.

It was a large room, with the same white walls and tile floors as the rest of the base, but with even more stuff than the the labs from before: all around her she could see crates upon crates, and inside each crate was a tiny animal: rabbits, mice, coyotes, cats, dogs. But parts of their body glimmered in the light with metal. She caught a glimpse of one rabbit, and saw close up what they had: metal plates with rivets over their eyes and muzzles, a place around their chest, their legs and paws all covered in metal. They all looked like they were sleeping, but it didn't look like any of them were breathing.

"What is this place?" Stormy asked, creeped out by dozens of animals, all with similar metal pieces covering the faces, their bodies and legs. A shudder went down her spine.

"The subject has arrived," the robot repeated.

"Gee, thanks!" Stormy exclaimed, getting angry at the impossibly strong, incredibly vague and unhelpful robot that was carrying her somewhere. She looked ahead, to see a series of glass vats, the biggest at least seven feet tall and easily able to hold a person. Hoses and computers and a variety of other electronic devices were attached to them.

Something clicked in her mind. The subject has arrived? Like a science experiment? All of the tubes were the right size for the other animals she saw. Was this where they were transformed, however that was? Then that would mean that she was undoubtedly the next one...

"No! No! What are you doing to me? No! Don't!" she called out.

"The subject has arrived," came the monotone response. The robot took Stormy to the biggest tube, which opened up as the captor and captive approached. The robot carried Stormy right into the tube, and held her as the glass chamber closed around them.

"The subject has arrived. The subject has arrived. The subject has arrived," the robot kept repeating, as it finally let go of Stormy. The wolf leapt at the chance and tried to pound at the glass, to break out, get escape.

"No! Let me out! Let me go!" She cried, her voice echoing in the glass room, bashing her fist on the tube.

But the glass was too strong. Her fists, her claws, her feet were no match for the hardened glass walls of the chamber she had been locked in. She beat her fists against the walls over and over, but it only gave a quiet thunk, thunk, thunk.

"The subject has arrived. The -ject -as arri-. The sub- has-" the robot continued saying, but its voice became distorted and broken. Stormy beat her fist on the glass one more time, before slowly turning her head, breathing heavily and terrified of what was happening. The tall, thin metal man that had dragged Stormy away was melting, turning into a pile of silvery grey goo.

"Oh my god," Stormy whimpered, before turning around banging on the glass again, in terror and fear. "Let me go! Let me out!"

The robot soon vanished into a liquid, the amount of goo in the tube rising up to Stormy's shins. It was cold, hard, but also pliable: she lifted her feet up easily out of the dissolved robot, but it still clung to her leg in a uniform layer. Her legs felt cold and stiff. She looked down, to see the amount of goo in the tube lowering, while the silver metal coat began to crawl up her body.

"No! No! Stop this! No!"

Up her legs the metal went ignoring her pleas, consuming her pants, then as it washed over her hips and torso, freezing it in place from the cold, metallic feeling, and then ate her jacket and shirt, and finally over the scarf and helmet she wore. The slimy metal coated her hands and over her face, blinding her, dulling her senses, pouring down her throat and nose and every other way. Soon her body was totally coated, inside and out by the invasive goo. Stormy tried to lift her hand to brush the goo away, but her hand stopped before it reached her face, her body controlled by some other force.

She couldn't talk. She couldn't move. She couldn't breath. Everything was black. Everything was over.

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Stormy blinked, then sat upright. Was that a weird dream she had?

Her eyes came into focus. No... maybe? She was on the white tiled floor of the underground base again, no longer encased by glass. The wolf groaned, trying to stand up, and getting onto her feet. She felt incredibly stiff, like she had been sleeping on the ground for a solid week. Her legs were wobbly, her arms were heavy, her head pounded.

"What happened-" She started to ask before pausing. "What happened to my voice?"

It sounded metallic, robotic. Like a female version of the robot from earlier.

She lifted first one hand, then another. A glossy metal plating covered her hands and fingers like a glove.

"Ah! Get it off!" Stormy cried, trying to find a joint, something to tear the metal off. But her hands felt nothing but metal and steel.

Subject: Cease.

Her body stiffened. She tried to say something, but nothing would come out of her mouth.

Subject will cease activities and prepare for knowledge transfer and acclimatization.

Knowledge Transfer? Acclimatization? What did that...

Suddenly a piercing pain went through her brain, but she couldn't move or scream as her body was wracked by pain.

Suddenly, it was over. Stormy was in control of her body again. She didn't know how she knew... that... she just knew. She flexed a finger, then her hand. Then her arm. It all responded as she did so.

Subject has full control over motions.

"What... what are you?" Stormy groaned.

My designation is I.S.A.A.C.: Internal Structured Augmented Autonomous Computer. I am to provide information to the Subject on the status of their body, their abilities, important data on locations and other important details as required.

"Okay, ISAAC," Stormy said, feeling weird talking to a voice in her head. "What happened to me?"

And then she just... knew what happened. Her memories were augmented by the information from several centuries flooded into her mind, and then categorized, perfected by the computer in her head. Numbers and information and other info filled her eyes, and she was able to look over it and easily determine what it was. She didn't know what any of it was, but then suddenly she did know.

"Nanobots," Stormy flatly stated. Billions upon billions upon billions of miniscule robots had taken over her, turned her body from flesh and blood to steel and circuitry. Her brain was a supercomputer, using the imperceptible amount of processing power one nanobot had, and linked everyone in her body to form a single operating system.

It was a top-secret project from before the End War to create a super soldier. Old ways of extensive training, steroids, brainwashing and body augmentation with specially built parts was too expensive, too dangerous, too risky. So nanobots were used, to take over a person's entire body and then convert them into a super soldier. They would have no need for weapons or additional training: their bodies could transform and take whatever shape it needed, changing their body to be whatever they wanted, whatever weapon they needed, able to fulfill any task asked of them.

The entire facility was run by nanobots. The entire base had been built from nanobots. And over 238 years since the base first detected missile launches and hydrogen bombs going off and the humans fled the base, it had locked itself, protecting itself. The nanobots consumed all non-essential objects in the base: beds, stoves, fridges, televisions, weapons, etc. to ensure the computers and papers in the labs were kept secure, and the experimental laboratory was maintained.

Many animals had found their way in, and in turn converted, much like the small mice and dogs that the base had been experimenting on before the world ended. That explained the rabbits and coyotes that were in their cages, put into hibernation after each successful experiment.

"Wait... Are you going to shut me off?"

Subject query: negative. Fulfilled all requirements of the process. Shall be turned over to the United States Armed Forces High Command for further orders.

"But... There isn't a High Command. There isn't a United States anymore. It's long since dead," Stormy said.

Processing... Processing... ISAAC entoned. Attempting contact with USAFHC Node 1. Please Stand By. Please Stand By. Failed. Attempting contact with USAFHC Node 2. Please Stand By. Please Stand By. Failed.

ISAAC continued for another fifteen nodes, much to Stormy's impatience (though it took just a few second with each attempt).

Contact with USAFHC failed. Information to be updated. No outstanding orders. Subject is permitted to go out on leave.

"And can you stop calling me Subject? My name is Stormy."

Updating. Shall refer to Subject as Stormy. Confirm?

"Yes," Stormy said, as she looked over her hands and body. She looked like a mannequin dummy, perfectly flat and virtually featureless. "Is there a way to look... normal?"

Detect insufficient fuel or material stores. Recommend refueling before undergoing shapeshifting abilities.

"Refueling? I'm not a motorcycle or one of those old cars. So how do I do that?"

Detect possible untapped fuel sources throughout base. Stormy's eyes began to highlight throughout the room the fuel sources that ISAAC said. And it was every single rodent, canine and feline in the room.

"Wait, eat them?" Stormy exclaimed.

Provide raw materials to allow Stormy to keep functioning, ISAAC stated in cold logic.

"But they... they are like me," Stormy said, looking at one case with a small wolf, not much older than a few months, covered in metal plates much like her.

Stormy is capable of consuming both organic and inorganic materials, to fuel weapons, transformation, and life support systems. Recommended course of action.

Stormy walked over to the closest cage. A small mouse, which easily fit in her hand. The metal wolf grabbed the lock on the top, and snapped it off, before lifting the glass lid. She picked it up by the sides. It was stiff and cold, much like her, and didn't breathe or flinch. A scanner went over the mouse and determined it was "alive," but in such a low power state after centuries underground that it couldn't be restarted.

Stormy's mind was reeling about this. Eating a whole mouse? She had rat before, especially when food was scarce on her travels, but at least then it was truly dead and cooked.

But her cybernetic, nanobot filled body was starving. Her stomach (if she even had a stomach now) would have been growling loudly in complaint. So she tipped her head back, held the mouse by the tail, and lowered it into her open mouth. The mouse dropped in. She could feel her body begin to work, imperceptibly tiny nanobots in her body stripping the mouse of it's metal augmentations, fur, muscle and finally it's bones. It felt... weird. Not bad. Good actually. She bit her lips and shuffled her legs. It almost felt like she was turning herself on by eating.

That was... weird. Pleasant, but also made her shameful, and embarrassed. But today was a day of nothing but weird things, so eating things might get her off. Was that so bad?

She looked down at her hands, and the metal on her right hand began to turn into short length fur that virtually matched her original shape.

"Huh, so I'm getting fur back?"

Incorrect. Nanobots are taking the appearance of fur as specified by your wishes. With more material, we can complete your visual appearance as you see fit.

Stormy sighed, and went over to the next mouse, breaking off the lock, picking up the trapped mouse inside, and placed it in her mouth and swallowed it. Her other hand then grew fur. For the next hour, she went on, consuming most of the previous experiments. Survival of the fittest, Stormy rationalized as she picked up the last rat. Less than half her body, namely her arms and face and the little blue chevron under her eyes, was now covered in fur again after eating a dozen mice and rats. She moved on to the rabbits, which were bigger. She found that her jaw really didn't have limits anymore, if for no other reason that she had no bones, and she was able to open her mouth wide enough to swallow it whole.

And she could feel her body shake and shudder as it consumed, as if making out and being groped and all the other deviant acts her mind could think of.

There were five rabbits in total, and they provided just enough to finally have enough fur to cover her entire body, including short grey hair on her head and a nicely shaped tail. The scars she had from a lifetime of fighting wild beasts and men and dangerous stunts and accidents were all gone as well, and, looking into the reflection of the glass tank that transformed her, she had to admire the curves of her figure, now that she was in control of what it looked like. While she had handsome and had attracted the attention of the opposite sex before, it wasn't something that bulky, oversized clothes she wore when scavenging would have shown off, and nothing like the big titted broads and huge assed whores that used their bodies to get what they wanted. She had spent her time as a young girl with the prostitutes, but never had the figure (or could control her temper and contempt of other people) to really excel in that career.

But now she could have a body that men would fight over to ogle: boobs that were more than a handful, an hourglass figure with shapely hips, a sway in her step that would drive them wild. Though now she didn't have to worry about her ribs poking out from under her fur due to the epidemic malnutrition of the wasteland and, if she really wanted too, she could turn drop dead gorgeous in a heartbeat. And feel wonderful while doing it.

"Well, maybe this wasn't all bad," Stormy thought. "Now, ISAAC, clothes?"

Will require more material to allow creation of more nanobots for excess objects.

"Can't just wear what I had before, eh?" Stormy grumbled.

Old materials and possessions have been consumed by the base for maintenance procedures.

"Of course they did," Stormy sighed. "Well, got more fuel here I guess."

Stormy wasn't so concerned now about eating the metal, unpowered statues. With the rodents and rabbits gone, she proceeded to the cats. They were all the grey and black spotted house cats that, if stories were true, had barely changed much from before the End War. If these were purposeful experiments and not those animals that stumbled into the base, then it must have been true. Either way, she broke into their cages and began to consume them one at a time, each time getting more aroused, more confident, more... liberated. Sex wasn't a bad thing, especially in a world so far gone from the days of civilization and high moral standing. But it wasn't something that people just did out in the street. But, why not? The world was dead and hasn't managed to rebuild itself.

Stormy paused. Why was she suddenly thinking in terms of a hedonistic revolution? Was it the nanobots and the way they were programmed? Or was it something inside her conscious, her old body that had been repressed?

She had no idea, and tried to ignore it for now. She had other stuff to do.

After eating seven cats, she paused long enough to order the nanobots to start making her an outfit. Since the only one in her mind was the one she had before, the nanobots compiled. As if by magic, sleeves covered her arms, one side grey, one side blue, and proceeded to cover her back, nearly reaching the ground. Buttons and zippers were formed on the front, but still hung open loosely.

She finished eating the other five cats, and proceeded to give herself enough modesty for a simple t-shirt and holy blue jeans under the coat. Finally, with the last cat, she gave herself another pair of boots.

"Okay, so, that's taken care of," Stormy said, looking over her body and it's new clothes. "But if I'm all nanomachine now, and if my nanobots just dissolve weapons, how do I defend myself?

You are the weapon.

"Huh?"

Suddenly weapons blueprints for revolvers, pistols, rifles, machine guns, explosives, laser weaponry, artillery, and even tanks and aircraft filled her mind. Her eyes glazed over as she looked at them, blueprints for the entire pre-war US arsenal.

"Holy shit! I could turn into anything?" This was amazing!

With enough fuel and materials, that is correct.

Stormy grinned. Something in her thought that was more than amazing... it was hot. Sexy. "Well, that's great to know. And I guess I should have an ample food stored away for something like that.

Recommended to keep as highly fueled as possible, ISAAC entoned. There is still raw materials available here.

"Not for much longer," Stormy said with a smirk as she went up to the next case and smashed the lock with her enhanced strength. With all the felines consumed, now it was the larger canines: ten coyotes, four golden retrievers, six German shepherds, four black labs, and six grey wolves.

In less than an hour, there was nothing left in the cases. As Stormy feasted on the buffet of lupines and canines, she could feel the excess energy and material run through her body and try to store it everywhere it could. She grew six inches taller, making her an even six feet tall. Her arms and legs also bulked out making it look like she packed on quite a bit of muscle. Her clothes had expanded as well to cover her body, and when she didn't want to get too tall, she created another backpack, weighed down with only nanobots.

"Fuck, that was amazing," Stormy moaned. Part of her just wanted to strip off her clothes, grow large and...

Growing? Was that it? Getting bigger, becoming a giant among men. No longer needing to scavenge for a living, she could...

Stormy tried to remove the thoughts from her head. No. She wasn't going to become the next Jack and form a ruthless mercenary gang. As great as they thought was, she just wanted to be herself.

And now she had the tools to do it.

"So, ISAAC, how do I get out of this base?"

One moment. Scanning. There was a couple beeps. Detect no physical exist to outside world. Will have to interface with base system to allow exit.

"And how do I do that?"

Then she knew. Hack into a computer. Or, really, the nanobots that control the maintenance of the base. She walked to the closest wall, and put her hand on it, and just... thought about an exist.

There was a groan and the sound of crumpling up above. Stormy moved her hands away from the wall with a grin.

"I think this place will work great as a new home for me," Stormy said as she walked up the stairs to the exit she had opened. "Quiet, secluded, far away from the closest town and civilization. And should be easy enough to maintain myself here."

Resources are scant in this area after the nanobots of this facility spent 238 years, five months, two weeks and three days consuming the resources around the base to maintain structural integrity of the base.

"Hmm," Stormy muttered. "Well, it's a good hideout either way," she said, as she reached door that lead outside into the cave. "I might need it someday."

The sensors in her mind told her that the cave she fell in, the one dug out by centuries of nanobots, was exactly the diameter of the circle of sand she found above: the sand itself being composed of nanobots as well. Right in front of her, a narrow stairway had been built, and she began to climb it.

Outside, it was dark. The moon hung in the sky far above, casting pale light over the surface of the earth. The sandy circle where the base was hidden was lighter than the surrounding earth. Stormy's eyes easily adjusted to night vision, and her eyesight was much, much better than it had been before as well.

That's why the gun shoved against her neck was a big surprise. She didn't even hear any footsteps come up behind her.

"Well, well, if it isn't the scavenger Stormy," a grizzled male voice said, spitting on the sand. "Jack is not too pleased that you kept him waiting."

"I had two weeks," Stormy replied, hoping her voice sounded normal again, and not like a robot.

"It's been two months," the merc said. "And Jack is done waiting. Say good-bye, Stormy."